Disguise

This card seems pretty amazing, a +2 to evade in most characters who want to be evading enemies in the first place nearly guarantees success, and preventing the enemy from readying next upkeep seems like it would be really helpful for evasion, which is one of the most tempo positive but value negative basic actions in the game. However, this rubs up against the classic problem of middling cards in Arkham: the effect is nice, but not so transformative that it shakes up what your doing, and it is a nonbo with cards that do shake up what your doing, which means that it isn't exactly worth the deckslot despite having essentially no problems in a vacuum.

Specifically, a big problem with disguise in most characters who can take it is that rogues have other far stronger ways to counter the long term value problems evasion has, either via cards like Pickpocketing and Both of the Lucky Cig Cases to turn evasion into a value machine worth doing to the point you actively will keep enemies about to do it over and over, or cards like Dirty Fighting and .25 automatic to turn it into a very efficient kill tool. Or, even better, doing both.

Compared to drawing a bunch of cards and getting cash, or just nuking the enemy for 4 damage at a combat value of +4 for 1 action, exhausting the enemy an extra turn is... nice, but not exactly something you want to do in most cases. VS non-hunters usually an evaded enemy becomes irrelevant, and while exhausting a hunter for an extra turn is good, you need to use disguise at least twice with relevant exhausts and a relevant action you otherwise would like to take to see value for the action cost of playing it alone, forget about the 3 resources and a card, or the greater costs if you are using evade based econ which push the theoretical cost of this card very high indeed.

Usually, if your doing that many relevant evades, things are going so poorly disguise is probably not helping you that much. For the same reason, the tempo advantages of a longer exhaust are a bit questionable. While the exhaust lets you take heat off your primary combatant for longer by allowing you to evade more enemies if the board starts getting flooded (Ex: Using 2 actions to evade 4 enemies a turn instead of the 2 you normally could), if your combat potential is falling so far behind that you need to constantly exhaust enemies in a desperate bid to stay above water... it probably behooves you to just add more cards into your deck, such as good kill events or the aforementioned Dirty fighting alongside a .25 automatic and mauser, to ensure you don't get into that boardstate which is so poor that disguise, while theoretically helpful, probably won't actually get you to the point you win the game with.

There is one character that springs to mind as a good disguise user, and that is Rita. While Dirty Fighting is FAR more her speed, the lack of pickpocketing, lucky cig case, or the ability to combine dirty fighting with .25 auto means that evasions for Rita are mostly just a free 1 damage ping if she intends to kill the enemy, and a turn free of attack when she doesn't. While Rita is proficient at killing things, higher health normal enemies can definitely strain her coverage in a way they don't for 'real' rogues. For example, on a flop where you and another player draw an enemy each, and one of you has a 4 health nasty, a .25 auto+dirty fighting combo lets a rogue evader just nuke the 4 health beast in 1 action, leaving them 2 actions to engage and evade, but Rita doesn't really have that option, as she traded her non-event nuke potential for the consistency offered by survivor cards. Like many survivors, Rita doesn't often fall behind but lacks many tools to catch up, and stalling one enemy for 2 actions legitimately can give her the window she needs to 'catch up' and do a full clear of all enemies. It isn't amazing, nor essential for the character, but its definitely a card that has helped a relatively flat character become a lot more dynamic.

