Mot's Useless Card Review #64: I.P. Scanner

The I.P. Scanner is a highly specialized piece of equipment, but can come in handy in a number of situations.

I.P. Scanner nullifies Brain Drain, which you still see on a fairly regular basis. Brain Drain is the key to slowing down a mission attempt, or killing off everyone in a good dilemma combo. It's the only way a heavy Yuta strategy can deal with Marouk. And it can be an especially mean thing to do to a Borg player's Queen or Interlink Drone. Stocking the Scanner will protect you from all of this - not to mention how it frustrates players using a Traveler: Transcendence to try to sabotage your personnel in Thought Fires.

You can nullify Interphasic Plasma Creatures with the Scanner, which you see less often, but will find yourself nailed by when it's most annoying. And speaking of dilemmas, there's DNA Metamorphosis, where an I.P. Scanner is all that stands in the way of you losing a personnel for the rest of the game. (There's very few things indeed that you can do once a DNA Metamorphosis victim has been placed in stasis.)

Finally, a particularly sneaky use for the Scanner. You'll find that the vast majority of Borg decks are using Tarchannen Study as a mission (since the Borg can complete two Objectives there). Timing is everything here. Wait for the Borg player to clean out all the dilemmas. They will of course have to wait one turn before probing for their objective. That gives you and your Federation deck one turn to grab an I.P. Scanner, zip over with ENGINEER x2 on a ship with a Holodeck, and score a big 40 points.

An all-around very sneaky and unexpected card to pull on your opponent, worth considering for your Q’s Tent.