Designing your deck to yield successful probes is one of the most challenging tasks in Star Trek CCG.  Yet for the Borg, it is one aspect of card management that is essential for success.  This article will examine a variety of methods, how they work and the trade off that each one offers.

Introduction (skip if you are familiar with the basics)
Probe management is part of your overall card management.  The draw engines that you are using will play a big part. The Borg set up a little more than other affiliations.  You can rush into things just as fast as other affiliations but as Borg, since we have more control over acquiring needed cards, we tend to go for a little more preparation. Keep in mind, though, that you are not going to be probing before the end of the first turn.  This means that all the cards you will be downloading before then are excluded from your consideration.

It would be an error to begin without addressing the Q’s Tent.  You have no excuse for not using one even if just for downloading extra drones.  Even putting one or two tent cards in your deck is not significant.  The issue of concern is whether to put enough of them in your deck so that you can reliably get a particular card for your first turn. The number you need to draw a card reliably is about 1 / 10th of your deck.  This is only an approximate value based on how essential and what other card draw mechanisms you are also using.  If you have an 80-card deck so you will need 8 tents. To me that is just too many bad probes in your deck, I will not do it.  I would rather include 5 Queens to ensure I get one than waste 1/10th of my deck.  With that said though, if you want to stop first contact are you really going to buy 5 copies of Locutus to do so?  For some strategies you may not have much choice.  If you must include a lot of Q’s tents then it will make your rigging more of a challenge.

The first part of probe rigging is choosing your objectives.  After all, this is what you are trying to rig to.  Assimilate counterpart is the easiest to plan around as you have the choice  of all three subcommands to probe for.   To avoid the Big Picture; most decks should include at least one planet (planet or homeworld) and at least one space (Particle 010, Establish Gateway or Salvage Starship).  You make it easier on yourself if you choose objectives that have the same probe requirement. That is, if you choose Assimilate Planet and Establish Gateway your com icons are good probes for both.

Other than that try to get as much of those icon cards in your deck. Consider each card as saying “Is it worth one turn in the game if I draw it at the wrong time?”  There are only a few cards with all three icons so there will be tradeoffs.  Remember that any card that does not have the icon that meets both your objectives could be a bad probe.  A big part of this is choosing which drones to include in your deck.  Most drones only have one icon so can very easily be bad probes depending on your objective.

Keep the good probe where it is!
The first trick for probing is controlling your downloading.  When you have a good probe at the top of your deck and an objective coming up, don’t touch your deck.  You have plenty of opportunity to download instead of draw or play a card that prevents end of turn draw.  Your downloading can come from your tent and the oft forgotten hand.  People feel like they loose a card draw if they download from hand but if it keeps your probe in the right spot it’s a good trade off. Also, if you know you have a bad probe on top and know you will be probing do something to change the card.  Using a download is the easiest.  I always like to save a Q the Ref card for this (discard to draw a card, but convert to download with a drone).

In comparing the options they are rated on ease of accessibility.  What this means is how easy it is to get the cards needed into play.  The easiest is if the cards seed.  A common ability in the collective is downloading a drone.  This can be done through the Queen, Awaken, Activate Subcommands, We Are The Borg and so forth.  Because of the frequency with which these cards are included any card that can be obtained through a drones special skill can be considered easily accessible.  Cards that must be drawn into hand are considered less accessible.  That does not mean that they should be discounted.  Other aspects of card management can be used to focus on drawing cards.  Even so, cards that are not accessible and bad probes should be avoided in multiples.  

The Meat
All the strategies can be compared in two main groups.  Those cards that affect the top card and those cards that affect the bottom.  Strategies that affect the bottom card work best once the draw deck has been cycled though. That way the bottom card becomes the top.  They all share the benefit of being immune to the juggler, if you have removed all bad probes from your deck.  They all share the disadvantage that it can take a while to cycle through your draw.  The choice is whether to devote the resources to your early game or the overtime.