dezzmont · 210
By scenario 6 7 or 8, you’re really digging for static buffs. Disguise lets you evade even in really tough chaos bags, when just having the shoes and Peter out isn’t cutting it. — MrGoldbee · 1443
I think even in a limited collection environment, for Finn (the implied gator in this case), you have better options that don't disrupt your evasion economy as much if you have to handle the rare 4 or 5 evade enemy, and those options also are just better for other things too. For example, Flashlight (3), which Finn can also scavenge, and which solves the 'how do I handle clues' problem to boot which is far more a consistent concern for Finn than 'how do I evade enemies' problem, which he already can do quite easily in 90% of cases even on scenario 6, 7, and 8. In a larger collection, you have well connected (3), high roller, streetwise (3), red clock, Lola and/or Delilah, and just skills in general. You don't usually need to evade at 8 once a scenario, forget 4 times, outside the hardest difficulties, and in those you are much better off using the 'I win this test' tools rogue has, or just using a skill to get the first evasion and then killing the enemy. Why try using pickpocketing on a really hard to evade enemy when almost every encounter deck has a 1-3 evasion chump you can handle? — dezzmont · 210
Those are all XP Cards. Disguise is 0. — MrGoldbee · 1443
Yes, but if by scenario 6, 7, and 8 you don't have the Xp budget for a core 'this is how I pass tests' card, you are doing something wrong. Disguise's potential is probably stronger early campaign, as it can be used in a level 0 deck to make up for the lack of killing power .25 (2) and dirty fighting bring, but it definitely isn't a card I would want to have in most level 6, 7, and 8 rogue decks specifically to help me pass the test. By then, I should definitely have other stuff online that isn't just better than disguise, but anti-synergistic with it. — dezzmont · 210
I was very happy with this card in Rita, but I rarely used it on enemies, I wanted to defeat. The double turn down effect often buys you time to finish off a location and leave a non-hunter there with just one evade, but the best use case (in TFA) is the Boa Constrictor, who is hunter, but Vengeance 2, and with an enemy like that, Disguise buys so much time for you. I indeed also used it vs. the Harbinger, who in her Return-form starts with 4 evade, and still is alert, just for the +2 buff. That's a nice thing, that you can use it against elites, if you just need the buff, or against regulars, if you need to put them down for longer. — Susumu · 362
I found the +2 to be helpful in Kymani on higher difficulties when I needed to massively over-succeed to discard the enemy — mordequess · 36
Amnesia

As the two "draw, resolve, then immediately discard" weaknesses in the Core, Amnesia and Paranoia are obviously meant to be parallels. Their effects mirror each other, one discarding all but 1 card from your hand, the other discarding all your resources. However, this mirroring obscures the truth, that being that Amnesia is a far greater threat than Paranoia. Why? Because cards are, to quote a trend from 2020/2021, NFTs.

No 3 non-Myriad cards are the same; .45 Automatic is slightly different from .32 Colt, Dr. Milan Christopher provides resources where Whitton Greene provides cards, and Amnesia attacks the cards in your hand while Paranoia attacks the resources in your pool. What this means is that, technically, cards in your hand are non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, items that are not mutually exchangeable with each other. If you want Glory, a substitute won't work: you need Glory itself. Of course, cards can have similar effects and thus occasionally stand in for each other, like a deck running Enchanted Blade and Machete to provide a Melee weapon, but this only pushes my argument back, not defeats it; if the cards themselves are not, strictly speaking, NFTs, then the functions they fulfill are: if you want a Weapon, you need a proper Weapon, not something like Magnifying Glass.

Resources, by contrast, are fully fungible tokens; one resource is no better than any other. You don't need a Weapon resource to pay for Weapons or a Tool resource to pay for Tools; resources are resources are resources.

Therefore, while Paranoia clears your board of fungible tokens, Amnesia (almost) clears your hand of NFTs, something much more devastating. Losing 5 fungible tokens is bad, but possible to quickly recover from; the resources you generate in the following upkeep phases are functionally no different than the ones you just lost. With NFTs, though, if you lose them, you lose not just the tokens but the function they fulfill. You're not just discarding 4 cards, you're discarding a Weapon, a Tool, and 4 total skill icons, and if you want to recover those functions you need to find other cards that fulfill them; you can't just generate any random card during upkeep, you need it to be a card that does a specific (sometimes very specific) thing. And if one of the cards you discarded was a one-of, intended as tech against a certain scenario card, that can be very difficult.

I understand what Amnesia is trying to do, help slow players' card draw down. However, I believe that, as is, Amnesia is far too punishing and variable (the draw-heavy might never end up with this as their weakness while the poor gets it every single time) for it to be considered as fulfilling its purpose.

