Mot's Useless Card Review #5: Mot the Barber

Why now? Because just this week, I played my first game in which Mot (the card) actually scored me points. I didn't win because of other depressing failings in my deck (READ: All my ships got cut to the bottom somehow!) but I did score points with good ol' Mot.

I'm afraid I don't have any brand spanking new ideas on what to do with Mot and his advice that haven't already been mentioned by other players, but they DO WORK, and bear repeating in case you missed them:

1. Parallax Arguers. Play Mot the Barber, and declare "that was cool." In fact, it just might be the coolest thing you've ever done. Opponent either relents and gives you 5 points, or you play an Event. You can either play Mot’s Advice as your Event, play another Arguers, and declare it to be cool again . . . or you can make them pay the price for disagreeing by slapping down some nasty Event.
2. Risa Shore Leave. It actually requires CIVILIANs, so Mot could complete it for you. Personally, this is my least favorite Mot tactic, because you don't really NEED Mot to score your points. Amarie and Alexander Rozhenko make an efficient, if unattractive couple. No, I want Mot to score the points . . .
3. Which brings us to option 3, my favorite. This is what I used in my deck this week. Actually, it's a two part deck. In the first game, play six Terraforming Stations to carefully selected missions with minimal requirements. Investigate Time Continuum, Evaluating Terraforming, and Excavation are good examples. NO OUTPOSTS. (Hey, that's cool!) Your draw deck is full of Kivas Fajos, Travellers, Yellow Alerts, Klim Dokachins, Anti-Time Anomalies, Subspace Schisms, and anything else that speeds up your deck and slows down your opponent's. Stock Anti-Matter Spread or Hugh in case a Borg Ship should happen to show up (otherwise, your Stations are history!). Your seed deck is full of stopping dilemmas, and things that drain points. The Higher... The Fewer, Edo Probe, Worshiper, Shaka When the Walls Fell, Q-Flashes leading to Mandarin Bailiffs, etc. Basically, you want this game over fast, before any attackers can destroy your Terraformers, and even better if they can't score points!

In game two, bring out the second deck. All the same missions, only now the requirements for Investigate Time Continuum are Mot the Barber OR Calloway OR Ophidian Cane. For Evaluate Terraforming, it's CIVILIAN + Barbering + Music OR Mot the Barber + CIVILIAN x2. Excavation is Barbering or INTEGRITY > 32. And so on. Game two's deck has at least two Mots in the draw deck, and one in the Tent. You've got a Lal in the deck, ready and waiting to learn Barbering on play. And you have good people for overcoming dilemmas, each a potential target for one of the about 5 to 8 Mot's Advices you put in. When I played my deck, I had 8 Barbers in play by the end. (I kept playing Arguers, declaring it was cool, and my opponent wouldn't see it my way, so my Barbers multiplied! You see, I wasn't getting any SHIPS to play instead...grumble, grumble...) I had Mot the Barber, Lal the Barber, Data (Prem) the Barber, Maques the Barber, Beverly the Barber, Katherine the Barber, Jean-Luc the Barber, and last but NOT least: Worf (Prem) the Barber. And 6 missions ALL requiring Barbering of some kind.

Okay, so maybe you don't have six Terraforming Stations. I know I had to trade for weeks to get mine. It's still a strategy worth trying with half as many, if you can get them. Just think of the prestige you'll gain as a STCCG player when your shamed opponent trudges away breathlessly murmuring: "They beat me with Mot the Barber!"