Ravenous Myconid

When i first saw these Myconids (This one and the one for threacheries) i immediately voiced my concern, but was bashed a bit and told how limit 1 per deck is enough of a restriction to not make it too powerful. Well, having played 2 full campaigns now with them, i officially declare them BANNED at my table. Don't think it was banned by me alone, but my whole group unanimously agreed that we haven't seen anything so broken as these 2 motherfuc*ers ever since my friend abused the crap out of The Necronomicon, so we kiiinda semi-banned it. But that semi-ban of the book was simple, we all agreed not to abuse it like crazy and if we play it fair and square you are allowed to put it in your deck. It is a co-op game, so it is not a big issue as we are all friends and like to have fun, which is the most important thing in this game. Fun!

Now these 2...oh boy, where to start? I cannot even complain about them that much because we all just vented out in person, so i will just say a couple of things. They are so insanely broken that i cannot wrap my head around how the fck they got out of print like this, but the same brain thought that this for 4xp is fair but a card like Miracle Wish which is just a bit improved Lucky! in Guardians costs 5xp, and you have to wait to see some blesses before you play it LMAO, and don't get me started on Flurry of Blows! You see, when this bad boy hits the table, you just play the normal game as a seeker. You for free trigger get the event to investigate, and as you already have ATLEAST 4 or 5 int as a base stat, you will probably have something to commit or have other boosts like Dr. Milan Christopher or Magnifying Glass or some skills, so you will get this creature powered up almost every turn. So if you pick the one for threacheries, you just move with Shortcut or Pathfinder or any other move effect that you have in your deck, and make yourself safe. If you don't have them, you just spend 1 action to move, you know, the action which you have to use anyway if you wanna get to the next location and progress the game? Or if you are not so sure about the shroud, just move back once if you wanna feel secure, or stick at your location as you already know the shroud so you make sure you succeed for the right amount. And what does it give you? Well, not so strong effect if we ask the designers. You just get a free Ward of Protection or the insane enemy deleter that guardians can only dream of. The whole community is bitching about seekers not being fair and how their enemy removal is even stronger than what guardians have, and the designers answered our calls and made sure that now they don't even need to spend the ONLY thing they had to do, which is use an action for it!! You don't even spend an action to fight anymore, you just investigate and when an enemy shows you eat it. No test, nothing. What the actual fck?

Imagine if guardians had a card which takes up no slots, okay make it limit 1 per deck (which would nerf them because they are not even close to the drawing power of seekers) and make it cost 4xp. The card says = Whenever you defeat an enemy, place X growth on this card. Free trigger = spend X growth, discover that many clues". What idiot would not play that card? It would be the most broken shit in the game, but then you still have to wait for enemies to show up so you can use it so it means it is STILL WORSE than this card, because with this thing you progress the game as usual and then when an enemy shows up, then you react to it. What.The.Fck? This is just straight up ban, if you don't believe me, play an optimized seeker and see for yourself. Both versions are completely banned at my table, period. We will only use the third one which seems like an actually playable and strong card, without this all seeker bias.

Blood&gore · 352
At the very least, it does say non elite so you can't *totally* solo the scenario, but yes it's definitely an egregious amount of power for a card to have in the class that's supposed to be bad at fighting enemies. — Spamamdorf · 1
'Cause if you feed me, Seymour I can grow up, big and strong Would you like a Cadillac car? Or a guest-shot on Jack Paar? How about a date with Hedy Lamarr... You gonna git it! — MrGoldbee · 1391
Survival Technique

At the time of writing (before Hemlock Vale Encounter Cards are added to the database), a rough search shows that 17 treacheries attach to locations and test some skill and 21 treacheries attach to locations and have a // ability, which likely involves a skill test. Combining and eliminating duplicates and duds in both results gives us 18 treacheries that actually has "a skill test on a treachery attached to your location". Add the 2 new "attach to location and test" treacheries from Hemlock Vale (edit: there are 3 but one can usually only be tested from a connecting location) and that gives 20 valid treachery targets for Survival Technique, more or less.

As for locations, depending on search criteria anywhere from ~150 to over 450 turn up so let's just say it's more difficult to give an accurate estimation.

Notably this can boost the basic Investigate test on Searching for Izzie, but given that Jenny cannot actually use Survival Technique without advanced jank and less roundabout ways such as Flashlight (3) or commiting skill cards being available, it's more a curiosity than a legitimate answer to that weakness.

But back to the topic of treacheries from the encounter deck. Even if one may think "Sweet! Now I can get +2/+4 on my Locked Door test!" or likewise, Alter Fate (1) from the same faction takes care of most problems of similar calibre with the same one action and testlessly. So ultimately, my final verdict for the second ability on Survival Instinct is that be glad if it comes up but don't count on it to save your run.


The first ability is where the real meat is at. Being able to recycle the likes of Shrine of the Moirai and Barricade (3) is obviously very good and in the latter case potentially scenario-breaking, but I believe the best "attach to location" event that synergizes with Survival Technique is Breach the Door.