What on earth are you talking about. — fiatluxia · 65
Discarding resources isn't as impactful as discarding cards because resources are freely interchangeable (one resource is exactly the same as another resource) while cards can only be substituted in a limited way (if you want a Weapon, you need a Weapon, not just any old card off the top of your deck). Paranoia targets something that can easily be replaced, Amnesia targets something that requires a lot more work to recover. — NightgauntTaxiService · 392
Firstly, the metaphor falls apart because NFTs are essentially all interchangeable becauss they are all equally worthless. Second, this isn't really how it plays out in practice. While two given cards aren't the same barring specific decks you can't fully build around a single specific card, and even if you do it's unlikely to stay in your hand for a turn. Important cards naturally self select out of your hand because you play them. Amnesia IS worse, but its because cards are harder to get than resources and you tend to lose more cards (even before factoring that cards are more valuable) than resources. — dezzmont · 210
I will grant that you're right about NFTs in real life, and that the example I gave wasn't the best. Let me offer another one, one that hopefully does a better job of illustrating my point. You're playing a scenario with Ancient Evils in the encounter deck. In your hand, you have Ward of Protection to cancel Ancient Evils and Spectral Razor in case you draw an enemy. During upkeep, you draw Amnesia. Which safety net can you safely get rid of? Yes, if you had Paranoia as your basic weakness, you'd be in the same situation, but only for the next turn; you would be able to rebuild your board state to what it was pre-weakness quickly, whereas with Amnesia you would either have to get lucky with your draws or cycle through your whole deck. You’re right in that Amnesia doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) hit your crucial assets, but it can still cripple you by forcing you to get rid of your very helpful or niche skills and events. If you’re Preston and you draw Amnesia while you have Alter Fate in hand, do you lose the Alter Fate even though it’s your main defense against Frozen in Fear or do you sacrifice the rest of your hand for a “break glass in case of emergency” button? Of course, I understand that that’s what a weakness should do, disrupt a player’s turn, but I personally feel that Amnesia’s disruption is a bit too much. Even if it were just changed to “Choose and discard all but 2 cards from your hand,” I would be much more positive towards it. — NightgauntTaxiService · 392
It gets worse since cards gain even more value in upgraded decks. — AlderSign · 236
Improvised Weapon

With Parallel Roland Banks this card is now looking pretty great as a fast self recurring 1 cost 1-2 dmg attack. ||Roland has enough card draw options to see this cycle a couple times and passive strength boosts to put the test at anything but tentacle territory too.

Become a master improviser with Sleuth to unlock its true potential!

Word of Weal

Regarding the FAQs on this site, precisely the paragraph:

She uses High Roller on the test (it could be Teamwork'd over). [...] Adding High Roller’s bonus would only add +2 Willpower one time. She’d still test at 8.

That's not entirely true. There might be some card in the future are some cards in the pool, enabling that combination (although rather at random, see the comments below), but Teamwork is not that card. It allows to trade Item assets, Ally assets and resources. High Roller is none of the above, but a Talent.

Susumu · 362
Versatile into "You owe me one!" does the trick — Nenananas · 251
Yes. That's an incredible non-sense jank to do. And would only happen at random, after all, you don't know, if the other Player has high Roler in his hand. But I give you credit, that this in theoretical possible. — Susumu · 362
Black market high roller would also do the job pretty easily, if for some reason you wanted to make this happen — NarkasisBroon · 10
Yeah, I edit the review. — Susumu · 362
Jacob Morrison

Jacob Morrison is a good card if you are taking a lot of bless tech (like Keep Faith, Spirit of Humanity, & Favor of the Sun).

However, he does need to compete with other cards for deck space and there is one card in particular that is very similar to him: Granny Orne

Both cards are 3 XP.

Granny costs 1 more.

Granny gives a static +1 to 2 stats while Jacob has no stat boosts.

Granny gives a +1 to a failing test every round. Jacob gives a +2 after every time you draw a bless token but needs help generating those bless tokens.

Granny can soak more horror but less damage.

Conclusion: Granny is more versatile and can be powerful in a lot more decks. Jacob can be very good but needs a deck built to his strengths and even in the best of situations is only a little better than Granny.

david6680 · 63
+2 to change a failed test is much better than +1. Just think of a 2 shroud location where you can't fail if Jacob is ready (except the tentacle?). There might also other options to ready him outside of bless tokens like Pete's ability. — Tharzax · 1
No, Tharzax. The +2 from Jacob gets applied in conjunction with other modifiers, so you might still end up in failing a test. It's the same as with Lucky. (See the "Danny" example" in the RR for clarification.) I would say, though, that Jacob has an ability for any stat, not just willpower and intellect. If combat and agility are more relevant for your build, you will certainly prefere him. — Susumu · 362
I think the reason I so often prefer Granny is that the static +1 to Willpower is useful in every campaign and will sometimes prevent you from having to use the reaction to get a +1 so you can use it elsewhere. If you are building an enemy management character with bless tech, Jacob is better. In every other situation, I'd take Granny first. — david6680 · 63
Favor of the Sun does not only not work with Jacob, but even anti-synergizes with him... — AlderSign · 236