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Major Rakal's Romulan Review #39: Ooby Dooby

(12/19/1997)

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Aefvadh! Although I am a well-known fan of wall dilemmas like Ancient Computer and Shaka, followed by personnel eliminators like Cardassian Trap, once in a while something a little different will strike my fancy. And it has been struck, by what may well be the most "different" dilemma yet...

OOBY DOOBY
Dilemma, Planet or Space, Rare
"Well, you wiggle to the left, you wiggle to the right; you do the Ooby Dooby with all your might; Ooby Dooby; Ooby Dooby; Ooby Dooby Ooby Dooby, Dooby Dooby doo wah, doo wah, doo wah."
Draw one card for each non-android Youth present, then discard one card for each Music present. All Youth, Music and Zefram Cochrane present are "stopped."

Another example of the "filter" dilemma described in the card extra for Blended, Ooby Dooby has no conditions, so it stops only Youth, Music, and Zefram Cochrane (who certainly must have neither). What kind of decks will this be good against?

Flute decks: They'll have lots of Music (Data (Prem), Juliana Tainer, Picard, Riker, and multiple McKnights or Obarakehs), so will have to discard lots of cards if they use those personnel to attempt their missions. Of course, if they use McKnights, they'll get to draw some too.

Android decks: They won't get to draw cards for the android Youth (though they may not have to discard many either), and all will be stopped because every android except Lore has either Youth or Music.

Borg decks: Yes, that's right, Borg decks. The ones that use Locutus of Borg and an Interlink Drone to share skills. Because the sharing is not optional - if you have the Interlink Drone in the hive and [Com] drones with any Away Team or on all ships, they all automatically possess all the regular skills in the hive - having Locutus around to provide diplomacy and an automatically assimilated counterpart may prove a liability in facing Ooby Dooby. The trick is to seed it after a wall dilemma that can be overcome by skill sharing and enough drones. If the Borg player gets past the wall dilemma this way instead of using an Adapt: Negate Obstruction, all the Borg he sent down will have Locutus's shared Music skill, causing the player to discard that many cards and stopping them all again.

But this is also a dilemma you can profitably seed under your own mission. Think of it as a Sarjenka that gives you card draws instead of points. Seed this last, encounter it with an Away Team or crew consisting entirely of non-android, non-Musical Youth (an easy task for Romulans, with Sela, D’Tan, Varel, Jaron, and others; just keep Tarisout of this one), and get free card draws without expending a card play on Kivas Fajo-Collector (and it's not nullifiable). Without Music, you won't have to discard anything, and with everyone stopped, you needn't worry about continuing the mission attempt with an otherwise unsuitable Away Team. Just don't play a Q’s Tent first on the turn you try this, or you won't be able to draw your cards.

For once, you can be happy that the Romulans are so deficient in Music!

The Major's Combos:

  • Ooby Dooby + Investigate Legend: As long as you need all that Youth in your deck, why not get some free card draws from them?
  • Ooby Dooby + Wind Dancer: Stop the Youth and Music, then (with few exceptions) stop everyone else.
  • Ooby Dooby + Security Precautions: You thought your androids would get you past this easily. Guess again.
  • Ooby Dooby + Crystalline Entity (in space) + Lore: Only the Borg might survive this one.
  • Shaka, When the Walls Fell + Ooby Dooby + opponent's Locutus: 5-6 discards.

And for Federation players only (who said the Romulan Reviews were of no interest to you Feds?):