A Set That Hedged Its Bets: The Star Trek Genesis Collection!

The Good: Limited quantity, Some cool characters, All foil
The Bad: Inconsistent composition, Not limited enough
The Basics: With twenty-seven foil cards, the Star Trek Genesis Collection had the potential to be awesome, but was diluted by elements that had nothing to do with Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.


As Decipher was struggling in the early 2000s with financial issues and a reconstruction of the company that had built itself on the strength of its Star Trek and Star Wars gaming products, they tried to raise capital fast. Rather than coming up with some full new sets, they released a few limited edition sets. For Star Trek, they released The Genesis Collection, an all-foil limited edition set that the company sold directly. Unfortunately for fans who were either collectors or players, The Genesis Collection is an unfortunately erratic set. Instead of committing to its premise, which one might assume had to do with Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan - or even the original Star Trek films – The Genesis Collection is all over the place.

While the Genesis Collection is compatible with both the first and second edition of the Star Trek CCG , it acts only as an accent piece to established decks. Because there are random characters, like Kira Nerys (Bajoran) and Jasad (Cardassian) and Dilemmas that have to do with Benjamin Sisko’s journey as the Emissary, there is no sense of cohesion to the set.

Basics/Set Composition


The Genesis Collection was one of the last expansions from Decipher, Inc. and it was one that straddled the Second and First Edition formats, though it looks like a Second Edition set. Focusing, loosely, on the characters, events and scenarios of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and some of the other Star Trek movies, this twenty-seven card limited edition all foil set was initially released directly from the manufacturer exclusively to the U.S. marketplace. Rapidly gobbled up through the secondary market by overseas players and collectors, the twenty-seven card set was oft-delayed by the troubled manufacturer.

With twenty-seven cards, the Genesis Collection set is small and scattered. Each pack has the same twenty-seven cards (one each) and is numbered as if it were a full set. The numbers for the set make it the 11th Second Edition set. The set is comprised entirely of foil cards, which adds some additional inherent value to the set.

The set is broken down with twenty-seven premium cards thus: 7 Dilemma (cards that form the objective challenges for the game, like encountering a Subterranean Barrier), 5 Events (cards depicting long-standing challenges within the game, like a No-Win Scenario), 1 Interrupt (which make for fast turns in the game, like having to scream out “Khannnnn!”), 1 Mission (cards that provide the “board” and points for the game, in this case – predictably – The Genesis Planet), 11 Personnel (1 Bajoran, 1 Cardassian, 5 Federation, 1 Klingon, and 3 Non-Aligned), and 2 Ships (1 Borg, 1 Federation).

Playability

The Genesis Collection introduced no new card types or scenarios to the game. In the First Edition, there were cards that mimicked all of the best cards in the Genesis Collection. The Genesis Collection serves to reintroduce the key film moments from some of the First Edition into the Second Edition. With only 27 cards, though, the Genesis Collection is not playable on its own. It is very much an accent piece for collectors, as opposed to a playable deck or even a full enhancement to Second Edition players.

Rule Changes

This little set came with no rulebook or official rule changes. Those who continue to play have found errors on eleven of the cards, which have been fixed on the virtual decks that players still produce and play. As a result, this seems rather impractical, and uncomplicated, for play.

Highlights

Fans of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan would be hard-pressed to find a better card in the Genesis Collection than the Khan Noonien Singh card. Khan is a Non-Aligned Personnel card and a powerful one at that. In addition to being smart and strong, when he is played, he reduces the opponent’s attributes. Gracing fans with a beautiful image of Ricardo Montalban, the Khan Noonien Singh card is the best of the set.

Collectibility

Players will find the Genesis Collection to be eminently problematic to play with as far as the game mechanic goes. Collectors might like how limited the set is, but it is incredibly unsatisfying to look at the set when it’s in binder pages. The set looks terrible when displayed because it has no thematic cohesion, despite the cool foil nature of the set. Fortunately, after the much delayed first printing, the second (more common) printing was released and the sets are not so hard to come by as to make them impossible to find, though this certainly was not an overproduced or overprinted set. Instead, this seems to have struck the right balance as it is easy to collect - as it is all in one place - but not so common as to make it worthless.

The Genesis Collection has hovered right around its original release price, not appreciating in value largely because soon after it was (finally) released, Decipher went bust and the player base shrank dramatically.

Overview

The Genesis Collection is an ideal set to cherry pick from. Arguably one of the best collections to get singles from, the set might not hold together thematically, but it has some cool and powerful cards to play and they do look good. That makes it worth it more for players than collectors, so it is not entirely worthless.

The Genesis Collection was released between Captain’s Log (reviewed here!) and These Are The Voyages . (reviewed here!)

This set culls images from a number of Star Trek sources, but mostly Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, reviewed here!

This is a set of cards I proudly sell in my online store! Check out my current inventory at: Genesis Collection CCG Inventory!

5.5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Alternate Universe Still Makes For A Great Gaming Experience With "In A Mirror, Darkly!"

The Good: Easy to play, Wonderful images, Great concept
The Bad: Collation issues with common and uncommon sets, One of the Archive foils could be better.
The Basics: "In A Mirror, Darkly" makes for one of the best Star Trek gaming card sets and is a must for players, collectors and investors!


One of the most popular Star Trek CCG sets was "Mirror, Mirror" (reviewed here!) the gaming set that introduced the Mirror Universe to the gaming set. It made the game dangerous and exciting, just like the episodes that featured that particular alternate universe did. When the Star Trek CCG rebooted with the "Second Edition," players wondered when the alternate universe would make its return to the game. Sure, they were teased with the Mirror Universe Sisko, Smiley and the Intendant back in "Fractured Time" (reviewed here!), but since then, fans had been salivating for the adventure and darkness of the Mirror Universe in the Second Edition.

With "In A Mirror, Darkly," fans finally get their wish! Moreover, this set is everything "Mirror, Mirror" was with the addition of the dark and dangerous cards featuring images and concepts from the Star Trek: Enterprise Mirror Universe episodes! This makes this set one of the most popular and valuable of the Second Edition.

The Star Trek Second Edition for the Customizable Card Game was an easy-to-play game, at least by CCG standards. As the game evolved, the Second Edition worked to bring players and collectors back to the game by broadening the representation of the Star Trek universe it depicted. The "In A Mirror, Darkly" cards were only released in boxes of thirty packs, with packs possessing eleven cards each. Each pack included 11 cards: 1 rare (or foil), 3 uncommon and 7 common cards.

Basics/Set Composition

"In A Mirror, Darkly" is a 142 card set of gaming cards, mostly focusing on characters and events from the Mirror Universe in the Star Trek franchise. The set consists of 41 Common, 41 Uncommon, 40 Rare, 18 Archive Foils and 2 Archive Portrait foil cards. The Archive foils are reprints of popular rares from the "In A Mirror, Darkly" set and the 2 Archive Portrait foils are unique foils that foreshadow future cards.

