No technical notes to share this week, so I will include this statistic: There are six cards in the trade deck that are acquired directly to hand if you play a card of the same faction before you acquire them: Emperor’s Dreadnaught, Plasma Vent, Colony Seed Ship, and (three copies of) Warning Beacon. Once the game begins, there is about a 6% chance that the next card to appear in the trade row will be one of these cards. (Obviously, the odds increase the longer the game goes without one appearing, and they decrease once one actually appears.) Keep these odds in mind when you are panic-purchasing near the end of the game. It is a longshot to find one, but it is game-changing if you do!

Accelerated starts require extra attention.

The bases in Colony Wars and the United sets are very strong once you have four trade. About half of the time (46.7% of the time, to be exact) player one will start with three Scouts. Those three ships plus the extra trade from the scenario rule means they will have the first crack at a good base. If this happens, you have to purchase combat cards right away. That sounds obvious, but it is very easy to stick to the established pattern of “buy scrap or big trade if you can” for the beginning of most games.

Player two will usually have five trade and will occasionally (24.8%) have six trade on one of their first two turns. Six trade is a LOT of trade. Player one should purchase combat proactively on their second turn if they know their opponent will have 6 trade on their second turn. Obviously, they buy combat reactively if player one grabbed a big base on their first turn.

It is very easy to lose games after your second turn, if one player gets a big base early and the other player doesn’t have enough combat to respond. Don’t make this mistake!

Buy all of the dual-faction cards you can.

Dual-faction cards are really, really good. They help with allying. They help with the Colony Wars acquire-to-hand cards. They usually have easy-to-ally abilities, or they have ally abilities in two different factions. Either way it’s a bonus. Alliance Frigate is my favorite card from United, and it’s easy to see why: Deal 7 and Heal 5. All of that for three trade! No other card in the game comes close to that in terms of raw statistical power at three trade.

In my final run I was determined to buy the dual-faction cards even if there was a “better” option available. My best decks were all three or four colors by the end, and my “great big turns” to win the game usually had ally abilities across the spectrum.