(note: I was forced to split this into two, because I was getting numerous "exceeded bounds" errors.)
v First Anthology. Set including 2 starters, 2 AU boosters, 2 QC boosters, a Warp Pack, 6 preview cards, and a booklet compliling the rulesheets of AU and QC, plus the 6 preview cards. Cheaply priced, it was an attractive set for new and old players alike; the only people who had a problem with it were the collectors, who were essentially spending ~$25 for 6 cards. They were, for the most part, GOOD cards though. Nobody could be Firestormed. The first Orb to appear was a great tool for deck manipulation. Arguably the weakest was Ensign Tuvok, but at the right space missions could save the trouble of having to fight a Borg Ship. Quark Son of Keldar provided some unusual skills for the Klingons. Garak was a walking shield. Thomas Peris provided an eclectic mix of skills, as well as a unique skill "conversion".
And finally, Dr. Telek R'Mor, the best of the new cards hands down. Filled in a lot of missing skill gaps for the Romulans, good stats, and the ability to report to any ship was invaluable in case you had to get moving quickly.
(Historical note: The Fajo Collection was supposed to be released before FC; however, it was released afterwards due to a packaging delay. However, its ruleset, when revealed, was made effective immediately.)
All in all, a better starter set than the 2PG; better than AU, but QC still had higher quality overall. Next up was what would prove to be the revolution.
v First Contact, 130 cards. Not quite stand-alone, but close. As advertised, it "changed everything". Using all planet/all space (or even 5 of one/1 of the other) was finally shot down with Balancing Act, incurring a 50-point penalty if any player was unbalanced. Time travel and time locations added a new spin to personnel reporting. Excessive counter use was discouraged with The Line Must Be Drawn Here. New deck size guidelines made more diverse decks possible. Mirror Image equialized the use of popular abused cards. Intermix Ratio finally discouraged the bonus points decks (especially Borg Hunter). The CyberQ deck was finally shut down. Mission Debriefing slowed down fast decks even more… and then there was the introduction of the Borg, the first new affiliation since 1994.
The Borg (ironically) oozed personality. Massive amounts of downloading, unique staffing system, uniformity of attributes, assimilation, timeline disruption. There were criticisms, though. Mostly in the form that they were too slow to be effective. This was eventually disproved with the famous Borg Swarm deck, pioneered by Evan Lorentz aka Mot the Barber. It was true to a degree, though, that decks reliant on staffing a Cube were difficult to get going. Also, timeline disruption was notoriously difficult. They would eventually receive a boost, though (see Enhanced First Contact).
The expansion also introduced the first new personas of most of the bridge crew (Picard's first persona was Galen, and Major Rakal was retroactively made a persona of Deanna Troi). They were criticized for being weaker (for the most part; the new Troi was a vast imporvement over Premiere Troi); but, in a way, it was necessary for game balance.
That's not to say there weren't problems.
Many of the old problems were cleared, but two new ones cropped up. One was Assign Mission Specialists. True, it made the one-skilled personnel useful for a change. However, in combination with Ready Room Door (and the new deck size limit), it actually SPED UP the Q deck (and caused one Richard Suchenski, aka Puff the Magic Dragon, to dominate the scene for some time). The card was only errataed at the time of the release of The Dominion to keep it from working with Ready Room Door.
The other problem was the Patrol Neutral Zone deck. Each Neutral Zone location (the mission being worth 10 x X) increased the X multiplier by 1, usually resulting in each copy of Patrol Neutral Zone being worth 60 points! Unless an opponent actually used more than 4 copies of Balancing Act, in combination with Temporal Rifts a PNZ player faced hideously simple mission requirements (it got worse: if both players were playing 6 PNZ locations, first PNZ solved was an instant win! Barring loss of points, of course). There were a couple of counters; land a ship on a NZ planet (which effectively shut down the deck) or bring a ship into the NZ cloaked (though now that is invalid; a cloaked ship is not "present" in the Neutral Zone).
Interestingly enough, up to this point, space missions had been still attemptable from outposts (which offered HUGE protection from nasties like Borg Ship); once a report wafted in that a player had won on the first turn (by seeding his outpost at a PNZ location with no dilemmas - there were over 10 in play, downloaded 2 Leadership specialists during the seed phase, and having the first turn), a ruling was immediately issued which required that space mission attempts be made from ships and only ships.
Despite these two flaws, though, First Contact proved to be the best expansion thus far. Next came one of the most controversial products ever:
v The Fajo Collection, 18 cards. Initial reaction to this set was violently negative. 18 cards? For $80? And how many of them would be so broken as to require every deck to have them?
As it turned out, people's fears were (for the most part) unfounded. Each of the eighteen cards was quite quirky and (for the most part) beautifully designed. The Roger Maris card, accidentally shown at the time of QC's release, formally appeared. Guinan, a long-awaited card, finally appeared (especially her hat). We got a card printed in all Klingon. The first Borg personnel every appeared in this set (remember, all the cards had been revealed prior to FC's release). The Sisters of Duras were the first dual-personnel card. The "nemesis" relations (Dr. Soong/FC Data and Lore, USS Pasteur and IKC Chang) were a nice twist.