The 122 non-foil cards consist of: 21 Dilemma (cards that feature obstacles from the series', like an Alien Conspiracy or being Captured By The Breen), 1 Equipment (cards featuring mass-produced objects in the Star Trek universe, like a Multidimensional Transporter Device), 19 Event (cards that feature extended circumstances for the ships or crews, like a Sabotaged Transporter or the appearance of a Temporal Flux Energy Ribbon), 2 Interrupt (cards featuring quick turns of fate in the game, like Brutal Experiments and the Standard Punishment for disobedience), 3 Missions (cards that act as the "board" for the game), 69 Personnel (4 Bajoran, 1 Borg, 3 Cardassian, 4 Dominion, 26 Federation, 5 Ferengi, 2 Klingon, 7 Non-Aligned, 4 Romulan and 13 StarFleet characters), and 7 Ship (1 Dominion, 2 Federation, 2 Non-Aligned and 2 StarFleet) cards.

The cards truly do manage to focus on the diversity of the Mirror Universe, though they do manage to appeal to fans of Star Trek: Voyager by providing the Revised Crew from "Living Witness" and fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation with images of the command crew as altered for "Yesterday's Enterprise" (reviewed here!). Those two series' could not do episodes in the Mirror Universe, so that Decipher managed to include them in this set makes it easily the most impressive and powerful set to date. Given that every Star Trek series is represented and - in the tradition of the earlier Second Edition sets - some of those popular characters and ships, like Captains Picard and Janeway are released as common and uncommon cards.

Playability

The Star Trek Second Edition CCG is essentially a cross between a role playing game and a board game with cards being set down to create the board and players assembling a ship and crew to then travel the "board" and earn points. This set follows the same basic rules as they were laid out in "Second Edition Premiere" (reviewed here!).

By this point, there is some complexity in terms of dealing with time periods for some of the cards (i.e. Enterprise and Star Trek characters are not, technically, supposed to interact in the game with the 24th Century Federation characters), but most of the cards designed for playing, like the Event and Interrupts include the necessary text to understand how they are appropriately played. Anyone who has been playing the game will find this game easy to play and the "In A Mirror, Darkly" expansion does not offer any changes to game play, it just restores the original Mirror Universe to play in the game.

It is worth noting that one cannot play the Star Trek Second Edition game with only boosters from "In A Mirror, Darkly" as there are only three Mission cards. Players need a few more than that to effectively play.

Rule Changes

There are no changes to the rules in this expansion. One need only be attentive that the icons indicating which quadrant of space and which time period/universe the card may be played in.

Highlights

Given that the very popular Mirror Universe from Star Trek and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the focus of the "In A Mirror, Darkly" set, it makes sense that the highlights would all be related to the Mirror Universe. Even the commons and uncommons are cool, though, with characters like Legate Damar and the Breen making their Second Edition premieres. The designers at Decipher had dome fun and chose to include cards in the Events that bear the titles to previously released Star Trek Second Edition CCG sets! This is very cute and well-conceived.

But the grails are all in the rares. It is in the rares that one finds Intendant Kira, Kirk, Spock, Archer, T'Pol, and Data as a Romulan. As well, "In A Mirror, Darkly" features several rare personnel who were never released in the first edition, like the Gorn captain Slar (who, to be fair didn't exist while the First Edition was in play), Captain Erika Benteen, and Laas, the Changeling. As well, Grilka - Quark's Klingon wife - returns to the game in this set.

The highlight of "In A Mirror, Darkly," objectively might well be the Elim Garak, Craft Underling card. 13R53, Garak is able to assume any skill with the sacrifice of one other character. While the card is a little less powerful than the Odo card in this deck, it also bears fewer consequences to activate a much more significant skill. And hey, it's Garak in chains!

Collectibility

The "In A Mirror, Darkly" cards were only released in the one release, so they are fairly uncommon, which always helps to increase the value. Unfortunately, there are two problems which lower the overall value of this release and make it a little more difficult to collect.

There are two short-printed cards, a common and an uncommon. Yes, the two cards that are new reprints of previous Archive Portrait cards are under-represented in the common and uncommon sets as a result of another printing error. Unfortunately, these are the very popular Empress Sato and T'Pol cards, making them pretty much indispensable for collectors.

The foil reprint cards help to thin the rares out some, but the grail for the collectors are the Archive Portrait cards, which pop up approximately one every three boxes. Unfortunately, in the "In A Mirror, Darkly" set there is a mediocre Archive Portrait (the Orion Slave Girl, Neras) and a highly coveted one, the naked Hoshi Dilemma foil card. The shot of Hoshi holding her breasts certainly panders to the audience that would be buying these cards.

The Archive Portraits have the potential to turn an average set into something truly extraordinary. Unfortunately, they fall short of that with the less inspired one.

Overview

Still, this is an impressive set and anyone who is playing the Star Trek Second Edition game will want to pick this up! The cards have retained their value, even after Decipher's collapse and the images are good. Moreover, because it contains complete command crews, it makes it ideal for fans and collectors alike as they are often the most coveted cards.

This was an all-around wonderful set, despite its minor problems.
.
This set was preceded by "These Are The Voyages" (reviewed here!) and followed by "What You Leave Behind" (reviewed here!).

This is a set of gaming cards I proudly sell in my online store. Check out my In A Mirror Darkly Inventory Page for my current inventory!

This set of gaming cards culls images from:
"Mirror, Mirror"
"Crossover"
"Through The Looking Glass"
"Shattered Mirror"
“The Emperor’s New Cloak”
“In A Mirror, Darkly”
“In A Mirror, Darkly, Part II”

8/10

For other gaming card reviews, please check out my Gaming Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Simple Repack Theatre, Vol. 11, "Dangerous Missions" Clears Out Decipher's Trek Warehouse Well!

The Good: Interesting new cards, Not too rare, yet still collectible, Foils
The Bad: Getting harder to find, Collectors end up with duplicates from packs
The Basics: An intriguing collection of new foil cards mixed in with unopened packs makes for a surprisingly solid investment for Star Trek CCG enthusiasts!


As it became clear to the fine folks at Decipher that their ship was sinking with the Star Trek CCG, they began to dump their overstock and while they still had new sets they were producing, they decided to jettison some of the old. Wisely, they concocted new and inventive ways to rid themselves of their stock and one of them was with Deluxe Draft Packs. For the Star Trek Second Edition CCG, this took the form of "Dangerous Missions" Deluxe Draft Packs, a collection of three different repackages of select booster packs along with foil cards unique to this set.

"Dangerous Missions," as a set, is only nineteen foil cards but each package of foil cards comes with unopened packs from one of five previously-released sets. The whole point of this foil set is to allow players to recreate important missions from the Star Trek franchise. One package allows players to re-create the film Star Trek: Generations, another the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine second season premiere arc that climaxed in "The Siege," and the third to tell the Star Trek: Enterprise story from "The Forge," "Awakening" and "Kir'Shara"). The three packs of foil cards provide enough for players to play the game right out of the pack, though there are no rules in the Draft Box. "Dangerous Missions," then, seems mostly like a gimmick; but it's not a bad one.

Basics/Set Composition

"Dangerous Missions" is an exclusive set of 19 cards packaged in three draft boxes with a few leftover goodies from Decipher. Each master box contains 4 of each of the Deluxe Draft boxes. Each Deluxe Draft box contains an exclusive package featuring twelve foil cards plus an assortment of four booster packs, including Premiere (reviewed here!), Energize (reviewed here!) Call To Arms (reviewed here!), Reflections 2.0 (reviewed here!), and "To Boldly Go" (reviewed here!). Each Deluxe Draft box has at least one pack of "To Boldly Go," which was a surprise at the time because that set was still so new. This added a little extra enduring value to the "Dangerous Missions" set.

