Submitted by Telak on Tue, 06/03/2008 - 17:57
Brutal ExperimentsInterrupt It was ruthless cruelty that kept the Empire alive for so long. Characteristics: equipment related card, prevent your personnel from beeing killed. Card logging info: Logged by openCards team at Jan 1st, 2008. |  |
personnel facing a dilemma are about to be killed, destroy a non-Hand Weapon equipment present to prevent that. Those personnel are stopped instead.This Card-Review article was written by openCards user Graves and was published first on "Decipher's Website (decipher.com)" at May 15th, 2007.
We can keep this article very short. Brutal Experiments is the alternate universe version of Escape. Let's compare them, shall we?
The Beneficiaries
Escape: "...any number of your personnel facing a dilemma..."
Brutal Experiments: "...any number of your 
personnel facing a dilemma..."
The first difference we notice is that, while Escape can be used for any number of your personnel, Brutal Experiments limits that to just your alternate universe personnel.
What They Prevent
Escape: "... are about to be killed or placed in an opponent's brig..."
Brutal Experiments: "...are about to be killed..."
The second observable difference is that Brutal Experiments will not save your personnel from the Brig. So far, it doesn't seem as good as Escape.
The Cost/Benefit
Escape: "...discard a random card from hand to prevent that. Those personnel are stopped instead."
Brutal Experiments: "...destroy a non-Hand Weapon equipment present to prevent that. Those personnel are stopped instead."
The third and final difference is being able to choose the card which hits your discard pile (one of your non-Hand Weapon equipment present), instead of it being randomly selected by your opponent from your hand. A subtle difference to be sure, and not the big difference we were expecting.
So why use Brutal Experiments? Because of Watch Dog, that's why. Watch Dog, which we'll spoil in a future article, is a card that gives the alternate universe Starfleet player significant advantages when he or she has no cards in hand. It also allows interrupts like Brutal Experiments to be played from somewhere else, as though they were in hand. So why not simply use Escape in the same way? Because of its cost. Escape requires you to discard a random card from hand for its effect to take place, and this is contrary to the point of the alternate universe Starfleet deck: having no cards in hand.
Will Brutal Experiments see use by decks other than the alternate universe Starfleet faction? Sure it will. Once all the In A Mirror, Darkly cards are revealed, it will be clear that the Borg and Dominion – two affiliations that don't have a lot of personnel – will be brought up to speed with other affiliations, and will make excellent use of Brutal Experiments when designed to do so. How's that for a teaser?
