Pedestrian/Delay-2
Situation: Pedestrian
No attacks may be played until after your opponent's next
2 turns.  Discard this card at that time. (errata'd text)

Another oldie-but-goodie.  A one-time favorite, but has
it fallen on hard time?  Let's take a look.

Pedestrian/Delay-2 is...well, a Pedestrian card.  If we
weren't sure before, we have the errata to make that
clear to us now.  Whew. :) It is vulnerable to cards that
target Situations _and_ Pedestrians.

Ped-2 has no effect until it is played.  Nor should it be
implied that you cannot play an attack the turn you play
it (unlike, say, Disappear).  Feel free to play an
attack, then play Ped-2.

Ped-2 does prevent both players from playing attacks, and
can be bypassed by the appropriate cards that let you
ignore "prevent attack" effects.

And...that's it.  Pretty simple.  So what do you do with
it?

In its best days, Ped-2 basically served as a substitute
Intimidate/Slan or Luther.  For non-attack types like
Xavier, it gave you plenty of time to play those Unholy
Alliances and Alliances, get out your Forethoughts, and
then sneak in a Stalk that they couldn't Holy Ground away
from.  All and at the same time not have to worry about
someone beating up on you.

Ped-2 also expanded the ability of Slan to Power Blow and
not have to worry about a Hidden attack next turn.  In
essence, it gave him twice as many Intimidates.

Then we had Movie Edition, and the introduction of
General Katana, Rooftop, and Focus.  Katana's Exertion
may have been a bit expensive to deal with the temporary
delay of a Ped-2.  Focus worked both ways.  It let you
attack if your opponent had it out...but it also let you
attack if _you_ had it out.  Rooftop was not one of the
more common Locations in play even then, and was used
more as a anti-Angry Mob/Careful Planning deterrent.

The next big change in Ped-2's fortunes came with The
Gathering, where we had Trenchcoat.  Besides making
Rooftop obsolete, Trenchcoat makes it extremely difficult
to play any Pedestrians, as there is currently no cards
to temporarily Focus or Recon past Objects, and
Misfortune remains the only real Object-removal tool.
Since Trenchcoat works against other, more dangerous
cards as well, such as Angry Mob-SE/Careful Planning and
Pedestrian/Hidden-Only, it's an Object that's likely to
see continuing use in the years to come.

So with all that in mind, is Ped-2 still worth using?

In some cases, yes.  With the new rise in multi-attack
decks thanks to the release of Arms & Tactics, and the
existence of Ceirdwyn and Rapier in particular, a Generic
card that stops _all_ attacks, rather than simply causing
the loss of a single attack (Bystander/Event, Parrying
Blade's block effect, etc.), can still be a useful tool.
While Ped-2 makes your opponent unable to attack for two
rounds, if timed properly it only affects you for one
turn.

Ped-2 also has the benefit of letting you "set up" an
attack.  Again, Parrying Blade in the hands of your
opponent, as well as the necessity to block against more
and more attacks, can mean that it can be difficult to
play that attack to the precise area you need it.  Master
Swordsman helps, but there are times when you still can
only make one attack, and you want to play that
Stalk/Xavier to one specific area.  A Ped-2 can buy you
that time.

And Ped-2 still makes a useful augmentation to Slan when
he doesn't have Intimidates handy.

Cheese decks probably don't need Ped-2, not when Ped-
Hidden, Safe Haven/Sit, FM/Wings, and Grapple are out
there.  Ped-2 is best used as an augmentation to a combat
deck, not (as in the game's early days) as part of an
anti-attack stall deck.

The main problem with Ped-2, and what ultimately _does_
bring it down, is that you've got to get past Trenchcoat
to do it.  While Trenchcoat has put a end to a great many
cheese strategies, it also tends to impair certain non-
cheese cards, and Ped-2 is one of those.

Given the prevalence of Hogg, Flying Machine/Wings,
Equalizer, and anyone with a few Darii to spare,
Misfortunes should be more and more a 4+ card staple in
practically any but the leanest & meanest of decks.  The
problem is, you're probably going to find plenty to
Misfortune because of those cards, without worrying about
trying to keep the board clear of Trenchcoats.  If you
use a Disarm deck and have to worry about Extra Weapons
as well...forget it.  Assuming you even want to waste
time playing a Ped-2 when you're trying to disarm and
skewer your opponent ASAP.

So overall, Steve gives Pedestrian/Delay-2 a _2_.  Maybe
the pendulum will swing back again, Trenchcoat will phase
out as the more extreme cheese that it deals with dies
away, and Ped-2 may become viable.  But right now, there
are just too many other better cards out there, wheter
you want to stall a game entirely or stall an opponent's
attack drive.

What Our Other Raters Say:

Jeff - Once a kinda-cool card, this Ped has fallen on
hard times.  Not only is it vulnerable to all the usual
cards (Focus, Police, Katana, Rooftop, Trenchcoat), but
it also has Discipline: Attacks and Dueling Grounds to
get around now.  Not useful outside sealed deck.

Hank - A cheesy card, but it's seen use.  I think it got
eclipsed quite a bit by Ped/Hidden, because Ped/Hidden
lasts indefinitely, but I've used it before to have a
breather to get Specials out... Ped/Hidden has a lot more
chance of backfiring.

Prodipto - Need to buy some time from your opponent's
attack deck?  Need a chance to slough some defenses to
cycle your hand?  Then Ped-2 is your friend!  With the
implementation of the rule allowing you to drop a defense
if your opponent didn't attack, you have two free turns
of cycling in some cards that will help your strategy.
I'm a great proponent of card cycling and, if it keeps
your opponent from attacking, then great!  Of course your
opponent gets the same benefit, but in many cases that's
worth the price.

Allen - Ped: 2 Turn is a good 'breather' card for older
Immortals who aren't up to today's five attacks per turn
pace, or any deck which only wants to make carefully
timed attacks, wants to conserve its defenses, buy time
to play non-Attack oriented Specials  (Change of Fortune,
Lunge, Attack Weapon anyone?), or just not face a Hidden
attack after a Power Blow.  It does these jobs fairly
well, and can augment such cards as Slan's Intimidate.
Not much for flash, and easily abusable with cheese, but
it can help you wind up for that one big swing.

Bruce - When I first started playing Highlander, this
card was in all of my decks! I could just count it as a
defense card and everything worked out. But, it is a
Pedestrian and a Situation and thus fairly easy to get
around. You are probably far better off with other cards
in today's environment.

Stealth Dave - Abstain

Jonathan - Despite the trend away from
Pedestrian\Bystander strategies, this card has a number
of productive uses. An intelligent player can use it to
control the flow of the game, attacking without the fear
of reprisal on Turn One, and finding some time to set up
his next strategy on the off-turn. That said, the anti-
Pedestrian nature of the game has hurt this card's
potential rating. Situation removal has become quite
commonplace as people need to remove Hounds and Allies at
an alarming rate now. Most Situation-based strategies are
doomed unless they really pile on the Situations each
turn. Thus, I expect to see very little of Pedestrian-2
in the future.

Charles - There are much more powerful cards capable of
preventing an opponent from attacking such as Safe Haven
and Duelist.  There are also ways around Ped-2 that do
not affect other anti-attack situations (Rooftop and
Trenchcoat).

Ratings Overall

Steve                   2
Jeff                    3
Hank                    6
Prodipto                6
Allen                   6
Bruce                   3
Sdave                 N/A
Jonathan                4
Charles                 2

Average:                4.00