I love this spell, and I think it outclasses most other high level combat spells for general use.

For Mystics, one less XP than either Shrivelling (5) or Azure Flame (5), gets you three less total damage and one less +skill value. You also get a downside that is both less likely to trigger on its own and is completely mitigateable by spending other actions first.

But the real upside here is choosing how much of that 9 damage to spend on every attack. No more wasting a three damage charge on an enemy with only one or two health. Charges are also only spent when you succeed, so bad luck with the chaos bag doesn't waste charges. You will get the full nine damage out of this every time.

Nearly every other mystic combat spell demands you combine it with some sort of chaos bag manipulation to get the best results, either to find or avoid specific tokens. Brand of Cthugha works at full effectiveness straight out of the box.

The one downside is that Brand of Cthugha does not get as much benefit out of charge reloading cards as its higher level peers. Each charge is only worth one damage, so you wouldn't waste time reloading it with a Recharge or Book of Shadows. This is the ultimate Mystic sidearm, not a god slayer, so plan accordingly.

But let's not forget that this card is dual class, too! Most Guardians aren't doing much with their arcane slots, so Brand of Cthugha slots in nicely as a sidearm that doesn't take up a hand slot. This works well for any Guardian who would rather not dedicate their body slot to a Bandolier to hold a sidearm. Tommy Muldoon and his Leather Coat come to mind, along with anyone running Flamethrower looking to save supplies while picking off runts.

I am finishing up playing a campaign with this guy, I've never played him before and I kinded of questioned the viability of him as the main monster slayer, I never really experience playing survivors until recently and seeing the type of cards he takes,I was curious on how he performs. I guess I am extremely glad I decided to play him with a full collection. Especially with cards from the innmouth conspiracy.

Survivors, hands down, are the best when it comes to bless tech, and their ability to laugh at the discard pile makes this staggering. Ancient Covenant paired with favor of the sun is a power couple. Keep faith is excellent at generating the needed bless token to fuel your bless tech. This I knew from testing with other survivors.

My basic weakness I got for him was paranoia. A pretty bad weakness for somebody who wants to play play,play. I thought I was gonna have a lot of trouble paying for the items that he needed to be the monster masher, and I probably would have if his ability didn't allow him to play AN asset from his discard, or he didn't have guardian access.

Enter Rite of Sanctification.

I can fill the bag up with tons of bless token, so filling the 5 count is easy, the -2 is pretty bonkers, since it doesn't care what card your playing for. Keep faith? Free. Key of ys? 1 buck. Hunting rifle? 1 buck. Favor of the sun? Free. It also discards itself, so I can kill a target, and bring it back, ready for more discounts. The same is with Favor of the sun, play it back for more guarantees. There wasn't a monster I couldn't kill, a card I couldn't play. I had 6 resources, pulled paranoia during upkeep, and could still play weapons and event cards. It's silly, and strong.

If you haven't tried a bless yorick build, try it. It's loads of fun!

A new niche to the Cat could be Butterfly Swords Lily Chen.

Why her?

The reason is rather simple: the Swords make pull 2 tokens per attack and therefore this is that many more chances to pull a Symbol token that often results in very sad outcomes especially in Hard/Expert.

The cat mitigates this risk.

To make the best out of it, attach 2 Trusted to the cat, if you're really pushy you can get The Star • XVII and let the cat do his job. Then with all these tokens, you will eventually find the that you probably wouldn't have used as most of the time your Disciplines are Unbroken.

Of course we're all thinking of Bob Jenkins using his additional action to play this during his turn, not taking an AoO, and getting that extra damage and boost. But if you're running Joey "The Rat" Vigil and Shrewd Dealings (and of course you are) , you can also play this for any investigator at your location, during their turn. The downside is that no one can sell the empty gun back to Joey, but this could save a character struggling with ammo, actions, or resources while engaged to an enemy.

Now that this card has been tabooed, it is worth another review.

Cycling your deck will not help you anymore to use this card multiple times per Scenario.

Is it still worth it then?

1xp for 3 cards that make you draw 3 other cards: they replace themselves. They also provide you with resources (1 per card), and an auto success. The success can be really helpful, especially in a class that often runs really low on .

Compared to Easy Mark, you get 3 fewer resources, you need to find the 3 of them to play them otherwise you're stuck, but it gives you an auto success.

The 2 questions to ask yourself are then:

• Do I draw enough to see the 3 copies during each scenario? If yes, then go to the next question, if not, then it is wasted XP and deck space.

• Do I have enough space in my Deck to play this? This is not really a good deck thinner as there are chances that you see the last copy quite far in your deck and therefore in the Scenario.

•• It also counter-synergises with Versatile that you may use to add Track Shoes as it makes just fewer chances overall to find the 3 copies consistently.

TL;DR: This is good for a 1xp set of cards: it fits in some decks (high draw + Deck space available), not a lot, and is welcome for tests but doesn't change the course of a scenario.