Week 1 This is a Hold up! http://community.gomorragazette.com/t/can-you-break-this-card-1/972
Week 2 Plasma Drill
Is this card Breakable?
4 Likes
I just realized that you can target your own deeds with thisā¦
Iām curious if a slide deck could use this sort of thing to neutralize an opponentās dudes on a deed, then play another one with the same control points.
It could possibly also be used in conjunction with āThe Placeā or āThe Orphanageā to force an opponent to pay you a ton of rock or discard some crucial deed (Whateley Estate for their Spirit Fortress perhaps?)
In last yearās Sheriff season I was trying out a bunch of different Morgan decks as the faction wasnāt performing well in general so I figured Iād have a go and try to do well with them. The night before the Huddersfield event I had a flash of mad science inspiration and quickly threw together a deck that used Plasma Drill. It failed completely - last place of 24 players! Plasma Drill requires a lot of setup to use safely and have it actually have an effect, and the deck suffered from being too slow to get going.
The recent cards that have helped out gadgets would alleviate some of the problems I had but this is still a very difficult card to use. Much like This Is A Hold-Up! this card attacks your opponentās economy either through making them pay to keep their deeds around or by discarding their deeds to lower future production. As such, it combos well with This Is A Hold-Up! and the cards discussed in that thread. From the conclusions drawn there it would in theory fit well into a Sloane economy choke deck, however the Sloaners arenāt known for their technological know-how and the drifter scientists available would all struggle to invent this card unless you were running it off-value in a deck running 7s/8s and higher, which limits your choices as a lot of Sloaneās better cards are on the low values.
Since mobility helps you find the best target for your Plasma Drill, and can get your booted dude somewhere safe after drilling, perhaps it could find a home in a Morgan horse deck?
The Place raises the production of an opponentās deed,which makes that deed more vulnerable to being Plasma Drilled. The Whateley Estate has zero production any Spirit Fortresses there are safe from being drilled, but a well defended Epidemic Laboratory thatās racked up a few successful jobs could find itself in a lot of trouble if theyāre low on rock and one of these hits the table. Using it at The Surveyorās Office to target your opponentās out of town economy is also a good strategy for it, and if the Office is adjacent to your home you can always escape afterwards by using its Noon ability.
2 Likes
Iāve tried to use this card in the past, and all attempts have failed to produce anything even remotely usable.
-
The combination of its value and itās difficulty is particularly not good. Iād much rather have Currency Presses at this point.
-
It has to be adjacent, which I donāt like. I wish it was āthis or an adjacent deedā. So, you canāt use it on out of town deeds without the surveyors office.
-
Most deeds are +1 or +2 production, which usually means a whole lot of cost (4 GR?!? way too high), setup, and risk (booted mad scientist) for small gain. Plus, if youāre in a great position to be able to hold the town square with a booted mad scientist, thereās a chance you might want to use their deeds for control points to win the dern game - not blow them up.
One issue with economy-targeting decks is they have all sorts of ways to ruin your economy but not nearly enough ways to stand up to a fight when you confront them. There have been enough new cards out since Iāve tried this card that maybe itās worth a another look, but I donāt have high hopes. I feel Currency Press has pretty much put this card out of business in all but the most janky gadget/economy-targeting decks.
2 Likes
I know this isnāt in the spirit of what jedilanni is doing with these break a card threads. But for this, and one 2 other cards, I will reply in this way
Plasma drill cannot be broken. I will eat my jester hat if anyone can make a deck where this card ever, ever becomes worth playing.
I have tried, really tried. I want to like this card, but I canāt. Itās simply far too expensive, and for laughably little effect. As said, yes, there are ways to work with this card, but It is a huge committal of resources to get this card to barely work.