The concept of "Dangerous Missions" is to introduce into the Second Edition game a quick method for playing a randomized deck as quickly as possible. The set foil cards guarantee players a crew and ship, along with (in a worst case scenario) one mission. As a result, players looking to play a StarFleet, Federation or Bajoran deck right out of the gate can play with a single Deluxe Draft Box. Players tend to like this format to shake the game up every now and then as they are forced to play with the hand they pull from the box and that leads to sweeping amounts of variety.

The nineteen card exclusive set is the reason to purchase this boxed set as it is the only unique aspect of the product. And it is a decent set. All nineteen foil cards are premium rares and they tend to be intriguing and popular cards. The nineteen card set is comprised of: 4 Dilemma (cards that featured obstacles faced by the crews, like a Bio-Neural Computer Core or a Maquis Vendetta), 3 Mission (cards that form the "board" of the game), 9 Personnel (3 Bajoran, 3 Federation, and 3 StarFleet cards), and 3 Ship cards (1 Bajoran, 1 Federation, and 1 StarFleet).

Playability

This set is follows the rules that were established in the Star Trek Second Edition CCG Premiere. The new cards add a little intrigue but the cards tend to have text on them that tell players exactly what they do and how and make the game quite easy to learn and play with others.

Rule Changes

There are no rule changes in this expansion. All that changes with this expansion is how fast the game may be established for playing. The Second Edition was a remarkably stable playing platform that did not change significantly from start to finish.

Highlights

The Dangerous Missions set is a set almost entirely of highlights! First, all of the cards are foils, so all nineteen cards look good. This is a set rich in character cards and the few ships are also fairly powerful. Fans and collectors and players enjoyed the popular characters included in this set, like a Generations Captain Kirk, Captain Picard, Captain Archer, T'Pol and Trip Tucker. As well, this set has the doomed Galaxy Class U.S.S. Enterprise-D and the NX-01 Enterprise.

For my money, though, the best card is 9R10 Jadzia Dax, Elder. This is a Bajoran Personnel version of Dax and her cost is reduced by having other Bajoran religious characters in play. Conveniently, Vedek Bareil is another one of the foil cards, which affords those playing the game a quick, easy way to get a powerful character like Jadzia into the game at a reduced cost!

Collectibility

Who doesn't love exclusive cards?! Unfortunately, the nineteen unique cards are found with annoying ratios. So, for example, each and every Deluxe Draft Pack has 2 9R1 - Bio-Neural Computer Core Dilemmas. There are duplicates in each pack of the three characters and one dilemma each. This means that fans need to purchase multiple Deluxe Draft packs just to get more of the ships and missions. Indeed, with each of those cards being inserted at one per pack, fans end up with a lot of extra cards trying to assemble multiple sets. This adds some injury to the insult of getting over twice as much recycled product in addition to the goodies. Collectors might object to the extra packs, but most tough-it-up and are happy for something to sell back to recoup some of the cost of the exclusives with! Players are always looking for cards and they tended to like this set because of the extra recycled product, as opposed to in spite of it.

Each Deluxe Draft pack has a suggested retail price of $14.95. The 19 card foil set, though, can often still be found in the $50 range in the secondary market. It takes one of each of the three deck boxes to make a complete set.

Overview

Collectors of the card game, players and investors all make out well with this set. It was rare, but not impossible to find, so it never became cost-prohibitive for investors. It is fun for the players and allowed them to experiment with game play in the Second Edition at a reasonable cost and collectors are likely to enjoy how easy it is to assemble the set.

It's hard to argue with all that!

This set was preceded by "To Boldly Go" (link above) and followed by "Captain's Log" (reviewed here!).

This set culls images from:
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - "The Siege"
and Star Trek: Enterprise Season 4

This is a card set I proudly sell in my online store. Check out my current inventory at: Dangerous Missions Inventory

7/10

For other gaming card reviews, please visit my Gaming Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Finale For The Star Trek Second Edition CCG Is The Decent "What You Leave Behind!"

The Good: Easy to play, Wonderful images, Good concept
The Bad: Collation issues with common and uncommon sets, No Archive Portrait foils
The Basics: "What You Leave Behind" adequately ends the Star Trek Customizable Card Game and gives players and collectors something to cheer about.


They say "All good things must come to an end," which is exactly why the series finale for Star Trek: The Next Generation was entitled "All Good Things . . ." When it comes to merchandising, it became very easy, then for things like the Star Trek Customizable Card Game to use that to sell the last set. There was - for the First Edition gaming cards - an exceptionally hard to find set that finished off the game called "All Good Things . . ." (reviewed here!). Well, as fate had it, the Star Trek Second Edition gaming cards came to an abrupt end as well and the second edition went with the name of the finale to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: "What You Leave Behind."

Because Decipher, Inc. has lost the Star Trek license and is now moving to an all-digital format, there seems little chance that this is not the absolutely final Star Trek Second Edition Gaming set. This is, truly, the end of the phenomenon and the end of this part of a collectors and gamers era.

The Star Trek Second Edition for the Customizable Card Game was an easy-to-play game, at least by CCG standards. As the game evolved, the Second Edition worked to bring players and collectors back to the game by broadening the representation of the Star Trek universe it depicted. The "What You Leave Behind" cards were only released in boxes of thirty packs, with packs possessing eleven cards each. Each pack included 11 cards: 1 rare (or foil), 3 uncommon and 7 common cards. In fact, before the series was released, the entire production run was bought up by one distributor and when he sold out, the only way to get these cards became the secondary market.

Basics/Set Composition

"What You Leave Behind" is a 140 card set of gaming cards, mostly focusing on characters and events from the end of the Dominion War, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, and Star Trek: First Contact, with a smattering of other adventures from the Star Trek franchise. The set consists of 41 Common, 41 Uncommon, 40 Rare, and 18 Archive Foil cards. The Archive foils are reprints of popular rares from the "What You Leave Behind" set and there are no Archive Portrait foils that foreshadow future cards, whatwith this being the final set.

The 122 non-foil cards consist of: 19 Dilemma (cards that feature obstacles from the series', like the Caretaker's Wave or a Moral Choice), 2 Equipment (cards featuring mass-produced objects in the Star Trek universe, like a Vascular Pad), 24 Event (cards that feature extended circumstances for the ships or crews, like a Romulans guiding an army via Distant Control or the struggle to Reclaim Terok Nor), 5 Interrupt (cards featuring quick turns of fate in the game, like Advanced Tactical Training or a Silent Strike from an enemy starship), 12 Missions (cards that act as the "board" for the game), 45 Personnel (3 Bajoran, 2 Borg, 4 Dominion, 13 Federation, 3 Ferengi, 3 Klingon, 11 Non-Aligned, 3 Romulan and 3 StarFleet characters), and 7 Ship (1 Borg, 4 Federation, 3 Klingon, 2 Non-Aligned and 2 Romulan) cards.

The cards are a rather diverse collection of the endings and peaks of the various Star Trek franchise components. Fans are bound to enjoy the array of images and concepts depicted on the cards and "What You Leave Behind" does an excellent job of portraying neglected aspects of the franchise. Certainly fans of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine will be thrilled as that series seems to dominate this collection.

