Eldritch Brand

Eldritch Brand

Regarding the line "Your deck cannot include more than 1 copy of your branded spell." I have two questions.

A.) Does this mean that when I buy this if I brand Sixth Sense (4) I have to also pay to replace any other copies of Sixth Sense as well. Or do we get to replace that card with a level 0 card of choice?

B.) Does the Eldrotch Brand stop same card by title. If I branded Shrivelling (3) for instance could I also have Shrivelling (5) in my deck?

Someguy842 · 2
The spell name is just the title of the card, not the level. Like you can not have two copies of Shrivelling (3) and two copies of Shrivelling (5) in your deck, only two copies accross all levels. (Unless wonky parallel deckbuilding rules allows you otherwise, but that was so far only for events.) If you upgraded two "Sixth Sense" first to level 4 (why? just don't), you will loose one of them. If you had one level 4 and one level 0, or two level 0 before, you can replace the level 0 with any other level 0 card for free, like in any other case, when you are forced to alter yor deck based on new deckbuilding rules. — Susumu · 374
Thanks for the reply. Your argument aligns with how I thought it would work but wanted to verify. I think this is a very solid card with a huge opportunity cost as you have to bank that 10xp will have to see if it makes it to the table outside TFA. — Someguy842 · 2

The Necronomicon

The Necronomicon

In addition to being a theming failure (@fistofyogsothoth covered this nicely already), this card was already too strong when abused alongside recursion effects like Scavenging or Library Docent, or with any of the other obnoxious combos people have already reviewed nicely.

With the Drowned City gator cards being released, the possible combos for this card have gotten even more disgusting: enter Library Pass. Combo this with Scroll of Secrets and now you can, with ZERO REQUIRED, do the following:

  • Put Necronomicon on Library Pass
  • Use all 6 charges (often just grabbing 2 clues for free, or doing 3 free damage and drawing 2 cards)
  • Don't pay the 1 resource and let the book go to the bottom of your deck
  • Use Scroll of Secrets(3) during any window between now and the start of your next turn to put Necronomicon back in your hand (and maybe throw away a weakness while you're at it)

3 rotations of Necronomicon not enough to break the scenario? No problem, recur your Scroll with Library Docent, or put more secrets on it with Eldritch Sophist (or any other secret-adding card), or use Ariadne's Twine.

This card needs to be taboo'd differently; until then I will not be playing it unless I'm in the mood for a free campaign win.

There are a few interesting ways this could be balanced. Perhaps something like

Cost: 10r This card costs 1 less resource for each horror on your investigator FORCED - When you play this card, take 2 horror

I'm also partial to the suggestion that you add a Madness to your deck when playing this. Dark secrets have dark prices!!

DanielD · 3
I like the idea of adding a weakness to your deck! — Valentin1331 · 76509
The issue is that the game designers cannot possibly make it Forbidden, because no one would then want to buy a pack of cards if the big shiny one in the box is forbidden... So they are a bit stuck with this atrocity. — Valentin1331 · 76509
Fair point re: not making the spiciest card in a box Forbidden... and honestly it doesn't really matter much imho, if a card is obviously too strong, it's easy to choose not to play it -- even if they hadn't made Double Double forbidden I suspect a lot of expert players would probably leave it in the binder after trivializing a few scenarios. — DanielD · 3
I think they forbidden double double just because they got tired of answering rules questions about it — OrionAnderson · 111
Double Double isn’t forbidden. — Eudaimonea · 5

Confiscation

Confiscation

Yikes. Shuffles back in if it doesn't hit. Can set you back a billion actions. Can make your dedicated killer helpless in the most critical of times. This card totally screws Mikey's engine of many guns out, pew pewing with each one of them. A weakness that can hit 3+ cards, totally 10+ resources, 3 play actions, 3 card draws worth for a total of 16ish "points" is beyond bad (granted some of those may be partially used up).

Even defending this weakness by calling it a free reload is not compelling. You are always drawing to find new guns. This just increases the chances to find those guns again in your undrawn cards. You're better off arguing that it proc's ETB (and LTB) effects.

AussieKSU · 1112
Seems weird to bring up the shuffle effect when the chance that hits is damn near zero. Not hitting a single gun in your deck before your weakness is barely ever going to happen. I agree it otherwise can be a nasty weakness that hits a bunch of cards, but its not exactly hard to play around "just dont put too many full guns down until you see your weakness" — Spamamdorf · 5
Yeah, this doesn't do as much as you're saying. You usually shouldn't have more than one loaded gun in play anyway, so it just comes down to random timing whether you lose one gun, half a gun, or none (in which case this weakness *is* all upside). If this ever hits more than one loaded gun, you screwed up. — Thatwasademo · 58
And if you use one handed weapons and have Robert out, playing them again brings you an advantage. Also consider fence to bring back your guns fast. All in all it quite easy to work around this weakness. — Tharzax · 1
What's more, the ways to "play around" this weakness are good plays in a Michael deck anyway - e.g. playing several guns quickly is something you want to do in the first place, not a burdensome counter-play that clogs your deck. — AlderSign · 370
@thatwasademo You do probably want more than one gun down, since Michael's refund ability is only once per turn per gun, so if you spend two bullets from the same gun in one turn you're losing value. However, it's not difficult to simply wait until a gun is getting low before committing to playing more of them to mitigate the chance of this weakness hitting 4 fully loaded guns. — Spamamdorf · 5
It's unthematic, but you can run a melee weapon like knuckledusters or switchblade on Michael and use the guns as luxury. — OrionAnderson · 111
@OrionAnderson: That's actually true. The "only" bonus his guns really give him are resources and resources alone don't win you the game. — AlderSign · 370