Breach the Door is a decent card that allows monster killers to help with clueing duty in 1-2 locations per game, Now Survival Technique asks: What if you can do it more than twice? Better yet, what if you can use BtD to reduce the shrouds of multiple locations to 0, multiple times per game?
Shed a Light already showed us how broken 0-shroud locations can be and it got instantly chained. But aside from that. a bunch of other cards also interact with shroud, with Lola Santiago being the most prominent example. It is a combo so amazing that it's worth building around, from the econ to repeatedly replay BtD, Farsight to play it fast, ways to tutor for both cards and whatnot.

I think two investigators in particular would want to take a long hard look at the ST-BtD combo:

  • Charlie Kane. Has access to both cards and Lola Santiago. Get Bonnie Walsh in play and maybe add an Inspiring Presence to your 0-difficulty investigation test to overwork poor Ms. Santiago into giving you 3 testless clues for free per round. He could have trouble oversucceeding on the Breach test, but hey, that's what his allies are for.
  • Kate Winthrop. Has access to both cards as well as Ravenous Myconid (Sentient Strain), Farsight and Barricade (3). When your location's shroud is 0, Myconid can block any non-weakness treacheries you draw even at 0 growth (because 0 shroud is equal to 0 growths and the cancel itself already changes game state). Combine with Barricade (3) to build a command center that's also a literal fortress where nobody except an Elite boss can get in. She can also stack +2s with her Flux Stabilizer to help with the oversuccess.

William Yorick, "Ashcan" Pete (normal and parallel) and Tommy Muldoon can also take this combo (edit: Daniela Reyes can too! Thanks to MrGoldbee for the catch), and could probably play it to decent effect though definitely not as spectacular. Probably involves way too many role changes to be worth it on Lola Hayes though.

koaexe · 25
You forget the 5 Fight survivor, Daniella! — MrGoldbee · 1391
Nice review! I hadn't realised about the combo with Breach the Door until someone else mentioned it to me recently, but it's definitely a cool one. Definitely want to build a deck around it at some point... — HungryColquhoun · 2194
Nothing requires Jenny to actually search for Izzie herself. She can certainly delegate the job to Minh or Darrell or whomever. — OrionAnderson · 26
Of course, I have tried to build this Kate deck already. I gave up on Farsight because I needed to drop clues for the Combat Test, and Press Pass was more experience-economical to get this one extra action. Other interesting things are that Kate can actually take Shed a Light, Seeking Answers (2) is a great way to leverage your 0-shroud location, and Stirring up Trouble gets you 2 clues for free. But in practice, the deck was horrible to play and assembling it was slow and tedious, especially compared to how fast other seeker decks can be. Here is the link if anyone is curious: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/3670649 - Now to mention this combo in particular, I agree with MrGoldbee that Daniella is probably the best user I can think of, as she usually fights enemies outside of her turn, doesn't have loads to do during her turn, and doesn't usually need much experience to reach her ceiling, so Shed a Light, OK(3) and Survival Technique are easy to get. — Valentin1331 · 55120
Thanks a lot for the catch and feedback! I have updated my review to include the stuff I missed. Regarding Searching for Izzie, I guess I just wanted to point out it is also a skill test on an "attach" treachery as a curious observation, but ultimately that weakness is defined more by its action tax than the basic investigation, so it was probably an unnecessary tangent. — koaexe · 25
Also, glad to see another great deck from Valentin! I was actually inspired by your thoughts in #deck-tech of the Mythos Busters Discord to write this review and it is amazing to see you improving on this concept. I'm now on my second run of Hemlock Vale as Kate and I'll definitely try to pivot into your deck to see more of it in action. — koaexe · 25
Oh please, don't! This deck link I have posted was more a thought experiment to see if abusing Breach the Door and the Myconid was possible. Turns out that in practice, it is really not so fun and doesn't even work so well, so don't waste your time with this! — Valentin1331 · 55120
Certainly, I understand what you mean now. Went through Written in Rock last night and it was rather miserable. I was perpetually broke and most of the time didn't have more than 2 clues to place. Now I see the problem is that without some really powerful multi-clue action you're just using your actions such that others can do your job for you. I still think ST+BtD is worth trying, but perhaps only in Daniella as you and MrGoldbee suggested. — koaexe · 25
I like that Tommy Can put BtD on Stick to the Plan to make the combo MUCH more consistent, and it's thematic for him too. — Death by Chocolate · 1359
Friends in Low Places

This is the only card that can tutor Rituals or Talents, making it very attractive for builds using those.

Especially given the renewed interest in bless/curse, this card can really help find Favor of the Sun/Moon.

drjones87 · 165
Chemistry Set

I was excited by this card when I first saw it, but having now finished a campaign as Kate I think it’s only okay-ish. At first glance this card looks like clue acceleration that comes with nifty consolation prizes if you don’t hit the +4 test result for the extra clue, but I quickly realized that I overestimated how often I could force the result I wanted. There were plenty of times I wanted to pick up two clues in a single action (very easy to do with other level 0 cards like Deduction or Fingerprint Kit) but test result just didn’t come out the way I needed.

