Being a look back at cards from the Star Trek CCG, and what I thought of them back when they were fresh and new... in EPISODE order. A couple cards came out of The Naked Now, neither of which were reviewed in the original Rolodex, so here we go...
PICTURE: A simple effect. It looks good, but it's all that spectacular considering. Needed to be more explosive and less of a light show. A 2 should do.
LORE: Right out of the dictionary. A little dull. There was room to discuss instances in the Trek universe. Just 2.5.
TREK SENSE: The Tox Uthat is an artifact that acts as a stellar manipulator and can cause stars to explode, or prevent them from doing so. Obviously, stars go nova all by themselves, but this forces the player to have the means. It's artificial. Fleets don't stage missions at the sight of such dying stars unless it's to study the supernova from a safe distance. Of course, not all stars go supernova, some just go nova (our own, for example), so the title isn't necessarily accurate even if it's more dramatic. And then there are the missions where no stars exist... but you could say a nearby part of space has one and the shockwave reaches here. In any case, when a mission blows up, everything there is discarded, including the missions itself, except the Span (distance) it represents. Your ships will have to fly through this cemetery to get to other missions, brrr. The problems are mostly to do with science; the card is otherwise pretty cutthroat, like the actual event. A 3.9 from me.
STOCKABILITY: What seems like an overpowered card does have a big limitation - that damn Tox Uthat. You need to dig it out of a mission (and not let your opponent do so first). It's played as an event from hand, and Supernova can't be played on that same turn, so that's a full turn for your opponent to destroy the Tox Uthat with Kevin Uxbridge, or spread their fleet out, and that's IF you even have the Supernova in hand yet. Of course, if it works, you can destroy a mission your opponent deems necessary to get to 100 points. You can destroy a facility that is instrumental in their reporting of personnel. So even if the ships escape (and that's IF they figure out where the Supernova is going to hit - though Time Locations aren't affected), you can do a lot of damage. I promise it'll always hurt, and it's counters are pretty rare. Gomtuu is a ship immune to Supernova, but is it really going to be in every deck in case? And Persistence of Memory "reverses" Supernova, restoring the mission card, but it's a vanity card from the costly Fajo Collection AND ALSO an annoying Artifact. (I wonder, would it be worth the trouble to Supernova my own mission, then reverse it, just to destroy all dilemmas there?) It can't be used easily, but if it is, BOOM. Unless you're the Dominion. Get Bashir Founder and more than 36 WEAPONS into play (that's a3 Dominion Battleships, for the record) and you could download the Supernova and use it, no Tox Uthat required! A 4.4.
TOTAL: 12.8 (64%) It didn't take every category seriously (a common failing of the Premiere Set).
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