Tox Uthat: Innocent - Provisionally!

by James Heaney, Rules Manager (1E)

6th May 2025

Happy May, Star Trek players! Today is the first Tuesday of May 2025, the regularly scheduled day for the Continuing Committee to publish new First Edition game changes: bans, unbans, errata, and corrections.

Yes, the first Tuesday. It's usually Monday, but those bozos in Rules forgot that, due to the U.K. bank holiday this weekend, game changes were deferred for a day.

Card Revisions (Errata & Corrections)

There are no card revisions this month.

Watch List Changes

There are no watch list changes this month, except due to ban list changes (see below).

Ban List Changes

No cards are added to the ban list this month.

One card is removed from the ban list this month, our only change for the month: Tox Uthat is unbanned with no errata.

Tox Uthat is automatically added to the watchlist with its unbanning.

The Return of Tox Uthat + Supernova

You may be thinking, "Wait, what? They just banned Tox Uthat last month! What is this, American Thanksgiving during the Great Depression?" What, in fact, is the Department of First Edition smoking?

The Tox Uthat + Supernova combo has proved controversial at 1E HQ.

It was originally banned in 2011 -- despite seeing very little play in the global meta at the time -- because one unusual playgroup was having problems with it. The people responsible for game balance at the time considered the card harmless. However, this one playgroup had political influence and the CC was quick to ban things in 2011. Today, it is generally agreed that the 2011 ban was a mistake.

When Premiere Remastered was in development last year, we were forced to confront the Supernova+Tox combo again. While it was banned for bad reasons, it remains a powerful combo. Player opinion about it is closely divided.

In the end, we decided to release an updated version of Supernova that substantially streamlined Supernova's special rules, but left the combo's core functionality unchanged: you acquire a Tox Uthat by solving a mission, you use your normal card play to bring Tox to the table the following turn, and, the turn after that, you can play a Supernova on any mission, destroying nearly all cards there. (A few, like Venus Drug, Objectives, and These Are The Voyages, are spared.)

However, we also decided to watch the combo like a hawk, in case it did indeed prove problematic. When Balance gave the green light to bring back Supernova, it was not because they were convinced it was safe, but because they weren't sure what, specifically, was broken about it and needed fixing. Since the card was not actually broken before it was banned, Balance needed more data even if it decided to errata it.

In March, Balance heard from a specific playgroup about significant concerns with Supernova. (Not the same playgroup as in 2011.) However, there were no signs that Supernova was causing problems anywhere else in the world, and Balance thought it was at least plausible that the playgroup's meta would adapt, with time. It probably wasn't time to ban Tox (yet). Nevertheless, European Continentals were looming. Europe had, just a few months earlier, had a Nationals event where Gaps In Normal Space ran rampant. This left a sour taste in many mouths, and the CC didn't want to risk harming another European major. So we banned Tox Uthat for the month of April -- and only April.

Now with EUCC in the books (congratulations "Mr. Van Paddy"!), we are bringing Tox Uthat back (again) to see what the global community can teach us about this card. Is it just a cool Timmy combo that rarely goes off, or that routinely costs more than it pays back? Or is it a broken mess that auto-wins against even reasonably prepared decks?

We don't know. Since it's a very old card with a very long history in the game and no clear data supporting a ban, we are erring on the side of letting the players have it back. But if error it was, we want to know it! We hope to see this combo played enough to lead to a final decision by Worlds.

How to Play the Game if You're Afraid the Sun Might Explode

Denial

The obvious way to deal with a Supernova is Kevin Uxbridge, targeting either the Supernova itself or (usually the better play) Tox Uthat, which is very expensive and hard to replace. The solution is simple and straightforward: nullify the event, and nothing happens. Problem solved. However, this might also be the weakest response. After all, a well-prepared Nova player will often pack enough copies of Q2 to block your Kevins.

There are also some oddball ways of preventing a Supernova: The Charybdis can delay acquisition of the Tox (or allow you to steal it), 1962 Roger Maris Baseball Card can give you control of the Tox, and so can Vorgon Raiders. But decks that can make use of these cards are few and far between.