Playability

The Star Trek Second Edition CCG is essentially a cross between a role playing game and a board game with cards being set down to create the board and players assembling a ship and crew to then travel the "board" and earn points. This set follows the same basic rules as they were laid out in "Second Edition Premiere" (reviewed here!).

By this point, there is some complexity in terms of dealing with time periods for some of the cards (i.e. Enterprise and Star Trek characters are not, technically, supposed to interact in the game with the 24th Century Federation characters), but most of the cards designed for playing, like the Event and Interrupts include the necessary text to understand how they are appropriately played. Anyone who has been playing the game will find this game easy to play and the "What You Leave Behind" expansion does not offer any changes to game play.

It is worth noting that one can play the Star Trek Second Edition game with only boosters from "What You Leave Behind" as there are an adequate number of Mission cards. Ironically, for the final expansion, Decipher seems to have gone out of its way to insure that the product is playable out of the single box.

Rule Changes

There are no changes to the rules in this expansion. One need only be attentive that the icons indicating which quadrant of space and which time period/universe the card may be played in.

Highlights

Given that the series of gaming cards was coming to an end, it seems like Decipher went all-out. Focusing the series mostly on the adventures of crew of Deep Space Nine works incredibly well for game play and including villains and ships from the films also enhances the style and substance of the game. As with the prior few sets, even the commons and uncommons are cool, though, with characters like Clark Terrell, Katherine Pulaski, and Tuvix making their Second Edition premieres. The designers at Decipher had dome fun and chose to include cards in the Events that bear the titles to previously released Star Trek Second Edition CCG sets! Sadly, there is no "What You Leave Behind" card in this set!

But the grails are all in the rares. It is in the rares that one finds General Chang and Chancellor Gorkon, starships like the Reliant and the HMS Bounty. As well, "What You Leave Behind" features several rare personnel who were never released in the first edition, like a Borg Affiliation Data (from Star Trek: First Contact) and various characters from Star Trek: Enterprise.

The highlight of "What you Leave Behind," objectively might well be the Ezri Dax, Resourceful Counselor card 14R79, Ezri might not be terrible strong, but she is cute as a button, and has a very cool skill. So long as one has a Jadzia Dax in play, this card can be kept in the discard pile to make all of the Deep Space Nine and Gamma Quadrant personnel virtually invincible as they cannot be killed by Dilemmas that cost three or more points! This can become a huge tactical advantage which allows a player to overcome an obscene number of dilemmas. Sadly, though, there is no Jadzia in this expansion, so one must find one from another set to use this amazing skill.

Collectibility

The "What You Leave Behind" cards were only released in the one release, so they are fairly uncommon, which always helps to increase the value. Indeed, one distributor bought out the entire lot of this set when it was released, then sold it to dealers and collectors, making it a very difficult box and set to find and assemble. This is great for investors, but less wonderful for collectors.

Unfortunately, there are two problems which lower the overall value of this release and make it a little more difficult to collect.

There are two short-printed cards, a common and an uncommon. Yes, the two cards that are new reprints of previous Archive Portrait cards are under-represented in the common and uncommon sets as a result of yet another printing error. Unfortunately, these are the both Non-Aligned personnel; Neras and Persis. Strangely, it seems like the reprint of the Stripped Down foil card from "In A Mirror, Darkly" - which is a rare in this set - is more common than those two other reprints.

The foil reprint cards help to thin the rares out some, but the usual grail for the collectors are the Archive Portrait cards and this set has none. As a result, there are no high level chase for investor/collectors to hunt after and there is a good chance of getting a complete set of the cards within four boxes.

Overview

Overall, this is an impressive set and anyone who is playing the Star Trek Second Edition game will want to pick this up! The cards have retained their value, even after Decipher's collapse and the images are good. Moreover, because it is the final expansion, it is virtually guaranteed to be highly sought after for years to come.

This was an all-around wonderful set, despite its minor problems.

This set was preceded by "In A Mirror Darkly" (review pending) and was not followed by any products as Decipher was done with Trek after this!

This set culls images predominately from:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"All Good Things. . ."
Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

This is a set of gaming cards I proudly sell in my online store! For the current inventory, please visit my What You Leave Behind Page!

8/10

For other gaming card reviews, please check out my Gaming Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Aimlessness Of Non-Aligned Makes "Strange New Worlds" A Tough CCG Sell!

The Good: Decent foils, A complete set, Good images, Easy playability
The Bad: Lack of focus for the set, Ferengi affiliation
The Basics: "Strange New Worlds" underperforms as a vague, somewhat pointless set of Star Trek Second Edition gaming cards.


The Star Trek gaming cards by Decipher were an interesting product and in its original incarnation - First Edition - there were many successes and failures. Perhaps the best example of a conceptual problem in First Edition was in the Ferengi affiliation. The Ferengi live by a very different philosophy than most every other Star Trek race and it does not lend itself well to playing a mission-based game, like the Customizable Card Game. When the Ferengi were introduced into the First Edition in the "Rules Of Acquisition" expansion set (reviewed here!), it proved to be one of the least popular endeavors for Decipher. Players of the CCG overwhelmingly avoided playing the Ferengi and it became something of a pariah within the community.

So, when Decipher rebooted the Star Trek CCG with the Second Edition, it was no surprise that the Ferengi were not one of the first affiliations in the initial offering. Unfortunately, popular characters like Quark and Rom from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine necessitated a Ferengi affiliation and cards of those characters popped up in earlier sets, virtually unusable to players. They were unusable until "Strange New Worlds."

"Strange New Worlds" is an expansion set for the Second Edition that is so vague and heavy in Non-aligned Personnel that it is almost difficult to remember that the purpose of the expansion is to reintroduce the Ferengi to the Star Trek CCG. Sadly for Decipher (and players and collectors looking for something decent to collect), "Strange New Worlds" proved almost as unpopular as its First Edition counterpart. The "Strange New Worlds" cards were only released in boxes of thirty packs, with packs possessing eleven cards each. Each pack included 11 cards: 1 rare (or foil), 3 uncommon and 7 common cards.

Basics/Set Composition

"Strange New Worlds" is a 140 card set of gaming cards, mostly focusing on Ferengi characters and other rogues in the Star Trek universe. The set consists of 40 Common, 40 Uncommon, 40 Rare, 18 Archive Foils and 2 Archive Portrait foil cards. The Archive foils are reprints of popular rares from the "Strange New Worlds" set and the 2 Archive Portrait foils are unique foils that foreshadow future cards.

The 120 non-foil cards consist of: 15 Dilemma (cards that feature obstacles for opponents to overcome, like a Financial Pitfall or a Psych Test), 2 Equipment (cards featuring mass-produced objects in the Star Trek universe, like a Ferengi Computer or a Ferengi Whip), 18 Event (cards that feature extended circumstances for the ships or crews, like Delicate Negotiations or a Provoked Attack), 9 Interrupt (cards featuring quick turns of fate in the game, like the appearance of a Clandestine Agent or getting trapped in an Impromptu Prison), 9 Missions (cards that act as the "board" for the game), 61 Personnel (2 Bajoran, 2 Borg, 2 Cardassian, 3 Dominion, 7 Federation, 25 Ferengi, 2 Klingon, 15 Non-Aligned, and 3 Romulan characters), and 6 Ship (5 Ferengi and 1 Romulan) cards.

