Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Stargazing

Your friendly neighborhood Buttermancer here to strongly recommend against running this card in The Circle Undone, given the huge amount of deck milling mechanics in that campaign. You'll whiff right past it at a million miles an hour. Probably twice after the encounter deck shuffles. You might draw it if you have encounter deck peeking shenanigans, but even then not reliably enough to make playing it worth the action.

In campaigns where the encounter deck is not flying off the table out the window, it looks pretty intriguing, probably strongest at 2 players given its unique requirements and effect. To elaborate, for one player, ten cards in the encounter deck is basically guaranteed, but play Stargazing halfway through a scenario and shuffle it into the bottom and you probably won't see it before the scenario is resolved. It does cancel 100% of spooky card bad stuff when it lands.

Two players probably have plenty of cards in the encounter deck and will draw the card within 5 turns, reasonable if it's at all early. It will cancel 50% spooky card draw for the team on the turn it lands. After that, it gets worse. It will be drawn very soon but only cancel a third of the encounter deck, and it will be drawn almost immediately but cancel the effect on 1/4th the team. It's actually a pretty good play on Farsighted (Mandy and Daisy can fit these, and Daisy has big hands potential synergy in Forbidden Tome).

6/23/21

MrButtermancer · 56

I love this card. It's very popular in my 4-man group, and I'll usually take two copies pretty early. In a 4 player game, the action you get can be big enough to free up multiple other players, like evading a massive enemy. Great card. — SGPrometheus · 847 6/23/21

Not cancelling the entire encounter phase in higher player counts isn't really a huge drawback in the way this review suggests, because it also doesn't cost every player a card and an action to do, just the one who plays it. It's not like we say that Deduction is bad because it only gets one clue and not one clue per investigator, for instance. — Thatwasademo · 58 6/27/21

That said, there is one thing that you actually should be aware of at higher player counts: That "max twice per game" restriction. Even if your group is four mystics you can't all take Stargazing (and be able to play all the copies). Still, there really aren't any issues with running one or two copies of this card among the entire group in a three or four player game: even if you happen to draw it when the encounter deck is low, you'll reshuffle soon enough. — Thatwasademo · 58 6/27/21

The Stars Are Right

"Other card abilities or game effects do not resolve with the altered game state in mind; only the indicated ability/action. - FAQ, v.1.7, March 2020"

This information is outdated. The FAQ v 1.8, October 2020 states instead that

"Other card abilities or game effects resolved during this duration are also resolved with the altered game state in mind."

6/22/21

anaphysik · 98

So, for a laugh I'm going to play Stargazing in my current Gloria deck so I can put this card into the encounter deck, find it, out it underneath and then my "weakness" becomes 3 actions :) — screamingabdab · 100 5/2/22

Quick Thinking

"Other card abilities or game effects do not resolve with the altered game state in mind; only the indicated ability/action. - FAQ, v.1.7, March 2020"

This information is outdated. The FAQ v 1.8, October 2020 states instead that "Other card abilities or game effects resolved during this duration are also resolved with the altered game state in mind."

6/22/21

anaphysik · 98

Rite of Equilibrium

I'll quote user @Susumu in another comment: "if you ever want to choose the first option. It would be spending 5 XP, an action and a card just for removing the restriction of X=3" when compared to Tempt Fate, which is a freaking biiiiiig ask. So that second option better be one hell of an effect.

And I mean, in some ways it is. It's probably the most action efficient horror healing card in the game. The closest example is probably Logical Reasoning, which heals up to 6, costs 2 and can only heal from investigators, but costs 1 xp less. I basically never upgrade to level 4 Logical Reasoning though; that much horror healing is pretty much overkill and xp is usually spend better elsewhere.

In conclusion, I don't think Rite of Equilibrium is worth it's xp cost at all, and is probably up there with worst level 5 cards. Tempt Fate is just so much better, even when not taking into account xp. But hey, at least it's not Flute of the Outer Gods.

6/21/21

Nenananas · 271

Paradoxical Covenant

Now with Favor of the Moon and/or Favor of the Sun, this covenant is incredible. Because you reset to step 3 after every token draw, you don't need to trigger the pact(s) when you initiate the test; you can draw normally, pull a bless, and in response tap favor of the moon to plug in a curse and auto-succeed. If you're using Moon, you even net a free dollar out of it. It's Father Mateo's best friend, who can use the combo to succeed on any test almost on-demand in spite of his mediocre stats.

As a bonus, it applies to everyone at your location, making it equally valuable to any Eye of the Djinn-specced rogues or Spirit of Humanity-wielding survivors. Preston Fairmont and Calvin Wright can throw themselves at impossible tests, drop a Signum Crucis and still succeed.

Finally, the combo further stacks with Tempt Fate. Anyone can take it to thin their deck, add 3 & 3 and someone with Favor of the Moon can immediately seal the curses. 3 blesses in the bag (and a full moon pact) for completely free, better even than Keep Faith.

6/20/21

CombStranger · 289

Mateo especially is better served with Ancient Covenant, simply because theres very few tests you can't pass with a +2. — suika · 9506 6/20/21

I also think Ancient Covenant is normally better, except two cases. First case is curse-spell; you can gain both curse bonus and test success. The other case is Olive; you should resolve 2 tokens with Olive, so that you should resolve one more token even with Ancient Covenant, but Paradoxical don't. — elkeinkrad · 497 6/21/21

Honestly, as far as combos with Mateo and Favor of the Sun go, I'd rather have Blessing of Isis just so I can get the additional action/upkeep. Then, of course, stick with Ancient Covenant to find successes while you're setting that up. — Thatwasademo · 58 6/27/21

There are two other cases where Paradoxical Covenant may be a better choice: (1) someone's already running Nephthys, in which case recycling bless is already taken care of, and (2) you can't take Ancient Covenant, because it's not allowed in your deck. — MrWeasely · 42 3/16/23