A Quantum Phase Inhibitor is a Dangerous Weapon

Your name is Kal Dano. You're a 27th century inventor, and you've just invented a crystal capable of stopping the nuclear reaction going on within a star. You deem this invention too dangerous if it were to fall into criminal hands... so what should you do with it? The answer is obvious isn't it? Rather than just destroying the crystal, it makes much more sense to hide the crystal on Risa in the 22nd century. Surely, nothing bad can happen if you were to do that!

Having critiqued Kal Dano's decision-making processes, it's time to move on and talk about the card. In Second Edition game play, Tox Uthat doesn't help destroy everything at a mission. It does "destroy" your mission attempt though. While facing a dilemma, you may place this equipment card (present) under your draw deck to end your mission attempt. The dilemma you are facing and all remaining dilemmas in the dilemma stack are returned to their owner's dilemma pile, but that is a small price to pay if it means your personnel don't get killed or captured, or if it prevents your losing command of them to your opponent. Oh, and by the way, the rest of your personnel aren't stopped since they didn't "fail" the mission attempt, they simply "end"ed it.

It's obviously worth using when you're about to have three personnel killed by Whisper in the Dark or Tsiolkovsky Infection, but there are many other situations for using this equipment that may not be quite so apparent. What if there were several overcome dilemmas beneath a mission and you thought you would be able to complete it, if only your opponent didn't have a Machinations in his or her core? As using Tox Uthat does not stop your personnel, you can make the attempt, face your opponent's "stop them all" dilemma, and use the Tox Uhtat to make it go away. You then have a free pass to complete the mission with those same personnel. What if your opponent is using a Tragic Turn dilemma pile? Just use Tox Uthat once your opponent has consumed the two dilemmas and then end the attempt. That gives you two overcome dilemmas, and one copy of Tragic Turn at the bottom of your opponent's dilemma pile - and you can still attempt the mission again! What if your opponent plays The Dreamer and the Dream against you? You now have the choice of whether to continue (and possibly lose all the cards in your hand), or to end the attempt right then and there. What if you're about to lose your ship for a turn to Where No One Has Gone Before? Just whip-out your Tox Uthat and watch the look on your opponent's face. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Once you have used Tox Uthat, it gets placed at the bottom of your draw deck. That won't matter too much, though, if you have Fajo's Menagerie in your hand. By playing this interrupt, you can download Tox Uthat to play and use the following turn. Federation (Earth) players don't even need to waste deck space with Fajo's Menagerie. They can just use Sarina Douglas, Cataleptic Conundrum to move Tox Uthat to the top of their deck, all ready for drawing and playing the following turn.

There are just two things to remember about this quantum phase inhibitor. The first is that it has the Artifact keyword, so you must complete a mission requiring Acquisition, Anthropology or Archaeology before you can play it. The second thing to remember is that, if it becomes popular and sees a lot of play, you should add Temporal Incursion to your deck. That way you can flip your dilemma pile and redraw all those dilemmas your opponent didn't want to face the previous turn. Happy Gaming!