To its credit, "Strange New Worlds" is heavy in Personnel cards, which tend to be the most coveted and most valuable cards in a CCG set, so the components of this set are fundamentally good. If only they had been something other than Ferengi.

Playability

The Star Trek Second Edition CCG is essentially a cross between a role playing game and a board game with cards being set down to create the board and players assembling a ship and crew to then travel the "board" and earn points. This set follows the same basic rules as they were laid out in "Second Edition Premiere" (reviewed here!).

Anyone who has been playing the game will find this game easy to play and the "Strange New Worlds" expansion does not offer any changes to game play, it just restores an old affiliation to the new game.

Rule Changes

There are no changes to the rules in this expansion.

Highlights

Being that this is a Ferengi-driven set, it is odd that some of the best cards have nothing to do with the Ferengi or even Star Trek rogues. There is a Klingon affiliation Picard and a Romulan affiliation Spock. Scotty and the ancient Dr. McCoy appear to give Federation players something to crow about. There is even an uncommon Kira and the appearance of the EMH! For those trying to make their decks a bit more dangerous, Dr. Tolian Soran is also included.

The highlight of "Strange New Worlds," might well be the B-4, Dangerous Simpleton card. As one of two non-aligned Soong-type androids in this deck, B-4 allows any player to bulk up their deck by adding the strength and resourcefulness of an android. He is easy to play, relatively inexpensive and supplements almost any crew quite well.

The two Archive Portraits: T'Pol and Seven Of Nine make for excellent foil cards and their rarity gives them special value. Moreover, starting the Archive Portrait set with the two popular, busty women in the Star Trek franchise virtually guaranteed this set would be a sell out.

Collectibility

The "Strange New Worlds" cards were released only by the box in a single run, so they remain one of the harder to find sets. The Archive Portraits, though, being of two popular women helps to keep the value on this set high. The Archive Portraits have the potential to turn an average set into something truly extraordinary and here they do that. Despite the emphasis on the Ferengi, collectors have shown an interest in the set, if for no other reason than their desire to have one of everything.

Overview

It is, however, not quite enough to earn this average set a "recommend." Instead, the set is too broad to please most players or collectors. Investors in the set are not likely to lose money in the long run, but at this point, it remains one of the least desired and least desirable Second Edition sets.

This is a set of gaming cards I proudly sell in my online store! For my current inventory, please visit my Strange New Worlds Inventory Page!

This set was preceded by "Reflections 2.0" (reviewed here!) and followed by "To Boldly Go" (reviewed here!).

This set culls material primarily from Star Trek: The Next Generation (reviewed here!) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (reviewed here!)

5/10

For other trading and gaming card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Simple Repack Theatre, Vol. 9 - "Fractured Time" Star Trek Second Edition CCG's First (Worthwhile) Bundle!

The Good: Excellent new cards, Not too rare, yet still collectible, Boxes, Fun additions to game
The Bad: Getting harder to find, Collectors end up with duplicates from boxes.
The Basics: Fractured Time reintroduces some of the coolest and deadliest adversaries and concepts into the Star Trek Second Edition CCG, with only minimal recycling of older product!


It seems like when Decipher, Inc., makers of the Star Trek Customizable Card Game, rebooted the game with the Second Edition, they were generally smarter about it than they had been when they started their company with the trial and error that came with their First Edition and other CCGs. The marketing department, for example, clearly learned from the mistakes of the prior incarnations and figured out quite quickly how to repackage cards so as to get the greatest number of sales with minimal complaining from collectors. Thus, with their first Second Edition repackage product, "Fractured Time," Decipher's effort resembles "Second Anthology" (reviewed here!) more than "First Anthology" (reviewed here!). What did the First Edition learning curve teach them? Players and collectors who are being saddled with the leftover product want new, original cards, not preview cards that will eventually be released in a "proper" form.

As a result, "Fractured Time" remains one of the very successful, mildly hard-to-find products from the Second Edition: it gave fans forty new cards, making it palatable for collectors to take on the leftovers from the first three sets.

Basics/Set Composition

"Fractured Time" is a boxed Star Trek CCG product that is an exclusive set of 40 cards packaged in a collectible box with a few leftover goodies from Decipher. Each box contains the 40 card set plus a booster pack each of Premiere (reviewed here!), Energize (reviewed here!) and Call To Arms (reviewed here!). As well, each box has one of the starter decks from either Premiere or Call To Arms, which means that each "Fractured Time" box has a rulebook in it and is playable right out of the box!

The concept of "Fractured Time" is to introduce into the Second Edition game some of the most popular, reality-bending characters and situations from the Star Trek franchise. As a result, there are Cardassian Occupation-era characters, like Dukat, Prefect Of Bajor, and Mirror Universe characters, like Worf, Regent Of The Alliance, as well as simple one-shot alternate universe characters like Worf, First Officer, from "Parallels" (reviewed here!).

The forty card exclusive set is the reason to purchase this boxed set as it is the only unique aspect of the product. And what a set it is! All forty cards are premium rares and they tend to be powerful and intriguing cards that allow the player to take the game to a new level by adding some real twists and turns. The forty card set is comprised of: 3 Dilemma (cards that featured obstacles faced by the crews, like a Temporal Misalignment or the appearance of The Clown), 15 Event (cards that feature longer-standing changes to the game or situations, like the Cardassian Protectorate taking over a planet or the Borg Expanding The Collective), 2 Interrupt (cards that feature quick turns of events that allow players to retaliate during their turn, like suddenly Fitting In in another time period so your opponent cannot find your character!), 1 Mission (cards that form the "board" of the game), 16 Personnel (2 Bajoran, 2 Cardassian, 2 Dominion, 3 Federation, 2 Klingon, 4 Non-Aligned, and 1 Romulan card), and 3 Ship cards (1 Bajoran, 1 Borg, 1 Federation).

The collectible boxes this comes in are highly collectible as there are different colors and affiliation symbols on each one, making them quite desired by fans.

Playability

Because the rulebooks are included in this set, this is an easy enough place to learn to play the Star Trek Second Edition CCG. The new cards add a little intrigue but the cards tend to have text on them that tell players exactly what they do and how and make the game quite easy to learn and play with others.

Rule Changes

There are no rule changes in this expansion. All that changes with this expansion is the addition of the alternate universe colored icon on the cards. Cards that this icon become relevant for refer to the icon and make it quite easy to know when and how to play the alternate universe style cards. There is also a Decay function mentioned on some of the event cards, but the text of the cards explains that. Essentially, certain events stay in play for a certain number of hands before they are lost.

Highlights

The Fractured Time set is a set almost entirely of highlights! This is a set rich in character cards and the few ships are not to be trifled with. Fans and collectors and players all loved that this set included the first character card from Star Trek: Enterprise, Daniels! The Temporal Agent bears a lot in common with The Traveler, who also appears in this set. And while this set was sold on the fact that it has the first Second Edition incarnation of James T. Kirk, it is hard to argue he is more popular than the leather catsuit-clad Kira Nerys, The Intendant!

But probably the key card in this set is the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Future Enterprise. Coveted almost as much as its first edition counterpart, this card represents the three-nacelled Enterprise-D as seen in "All Good Things..." It is a powerful ship and one that players who love to win love to use! Here is appears in the Second Edition, quite powerful and quite expensive to play. It's a constant favorite from this set.

