On 7/26/2017 at 4:32 PM, heychadwick said:I will say that not a lot has been said about this card:
It is a very situational card and lots of people can think of ways how it just won't work. I'm thinking about how it can work, though. In today's tournament games, you are mostly flying against 2-3 ship lists. If you can give an enemy ship an ion token at the right time, then it can win you the game. If you are able to just ionize them and set them up for a bunch of R1 strikes, then you can destroy a single ship in the next turn....if everything works right.
If you set it up and then decide not to take the ion token, as anyone smart would do, then you can get out of jail free. Not game breaking, but pretty neat. If you have Pulsed Ray Shield, then you can regen the shield and not take any bad actions for it. Not crazy, but pretty neat. Might work more on someone who can withstand some damage, like Xizor or Guri, but still not bad even on a Kihraxz Fighter. If you got hit, then it's pretty bad and probably into hull as it goes at this point. Still, one shield back for free is cool.
Maybe they just take the ion for that turn and you don't have something set up. That's also not too terribly bad in most cases. You do at least get a shield back and that is a half price Shield Upgrade. Well, Pulsed Ray Shield and Ion Discharges total 4 pts, so that's fair, but you still have the chance to redo your shields again with Pulsed Ray Shield. As stated, the combo works on those with both upgrades...which means it doesn't have a lot of shields and is closer to death, but hey! It's not horrible.
Would anyone use it on a ship that can't take Pulsed Ray Shield? Well, you might build a list with Ion Bombs, Ion Torpedoes, or even Ion Pulse Generator (on another ship, of course). You could give it to someone who has Genius and Ion Bombs. Maybe someone in your list has Ion Torps and you have a ship that gets caught in the blast. Maybe you could even dish off your Ion to someone just out of range....or maybe pass the 2nd Ion to a large ship?
I wouldn't say it's a bad upgrade. It's not broken. I think it will have some uses. I kind of like it.
I think that is made to go with Pulse Ray Shields so you can throw it away and most likely get back to the game to do maneuver instead of doing white straight. That opens up your dial and it is significant advantage. Also worth 4p together!