The Gamma Files – Winners don't play Distress Call | openCards

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The Gamma Files – Winners don't play Distress Call

    Long-Small-BannerimageWritten as part of the coverage for the Big-Event "EC 2008".

    This Strategy-Note article was written by openCards user thsch.

    Last time we spoke about the most played cards in Europe, but it is not the quantity of copies of a card used that will count in Potsdam, it is the quality. So which cards have proven that they have the quality to be in a winning deck? And which ones make a losing deck? Today we will have a look into the differences between the Top 3 decks and the rest. Which cards appear mostly in winning decks? And are there cards were the only advice could be to not play them if you want to win?

    Let's start with At What Cost?. It is included (in average) 1.4 times in each of the Top 3 decks but only 0.7 times in the non-Top 3 decks. Is it because lower ranked players are afraid of spending ressources on a bonus point engine? Or do they just not own that card? When speaking about At What Cost? we also should have a look at the counters against it, which brings us to Grav-Plating Trap. The, in my opinion, best event destruction in the game was used 0.7 times in each Top 3 deck and only 0.1 time by the rest.

    But let's have a look at the dilemmas. As Skeleton Crew was the most played dilemma it is not surprising that it is strong in Top 3 (1.8) as well as non-Top 3 decks (1.2), but still the difference is significant. The same is true for Hard Time (1.7 vs. 1.1), but here the reason (at least for the German decks) is easy: It is nearly impossible to find a Hard Time for trade!

    Remember that Fesarius Bluff was higher ranked than Excalbian Drama? Well here we have the reason. While Fesarius Bluff is played only slightly more often by Top players (1.1 vs. 0.8), Excalbian Drama is a winners only card (1.1 vs. 0.4). And by the way, that is not because lower ranked player prefer Outmatched as zero cost planet wall, as this card is distributed equally over the ranks. Secret Identity also seems to be one of the Top player cards (1.0 vs. 0.5). Strange, one should assume that players that can win a tournament should be able to track skills without help...

    When it comes to personnel, for most of them there is no obvious difference between the ranks. For most of them... When it comes to Borg, there is hardly a chance that one could overlook the difference (for example Annexation Drone (0.7 vs. 0.1), Computation Drone (0.6 vs. 0.1)). So is this because Borg always win tournaments or because only player that could win tournaments manage to play Borg?

    And with all these Borgs (and Borg Ships) nobody should be surprised by the distribution of Tactical Disadvantage (0.9 vs 0.1).

    So what about loser cards? Anything that you should avoid? Well Tragic Turn (0.1 vs. 0.5) may be a bad idea. Timescape (0.3 vs. 0.7), Neural Parasites (0.0 vs. 0.5) and The Phage/ Spatial Distortions (0.0 vs. 0.7) seem to be not for the winners, too. Also nearly all the one cost skill stoppers like Command Decisions (0.2 vs. 0.7) appear more often in the non-winning decks. Nearly all, because Magnetic Field Disruptions is played equally by all decks (Just in case you forgot the reason: Where No One Has Gone Before!).

    And what about Distress Call? Well, 0.1 copies in each Top 3 deck, 1 copy in each other deck (which makes it the card with the highest difference between the winning and losing decks!). So it is true, if you want to win a tournament, do not use Distress Call!

    (Disclaimer: The one Distress Call used in the Top 3 decks was used by the winner of the London Regional, so if you play in London maybe add one copy or so...)