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Mot's Useless Card Review #44: Howard Heirloom Candle |
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It can double the effects of an Anaphasic Organism or Empathic Echo. (I can hear you cheering now.) Rarely do players use either of these dilemmas, and the usual argument why is: why kill one personnel with those dilemmas that require SECURITY and MEDICAL when you could kill all the personnel with a dilemma like Barclay’s Protomorphosis Disease? Sometimes, death isn't the best option. For example, you can build a really fun deck around Madred and Interrogation, but it does you no good if you kill all your potential captives. Rather, what you should be trying to do is remove their Empathy, so that your Cardassian Traps will work. Empathic Echo is perfect for the job. Just seed a Yuta to be encountered first, and use it just as you would if trying to set up for a Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease - pick off your opponent's SECURITY or MEDICAL. On they go to an Empathic Echo, and you can kill off their Empathy. Sad thing is, I've seen players play with more than one Empathy personnel (fear of Frame of Mind, perhaps). That's where the Candle can come in, grabbing two Empaths instead of one should the need arise. How about a Latinum Payoff deck? It doesn't do you any good to kill personnel with dilemmas. You want them to be on board a ship for you to destroy. Everybody plans for Shaka, When the Walls Fell these days, so perhaps try Yuta / Anaphasic Organism / Matriarchal Society instead. Kill off a SECURITY or MEDICAL using Yuta (you get no points for them with a Payoff anyway), then remove two women using the Organism and the Candle. That should leave them to be stopped by the Matriarchal Society, and forced to return to their ship, where you can get that Latinum Payoff. Of course, these are all very specific applications for very specific strategies. How about a more general use for the Candle: its ability to nullify Coalescent Organism. Coalescent Organism is a nasty dilemma. So nasty, in fact, that most players now stock Exobiology in their decks even though currently, no other dilemma requires the skill. But what are you gonna do if that Exobiology gets a bad cut to the bottom of your deck? You can't very well put your Exobiology personnel in your Q’s Tent; by the time you've triggered the Organism and it has infected your crew, it's too late to use Exobiology. It's a preventative measure only. The only "cure" for Coalescent Organism is to kill the patient... ...or to use Howard Heirloom Candle. It specifically targets the dilemma. Not only can you use the Candle to nullify an Organism just encountered, but you can eradicate the Organism after the fact. Since you have a full turn before the target of a Coalescent Organism dies, you have ample opportunity to Q's Tent for a Howard Heirloom Candle to save them. No need to worry about getting Exobiology into play. |
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