Here is what It would take. First, have The Place in play. Then, Play Technological Exhibition along with Gadgetorium, thus making it affordable, and unbooting your mad scientist, and rewarding a gr for the ācost of opportunityā for playing a card from your hand (this will incidentally end up getting used anyway to cover the cost of use. Place it on a dude who will not mind getting called out, as in, one who isnāt going to be used for contesting opponents deeds since they have no influence, and is a high enough value stud to be a threat, and no boot ability that you want to use instead of the Plasma Drill. The Wretched, Bai Yang Chen, or AngĆ©lica Espinosa.
Then you need to occupy your opponents deeds, cutting off their extra income. Playing This is a hold up! will help drain opponents GR, and may be required if your opponent is capable of producing GR by other means.
Then, you start drilling deeds that have increased production from The Place.
If your opponent runs out of GR and then you use Plasma drill, than, and only than will you get their deeds discarded.
And that really is the whole point of the card. It HAS to be.
Other wise, it is 4 GR + 1 card play from hand + booted Mad scientist + a booted dude in town square or opponents deed, + 1 GR = Opponent pays 2 (most likely production of target)
3 Likes
Itās funny this card and the previous card came up. I have been using them to build out an Economic control deck. I also wanted to try a different take on a Sloane deck. Here is what I came up with:
http://dtdb.co/en/decklist/1946/economic-desolation
Iāve used it and itās interesting. I got all the cards I needed: This is a hold up, Plasma Drill, Tummy Twister, Phantasm. All the good stuff =) Unfortunately I played a shooting deck, which meant they played a deed late and by that point it was way too late. Showed a glaring hole, but I think it definitely had game.
That being said, Plasma Drill isnāt the central piece of the deck. Itās a splash. Albeit a splash which is causing me to sacrifice other things I could be using that starting spot for someone else(such as Fred). I also think my little experiment would do better in Fourth Ring if only for the Huckster part.
I think the combo of The Place or The Orphanage would be a good compliment. Especially if you run into a fortress, which usually keeps it in the left spot next to home.
I definitely think Plasma Drill has some game. I just havenāt found the best place for it yet. Then again, I also like to make decks which go against the grain and try to make them work =P
Iāve been playing a bit with Plasma Drill lately, and I more or less agree with @jayjester that it canāt be broken. It might be possible to make a deck where it works, but the requirements for that deck ā economy, ability to concistently find your deeds and gadgets, ideally the ability to stand in the town square blasting away at deeds, inventing difficult gadgets with low-value cards etc. ā mean that the deck has to be really strong and probably could form the core of a deck at least as good if Plasma Drill was replaced by something else.
Speaking from experience, I can say that using this on one of your own deeds can win you a game if you time it correctly. It can also fail, and set you back a few turnsā¦ But you can certainly combine it with Cookeās Nightcap as a honeypot for opposing dudes.
One thing that really helps this card is, well, another Plasma Drill. With one, youāre denying the income of a deed, with two youāre actually turning that deed into a liability ā the more production it has, the worse it is. Yet, discarding a deed to the first Drill just means another one gets the second attack. Since paying to use multiple Drills can get costly, Lulaās Exploit is another obvious support card.
Iāve found that Yagnās Mechanical Skeleton helps keep the dude with the drill alive. Personal Ornithopter could probably work as well ā if you want to go janky try Teleportation Device to send dudes out and Ornithopter to get them back home. But then weāre spending even more GR.
Finally, thereās the meta to consider. A plasma drill deckās ultimate dream is to be able to use The Place and a few drills to close down a Spirit Fortress. If the fortress isnāt too fast it might actually work, and that would more or less send the opponent back to square one. I havenāt had the chance to play it against a deed-slide deck. In theory, it hits slide where it hurts the most ā losing not only economy but, worst case, the deeds that are piling up for the win. But since slide mostly runs on cheap, low-production deeds, you would most likely need to get out The Place and at least one Drill in the first day or two. And consistency probably isnāt this deckās thing. Apart from fortress and slide, I think most decks will be tricky. If you manage to get your board set up youāll probably have a good shot. But you probably wont manage to get your board up against a consistent deck with a clear strategy. So yeah, fun card, but I donāt expect to see it in succesful tournament decks
1 Like