Mot's Useless Card Review #56: Probing Made Easy

A new feature of the First Contact Expansion is "probing." Certain cards (Objectives, mainly) have a built-in randomization feature to determine their effect. To probe, you draw the top card from your deck, reveal it to both players, and check for a match of any icons on that card with icons on the card you are probing for. Use the effect given for the first-listed match.

Shrewd players have no doubt realized already that there are ways to manipulate a probe. Since many of these ways involve a few "useless" cards, I've devoted this week's issue to tampering with probe draws.

Orb of Prophecy and Change. The most basic and obvious probe manipulator. During your turn, take a sneak peak at what your probe results at the end of the turn will be. If it's a failure, bury it somewhere else in your deck in the hopes that the card second from the top of your draw deck was better than the top.

Heisenberg Compensators. Another straight-forward way to foresee the results of a probe. Use the Compensators to flip your draw deck face up. It becomes obvious what is going to be a success and what won't. In voluntary probes like Visit Cochrane Memorial, where certain results are undesirable, you can simply choose not to probe when it won't be successful. Or you can rig probes with...

Subspace Schism. With Heisenberg out, you'll see whether the next card on your draw deck will be a successful probe. Play Subspace Schisms on your own card draw to discard and redraw until the top card of your draw deck is a successful result waiting for use next turn. Also, use Schisms to advance your opponent's deck to unsuccessful probes. Even when the decks are face down, you can still use the Schism to your advantage. Whenever your opponent probes, you'll know what card they are about to draw. If it's something you'd rather not allow into their hand, Schism it away.

Scorched Hand. While still on the subject of Heisenberg Compensators, you can take your over-sized hand with a high number of successful probes and Scorch yourself. Try to beat the random selection and put those successes on the bottom of your deck. Since you are Scorch-ing yourself, you'll know if you "lost" more cards that were successful probes or more cards that weren't. You'll then know if it's worth it to flip your deck over (with Heisenberg Compensators) to use those lost cards as your probes. (And don't forget, one Heisenberg Compensators can nullify another if you want to switch back and forth.)

Zalkonian Storage Capsule. Most of the Borg Objectives have the same icons for a successful probe. Play a Capsule, and collect cards with those icons. Then destroy your own Capsule to put those successful draws back on top of your draw deck. (You can use Kevin Uxbridge, or if you want to avoid the wrath of the new The Line Must Be Drawn Here, Mercy Kill.) Two really good cards to store in your Capsule are...

Awaken/Activate Subcommands. Both of these cards have all three subcommand icons for Borg in the game text. Even if you are using a Borg Queen (FC) as your primary method to report drones quickly, you should include a few of these cards in your deck for the automatic success they give you on all Borg Objectives. (Other cards that will guarantee a success on Borg Objectives: any of the Borg Cubes, the Borg Queen, Locutus of Borg, Assimilate Counterpart, another copy of the same Objective you are probing for.)

Thought Maker. Make sure your opponent will never succeed at a probe by putting all their successful cards on the bottom of their deck. Or....

Persistence of Memory. Combine this artifact with Thought Maker to rig your own draw deck with a string of successful probes.

A few words of warning to probe manipulators...

Downloading. Every time you download a card, you have to shuffle your deck, so don't go to all the trouble of rigging a series of successful probes unless you've finished downloading cards from your deck for a while.

The Juggler. This "useless" card puts an end to any and all probe manipulation. Each and every one of the above probe-rigging tactics can be thwarted by using The Juggler to re-shuffle the deck in question at the right moment.

And there you have it, a sort of "top 10 list" for probing. It's been a long wait for First Contact, but I'm sure everyone agrees that the time was well spent. This expansion is just amazing!