Fortuitous Discovery

Fortuitous Discovery

It's ok in decks who have insane drawpower but it's pretty mediocre or outright terrible when you don't innately draw quickly.

Fortuitous Discovery isn't good when you get just the one copy, you need to find the second and the third to make it do anything at all, and the payoff is SLOW, the first copy does nothing, that's terrible, you drew a card only for it to do nothing?! Winging It is'nt a bad card but that first play for just -1 on an investigate difficulty is a hard sell, there's also no skill icons, how annoying. The second copy is a 1-cost Deduction, for a conditional benefit that's still just strictly worse then Deduction I'm having some serious doubts here. The third copy, 2 resources for +2 and grabbing +2 clues, huzzah, it's doing things now! Cool things sure but the ride was so bumpy that it's hard to actually enjoy the result now that it's finally here.

So, either it's just OK, or it's seriously BAD, but what if you use some strategy?

Frankly. I seriously believe that this card got kicked in the nuts in the final stage of development, somebody said "Fortuitous Discovery costing 1 resource base and discovering x+1 clues is too good", the light on printing this thing was green, the art commissioned, so it was too late to back out and print something else, so we got.. this thing....

Right now the standout good place to put this thing is Minh Thi Phan with as much drawpower as she can muster, we're talking Grisly Totem Minh Thi Phan with some classic skill cards. Even then, I can think of much more useful things to do with those 3 card slots. Winging It to start with.

Tsuruki23 · 2568
I'm pretty sure by Shards of the Void you mean Segment of Onyx. — ak45 · 469
Yes — Tsuruki23 · 2568
It’s only effective once per game, but Eidetic Memory can play a fourth copy of Fortuitous Discovery to get +4 intellect and 4 additional clues. Do not it removes the card from the game afterwards, so that’s a bit of an anti-synergy. — MaximilienQC · 1
What about for a Wendy deck? (I just built one and will be playing Dream-Eaters soon) You toss the early copies to get the free redraw from the chaos bag and then use the last one to nab a lot of clues. — bgraceduff · 2
Wendy usually plays "Look what I found". Winging It is a better card choice than Fortuitous Discovery because when exploring a shroud 2-3 location, if you fail the test on playing Winging It then you can immediately play "Look what I found" and get 2 clues anyways. Fortuitious Discover doesn't reduce the shroud to the "fail by 2" range of Winging It. — VanyelAshke · 181
I wouldnt dare take this in Wendy- her weakness will likely just shut off any potential bonuses before you get to use them. — StyxTBeuford · 13043

The Hungering Blade

The Hungering Blade

EDIT: Grammar

So this card (and it's coupled weakness Bloodlust) is a bit confusing, so I'm going to give a quick summary here so that you don't have to switch between the two cards's pages:

  • The Hungering Blade by itself give no extra and does +1 damage. It's closest equivalent is a .32 Colt: same cost, same lack of extra , same damage. Just without limited uses and you're allowed only one copy in your deck.
  • To get the full power of this card, you need to kill six enemies with this amount of damage and draw the three Bloodlusts that got shuffled into your deck; doing so takes your Colt and upgrades it into .45 Automatic, then a .45 Thompson, then a Roland's .38 Special (clue included).
  • HOWEVER, at any point you have a Bloodlust attached to The Hungering Blade, you may expend one Bloodlust to give your attack a further +1 damage; I'm fairly certain this cant be done after the skill test, so this is equivalent of -1 for +1 damage.

This actually reminds me of the good old core set Knife; two options for an attack, one standard, and one with extra damage but you discard something. And just like Knife, not utilising the secondary attack is a waste of the cost to play it. If you're using The Hungering Blade, then you should have a decent chance of succeeding combat checks from the moment you equip it, otherwise you'll be hard pressed to get those offerings. The extra then is a nice bonus, but not something you should be relying on, especially since +1 damage is more valuable than +1 attack.

Now about the horror incursion. Despite being the most suited for extra damage without extra , Mark Harrigan CANNOT take this card; doing so would be suicide alongside Shell Shock. Given that the other 5 investigator cannot take it, and anything less than 4 would leave one struggling to get offerings in the first place, the list of viable investigators shrinks to the rest of the guardians (that aren't Carolyn Fern), Joe Diamond, and William Yorick: 6 total. Even so, NONE of the investigators mentioned above have higher than 6 sanity, and given the random nature of your deck, you are subject to the whims of fate with this card (I mean, even more so than usual).

