i have a question regarding the mind flare. i know there was a typo regarding the player (it should be any player instead of main player only) and the phase (again should ba 'any phase' instead of alliance). i was wondering about the effect of the wild flare though.

for reference: "whenever another player draws a card from the deck, you may draw it instead, look at it, and then give it to him or her."

lets suppose someone wants to draw a card and i reveal this flare in response. now i get to look at his card and then he gets to put it in his hand. what if he draws a secound card ? do i still get to look at it (i assume yes)? what if another player draws a card in the same phase? it says 'another player' on the flare... do i pick a player or could i look at any players draws? what if the player (or any player for that matter) draws a card in a later phase? does the effect of the flare last the entire encounter?

something else that i came across : when the looser is involved as a main player in an encounter and declares an upset, is any compensation drawn if one of the players played a negotiate card (i assume no, as the person who played the N card did not loose any ships...)?

for the record: big thumbs up for the speed update of the forums!!

First of all, ten big thumbs up from me for the speed update on the forum! (Yes, I am an alien.)

As for the Mind Flare, it says "whenever," which would indicate any time when another player draws a card, you get to look at it. If the intent were for it to be to look at a single card of one player, it should have been worded, "Use when another player is about to draw a card..." which would make it very clear that its use is extended only so far as one card and would have to be "used" again to look at more cards of another player (which could not be done with the standard flare rules). It would be rather weak for a flare if you only got to look at one card for one player.

So I'd say you play it once and get to look at any cards drawn by other players for that encounter.

Adam said:

We played it just the opposite, and we did find it a little weak, but then again, knowing 1 card in someone's hand could be better than knowing 0 cards. Our reasoning was that a Flare can only be played once an encounter, when someone goes to draw, you activate it and look at the top card of the deck; as for "whenever", we just took that to mean, well, whenever: drawing a new hand, rewards, etc. We thought about playing the other way, but it almost made it more powerful than the Mind alien itself sometimes --- for example, if 2 players needed to draw a new hand of cards within the same encounter, a non-Mind player with the wild Flare would have been able to see both of them --- granted, that is an extreme example, but the idea we have is that the wild flare can give one player a glimpse of another's power, we settled on the 1 card per encounter rule.

so now there are two different opinions how do the other people in here handle the flare?

Well, when player 2 at my table played it the other day, she played it during Alliance and saw all the cards that were drawn as defender rewards later on (my ruling).

I haven't seen it come up in a game yet.

But, I agree that if it allows you to look at all cards drawn during the encounter, then it is (a) better than Mind power itself, and (b) getting used more than once in the encounter. This would lead me to think it is not supposed to work that way.

What if it applies to all cards drawn at the same time by one player? So, if somebody draws a new 8 card hand, you get to look at all 8 cards, but you wouldn't get to look at any rewards that come up later in the encounter.

Also: I agree with the big thumbs up on improving the forum speed! Thanks, FFG! Now if they could get it to stop kicking me out to the forum index every time I post something, I'd be happy. Of course, with the speed increase, it no longer takes me 5 minutes to get back here from the index, so it's not that bad anyway.

I don't see it as more powerful than the Mind itself. The Mind gets to see the whole hand. The Wild Mind gets to see some cards drawn, and even then only if it does not use any other flares. Cards already in hand, cards moved about by alien powers, and cards exchanged via compensation are all huge mysteries to the Wild Mind. The suggestion someone made of designating one player and being able to look at all cards he particularly draws that turn sounds good, though. Also, I've heard that "Alliance" timing for Wild Mind is a typo, so maybe it was meant for Resolution, so that you could only look at rewards, not an entire hand drawn.

I would definitely like to find a happy medium with it. Like I said, the wild flares, in general, give other players the opportunity to use another's power to a lesser degree, which my confusion with the Mind flare is that it "sometimes" makes it more powerful than alien, not overall more powerful, but occaisonally depending on how many cards need to be drawn on a particular encounter. And If nobody can zap the flare (or steal it, in which case, another player would continue using it), he would be able to see every card drawn every encounter until he loses the flare, that seems a bit much for a wild flare --- that's why I say I'm looking for something in the middle.

The Mind wild flare designates "another player", other flare cards that use the term "another player" (i.e. - Reincarnator, Parasite, Philanthropist), mean 1 other player when they're activated (not more than 1), and the Mind wild flare also says "draws a card", and the game in general is specific about when getting "a card", or getting "cards". Based on that, I still think you'd only get to see 1 card (even if someone has to draw a new hand) --- but I'm still open to suggestions how to make a bit stronger.

thanks for the input ! i guess we will have to wait for some official faq....