Heizenberg Compensators.
This one is nice and easy; you turn your deck over and always see the probe card.  It is not easily accessible and is a bad probe.  This helps against the most common interruption, the Juggler.  Your opponent can make you shuffle but you could still end up with a good probe.  Knowing that you have a good probe card on top is great so that you do not use another method to check.  Other methods can be used to change it if needed.

47th rule of Acquisition
This card puts someone with more red skill dots (than target character) on top of your deck.  It takes a little preparation because the Borg do not yet have acquisition.  You set up with selecting the queen’s skill as acquisition (or more difficult brainwash) and interlinking.  Pick a drone (or anyone if you want) with 2 skill dots and play the 47th rule on him.  It is important here that you are free to change the queens’ skill.  Event cards targeting characters only check for conditions at the time it is played, not each time the effect is used.  This is one of the best methods for harnessing particle 010 because you can place your queen from play to be the next probe card (and she has all good probes too).

Handshake
This card is simple as you get to arrange the top five cards in your deck. As long as your deck is reasonably probe heavy you should be ok.  Again, it’s a bad probe and not accessible easily.  As an interrupt it is a single use so you will need one each time you wish to set up for probing.

New Drones (Two of Twelve: Xenology Drone.  Nine of Twelve: Network Drone)
Gives you a second shot at probing for the basic objectives.  Nothing to sneeze at as it changes an 80% probability to 96%.  Or viewed the other way, it means that you can risk having a few more bad probes in your deck.  These drones are easily obtainable and usually good probes.  The only disadvantage is that this bonus is only for two objectives (Assimilate Planet and Establish Gateway).

Borg Data Node
The node is useful so that you can look at your top card before you probe. That way you know before you take the chance.  Don’t forget this is easily available through Eleven of Twelve: Connectivity Drone (special download).

Masaka Transformations
This combination uses the Obelisk of Masaka and the card Masaka Transformations.  The Obelisk seeds and can download the Transformations. It’s a card draw mechanism really but it relates to the problem of getting the right card in hand (such as the Heizenberg compensators).  If your starting hand does not include the essential card desired discard it to get a new hand.  If later on in the game you are waiting for a card build up your hand by not playing (and using 7’s draw instead of play) then use the transformation to cash in lots of cards.  Draw them one at a time until you get the card desired and use downloads after that.  It is important to note that you put the cards under your draw deck.  This means that you can save good probes and recycle them when you don’t use them.  So, for example, include 20 awaken (or activate subcommands) in your deck, use the few you need and send the others back to your deck.  You can do this even after you have run out of card to put some on top.

Regenerate (& Long Live the Queen)
Well, if you have a small deck you could plan for regenerate and use the long live the queen to take out some of the bad cards.  It only takes one card (seed the Long Live the Queen) and you do not need it for a while so it’s not too bad if it takes some time to come up.  The regenerate can be cancelled though and that can mess up your plans.  That part makes me too uncomfortable to rely on it.  You can also use dilemmas that have icons on them so that they have some use when they come up as a probe (lack of preparation is the best for this).  You can seed (or include) more than one Long Live the Queen if you expect to need to discard more than 6 bad probes.

Reactor Overload
This one wins the prize for the most creative of all.  Reactor Overload is special as it is a referee icon card that also has a com icon on it.  The ref icon enables you to put this card to the bottom of your deck (through Q the Ref).  If you planned this and have a small deck to begin with the bottom is the top (that is you are out of cards).  Don’t forget to save a trick (like a download from tent or such) so that you do not immediately draw this card. Lets not forget though that it is an incident card, which makes it a good probe for harness 010.

New Drones (Three of Nine: Tactician Drone, & Two of Nine: Translator Drone)
These drones allow you to place a card from hand (or discard) on the bottom of your draw deck.  This is similar to the other bottom deck strategies. The drones are easily accessible and usually good probes.

With all of the options available, I do not suggest that you use all together. Hopefully though you will find ones that fit your strategy.  As a final note if you just probed and have not shuffled, remember what’s there!  There is no substitute for paying attention.  Best of luck.

Email Andrew Wilson