About the only card in the set that was potentially broken was Black Hole, the visual image of which was credited to Helge Blohmer aka Wesley Crusher. Given the new proclivity of games to stretch for a long time, the power of Black Hole (to eat up the spaceline) became apparent. Fortunately, a different card in the set could reverse it.
With the exception of Black Hole, and Lore's ability to double Crystalline Entity in a Rogue Borg deck, the Fajo Collection is one of Decipher's most balanced products ever. Ranks above QC but below FC (since FC was the revolution).
v Official Tournament Sealed Deck, 4 Premiere boosters, 1 AU booster, and 20 new premium cards (plus 6 different box designs). Sealed deck tournaments were formerly a pain to run, due to the notoriety of the unplayability of starter decks that had been freshly opened. (Further complicating the fact was the new unique/universal rule being applied to missions in FC.) With the release of OTSD, this completely turned around.
Surprisingly, five boosters produced more playable decks than a single starter. The new cards had a big hand in this: the new missions were all universal; Space-Time Portal allowed any AU cards to be used even in the absence of an AU Door; Spacedoor ensured a player would get out a ship; the Husnock outpost ensured a place to report; the new dilemmas were unusually strong; Hide and Seek served the purpose of discouraging Q decks; the triple treaty allowed smooth integration of random personnel (with its companion card, Open Diplomatic Relations, whose other use just yelled "fight!"; the Darmok was the most flexible ship in the game; and Suna helped provide missing skills (especially Diplomacy).
Ironically, this set was better than BOTH the 2PG and the First Anthology for getting new players off on the right foot. And it did more for the game than the Fajo Collection, so it gets a high ranking.
v Deep Space Nine, 261 cards. Another revolution. (This document is getting long-winded as it is so I'm going to be brief now). (Mostly) playable right out of a single starter, great personality for the two new affiliations (Bajoran and Cardassian), good new mechanics with the Nor design, and filled in gaps for most of the existing affiliations (except Borg, which were also hurt by Computer Crash). The new quadrant also added a new dimension of gameplay - but unfortunately, it unintenionally made The Sheliak a much more lethal card.
The Defiant was a nice surprise (except for me; I opened three booster boxes and not only did not get a Defiant, the third booster box was a card-for-card duplicate of the second), and Decipher did a good job keeping it quiet until DS9's release.
v The Away Team Pack, 2 cards. Just briefly touching on this. The Emissary is a GREAT card, acting as a portable outpost that works anywhere. The Traveler is neat, but unfortunately can't hop quadrants.
v Starter Deck II, standard Premiere starter + 8 premium cards. Gee, Premiere doesn't look so unbalanced now, does it? Memory Wipe has its uses; Ferengi Trading Post is a bit of a risk, but ensures an outpost; and the six new missions are nothing to write home about. Still, a better standalone product than the original Premiere.
v Enhanced First Contact, 12 premium cards (3 each packaged with 4 FC boosters). Another heavily criticized product, especially from people who accused Decipher of releasing First Contact as "incomplete". Also, there was the infamous "water spot" fiasco. However, when the set was actually released, people began to buy. The Borg were just boosted big-time by this expansion, what with the easy counterparts, new immunity to Computer Crash, anti-Rogue Borg, amazing card drawing capability, and the Incidents, which encouraged assimilation and timeline disruption. A trememdous boost for the Borg which ranks high.
v The Dominion, 134 cards. A bit of an uneven set. The Dominion supplants the Klingons as most brutish affiliation, but is stifled by the fact that they (usually) must leave the Gamma Quadrant to do damage, and the fighting force (Jem'Hadar) are stifled by the "white" addiction and Founder liability. Additionally, they are ill-equipped for mission solving, being short on vital classifications such as MEDICAL and SCIENCE. Additionally, many of the neat options for the Dominoin chew up the seed deck with used space which is more badly needed for dilemmas.
On the other hand, the other affiliations received nice boosts, and the preview cards were all nice and easy to get to (especially Seven of Nine, who just boosted the Borg to an entirely new level of threat).
Well, that's that. My final rankings:
BEST
Deep Space Nine
(Enhanced) First Contact
Official Tournament Sealed Deck
The Dominion
The Fajo Collection
[Away Team Pack]
Q-Continuum
First Anthology
[Starter Deck II]
Alternate Universe
2-Player Game
[Warp Pack]
Premiere
WORST
Well, that's that. Feedback is encouraged (and wanted; I want to know what you guys think!).
I think I need to rest now… phew! :)
Reginald Barclay
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[article] History of STCCG, Part 2 ... Reginald Barclay ... [3/24/99 00:35]