Blood of Thoth

Blood of Thoth

This card is atrocious. Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder Placeholder

Lucaxiom · 4484
So is this "review". — Susumu · 374
Joins Ethereal Weaving and Henry Wan as one of the most unusable cards in the game. — Prototivity · 1
Oh I gotten Henry Wan to the point of being useful. Stuff the chaos bag with bless and curse tokens and you can reliably draw 3 cards for an action with him. And Ethereal Weaving is nearly unworkable right now, but it would only take one or two more non-fast, non-zero cost spell events with tests on it from future expansion to bring it up to usable. — Lucaxiom · 4484
But Blood of Thoth? It takes FOUR ROUNDS of placing doom on a card your control to get your play action refunded, then FOUR MORE to get an action return, which means after eight rounds of risking early advancement (and losing at minimum 3 per intestigator actions), you get the value equivalent of 2 resources for an action. Swift Reflexes achieves the same deal with no risk. And your not getting a third action; scenarios take a median of 14-16 rounds; to get three procs off BoT is to play it in round 1 or 2, then place 9 doom on only cards you control. It's not worth it. And you can't cheese the card like you can cheese Henry. You can't place offerings on BoT through other means. You can't ready it with mystic cards. You can't cheat the additional action in any way. — Lucaxiom · 4484

The Great Work

The Great Work

Pros:

  • Provides 1 additional XP after each scenario (duh).
  • Doesn't kill you outright after being defeated unlike Charon's Obol.
  • Is a Science asset, so can be taken on Kate Winthrop alongside the usual Mystics and investigators with level 0 Mystic access.

Cons:

  • If you're defeated once, you get Homunculus'd - meaning you can't change your deck, you get a load more basic weaknesses, and your statline will make you want to cry.
  • Two strikes and you're out, if you're defeated again you're killed.
  • May encourage cheating: "If I hadn't drawn the I wouldn't have been defeated, so let's ignore it!"

Deckbuilding Tips:

  • Pairs well with Arcane Research and Down the Rabbit Hole - synergising by offering more XP.
  • In the Thick of It is less worth it, as in 3 scenarios you'll have earnt that XP back from the Great Work, and the trauma puts you at risk of Homunculus-ing (I know Arcane Research provides trauma as well, but Arcane Research has a much greater pay-off).
  • For Dexter, Sefina, Charlie and Lola, it pairs well with Charon's Obol - as realistically the Homunculus is annoying enough that death may be preferable!
  • Transfiguration can un-Homunculus you for a scenario. Obviously you need to buy this before you Homunculus as you can't change your deck at that stage. Charlie and Lola are good Transfiguration abusers in particular given their wide card pool. EDIT: As mentioned below, The Red-Gloved Man, Summoned Hound and similar can help with the Homunculus statline - but I'd still advocate for not becoming the Homunculus in the first place!
  • You'll want to consider how many upgrade points there are in your campaign, and so how much bonus XP you'll be earning. I usually use 8 scenarios with 7 upgrade points as my rule of thumb for XP-boosting cards (with some luxury XP upgrades in your back pocket if the campaign goes on longer).

Other points to note:

  • From the discussion in the comments below, the jury's out on how the Homunculus will work with Exile effects. I'd imagine this has been asked of FFG so hopefully there will be an FAQ on this at some point.

I just posted a Dexter deck today using both this and Charon's Obol (on the 1st April no less...). Generally as mentioned above you should think out your upgrade path for a Great Work deck before starting a campaign, as analysis-paralysis is common if you're awash with XP. It's also good to think about your backup plan should your investigator die (Ascetic decks are a good tool for this, I posted an Ascetic Kymani deck in the past month with the goal of replacing killed investigators). That's all there is to say really - watch out for the Homunculus!

HungryColquhoun · 9147
I don't think that's all there is to say; if you get some base skill value override like The Red Gloved Man, Trial by Fire or Eye of the Djinn the skill boost for spells is actually very nice. — AlderSign · 370
Also, being a homu also protects you from gaining scenario weaknesses. — AlderSign · 370
What I am uncertain about is if it lets you abuse exile. (Sorry for spamming, my fingers were faster than my homunculus brain.) — AlderSign · 370
That's a good catch about Exile cards. I think, some, like Fire Extinguisher (1, because Exile is a cost, 3, because you may exile to do the ability) or "Stroke of Luck" should not work, but "Test of Will", Flare, "Unscrupulous Loan", "Guiding Spirit", Guiding Teddy and so on should work. — Susumu · 374
Interesting points AlderSign, I'll add some of these. Still, I think the idea should be avoiding becoming the homunculus - as Red Gloved Man will only save you for a turn or two. — HungryColquhoun · 9147
I feel like this card, just like Obol, would encourage people to _only_ run it in the most broken builds. I.e. not run in fun-jank builds. — 1337duck · 1