Mot's Useless Card Review #36: Pla-Net

Having your opponent lose points is an all-around good thing. It can really screw up those decks designed to score exactly 100 points on say, 2 missions and a Samuel Clemens (who plays that, though? ;-) ) by forcing them to go out and do something they hadn't planned on.

The first thing to know about using Pla-Net is that some players will choose to discard the next seed card, taking the 5-point loss. This is a mixed blessing. You got them to lose points, which was your ultimate goal, but they have also gotten rid of one of your dilemmas in the process. So it's important to remember that if you are using Pla-Net, don't follow your Q-Flash with any elaborate combos. When using Pla-Net, it's just as good to seed dilemmas that don't entirely go together but do a lot of damage. Don't put your The Sheliak / Q combo after your Q-Flash if your opponent might be discarding that Sheliak!

Obviously, what you should seed to be encountered after the Q-Flash is a dilemma that "stops", disables, or puts in stasis one of the Away Team members. There are a handful of cards that will manage this quite nicely, but the best candidate for the job, I think, is Parallel Romance. There are no conditions to overcome it, and a very limited number of ways of nullifying it (ways I rarely see played). So long as there are both males and females present in the Team, it will stop two personnel, period. Basically, you're adding a -5 point box to the corner of Parallel Romance.

A few other likely dilemmas (second choice to the Romance) are: Borg Ship (the battle stops you), Q, Coalescent Organism (stops unless Exobiology present), Interphasic Plasma Creatures, Quantum Singularity Lifeforms (see the joint review with Major Rakal for an evil idea where this is concerned), Worshiper, or Chinese Finger Puzzle. Or pair it up with an Edo Probe or The Higher... The Fewer before the Q-Flash and you could have your opponent losing even more points.

Not to mention that The Higher... The Fewer before the Q-Flash sets up nicely for Gift of the Tormentor... ;-)