Format Rules and Technical Data

The scenario rule for Emergency Repairs gives you more control over your deck than any other scenario:

Once per turn, you may pay 1 trade to shuffle your discard pile into your personal deck.

We’re playing with both starters (Core Set and Colony Wars) along with both United Command and the newly-released United Assault sets. As a reminder, you don’t need to own a set to use it in the Arena so this is a good chance to play with the new cards if you don’t own them yet.

In my three Arena runs so far this week, I went 5-2, 5-2, and 3-2. An overall record of 13-6 is not too bad, but I’ve still got a long way to go to collect this week’s foil. In my 19 games so far, the average game has had 26 turns! That is well above average. Why are games taking so long? It’s all about control, and when you can take it.

Welcome to “Wall Week”

In most cases, a base of any given cost will be less-powerful than a ship at that same cost. This is true because bases have a chance to stay in play and provide their effect turn after turn, and the design of the cards reflect that. For example: If you could buy Freighter for 4 trade, or a base that provided 4 trade at the same cost, you would likely buy the base every single time.

In addition to being weaker pound-for-pound than ship counterparts at the same cost, there are also fewer cards that do interesting things with bases. Most cards that let you put a card on top of your deck, or allow your next purchase to go directly-to-hand, limit this ability to ships. This is, again, to minimize the game-warping effect a surviving base can provide.

This week’s scenario rule lets you fight against that. In the normal game, when your opponent destroys your base right after you shuffle your deck, you have to wait seemingly-forever to see that card again. Now, you can control that by using the scenario rule. By ensuring you get your bases back on a more-consistent basis (mind the pun), you can prolong the game and survive even the most aggressive of strategies.

This week, aggro is nearly impossible. Bases dominate games when there isn’t a viable aggro strategy, and this week is one of those weeks. You should go into the game expecting bases to play a large factor.