Joe Dawson PREGAME: Play this card before the game begins. This card represents the Watcher assigned to you. You may only have one Watcher assigned to you. Your Watcher is Joe Dawson. While Joe Dawson is assigned as your Watcher, at the end of your turn you may make an Exertion to take any Watcher cards in your discard pile and place them at the bottom of your Endurance. Another first for the Highlander CCG: a "Watcher" pre-game card. While this card physically looks like a Persona card, it is not. Joe Dawson, along with the pre-game James Horton, are hopefully the first in a series of Watchers that a Persona can adopt as their own. Game mechanics: Joe Dawson/pre-game is counted against the total number of _all_ Joe Dawson cards in your deck. Thus, if you have one pre-game Joe Dawson, you can only have five Joe Dawson/Situations in your deck. There is no restriction number on Joe Dawson. The limit of one is an overall rule covering Watcher cards. Thus, you cannot use a pre-game Darius to increase the number of Joe Dawson/pre-games you have. Unlike a Persona or Premium card, Joe Dawson is not an integral part of your Persona. Like a Thunder Castle card or a pre-game Darius, he is vulnerable to Divine Intervention. Counter-intuitive as it might seem, Joe Dawson (either version) is _not_ a Watcher by the definition of the Highlander CCG: a card with the title "Watcher." He does _not_ count against the total number of Watcher cards you can have in your deck. When you Exert to use Joe Dawson, the simplest way to perform the sequence is to examine your discard, move cards as necessary, and then make the Exertion. Regardless, any Watcher cards in the Exertion you make for Joe Dawson can _not_ be moved to the bottom of your Endurance. Once again, let's clarify what a "Watcher" card is. A Watcher card is any card with the title "Watcher." Watcher Field Agents are not Watchers. Cards with the word "Watcher" as part of a longer title (i.e., Watcher Regional HQ, Watcher's Oath, Watcher Database) are not Watchers. The Joe Dawson and James Horton in-game Situations are not Watchers. For the purposes of this column, any card that is a Watcher will be written in the format, "Watcher/XXX" where XXX is either the given or commonly accepted sub-title (i.e., Watcher/Fair Fight, Watcher/Treatment, Watcher/Watcher Tribunal). Any Ally that has been made a Watcher via Watcher/Watcher Revealed (CotW #42) is a Watcher. However, that is irrelevant for the purposes of Joe Dawson/pre- game, because they do not _remain_ a Watcher once they enter your discard pile. Watcher/Watcher Revealed is a Watcher card, and can be recovered normally. So that is how Joe Dawson works. So what can you do with him? Obviously, you want to use him if you plan on using your six maximum Watcher cards. Since using two Watcher/Treatments is a given with practically any deck, this leaves four more for you to add. Since Joe Dawson allows you to move any number of Watchers from discard to bottom of Endurance, you want to wait as long as possible until you have your six Watchers _in_ your discard pile. This makes your Exertions more cost- effective. Why make six Exertions for six Watchers on six different turns, when you can make one Exertion on one turn to move all six Watchers? The downside of this is that you have to wait until all six are in your discard, for maximum effectiveness. Depending on the luck of the draw, this could bring you very close to the point of Endurance burn. There are other problems with this strategy. Without a way to minimize your Exertions, you can burn past valuable cards. The use of Master/Swordmaster and Collect can help here. However, this can further enlarge your deck size. The other problem is that Joe Dawson does exactly what he says: puts the Watchers on the _bottom_ of your Endurance. Without a way to get to them, they're stuck there. If you are down to those last few cards, and have to Exert for a defense, you know you're not going to get one. A careful opponent can time a Taunt/Katana or Power Blow/Lunge so you have to Exert past the cards. This brings us to how to get those Watchers off the bottom of your Endurance and back where you can use them. There is only one way to do this: Angus MacLeod. For the cost of _another_ Exertion, he'll let you put the bottom card of your Endurance on top of your Endurance, and then draw it. This can be expensive and time-consuming, since you have to make two Exertions, typically on two separate turns, to pull this off. Again, you can use Master/Swordmaster and Collect to minimize the Angus Exertion. However, now you've got six Watchers in your deck. And some Collects. And some few Master/Swordmasters. And some few Angus MacLeods. And your fifteen basic attacks and defenses. You're beginning to squeeze out your strategy cards, just so you can do Watcher recovery. Which Watchers, besides two Watcher/Treatments, should you put into your deck so that you have valuable cards to play and recycle? We'll look at some of these more in our next issue. Watcher/Watcher Involvement is one of the more effective ones. This counters Master cards as they are played, and its restriction of