Collectibility

Who doesn't love exclusive cards?! This set is a favorite because with forty powerful cards, it provides a lot and it almost makes up for getting twice as much recycled product in addition to the goodies. Collectors might object to the extra packs, but most tough-it-up and are happy for something to sell back to recoup some of the cost of the exclusives with! Players are always looking for cards and they tended to like this set because of the extra recycled product, as opposed to in spite of it.

The boxed sets originally retailed in the $40 - $50 range and they dropped in price for a while and now are on their way back up, especially as they become harder and harder to find. Now, the forty-card exclusive set tends to sell in the $40 range alone! It has been an investment set that seems to be going up in the market, making it a good collection in the long term.

Overview

Collectors of the card game, players and investors all make out well with this set. It was rare, but not impossible to find, so it never became cost-prohibitive for investors. It is fun for the players and allowed them to transfer some of their favorite First Edition plays into the Second Edition and collectors are likely to enjoy how easy it is to assemble the set.

It's hard to argue with all that!

This set was preceded by "Necessary Evil" (reviewed here!) and followed by "Reflections 2.0" (review pending).

This is a set I sell in my online store. Please check out my current inventory by clicking here!

This set culls images from:
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
and Star Trek: Enterprise

8/10

For other gaming card reviews, please check out my Gaming Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Simple Repack Theatre Meets Decipher Learning From Past Mistakes With "Reflections 2.0!"

The Good: Some very nice foils,Decent original foils, With price depressed the boxes are a great deal
The Bad: Rarities, A ton of filler!
The Basics: With brand new foils mixed in with foil reprints and a ton of extra singles, "Reflections 2.0" makes itself worthwhile to collectors and investors, if not players.


When the Star Trek CCG reached a certain point, it had a lot of material and as a result, Decipher, Inc. had a lot of material stocked up. With the first edition of Star Trek CCGs, this resulted in a number of attempts to liquidate the stock, possibly the most notable of which was the Reflections (reviewed here!) set. Comprised of foil reprint cards mixed in with obscene amounts of singles from the first six sets, "Reflections" devalued a lot of collections and made for an annoyingly difficult foil set to attempt to collect. So, when Decipher, Inc. announced Reflections 2.0 for the Star Trek Second Edition CCG, many of us were wary. We did not, as it turned out, need to be.

Decipher's most blatant effort to dump old Star Trek Second Edition CCG stock to date came in the form of "Reflections 2.0." After only a few years of producing the Star Trek Second Edition CCG, Decipher warehouses were apparently still plugged with old inventory from the first three sets, so they came up with an interesting solution; repackage the cards and reprint some as foils. Learning from their prior mistakes, though, this time Decipher offered some intriguing new foil only cards. So, while there were a few foil reprints from the first four sets, there were also brand new cards, making this set essential to collectors and investors. It turned out to pay out well for both. As for players, some like the original cards in this set, many could not justify the expense to get them.

Basics/Set Composition

The Star Trek Customizable Card Game "Reflections 2.0" set was the sixth full expansion set of cards sold in boxes created by Decipher to continue the Customizable Card Game Second Edition. Players saw the game as a strategy game that is like a Role-playing game with cards. The players got to use characters, vessels, and scenarios are all already conceived by others. The original concept was to find a way to make play socially acceptable for an older audience and it generally worked. Collectors saw this as another thing to collect to show their love of Star Trek and while the cards have very different images from the trading card releases, many collectors were turned off by how small the images were and how much space on each card was given to game-related text.

"Reflections 2.0" is a 121 card set that is comprised more or less of half of foil reprint cards from the first four sets of Star Trek Second Edition CCG cards (see links at bottom of page) and 61 foil cards unique to this set. The set consists of 60 rare foil reprints and 61 Premium rare foils unique to this set, with the most popular characters and scenarios being given the more rare status. Interestingly, there is no differentiation within the rarity for the exclusive cards and thus, they seem to come up with the same frequency.

The 61 new cards that are unique to "Reflections 2.0" include: 13 Dilemmas (cards featuring challenges the crews faced, like a shipboard fire or an unknown microorganism), 19 Events (cards featuring long-standing challenges or concepts in the overall Star Trek universe, like an interstellar treaty or a Maquis Raid), 7 Interrupts (cards featuring phenomenon that quickly turn events, like a change of heart or a transwarp conduit), 20 Personnel (2 Bajoran, 2 Borg, 2 Cardassian, 3 Dominion, 5 Federation, 2 Klingon, 2 Non-Aligned, and 2 Romulan characters), and 2 Ship cards (1 Dominon, 1 Federation).

Fortunately, for collectors and investors, those trying to assemble a 121 card foil card set will find the packs of 18 cards have two foil cards per pack, usually a foil reprint and one of the Premiums exclusive to this set.. The other 17 cards are all regular, repackaged cards from the prior sets. There are commons, uncommons and rares from the first three sets of Star Trek Second Edition CCGs. Once in a long while, a "Reflections 2.0" pack will have a "Necessary Evil" single in it, as well!

Playability

At its most basic level, this is a board game where one constructs the board and pieces out of a selection of cards. The starting purpose of the game is to get 100 points, points most often are derived from completing missions by thwarting dilemmas using the unique attributes of your ship and crew. The "Reflections 2.0" set incorporates the cards introduced and revised with the "Second Edition Premiere" set.

"Reflections 2.0" does not add any new affiliations or concepts.

This is a very complex customizable card game, but it represents a level of gaming sophistication designed to appeal to younger adults and actually challenge them, which is a decent idea given the thematic complexity of the Star Trek universe. The problem, of course, is that most people who would be most stimulated by this game do not have the time or effort/interest to learn to play it. As a result, the mid-teens that basically run the CCG players world seem to have had mixed impressions about this game.

This is very much a collector's set as players who seriously play the game will already have everything that is in these boxes of cards and would be unlikely to play with the more valuable foil cards anyway.

Rule Changes

The basic rules for the Star Trek Second Edition CCG were laid out in the "Second Edition Premiere" set and are covered in my review (see link below). There are no rule changes in this expansion.

Highlights

The "Reflections 2.0" set set out to wow fans and it manages to do some of that with its impressive list of new cards. In addition to the fun of Vina as an Orion Slave Girl, there is Troi as Major Rakal, her Romulan alter-ego from "Face Of The Enemy" (reviewed here!). Fans of the franchise will appreciate the appearance of a few alternate personas - Picard and Riker - from "All Good Things . . . " (reviewed here!).

But the stand out for me would have to be Odo, Curzon Odo. This card is based on the events of "Facets" (reviewed here!) and it is a wonderful and clever idea for the gaming card. Combining the talents of the shapeshifting Odo with the technical knowledge of Curzon Dax made for a great character and now a powerful card. As well, the picture looks good and it looks good as a foil!

Collectibility

"Reflections 2.0" is all about the collectors and it's all about pleasing the collectors who need everything. While nowhere near as difficult to complete as the original "Reflections" set, this has enough complexity to keep fans hunting down the full set.

In general, though, the "Reflections 2.0" set actually had the inverse effect of what collectors and especially investors want out of a set. The "Reflections 2.0" set itself remains quite valuable. Most collectors did not have the patience or money to sift through all the garbage to pull the cards per pack they needed to try to assemble the 61 original cards or the 60 card set of foils depicting cards they already had, so many simply let dealers do all the work and purchased their sets from dealers.

