Mot's Useless Card Review #80: Thought Fire

You thought this card was "useless"? Here's one card that'll burn you for thinking like that.

This dilemma is so "useless" in fact that it won a 1998 Regional for Ken Tufts just last week. His closest competitor, Jason Drake, was working the same strategy.

First, you must be sure The Traveler: Transcendence is affecting your opponent in order for Thought Fire to take effect. Simple enough; you can play it beside any player's draw deck, it doesn't have to be your own. Perhaps an even better option, you can use it for yourself, but reveal a Mirror Image just before your opponent is about to encounter the Thought Fire dilemma.

Next step, make sure your opponent has no Empathy to overcome the dilemma. Deep Space 9 / Terok Nor provides a great dilemma for this: Hate Crime. All Empaths are aliens, and very likely to be the only member of their species present. (It would take at least two of Deanna Troi (Prem), Devinoni Ral, Lwaxana Troi and Tam Elbrun for Empathy to avoid a Hate Crime.)

Of course, Hate Crime wasn't around until this week. Fortunately, the same expansion that gave us Thought Fire also gave the perfect companion for it: Brain Drain. A Brain Drain played just before a Team encounters Thought Fire will remove any chance of them having Empathy along. What's more, there's not one character in the game that can survive Thought Fire after being Brain Drained! With enough Brain Drains, you can not only remove the critical skill of Empathy, but take out the personnel of your choice. And the icing on the cake: without Empathy present, Thought Fire becomes a wall dilemma. It is not discarded, and cannot be passed!

You'll probably want to keep handy a Disruptor Overload in case your opponent has an I.P. Scanner along with them, or a Kevin Uxbridge in case of Thermal Deflectors. Aside from those minor obstacles, however, you too might be able to drain and flame your way to the World Championships!