So... I don't think highly of this card. Some real jank would be required to get it going, like a Desperate "Ashcan" Pete, or a Wealthy Jenny Barnes. But I'm not holding my breath.

EDIT: As was pointed out, Ashcan and Jenny can't take this card, so please ignore the last paragraph.

Lucaxiom · 4512
Played it succesfully in Mark. Was no suicide. — trazoM · 9
Diana Stanley? — mattastrophic · 3307
It is level 1, so Pete and Jenny can’t run it. Wealthy Skids could, and Tommy run enough sponge assets that the horror isn’t a big problem. The bottom line is that the blade is a low xp conditionless, actionless +1 damage that may require outside boosting and sometimes kills draws or deals Horror. Especially if you’re an on-the Hunt deck, keeping up the kills shouldn’t be hard, and in The Dream Eaters specifically, a Swarm enemy can easily fill up its offerings very fast. — Death by Chocolate · 1488
I'm pretty sure you don't get -1 <span class="icon-combat"></span> when you shuffle Bloodlust, because the skilltest is already initatied when you do it, and thats and effect that lasts until the end of the skilltest. — Bernat · 789
I honestly think Mark is a better option for this, but you need to build appropriately for it and reliably hunt enemies down. (And that's a fairly big 'but'.) His ability means you'll be drawing a whole lot of cards, so if your kills are up, he's not quite as impacted by the consumption of 3 draws turning into +1 on his primary weapon. Even without those kills, Mark should be building around his sanity pool, meaning he should have at least a couple of options to mitigate the horror on a whiff or two. However, if neither of those are true, things can go pretty catastrophically. I'd say this is a better option for him in larger games, but wouldn't want to risk it in smaller ones. — Ruduen · 1012
Seems like the main issue you would have (at least with non-Mark Guardians) is getting enough offerings on it that you can actually equip the first Bloodlust or two. It gets pretty good once you're at +2. Also notable that Zoey Samaras can take Mr "Rook" to help find Bloodlust. — Zinjanthropus · 229
My sister used this in a Tommy deck. I was Agnes and scryed the encounter deck for enemies to ensure she had something to kill every round. Worked well enough. I think if you can get it up early in a scenario with many enemies, you're in good shape. Probably less ideal for solo. — LaRoix · 1646
^Sounds like a cute combo but unfortunately spamming scrying just to enable the blade seems like a waste of actions. On the Hunt and "Let me handle this" feel like better blade enablers. Also I think Roland might be a good choice as well, since if you're aggressively hunting for enemies, might as well get bonus clues from Roland's ability. — flamebreak · 25
Leveled up Scry is fast. :) — MrGoldbee · 1484

Crystallizer of Dreams

Crystallizer of Dreams

EDIT: Well I inserted my foot into my mouth well and good, thinking The Painted World worked with this card. I'll keep the post as it was, but please ignore the part pertaining to Sefina Rousseau.

ORIGINAL POST.

Hmm, a rouge card that synergies with event cards; now who could stand to benefit the most from that?

In all seriousness, this is a bit like Backpack in that you either build a deck around it, or you notice you have a large number of events in your deck already and might as well add it.

Any rouge that takes it will likely also want to consider Narrow Escape, Swift Reflexes, and Decoy for their symbols.

As for which investigator to give it you, signature events cards are a good place to look. Sefina get a whopping THREE extra Guts or Manual Dexterities, thanks to The Painted World, before she's even starts choosing cards, so for her, it's an auto-include. "Skids" O'Toole might want a look, what with On the Lam having the most skill icons in the entire game (counts as 4), as well as a selection of guardian event providing and icons. If you still hold out hope of Lola Hayes, two Unexpected Courages from Improvisation will be really nice, and EVERY event is at your disposal.

I personally am going to try an event heavy Rex Murphy deck, with lots of icons to proc his special ability, including Search for the Truth.

