Mot's Useless Card Review #34: Nebula

No affiliation icons, no requirements, no points. No reason to play it, right? You don't even get the 2-for-1 bargain you get with Space. And we're all used to putting six real missions in our decks, anyway.

Well, when it comes down to it, how many of those missions are you actually likely to attempt? Indeed, the favored deck design right now usually centers around completing only one or two high-point missions, either at planet locations (with some dilemma killing assistance from Ajur and Boratus), or at space locations with an outpost at each mission, enabling you to discard more than half the dilemmas for lack of a ship to trigger them. So owning up to the fact that you are only out to score two missions doesn't cost you anything - go ahead and play some Nebulae.

The trick to using Nebulae is to have your opponent there as much as possible. To achieve this, you have a number of possible options: Wormhole, Subspace Warp Rift, Tetryon Field (with Brain Drain, if need be), the Paxan ’Wormhole’ mission, Cytherians (they won't get a say in where they stop on the spaceline), Incoming Message (same deal), Alien Parasites, Neural Servo Device, and probably a few others. With multiple Nebulae and a mixture of the above cards in your deck and/or Q’s Tent, you should be able to stop your opponent at a Nebula location occasionally. So what do you do once they are there?

Well, obviously, you want to score some points (although you could try an Isabella). You can attempt a mission, or play an Arbiter of Succession or a Samuel Clemens and Devidian Door. (Also, the best time to play multiple Parallax Arguers is when your opponent is at a Nebula - you can play a host of nasty Events until your opponent finally relents and let's you score.) There are number of good seeds for a Nebula, especially if you are up against an all-planet mission deck. You still get to use those space dilemmas, and your opponent's all-planet deck is not likely to be able to handle them.

Notice the reference to the McAllister Nebula in the lore. Not a bad idea... mine the Nebula with an Anti-Matter Pod, damaging the unlucky ship that stops there. That strongly increases the likelihood of destroying an opponent's ship with a dilemma, since you only need to damage it again. A Null Space or a Microbiotic Colony might work (you'd be surprised at the number of players who build up MEDICAL, SCIENCE and SECURITY, but never think to wait around for an OFFICER). A Birth of "Junior" or Cytherians would also be unpleasant to encounter after being damaged by an Anti-Matter Pod.

Like the Receptacle Stones, the Nebula is a subtle way to force space dilemmas onto an opponent not prepared or equipped to deal with them, and so long as you weren't going to use those other missions anyway... ;-) It is an advantage worth exploiting.