Keeper Of Traken, The Card Type Flash Card Rarity Common Card Text "Play one extra card."

A Quick Glance

The text on this card seems pretty obvious at first glance. You get to play an extra card. Pure and simple. So, how could there possibly be any hidden strategy to this? Well, if you give this card any thought, questions will soon come to mind. Here's a few to think about:

When can this card be played and used?

At first you might think that The Keeper Of Traken can only be used during the phase in which you play creatures and resources. If that's case, then you can play an extra creature or resource at the time you would normally play one. But can you play an extra card at any other time during the turn? How about during combat? Or how about during the episode phase?

Playing The Keeper Of Traken during combat would be a great way to get one more creature to defend with, or bring into play that resource you've been holding on to! But I hold to a literal interpretation of the text, which leads me to believe that you can play an extra card only when you are already playing a card. The word "extra" means in addition to. So no, you can't bring creatures or resource cards into play during combat. Or can you? We'll discuss this below in detail.

What type of extra card can be played?

Again, you might assume only creature or resource cards can be played. But how about playing The Keeper Of Traken during an episode phase? I can just see the look on my opponents face when I hit him with both The Massacre and The Claws Of Axos in the same turn!

Lets look at some specific examples of when and how to use The Keeper Of Traken.

A Detailed Look

Play an extra creature or resource during the creature/resource phase

Great for bringing in combos with minimized risk of loosing one of the combo cards before you can play the other. Play two The Brothers Of Demnos for added support, or play one of your Doctor Who cards and an appropriate assistant for added strength.

Keep in mind, also, your bonus Time zone, which already gives you the ability to play an extra card. With The Keeper Of Traken, you now can play three cards at once for some really strong combos! Of course, you have to have four cards in your hand to do this, The Keeper Of Traken and the three cards for the combo.

You could also play an extra creature to help solve that episode your opponent played last turn, which brings me to the next possibility...

Play an extra episode during the episode phase

Some of the episodes are bad enough in and of themselves, but imagine being able to play two episodes at once! You could effectively put two of your opponents time zones out of action. Take for instance, the example given above: you could play both The Massacre and The Claws Of Axos in the same turn. Of course, you would have to have two episode cards in your hand, which, given the limitation of putting episodes in your deck, is not too likely. You'd probably be better off playing the episode as soon as you can.

Play a creature or resource during combat to strengthen an attack or defense

Well, as I said above, you can't simply play a creature during combat with this card. The text implies that you already have to be playing a card in order to play an extra one. But you could play an extra card during combat. Here's how.

Consider the resource card T-Mat. T-Mat has a special ability to bring two extra cards into play when sided. In combination with The Keeper Of Traken, you could bring three cards into play. Also, T-Mat allows the six card limit to be broken, as long as T-Mat remains in play. There's nothing in the text of T-Mat that says the limit is raised to eight, it simply says it's ok to exceed six. So, by playing The Keeper Of Traken, you can raise that limit to nine! Wow!