Lucaxiom · 4512
The Painted World won't attach to Crystallizer because it removes itself from the game instead of discarding, so Crystallizer can't replace the discard step with attachment (since the discard step has already been replaced). That said, she does still run a lot of events. I also really like the idea of running it with Rex Murphy. There are a lot of great seeker events with solid commit icons. — Death by Chocolate · 1488
I'm still intrigued by the idea of running this in a Patrice deck once Versatile comes out. . Dunno if it would really work, but in theory it offers the chance to double her hand size. Could be worth a try at least. — Sassenach · 180
TPW interaction is ambiguous. RAW it doesn’t work because in RAW there is no timing window between ‘playing’ and ‘discarding’ an event, however RAW actually means Crystallizer (and relatedly, Wendy’s amulet) doesn’t work *at all* which means there’s an issue with written rules — Difrakt · 1313
However, if changes to RAW create this timing window (this is anticipated) Crystallizer WILL work with TPW. Compare writing for TPW which creates a replacement effect, which Crystallizer can override, to Mystifying Song which never goes to the discard window because the remove from game is part of resolving the card. (Let’s pretend Marie would ever want to versatile this card) — Difrakt · 1313
Even if that is an issue, and even should the suggestion you make be implemented, Crystallizer still wouldn’t work with TPW. “All aspects of an effect have timing priority over all "after..." triggering conditions that might arise as a consequence of that effect.” All of the effects of playing TPW (including the RFG substitution) have timing priority over the Crystallizer’s ‘after’ ability. By the time it resolves, the discard ‘timing window’ has already been replaced and there is nothin for the Crystallizer to replace anymore. — Death by Chocolate · 1488
That’s for consequences of an effect, it doesn’t override priority for later conditions. — Difrakt · 1313
Hard to give a relevant example here. If TPW was play an event and draw a card’ you couldn’t trigger Double Double until after you had already drew the card, but that has nothing to do with the creation of floating conditions (the situation we’re dealing with here) — Difrakt · 1313
Right, but one of the consequences of ‘playing TFW’ is the floating replacement condition. See the FAQ on Wendy’s Amulet for the example involving Lure. Lure’s effect causes it to not be discarded at the end of resolving it. TFW does the same. The same principle applies if Wendy plays TFW (using “You Owe Me One”). YOMO would got to the bottom of her deck (after TFW was fully resolved), but TFW would not go to the bottom of Sefina’s deck. It would still RFG. (In contrast if Wendy played any other average event, that event would end up at the bottom of its owners deck, and then they’d draw cards and then YOMO gets bottom’d.) — Death by Chocolate · 1488
You’re confusing applicable rules, Wendy can’t send *any* card that she doesn’t own into her deck because it’s not her out of play area, but that has nothing to do with timing priority. The rule you’re talking about has to do with trying to nest a triggering condition in between effects listed into a card, it has nothing to do with effects created once the card has resolved which is the situation we’re dealing with here. Since TPW has fully resolved its text before it hits the ‘after playing’ window there is no timing priority, and we’re back to standard conflict of timing windows, which Crystallizer of Dreams can override. — Difrakt · 1313
Lure is even simpler and has nothing to do with timing priority: Wendy doesn’t bury lure into its deck because it never hits the replacement effect. If lure was ‘instead of discarding, attach’ then Wendy’s amulet would override the lure text as usual. — Difrakt · 1313
Okay, first of all I never said Wendy could put *any* card into her deck. The forced effect would trigger, but since she doesn’t own the card, it would go to its owners version of that out of play zone. But that’s not the point here. In a standard conflict of timing windows ‘after’ effects resolve last. Both TPW’s actual text and the hypothetical Lure text you propose create a floating effect that has already replaced the future event of discarding with a different game effect. When Crystallizer resolves, there is no conflict because Crystallizer can’t replace an effect that has already been replaced. TPW’s replacement clause isn’t ‘waiting around’ to trigger, it has already changed the future steps of its play resolution during the resolution of its game text. — Death by Chocolate · 1488
No that’s not how AHLCG works, the game is designed around a static set of timing windows and triggers that react to those timing windows. Lure doesn’t work with Wendy’s amulet because attachment prevents discard from ever occurring (read section on ‘attach to’). Wendy’s amulets forced conditions only fails because the FORCED effect only interacts at a specific point (after you play) and has a replacement condition (instead of discard) since the FORCED window expires without ever having a discard to replace that’s why amulet fails to affect lure, but again none of this applies to Crystallizer. — Difrakt · 1313
You need to review the ‘instead’/replacement effect section. They don’t change future conditions intrinsically, they create a floating trigger. In this way there isn’t a distinction between TPW and Crystallizer — Difrakt · 1313
Jesus Christ Guys. What happened while I was away?! — Lucaxiom · 4512
Thank you for directing me to the ‘instead’ entry. So, TPW would need to specify ‘would’ to ensure itself. Without that, the Crystallizer is the most recent replacement and thus takes precedent. — Death by Chocolate · 1488
Am I understanding correctly that if I add 1 Crystallizer to my deck, I set aside both Guardians as bonded cards? — alphasquid · 1