Delay

One important card in an anti-Tox strategy is Dead End. This doesn't prevent opponent from acquiring the Tox, but it may mean that, instead of deploying the Supernova on Turn 4 or 5 as he originally hoped, he must instead use it during the endgame, too late to stop you from winning. You will want this Dead End to be the last dilemma your opponent faces, not the first, so your opponent wastes the maximum amount of time at this mission before realizing he needs to go elsewhere. Friendly Fire and Linguistic Legerdemain can play a similar role, by denying opponent access to his artifacts at a mission he has otherwise cleared. Tox Uthat + Supernova already take a very long to pull off (a turn to solve the mission and acquire Tox, a turn to play Tox, and a turn to play Nova), so anything you can do to simply delay acquisition can wreck opponent's Tox strategy. Even if opponent seeds a second Tox to get around your Dead End, he first has to find your Dead End at his first mission, then go to a second mission and dig through those dilemmas before he can deploy his superweapon.

Of course, if you're playing Trek, you're already doing everything in your power to delay your opponent from solving missions! That's kinda the whole point of dilemmas! Plus, it's not like your opponent is going to just tell you where he's seeding his Tox, so he might avoid your Dead End altogether.

Recovery

Some of the most effective strategies for dealing with Supernova aren't about preventing or delaying the Supernova at all, but simply recovering gracefully from a successful Supernova.

After all, Supernova + Tox is a really expensive combo. It costs at least one seed card, at least two normal card plays, and draw deck construction to ensure a Supernova in your hand at the right time (plus any defensive Q2s). When she finally hits you with it, of course your opponent's Supernova will slow you down -- but, if it only slows you down a little, but slows her down a lot, you're coming out ahead on the exchange.

Many Supernova players are looking to blow up your reporting location. One of the easiest ways to come out ahead -- perhaps way ahead -- on the exchange is to simply have a second reporting location. Are you playing an affiliation that has a Mission II outpost available? Use it! It can even be rebuilt if destroyed!

Many other affiliations report (or at least can report) to time locations, which are safe from Supernova. Still others can place key facilities (like Deep Space 9 / Terok Nor) at a non-mission location (Bajoran Wormhole), again safe from Supernova.

Players can also go old-school on this: if your opponent blows up your reporting location, all you need is one ENGINEER to build an outpost. Sure, it's a card play, but your opponent wasted two blowing up yours, so you're still coming out ahead. A player very concerned about a Supernova might stock Construct Starship to guarantee he can get an Outpost when he needs it. A less paranoid player might just stock an appropriate Outpost in his deck and trust the heart of the cards. A middle ground might be to put it in your Q's Tent. This isn't a crazy thing that's useless against non-Supernova decks, either! Suddenly playing a second reporting location late in the game is often a pretty good move, and Decipher clearly never expected Outposts to vanish from draw decks as utterly as they have.

Remember that Supernova is always telegraphed. There's no way to play it the same turn the Tox is played. You therefore always have one full turn of warning that it is coming. Use that turn!

You can use it to spread out your ships and personnel, so that all your eggs aren't in one basket. It might be safest to park your cards temporarily at opponent's missions (picking up those sweet Let's See What's Out There draws while you're there), since your opponent might be reluctant to nuke his own mission, especially if he has cards of his own there. If you can get your nouns to a time location or another location that isn't a mission, like Barzan Wormhole, so much the better. (This is a good move for Full Complement decks.) Engage Cloak is a perfect shield against Supernova. Playing a single-ship deck? Federation Flagship: Recovered, it's your time to shine.

You can also use the turn to prepare your defenses, finally using that Q's Tent in your hand to fetch your key defensive card -- or perhaps a recovery card. After all, even if you decide not to stock a second outpost, you can rebuild the one you already had by fetching it back from the discard pile, then playing it where you have a matching ENGINEER. Res-Q and Palor Toff - Alien Trader remain excellent utility cards (great additions to any Q's Tent).

The beautiful thing about facing down a Supernova is that, unless your game goes very strangely, it's one-and-done. When an armada comes and destroys your facility, they generally have enough firepower to destroy all your ships and any other facilities you might care to play, too. Recovery is almost impossible. But when Supernova destroys your reporting location, that's it! You're home free to go into full recovery mode.

That sums up the three basic ways of dealing with a Supernova that we see: denial, delay, and recovery. You may have ideas of your own. (I never even mentioned Persistence of Memory, a rare but delicious way to use your opponent's Supernova to give yourself a mission for free.)

Armed with these strategy notes, we trust this community to hold the line against Supernova + Tox Uthat without having to throw out their current decks. Nearly every deck can adapt to Supernova without needing to stock "silver bullets" or place undue burdens on their design.

Or, quite possibly, this community will definitively break the combo, forcing Balance to take permanent action. Balance will continue to monitor the situation closely. Either way, though, we're excited to see what unfolds on the your spaceline in the next few months!

Go forth and blow up some suns!

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