Mot's Useless Card Review #69: Balancing Act

Of all the "corrective" cards released in First Contact Expansion, this one was by far the most effective. The moment the expansion hit the scene, players everywhere scrapped their all-space or all-planet decks to avoid being nailed by this dilemma. And thus, just a few weeks after the expansion's release, this card became binder fodder. You don't have to use it; it's the threat of force, rather than the application, right?

Don't be too quick to let your Balancing Acts gather dust. For starters, since the play environment has reached the point where hardly anyone is using Balancing Act, you may find players risking the all-space or all-planet strategies. You never know when you might still catch somebody trying to pull a fast one on you.

But to take up a valuable seed card on that outside chance? What about stocking it (along with a Q’s Planet) in your Q’s Tent? If you find your opponent has played an imbalance, use your first Q's Tent to go for the Q's Planet, and seed the Balancing Act under it. Pop the dilemma to hit them with the 50 point penalty - all this, but no slots taken up in your valuable 30-card seed deck.

Some may still find this a bit passive. So how about a way to make your opponent play an imbalance? Balancing Act examines the ratio of one mission type to the other at the moment it is uncovered. So if a few missions have vanished somewhere along the way, swallowed up in a Black Hole, you can still nail a formerly balanced player for -50 points. More players are favoring a 4/2 split right now than a 3/3, so in most cases you'll only have to swallow up one mission to make ready for the Balancing Act. Since Black Hole plays between two universal Space missions (which you can insert right where you need them, next to the target mission), you can force the imbalance early in the game. There are now many ways to stall a game past a dozen turns - more than enough time for the Black Hole to do its job. I've even seen a Black Hole devour an entire spaceline on more than one occasion!

No sense in letting a perfectly good card gather dust. And Balancing Act is definitely a good (and much-needed) card.