Esoteric Atlas

This card is brilliant for Carnevale scenario.

SPOILERS BELOW! BEWARE!

Encounter cards always teleport you somewhere you don't wanna be. Some dudes enter play in the middle of nowhere and interrupt your game. Now you can jump back & forth and do your job. Nice.

There is a caveat though: locations are only connected clockwise in this scenario. So you can jump forth (but not back!) with this card. It seems pretty useless at first, but gets indeed better later, when all or at least most locations had been revealed. — Susumu · 381
Detached from Reality

I've had mild salsa spicier than this weakness.

I... suppose it costs you three actions, at most? You're chilling in the Bad Place for a turn - where enemies can't get to you, mind - and spend that turn prepping for the future with card draw and resource clicking, or you could try your hand at flipping to the good side, putting that off-class to work and avoiding the measly two horror that ending your turn in the Nihilism Cube gets you.

Speaking of that two horror: trifling. You have NINE SANITY, and even if you're in the danger zone, you made sure to bring some horror mitigation with you, right? ...right?

Anyway, on to the third part - you get yote outta Mannish Baby's Stand at the end of your turn, to ANY LOCATION YOU WANT. Remember that prep that we were doing while stuck? Yeah, go to the place where they need you the most and let loose.

To sum up: this isn't a weakness, it's a free fourth charge on your sleepy passport that you have to use immediately.

supertoasty · 40
Totally agree. They could have easily made this a proper weakness, but they didn't. — Susumu · 381
"Pass a 6+ inv or lose a turn" is rough. — MrGoldbee · 1487
I will push back and say that it's basically always 2 horror whenever you see it. It's not worth investigating a 6 shroud pretty much ever with Luke, particularly one that doesn't help you advance the scenario. 2 horror on 9 sanity on top of the 2 horror from Arcane Research does add up and makes Luke effectively a 5 sanity gator. That said, between Mystic card pool and Gate Box, you don't have to worry much about mental trauma. But it is something to keep in mind for things like Ward of Protection or Shrivelling. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
I agree with Styx, but Mystics also have some pretty decent horror-soak allies, and probably the best "healing card" with "Deny Existence" (5). I didn't have any horror-issues, when I recently played him for the first time through Innsmouth. I think, the "Dream Gate" should not unflip at the end of the round. The bad side could just as well be connected to all locations as well, but you would have to pay 2 horror each time you want to leave it. This would put incentive to investigate it. — Susumu · 381
Burned Ruins

It's worth noting that although the additional doom isn't great, it does result in clues being permanently 'destroyed', and so Act 1b will result in fewer clues being put on The Hidden Chamber than normal. If health/sanity pressure are more threatening than doom pressure (or you can stack up a bunch of doom during the 'witching hour' before an agenda advances), this can be quite a boon in saving actions for R2/R3. (The fact that you 'fail' the investigation doesn't matter, since the goal is simply to remove clues, not collect them.)

In fact, there's even some benefit in Blood on the Altar to faster agenda advancement -- firstly, more sacrifices means an easier time with Undimensioned and Unseen (and thus Where Doom Awaits), which may be worth more than a story asset; secondly, if none of your unique allies have been Kidnapped! yet, then prematurely advancing the agenda can ensure that you have enough turns to beat the scenario in between one getting Kidnapped and them being sacrificed.

anaphysik · 97
Searching for Izzie

This weakness might seem worst. However, if you don't apply taboo list, this weakness may be thinkful. Why? Jenny could earn lots of resources and cards with the combo of Double or Nothing + "Watch this!" +All In. In that case, your deck tempo is very very fast, and you should meet your weakness oftenly. But, this weakness is attached in somewhere so that you don't need to consider while attached. This weakness need to be resolved just before the game ends. Well Connected or Streetwise is good for this.

elkeinkrad · 500
This is easily one of the worst weaknesses in solo- it often just becomes mental trauma. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
The problem isn't necessarily that Jenny can't beat the Investigate (though sometimes she indeed can't, especially in Scenario 1 or 2), but that it requires a ridiculous amount of actions to deal with. Most of the time this is going to be a 5+ action cost weakness, with a mental trauma attached if you ignore it. That's pretty painful. Personally I don't think the double action cost for the Investigate was needed. Nonetheless the silver lining is that this doesn't cause immediate damage to your board state (besides missing a draw from drawing the weakness), so it usually won't lead into any kind of death snowball where you get locked down by treacheries/enemies/weaknesses for several turns. And in that respect the high action cost is fair, since it is one of the few weaknesses that doesn't immediately sting. — Soul_Turtle · 494
Yehah I fully agree. It's often just not worth it, especially if it gets pulled late scenario. In solo, I pretty much always eat this card unless the map is small. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Tennessee Sour Mash

The survivor version of this upgrade is clearly worse than the rogue version. Fast is better than -1 cost. +3 willpower twice is definitely better than +2 willpower three times. And evasion that is limited to non-elites is a quite large limitation, and causing a point of damage when you evade is only useful some of the time, and you have to wait until you have made three, rather than two, separate willpower skill checks before it is efficient to use this power; whereas the +1 damage of the rogue version is actually quite helpful and useful. I’d much rather take the rogue upgrade than this one, and since the basic version of this card is terrible, I wouldn't take the rogue upgrade either because it still isn't good enough.

The designers may have made the survivor version of the card weaker because they knew survivors had access to cards like Scavenging which only work on Items, and are always looking for good new Items. But they needn't have worried, this card is plenty unimpressive even if you do have Scavenging.

ChristopherA · 113
I have looking for any sort of way to justify this card as I also love it thematically. I can only think of one current benefit to this card if you are determined to play it. As it takes no specific slot, it can be sacrificed to Crypt Chill if I doesn’t manage to save you on the Will check. I’m the future there may also be a benefit if number of items in play count toward some effect. I’m constantly hearing how Survivors don’t really get a lot of use out of having a bunch of experience but I think this card would have a better chance at 1 XP and then maybe 3 Cost. It’s even almost laughable that the icons to commit on a skill check give it no reason to carry even once, let alone having two in a deck. That’s all I have to add. — Staticalchemist · 1