The problem is, the dealers who opened them ended up flooded with commons, uncommons and rares from the first three sets, which depressed the value of the sets of cards that had already been out. All three sets plummeted in value upon the release of "Reflection 2.0."

The only positive aspect of the "Reflections 2.0" set from a collectibility perspective is that the set wisely focused on reprinting the most popular ships and personnel cards. These two card types tend to have more universal appeal and as a result, they do increase the overall sense of value to the set, even if it does not add new characters or even new images of them.

In other words, it's a long way to go for little pay off.

Overview

The foil set that was "Reflections 2.0" set represents the best cards already in the marketplace as well as a whole bevy of new powerful cards with intriguing characters and situations to play with and/or collect. Nowhere near as uncreative as the first "Reflections" outing, it is easy to covet these cards and nicely, it is not impossible to collect them!

This set culls material from the following Star Trek Second Edition CCG series, which I've reviewed:
Second Edition Premiere
Energize
Call To Arms
Necessary Evil

This set was preceded by "Fractured Time" (reviewed here!) and followed by the Star Trek CCG expansion "Adversaries Anthology" (reviewed here!) and the full release "Strange New Worlds" (reviewed here!).

This set culls images from:

The Star Trek films
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise

Check out my current inventory of this set at my Reflections 2.0 Store Front!

7/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Nice To Have You Back, Despite The Subject: "To Boldly Go!"

The Good: Decent foils, A complete set, Good images, Easy playability
The Bad: Somewhat overproduced, Dull subject matter (Enterprise!).
The Basics: In possibly Decipher's last perfectly assembled Star Trek Second Edition set, players are given a lot of Enterprise to play with!


I'll be pretty up front in saying that Star Trek: Enterprise was my least favorite element of the Star Trek franchise. From the beginning, I knew it would be problematic as they put Brannon Braga in charge of it, a man who is on record frequently saying he hated the original Star Trek. Why they put the prequel in his hands is one of the great mysteries of business and art. So, when Decipher, the Star Trek Customizable Card Game company decided to pull itself out of its severe financial problems using Star Trek: Enterprise as the focus of its new Star Trek set, I groaned a little and wondered how bad it was going to get and if it was ever going to get better.

After almost a year of struggling, Decipher released "To Boldly Go," a 140 card set that mostly celebrated Star Trek: Enterprise and to be fair to Decipher, it's a pretty decent set. Despite the subject matter, this might well be the last set where all of the pieces are includes (i.e. no missing or misnumbered cards) and there is a full set up to and including the two Ultra Rare Archive Portrait Foils, something that the final set "What You Leave Behind" lacked.

"To Boldly Go" hit the market relatively quite a bit of time after the prior release, so anticipation for the product was high. The "To Boldly Go" cards were only released in boxes of thirty packs, with packs possessing eleven cards each. Each pack included 11 cards: 1 rare (or foil), 3 uncommon and 7 common cards.

Basics/Set Composition

"To Boldly Go" is a 140 card set of gaming cards, mostly focusing on characters and events from Star Trek: Enterprise. The set consists of 40 Common, 40 Uncommon, 40 Rare, 18 Archive Foils and 2 Archive Portrait foil cards. The Archive foils are reprints of popular rares from the "To Boldly Go" set and the 2 Archive Portrait foils are unique foils that foreshadow future cards.

The 120 non-foil cards consist of: 20 Dilemma (cards that feature obstacles from the series', like the Bre'Nan Ritual and a Telepathic Invasion), 3 Equipment (cards featuring mass-produced objects in the Star Trek universe, like a Phase pistol or a Vulcan tricorder), 25 Event (cards that feature extended circumstances for the ships or crews, like a Continuing Committee Hearing or Reman Subterfuge), 3 Interrupt (cards featuring quick turns of fate in the game, like a Disinterested Visitant making an appearance or Temporal Delineation), 11 Missions (cards that act as the "board" for the game), 52 Personnel (1 Bajoran, 4 Borg, 2 Cardassian, 1 Dominion, 6 Federation, 2 Ferengi, 1 Klingon, 11 Non-Aligned, 2 Romulan and 22 StarFleet characters), and 6 Ship (2 Federation and 4 StarFleet) cards.

The cards truly do manage to focus on Star Trek: Enterprise and taking their cue from such releases as the The Lord Of The Rings Trading Card Game, some of the most popular characters and ships, like T'Pol and the Sarajevo are released as common cards (in fact, there are two T'Pols in this deck, neither one a rare!).

Playability

The Star Trek Second Edition CCG is essentially a cross between a role playing game and a board game with cards being set down to create the board and players assembling a ship and crew to then travel the "board" and earn points. This set follows the same basic rules as they were laid out in "Second Edition Premiere" (reviewed here!).

By this point, there is some complexity in terms of dealing with time periods for some of the cards (i.e. Enterprise characters are not, technically, supposed to interact in the game with the 24th Century Federation characters), but most of the cards designed for playing, like the Event and Interrupts include the necessary text to understand how they are appropriately played. Anyone who has been playing the game will find this game easy to play and the "To Boldly Go" expansion does not offer any changes to game play, it just restores adds a new time period into play in the game.

Rule Changes

There are no changes to the rules in this expansion. One need only be attentive that the icons indicating which quadrant of space and time the card may be played in. As a result, Missions that are specific to the 22nd Century crew must be paid attention to.

Highlights

Being that this is a Star Trek: Enterprise set, it is odd that some of the best commons and uncommons in the set are from other series' in the franchise. There is an uncommon Sisko card, which is decent, as well as a common Borg Queen, allowing players an easy way to get some powerful and popular cards. And how Daniels managed to be included as only an uncommon will thrill players who like the "Enterprise" time period for play.

But the grails are all in the rares. It is in the rares that one finds Zephram Cochrane, a Romulan Picard, Silik, Shran. Main bridge crew members from Enterprise that get rare treatment include Reed and Phlox. The rares make for the best highlights, but here some of the characters are represented as Uncommons or even common cards!

The highlight of "To Boldly Go," objectively might well be the U.S.S. Enterprise NX-01 or the Jonathan Archer card. 8R117 is the Enterprise, Finally Ready To Swim card and it is a decent ship card that makes for an ideal "home base" for the crew. The NX-01 might not have the most powerful weapons or shields, but it does dominate the Enterprise time period ships and when Jonathan Archer is added to it, there are bonuses.

The two Archive Portraits: Janeway and Captain Kirk make for excellent foil cards and their rarity gives them special value.

Collectibility

The "To Boldly Go" cards were released by the box, but they also ended up in the "Dangerous Mission" set, somewhat diluting their value. The Archive Portraits, though, being of two different Captains helps to keep the value on this set high. The Archive Portraits have the potential to turn an average set into something truly extraordinary and here they do that. Despite being slightly overproduced, this set remains one of the most popular and valuable because it is the only full set to focus on Star Trek: Enterprise. Even though it doesn't grab me as a television series, it works as a card set and game.

Overview

Magically retaining value by the master set and in the secondary market, "To Boldly Go" illustrated that when Decipher, Inc. wanted to bounce back, it could to that with style and substance, pleasing collectors, players and investors.