As it turns out, consistently succeeding by exactly 4 is not easy to manage. Steady-Handed expands the range to 3-5 to get the extra clue and Fine Tuning gives you two attempts per turn, but at this point you’re devoting additional assets (not to mention experience points) to an effect that still isn’t guaranteed to pay out when you need it. It’s worth mentioning that none of these cards are Fast.

With any clue acceleration that relies on Investigate checks you can pull the tentacle and fail, and that’s true of Chemistry Set too, but Chemistry Set has the additional problem that there are lots of other tokens you can pull from the bag that will ensure you get absolutely no benefit from the Chemistry Set at all. The most common way to miss out on a Chemistry Set payout is to pull a token with a larger negative value than you were planning for, but it also feels bad to miss out on the extra clue because you pulled a positive token and got a result that’s too successful to provide a benefit. A levelled up Chemistry Set that exhausts after you pull the token would help avoid a lot of wasted activations and feel-bad moments.

Sure, even when Chemistry Set doesn’t pay out you still get the basic clue from the Investigate test, but that would also be true if I hadn’t spent the action and resources to play Chemistry Set in the first place. Even the tool synergies seem underwhelming, since there are a lot Tools that help you investigate and provide more reliable benefits than the Chemistry Set (such as Lockpicks, Old Keyring, Mariner's Compass, Magnifying Glass, Fingerprint Kit and Ice Pick, to name a few).

To be clear, Chemistry Set paid out cards/resources a few times every scenario I played it, and sometimes even helped me pick up extra clues. It isn’t a terrible card and it does explore interesting new territory for Seeker assets. However, even with multiple support cards in play it often didn't pay out when I needed it to. With the notable exception of Kate and her Science synergy, I think Chemistry Set is more of a novelty than a staple.

Pseudo Nymh · 40
I feel that the discover additional clue function of CSet is a trap. You shouldn’t be using this I don’t think as clue acceleration- it exhausts, it gives no boost, it requires a very specific succeed by and therefore needs those other pieces to even be semi reliable. I think this works as a Seeker Lucky Cig Case, though worse without other pieces that trigger succeed by (and therefore works better with other pieces that care about succeed by). Getting extra cards or resources most turns seems good enough for a slot that is generally not too competitive in Seeker at level 0. That said, I think LCC is much better. — StyxTBeuford · 12918
It's definitely closer to an economy card than a clue accelerator, but I'd still say it's less consistent than several other Seeker economy options (even at level 0). — Pseudo Nymh · 40
Grizzled

The basic or specialist-ized versions seem like they reliably give 3 or more wild icons almost all the time if you do a little planning and jumping through hoops. But Survivors have always been able to get lots of wild icons on 1-2 XP skills and occasionally on 0s. This one is solid but not especially exciting as far as that goes.

Mythos-hardened seems pretty bad outside of extremely niche counterplay situations. I rarely want to spend that much XP just to prevent one copy of one treachery from coming back, let alone limiting myself to a subset of traits and requiring a test and locking up an otherwise good card. "Fool me once..." and The Eye of Truth put this to shame.

Nemesis seems okay as multiplayer support (take elite trait for boss fights) or to enable Exploit Weakness, but I have little to say about it. No, the only really interesting part of the card, IMO, is Always Prepared, which lets you return one of these cards to your hand once per round if you draw the right kind of encounter. In one sense, 5 XP feels like a lot to spend on a card with no action compression at all, just to pass tests. On the other, a lot of decks do run multiple 2-3 XP assets that are mainly for skill boosting and test-passing. If we can actually make this trigger at least every other round, it might be worth while.

One nice thing about Always Prepared is that while Nemesis and Mythos-hardened only trigger if you actually commit Grizzled against the encounter card, Always prepared doesn't require you to be testing against the card at all. You get it back in your hand to do whatever you like with as long as you drew the right type of card. I believe it should even work when you draw weaknesses from your own deck, if the traits match.

This will be especially valuable if you have special incentives to commit cards to tests (Sea Change Harpoon), other uses for cards in hand (Wendy Adams, Cornered, Celaeno Fragments), or a tendency to draw extra encounter cards (Kicking the Hornet's Nest, Drawn to the Flame, Nature of the Beast, Nine of Rods).

I can especially see Patrice Hathaway taking this traited with "monster" and some common treachery traits like terror, hazard, or madness. She'll get one in the discard early and pull it back every time she hits a monster in the encounter deck, draws into her personal weakness, or fishes out a treachery, and she can just throw it into an invetigate or away for vioin money. If she misses she can fish with Drawn to the Flame and Nature of the Beast for more matches. "Ashcan" Pete can do most of the same stuff.

William Yorick can go tell others to "Let me handle this!" or take First Watch to make sure he gets his triggers in. (Calvin Wright also gets some of these options).

It's never going to be as viscerally exciting as firing up a Lightning Gun, Seal of the Elders, or The Black Fan, but I think it has enough value to be worth a shot.

It probably shouldn't be among the first two traits, she chooses, but if Patrice takes "Extradimensional" as a third or forth option, (and obviously has "Monster" as one of the initial traits), this cards give her 5 icons against her Watcher. — Susumu · 330