Mot's Useless Card Review #73: Brainwash

This card has rarely left most players' binders for the simple reason that it was rather difficult to obtain a captive to Brainwash. Thine Own Self could net you one or two prisoners, but only if your opponent was attempting planet missions and red-shirting. Mandarin Bailiff might get a captive, but more likely your opponent would post bail for anyone you'd actually want to Brainwash. Cardassian Trap could sometimes get you a captive, but many players knew well enough to attempt their missions with an Empathy personnel along.

But how about 3 Empathy? The Star Trek Sealed Deck product is coming this week, bringing with it the versatile Reflection Therapy objective. Now Frame of Mind will be another way to capture personnel, and a rather difficult one to prevent. Perhaps best of all, that personnel can come to you with exactly the skills you need - since you'll be selecting the two skills given them by Frame of Mind, you can plan ahead for the maximum benefit from your Reflection Therapy and Brainwash.

The fun's just getting started. The new Abandon Ship dilemma makes it possible to get nearly a full ship's worth of captives. Just place dilemmas like Microbiotic Colony, Null Space, or Gravitic Mine ahead of Abandon Ship to make sure the ship is damaged going in. You can also use Baryon Buildup to reduce the RANGE of your opponent's ship. With Parallax Arguers, you can slip that Buildup onto the ship just after they've announced the mission attempt, leaving them very few ways out of Abandoning Ship. (Odds are, they'll learn to agree with you: "that was cool.")

Brainwash can not only give you an extra personnel to help your efforts or throw away as a red-shirt, but at the same time deprives your opponent of someone they'd planned on having around. It's hard to imagine, but soon people might actually be stocking Rescue Captives!