This set culls images mostly from Star Trek: Enterprise, reviewed here!

This set was preceded by "Strange New Worlds" (reviewed here!) and followed by "Dangerous Missions" (review pending!).

This is a set of card I proudly sell in my online store! Please visit my To Boldly Go Inventory Page for my current inventory!

7/10

For other Star Trek CCG reviews, please visit my Star Trek Gaming Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Even Better Than The Series: "The Enterprise Collection" The Final, Final Star Trek CCG Expansion!

The Good: Limited quantity, Interesting subject, Decent enough concept, All foil
The Bad: Somewhat pointless affiliation, Not limited enough
The Basics: Despite only having eighteen cards, making it practically difficult to play, this resurrected first edition limited edition set is pretty cool.


So, here it is at last, the final expansion to the Star Trek CCG First Edition, "The Enterprise Collection." Delayed for almost a year as Decipher, Inc. waded through its financial troubles, this direct-to-consumers product was released as what is assumed to have been a hail mary on the company's part to save its drowning ship and bring in enough money to get other Second Edition cards in the docket printed and cut. The maneuver worked and this product and the subsequent Second Edition releases helped revitalize the Star Trek gaming card front.

It is strange to think that such a simple concept could do it; eighteen cards from Star Trek: Enterprise, a series begun well after the final Star Trek First Edition CCG set had been released and the Second Edition was well underway. So, what made Decipher willing to go back to the format one more time? One presumes that the almighty dollar was involved and one suspects that the fans of the First Edition CCG who had adamantly refused to buy into Second Edition had something to do with it as well. Regardless, the Enterprise Collection was from the moment it was released a strong seller and one that continues to appreciate in value, making it wonderful for collectors and investors, even if it is not the most practical set for players.

Basics/Set Composition


The Enterprise Collection is the final - they mean it this time! - expansion from Decipher, Inc. in the First Edition format. Focusing on the crew, starship and scenarios of Star Trek: Enterprise, this eighteen card limited edition all foil set was initially released directly from the manufacturer exclusively to the U.S. marketplace. Rapidly gobbled up through the secondary market by overseas players and collectors, these eighteen cards represent the only time Star Trek: Enterprise was immortalized in First Edition.

With eighteen cards, this set certainly is discreet. Each pack has the same eighteen cards (one each) and follows the numbering system from the Premium cards in the "All Good Things" set with 41P - 58P. The set is comprised entirely of foil cards, which adds some additional inherent value to the set.

The set is broken down with eighteen premium cards thus: 1 Equipment (cards illustrating a mass produced item, in this case, the Phase pistol), 2 Events (cards depicting long-standing challenges within the game, like temporal shifting), 1 Facility (cards depicting a headquarters for an affiliation, in this case the StarFleet affiliation), 12 StarFleet Personnel, 1 StarFleet Ship, and 1 Tactic card (cards depicting starship combat actions, in this case the T'Pol/Soong Maneuver).

Playability

The Enterprise Collection introduces and utilizes the StarFleet Affiliation. Academically, this is a wonderful set as it gives players all they need to play a unique and intriguing new affiliation, which can stir up the dust on the old game. Academically, this is a great idea and one that is overdue. Practically, this is a players nightmare. The StarFleet affiliation is weak in its ability to defend itself as it is severely limited by only having twelve options for staffing. It will not take long for players to learn the weaknesses of this affiliation and exploit them.

Moreover, the sole starship for this affiliation, the Enterprise NX-01, is not a powerful ship and the crew is not the ideal one for taking on many of the challenges presented by the game.

But, the Enterprise Collection also begs simple playability questions; unique to the timeframe of Star Trek: Enterprise, technically other affiliations have nothing to play against the cards in this set because they are not native to the timeline. Or are time and space restrictions lifted? If so, what stops a Hirogen deck player from mopping the floor with the feeble Enterprise crew? Based on the cards, it seems like nothing.

Moreover, there are no missions for the StarFleet affiliation to complete, so the instant question is "How do players score points?" This is a crucial question for players of the game. The Star Trek CCG is, after all, essentially a card game where players construct a unique "board" for play out of missions and when they overcome the obstacles of said missions, they earn points with the goal being 100 points.

Rule Changes

This little set came with no rulebook or official rule changes. Presumably, because the StarFleet affiliation is unique it is not supposed to mix with other affiliations and because it is native to its own timeline, it technically has no adversaries or allies to depend on. As a result, this seems rather impractical, and uncomplicated, for play. If the Event cards allow the Affiliation to be played in the subsequent Star Trek eras, this seems to correct the playability issues.

Either way, there are no official rule judgments on this final set and there are no corrections of earlier errata either.

Highlights

Fans of Star Trek: Enterprise would be hard pressed to pick a favorite card out of this set. With only eighteen cards, most of which are personnel, this is a wonderful set for the fans. Truth be told, it's a pretty great looking set when one does not consider how frequently lame the series depicted actually was! As a result, The Enterprise Collection may well be coveted by anyone who is a CCG fan or a fan of the Star Trek franchise.

And it is a tough choice to pick the winner as the complete command crew of the Enterprise NX-01 is represented here. There are cards of Archer, T'Pol, Tucker, Reed, Sato, Phlox and Mayweather, as well as Admiral Forrest and various supernumeraries (all but one of whom are still available for getting these cards autographed!). With the foil luster, these cards look fabulous, so it's hard to pick a winner on that front.

Ultimately, it seems like the best of the bunch (and a tough call between this one and the Jonathan Archer card!) is the Enterprise (NX-01) card. The Enterprise is depicted in spacedock coming out for its maiden voyage. The ship is strengthened simply by adding most of the normal crew and that can take this seemingly primitive ship and make it a match for most of the potential adversaries. And hey, it just looks good!

Collectibility

Well, this is the good and bad thing about this set. Players will find the Enterprise Collection to be eminently problematic to play with as far as the game mechanic goes. Collectors will thrill over how limited this set is. Fortunately, after the much delayed first printing, the second (more common) printing was released and the sets are not so hard to come by as to make them impossible to find, though this certainly was not an overproduced or overprinted set. Instead, this seems to have struck the right balance as it is easy to collect - as it is all in one place - but not so common as to make it worthless.

Investors seem to be betting on this set as well as it hit the marketplace at the $35.00 range and is being bought regularly at that price, a steal for getting the entire command crew of a series. Those who like to get the First Edition cards autographed (good luck finding Bakula to get the Archer one signed in person!) will delight in collecting this set and hunting down those who are depicted to get them signed. It's a strong set in that regard, though the untimely and early death of Kelly Waymire (Cutler) makes completion impossible.

Time will tell on whether or not this was a good investment, but it has all the makings of one.

Overview

Despite being eminently impractical from a players standpoint, the Enterprise Collection looks good enough to sustain the interest and value of the cards for years to come. Collectors and investors will delight in this little foil set and those players who want to see just how challenging the game can be from an underdog position could hardly do better than to try playing from this set.

After all, playing the limited StarFleet Affiliation is still better than playing Kazon . . ..

This set is the final set, following on the heels of "All Good Things . . ." (reviewed here!) and followed by . . .. bbzzzzzz (insert color bars here!).

This set culls images from all four seasons of Star Trek Enterprise, reviewed here!

This is a set of cards I proudly sell in my online store! Check out my current inventory of these cards here!

7/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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