CE alien survey #28: CHOSEN

First appearance: Mayfair base set.

Plain-English power: Draw three cards after Reveal; if any are Encounter cards, one may replace/add to the card you played.

Loved by: Slot machine enthusiasts; fans of the movie "Maverick"; top-decking SOBs.

Loathed by: People who play straightforward; unlucky saps.

Three ways to win as Chosen:

• There are 15 Negotiates and 39 Attack Cards. Why get stuck with playing a low Attack? Go ahead and toss it out, and pray for a Negotiate; be sure to give thanks to Chosen's Higher Power for what ye are about to receive.
• If the average value of Attack cards is 10.5, then the average value of any two random Attack cards is 21. That's the kind of advantage you have going into most encounters!

Catching up with the champions, part II

Following up on yesterday's post, it's a good time to examine the history of the prestigious monthly championships at Cosmic Encounter Online. With his just-completed August title, veteran player Tmax has now won 10 monthly championships, the most of any player.

Here's a list of everyone who has won five or more titles ... the players who can truly say, in other words, that they are, indeed, the champions:

• 10: Tmax
• 7: AP
• 6: Barrok, Fiddler, Williamson
• 5: Mystique

So, between them, this group has accounted for 53 percent (40 of 75) of all the monthly championships in CEO history.

Catching up with the champions, part I

It's been far too long since we've taken a look at who is taking over the most planets at Cosmic Encounter Online, so it's time to play catch-up. First up: here's the list of your monthly champions so far in 2009:

• January: Williamson
• February: Mailman
• March: Toomai
• April: Mailman
• May: Mailman
• June: Barrok
• July: Mystique
• August: Tmax

So, for a quick summary, it looks like Mailman has already won thrice, Tmax has added yet another monthly trophy, and July featured the return of old-school legend Mystique. Good stuff so far.

Crazy Cosmic-on-steroids list: a must-see

I'm not sure if this is just thinking aloud ... or a tease of some new features ... or maybe a combination of the two. But I do know that if even one-fifth of this list ever became reality, I'd never leave the house.

Word on the street: 20 new aliens coming

And this street is actually called "Olotka Avenue," so this is a level above your everyday rumor: 20 new aliens are coming for the first Cosmic Encounter expansion.

(No word yet if Human's friends Elf, Dwarf, Half-Orc, or Halfling made the cut ...)

Okay, now it just needs to stop

The "let's stretch the rules to the breaking point" game is great fun ... every so often. It's not meant to be a daily thing ...

Can EVERY player win? A theoretical challenge

I'm not completely sure that the example here follows the timing rules 100-percent correctly, but I'm totally confident that the author has forgotten more about Cosmic Encounter's rules than I'll ever know, so I'm willing to roll with it. The basic premise: it's possible to have a five-way win in a five-player game.

If pressed, I would have guessed "not possible." I've always thought that someone — the poor slob playing defense being the most obvious example — had to lose in any given game of CE. Now I'm not so sure.

What say you, rules gurus? Genius idea ... or does it all fall apart somewhere?

Hypnotized by the silly Twitter widget

Although I'm not a Twitter user myself, I must admit that I'm enjoying the little widget I installed over there in the sidebar. It's sort of fascinating to see people around the world talking about Cosmic Encounter in real time.

A couple of my recent favorite entries (all due respect, Twitter, but I will never be able to say "tweets" with a straight face):

Taping together a 31 year old Cosmic Encounter box.

And ...

Cosmic encounter is a damn fine game.

Why, yes ... yes, it is!