Mot's Useless Card Review #90: Plans of the Obsidian Order & Plans of the Tal Shiar

The 90th installment of the "Useless" Card Reviews brings you a double feature! And a rather unexpected one at that:

(Well, it was either these two cards, or a dozen or so Espionage cards...) ;-)

It is a question of Fair Play. The moment the new Dominion card was previewed, players heralded "the end of thief decks." About five minutes later, players worried "how 'useless' their Plans cards have become." Well, don't worry. The Plans cards are still worthy of their status as rare cards, and you shouldn't be upset if you traded furiously to get a half dozen of each. ;-)

Simply put, there's more to Espionage than stealing your opponent's missions. Long before people were choosing personnel capable of completing every mission in the game, they were choosing them to complete a select few missions - six to be exact. And the more overlap on those six missions the better. After all, when all six of your missions require the same skill, it's easy to justify having a half dozen or more personnel with that skill in your deck. And it takes a fraction of the time to draw the personnel you need to complete those missions.

Classic examples of this approach include Federation Diplomacy decks, Klingon Honor decks, and Romulan Treachery/Archaelogy decks. But with Espionage, there's no need to stop there. The Romulans have some great Diplomacy missions in Covert Rescue and Investigate Raid. Round that off with some Federation Espionage and some of the great Fed picks, and you've got an entirely new deck type, just as tightly focused as the old.

Cardassian personnel are overflowing with certain skills. It would be hard to build a Cardassian deck without say plenty of Computer Skill and Navigation along just by chance. Unfortunately, they don't have six good Computer Skill missions (and even fewer Navigation missions). So pull in some choices from the other affiliations, drop in a few Espionage cards, and you're ready to roll. you could even base decks on skills hardly ever to be found on that affiliation's normal missions. You may be surprised the skills that prove easy to find on personnel when you begin looking at new missions.

As an added bonus in all of this, you can keep your opponent guessing about what affiliation you're playing right up until the moment you seed your facilities. If an opponent sees for example 5 Diplomacy missions with Federation icons and one lonely Treachery mission, where are they likely to stick a Lack of Preparation? All the better for you when your hordes of Treacherous Romulans or Cardassians overrun the poorly seeded Treachery mission.

The Espionage cards still do what they always did - allow you greater freedom in selecting your missions. The Plans cards still make using them risk-free, and much easier. For that matter, you still can steal missions with them. If an opponent was planning on protecting universal missions or missions worth more than 40 points with HQ: Defensive Measures, you'll be glad to have some Espionage around.

You may have to change your Plans a bit, but don't discard them entirely... ;-)