two makes it a natural for some form of recycling. Watcher/Watcher Revealed, used in conjunction with Situation Allies, can lead to you having a large # of Watchers on the table, letting you benefit from the Watcher Regional HQ. Of the existing Watchers, Watcher/Hunter (discard 1 dodge or take 1 damage) can still be useful, although it's been minimized by anti-direct damage and ME's Rush to some degree. Watcher/Sniper (opponent takes two damage if has higher Ability than you) is also nice to recycle, although ideally you shouldn't be letting your opponent do that kind of damage consistently. Watcher/Fair Fight is useful against swordfighting decks. However, you can supplement it with The Armory, and if you devote all of your four "extra" Watcher slots to this card, it's unlikely a disarm deck will be able to remove them thoroughly enough. Who should use Joe Dawson/pre-game? We talk about Exertion-reduction above. Personas that already benefit from this are obvious choices. Katana and Fitzcairn already have useful Exertion-related abilities. Connor and Duncan, with their ability to Power Blow relatively freely (and Connor's It's a Kind of Magic), are secondary choices. Personas without the "standard" Continuity, and subsequent to the restriction of Ancestral Blade to 1, may wish to reduce their Power Block Exertions down to zero. Dodging is nice, but not particularly useful against Lunge/Power Blows. These Personas currently include Katana and Fitzcairn (again), Xavier, Annie Devlin, Kern, and Kalas. Heavy-duty healing/damage avoidance decks that aren't concerned about Exertions may wish to bolster their ability to draw extra Watcher/Treatments. A Joe Dawson/pre-game and a third Watcher/Treatment due to pre-game Darius can work wonders here. Again, Fitzcairn and Katana are prime contenders here. They can avoid damage and Exert to remove dangerous combat-oriented Situations, respectively. Due to Kern's Hogg, Kern and Richie (and potentially anyone using Darius) meet this criteria as well. So overall, Steve gives Joe Dawson/pre-game a _5_. It's a nice card, but (currently) an easy target for Divine Intervention. I'm not fond of Exertion- based strategies, unless they're cheap 0-card ones. And the work required to get Joe Dawson's Exertions down to zero doesn't seem worth the payoff. Katana and Fitzcairn are the obviously beneficiaries here, but you'd better have a few Collects to make it really work, or be willing to lose a lot of other useful cards Exerting for those Watchers. What Our Other Raters Say: Jeff - Fortunately, this is toned down from its original playtested version (there was no exertion to activate it) after someone griped long and hard about it... =) Might be of greater use if you can pull off a zero-card exertion, but with a five-carder, you'd better have all your Treatments in there and need them back. And if you're in that kind of shape, you've probably got better uses for your exertions. Rick - I can keep replaying my Watcher cards so it would seem like a permanent 6-card Endurance, but when you start Exerting for defenses in those last 6 cards, you might regret this ability. Mixing this with Angus is almost a must. Hank - Joe's an interesting card, definitely useful with those Watcher/Treatments or the various Watcher direct damage cards. Any time you can guarantee what cards you'll draw it's a good thing, and there are several useful Watcher cards. Alan - Now here's a card I love. It's best use is with Watcher/Treatment, to allow an almost-perpetual amount of healing. Combine with Master/Swordmaster and/or Collect to minimize the Exertions, and you have a _real_ healing deck! Jim - Very good for use with Watcher decks, but you can only have six Watchers in a deck so this is of limited utility. However, there are many potent Watcher cards so Joe Dawson is worth using if you use several Watchers in your deck. Wayne - Abstain Prodipto - Joe Dawson is a very useful Watcher. Most decks are going to use Watcher: Treats in them. With Joe, you could play both your Watcher/Treats, Exert, and put them back at the bottom of your Endurance. He also will make useful another seldom used ME card: Angus. Now you can put the card you want on the bottom of your deck and the next turn, exert it to the top. Sure, this is costly, but if it gets you two more healing cards, it's well worth the cost of 10 cards! Recovering other Watcher cards is a fringe benefit of Joe Dawson, but I think his best use is for the extra healing. Allen - Especially when coupled with Angus and some exertion control, Joe can let you regain key Watcher cards quickly. You can use this for Watcher/Fair Fight if your opponent is trying to break your sword, but I'm sure Joe will be used most often to get more use out of Watcher/Treatment. (Angus isn't critical here.) It's not a card I'm personally fond of (we need more healing?) but it is useful. Ratings Overall: Steve 5 Jeff 4 Rick 4 Hank 8 Alan 8 Jim 6 Wayne N/A Prodipto 8 Allen 6 Average: 6.13 Highlander is a protected trademark of Gaumont Television, used under license by Thunder Castle Games. The card text is copyright 1997 by Thunder Castle Games. All rights reserved.