As you may have heard, The Ninja Scot and Dr. Telek R'Mor have decided to do a one-page review of every card in Holodeck Adventures.  That's right, all 131 cards!  Better set aside lots of reading time for this…  (DTRM is doing evens and TNS is doing odds)  The opinions, of course, are those of the authors :-)

35) All Threes – Interrupt – Plays once each turn to reveal two sets of three cards from top of your draw deck.  Take one set into hand; discard the other (opponent’s choice unless you have any Data in play).

    Much like the Power before it, All Threes is an Interrupt-based card drawing mechanism but with a twist.  In fact, the Power and All Threes have quite a few things in common.  They both are once each turn and they both involve the opponent unless you modify it (The Power, you modify the number of cards you draw, All Threes requires you to have any Data in play), but All Threes is certainly a more potent version.

    You and your opponent are essentially getting a sneak peak at the next 6 cards of your draw deck.  The problem is that you both get to look at them.  While there’s obvious benefits to getting a look (you can go through your deck faster and if you’re prolific with your discard pile reclamation efforts, it isn’t really a loss for long, helps you get that especially needed card), there are bad side-effects to using the card as well (your strategy as well as what’s available in your draw deck plus can potentially can deprive you of certain cards into the discard pile like some Ref cards you had planned to cycle or your only personnel capable of passing Executive Authorization, for example) being the key weaknesses which come to mind.

    Now, you don’t have to use Data to use this card but that’s increasingly risky.  After all, your opponent can discard whichever set of three cards they want and, while they don’t know your deck as well as you do (unless they happened to have made the deck for you), they can potentially guess what’s going to be more important to you in the future.  But, you could take advantage of the fact that they don’t know your deck as well as you do and therefore, make costly errors on your behalf, however that’s scarier than a black cat and white paint combination in a Pepe Le Pew cartoon.

    Data has become more important in this expansion than any other persona, not to mention popping up lots of places in cards.  Each instance of the Data persona has his own special abilities and skills that will determine whether or not you’ll want them in your deck to begin with; in fact, only the dual-personnel versions can’t be downloaded via non-Vic Fontaine means: Data and Data (FC) can be downloaded to the USS Sutherland, Commander Data can be downloaded with Holodeck Door, Carlos can be downloaded by Quark’s Isolinear Rods (not to mention reported for free in the Alpha Quadrant due to War Council) and Sherlock Holmes can be downloaded by Holoprogram: 221B Baker Street.  If that’s not your cup of tea, any of them can be reported for free with Cybernetics Expertise if Cybernetics is at a facility (or to someone with Cybernetics x2).  There’s no real reason why you can’t have a Data of some kind into play.

Combos – All Threes + Ore Processing – Odds are, no matter what, your opponent will discard something that you’ll want.  Bring it back and draw cards for it in the process.  Also Nanoprobe Resuscitation to bring personnel in play to a (COM) Borg.

Combos – All Threes + Q-Tent – You can use All Threes as it “take one set into hand” after Tenting for choice as it doesn’t draw cards.  (Read the glossary under card draws.)