Scroll of Prophecies

Scroll of Prophecies

Let me list for you all the Mystic cards with a draw effect, up to Dream Eaters:

...That's it. In 92 mystic cards, Mystics have only four options for card draw. Four, because Quantum Flux and Scroll of Secrets draw one card for one action, the same as the default draw action all investigators can do. And Mystics have the most severe out of class restrictions among all the classes: Father Mateo only has a pseudo-draw with Grisly Totem, Akachi Onyele can only take Decorated Skull, Marie Lambeau can only take Feed the Mind (Hallowed Mirror and Occult Lexicon don't count; they add as many or more cards to your deck as they draw), Jim Culver has 5 extremely valuable slots for out of class cards, and only for lvl 0 cards.

To these investigators, Scroll of Prophecies is a GODSEND. It is consistent, reliable, and most importantly PREDICTABLE card draw, traits that only Sacrifice can boost, and that comes with, well, a sacrifice. the other options are dependant on the chaos bag (Jewel of Aureolus), the encounter deck (The Stars Are Right), or can only draw zero to one spell cards (Arcane Initiate). AND it occupies a hand slot, the second least contested slot for mystics (body being the first).

Now, the caveat. Must you include card draw in your deck? No, you don't. Mystic characters have been just fine up till now, and are not in any way beholden to Scroll of Prophecies. But this card allows you to play with more if not all of your deck in one scenario. You can include more skill cards and events with the fast keyword; high tempo cards with no lasting value. What I see in this cards is new deck archetypes opening up for Mystics, and I for one am excited to try a spell event heavy Agnes Baker again.

Lucaxiom · 4512

First Watch

First Watch

Getting the obvious out of the way; solid card in multiplayer, useless in single-player, cheap event that you'll always be able to play and rarely have a reason not to.

Now, with that said, I wish to talk about one very specific situation involving this card; the event you decide "screw it!" and subject yourself to four encounter cards in one phase. This will be a highlight of any game session, and I recommend trying it just for that reason, even if you perish in a hilarious fashion by your own hubris. In the spirit of trying to survive this self-imposed nightmare, here are three investigators who are most likely to pull it off:

1) Zoey Samaras

High ? Check. Benefits from drawing enemies? Check. Needs few cards to come online? Check. Zoey ties with Leo Anderson for highest among the Guardians, but Leo needs a few more cards out before he's ready to endure the encounter deck, and his 1 makes him slightly more vulnerable to the second most common skill test printed on encounter cards.

2) Diana Stanley

Most if not all Dianas will be running encouter hate, meaning that the're often disappointed when they couldn't cancel an effect because someone else drew it. No more! With the highest potential base and decent , she will be able to handle most tests that come here way. Her balanced health/sanity thresholds and access to guardian cards top off her status as most likely mystic to handle an encounter tsunami.

3) Jenny Barnes

Jenny might seem like a dubious choice to take on the mythos, but several rogue cards exist that help to this effect. Her decent and stats can be bolstered with Well Connected, or replaced with Money Talks, two cards that Jennys are already inclined to take. Tennessee Sour Mash helps both with checks AND enemies, Cunning with checks, and Jenny's Twin .45s with enemies too.

Lucaxiom · 4512
Nice card, but it feels like it could use some reworking; namely, for it to require the player to secretly look at the incoming mythos cards and distribute them, without consulting other players. For a zero level card that costs 1, it feels a bit too powerful and boggy. — Krysmopompas · 366