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#54 Gungan Curiosity
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Entry: 4 August 1999
The Unofficial Jedi's Guide to the YJCCG Galaxy.
Compiled by jinnandtonic, August 1999.
Thoughts? You like this? You hate this? Email me!
The Unofficial Jedi's Guide to the YJCCG Galaxy is THE card strategy reference for Decipher's Young Jedi CCG. Starting with the first expansion, 'The Menace of Darth Maul', each individual card will be discussed until it can be discussed no further. Nevertheless, if I have missed something, email me at jinnandtonic@yahoo.com.au, and I will update it accordingly.
jinnandtonic's Grades:
Economy: C-
Gungan Curiosity is not very economical. It allows three non-unique (universal) Gungans to fight together in battle. Doesn't sound too bad, but in practice (at least for me), this card is almost unusable. You see, non-unique are not the strongest of creatures. So even *if* you get the combinatin in play, you are probably only going to have something like a total of Power 6 anyway.Destiny of 4 is good, but could be better considering the real *costs* of using this card in a deck.
Decipher: F
No, I am not particularly pleased with Decipher when it comes to this card. The reason? Well, this card is nigh on impossible to get working. Neat idea, yes. Okay in fun theme decks, yes. Workable in your average deck, no. Let's think about this for a moment. This card can only be used properly when there are three non-unique Gungans alive in play. In other words, out of 6 cards in your hand, you are going to need a specific group of 4 in order to get this combination going. Even after you deploy the Gungan herd, probability dictates that one of your moronic Gungans will get massacred by a Battle Droid before you get to use Gungan Curiosity. But let's say you actually get to use it. Thenit is unlikely that you will have a *lot* of other characters in play. So your wave of Gungans will be first in the Battle plan. What chance you will 'massacre' a Battle Droid or Gragra? Finally, I would suggest that this card should be Destiny 6. It really needs something to pull it out of the Gungan Sewer it currently inhabits.
Overall Usefulness: F+ (the + is for fun decks)
Am I being a little tough on this card? My Gungan deck at the moment (which contains 2 copies of Gungan Curiosity) has, out of the numerous games I have played with it, got the Gungan Curiosity combo working exactly once. On that occasion I murdered a solitary Battle Droid, and was on Naboo which meant I would have won with a single non-unique Gungan anyway. But the moral of the story is this: on the vast majority of occasions that I draw Gungan Curiosity, I am really hoping for a copy of The Negotiations Were Short would come up. And this is the major problem. Even if you are using 20 non-unique Gungan in your deck, you will probably never by choice deploy three of them in one turn. Why? Because Weapons are better than Battle Cards for your armies, that's why!
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CARD FACTS:
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COMMON, YELLOW-DOT, BATTLE CARD
Destiny: 4
Game Text:
Use with any three non-unique <> Gungans. They fight together.
Flavor Text: "Dats muy bigo oucho." -- Jar Jar Binks
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SPECIFIC INTERACTING CARDS:
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Gungan Curiosity require three non-unique Gungans to work together. What are the best strategies for (a) getting Gungans into play and (b) keeping the pesky critters alive?
Case (I) You have three non-unique Gungans and Gungan Curiosity in hand.
In this case, you are lucky. Unless you are using 20 universal Gungans and 10 copies of Gungan Curiosity in your deck, (and are therefore completely bonkers) this is not very likely to happen. Deploy those Gungans, and wait for your opponent to try to use his Sebulba or Sidious to try to slaughter them. Use Gungan Curiosity and laugh. If this happens to you, then you are one of the lucky ones.
Case (II) You have Gungan Curiosity in hand, but not enough non-unique Gungans.
Tough call, but much more likely than Case (I). If you have enough other characters, and are not in need of any Battle Cards or Weapons urgently, deploy any other characters you have besides the Gungans (and maybe one of them). Try to protect that Gungan (e.g. with a weapon/Battle card/last in Battle Plan against a smaller force) until you draw some more cards. Don't deploy two non-unique Gungans when you have Gungan Curiosity in hand. That is a recipe for disaster. One of them *will* perish, unless you are both on Naboo and are reasonably lucky.
Case (III) You have three non-unique Gungans, but no Gungan Curiosity.
That would be right, wouldn't it. If you feel you can survive without deploying the Gungans, deploy what ever other characters you have and maybe one of them, protecting it as much as you can. Try to use as many cards in your hand as possible (e.g. sites, wrongly deployed Battle cards such as Da Being Hereabouts Cawazy, whatever) so you can draw more at the end of the turn. When faced with this position though, you can probably never achieve this and also prevent the loss of the planet you are currently at. You will have to deploy those Gungans, and you will likely lose them. Just hope that more are on the way.
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IN BRIEF:
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I have a personal vendetta against this card going way back. It has managed to ensure my demise on more occasions than I care to recall, and, yeah. I think you get the picture. Gungan Curiosity is a fun card for a fun theme deck. Just don't overload your Light Gungan decks with it in order to keep in touch with the theme, or you will likely suffer the consequences. While it might just save your YJCCG life one day, it also has the annoying knack of bobbing up at just the right time in order to kill you. If Decipher suddenly decides that there is a misprint on this card and it actually refers to *two* non-unique Gungans, not *three*, then I will sleep easily tonight. Otherwise, I will be removing copies of this card from my deck until my non-unique Gungans suddenly decide that can stand a chance of survival on Tatooine. Methinks I might be waiting a while (possibly until Septembter-ish).
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GENERAL PLAY TIPS:
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* The real deal? I would put 1-2 copies of this in your Gungan deck, but before you play it, go through a few test runs. See if this card turns up when you would prefer The Negotiations Were Short. If it does, kill it off. Maybe I am just incredibly inept or incredibly unlucky. It would not surprise me. Oh, and always use 20 non-unique Gungans in your deck (or as many as you possible can) if you are going to use this card.
* Style Tip: Make a fun Gungan deck with 10 copies of Gungan Curiosity and 20 non-unique Gungans. Try not to grimace in pain as your hand is loaded with copies of Gungan Curiosity and your Gungans persist in dying.
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ADDITIONS:
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Up to you. Think of anything else cool about his card, or combos that you have used to great effect? What about a particular game in which this card made you win? Send anything like that to jinnandtonic@yahoo.com.au and I'll add it here. Curiously enough, I don't think Gungans are altogether curious. They were pretty withdrawn and isolated, and they did not seem in the film to be very curious about the land-dwelling Naboo people at all. It was just Jar Jar that was curious. Hmmm...
Boothby notes (10/8/99): In general, I agree with your review of this battle card. However, there is one more use for it: save
your non-unique Gungans from demise. For instance, if
your non-unique Gungans are on Tatooine without
adequate weapon support, they will probably be killed
one-by-one by your opponent's Battle Droids. Using
Gungan Curiosity can keep your Gungans alive for
another turn (by getting them to "gang up" on one
character), giving you a chance to deploy more weapons
or more Tatooine-bonus characters. The downside to
this tactic? If your Gungans *still* get killed, you
probably have to pay some break-through damage, too.
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