Heirloom of Hyperborea

Heirloom of Hyperborea

With so much time having gone by since the release of this card, I thought it might be time for a re-appraisal. While I still think it's fairly weak, as far as signature cards go, the card pool has expanded vastly since the Core Set, giving this card a total of 20 spells to work with (including her weakness). Let's take a look at how likely it is to play six spells over the course of a game nowadays.

Very beneficial to Agnes is the fact that many newer spell events are fast. For instance, Aggy gets a free draw from Hypnotic Gaze, Ward of Protection, Mind Wipe, Counterspell and Time Warp. All of these are perfectly reasonable includes for Agnes, so her odds of getting a double benefit from them are good. In the same vein, many spell events take actions that you might be taking anyway, giving you another double benefit situation with her necklace out. These include Astral Travel, Bind Monster, Blinding Light and Storm of Spirits. Uncage the Soul isn't a spell, but it does put spells into play very cheaply for Agnes, so in a way it triggers the amulet. Getting a free draw for playing spells even makes some sub-par includes like Alchemical Transmutation and Recharge more attractive, since she gets the draw even if the spell fails. Running a doom-heavy deck? Moonlight Ritual is a spell! Free draws!

With the variety of spells necessary for this to be decent in place, we come to the other problem with the card: that darn accessory slot. While Holy Rosary is obviously terrific for Agnes, she has other options to bring her up to six at level 0; specifically David Renfield. I'm not saying she shouldn't run the Rosary; it's incredible on her. But I do think the Heirloom has enough triggers in the game now that it is competitive for the slot, and makes Relic Hunter a very tempting include for her.

Are all the problems solved? Is it worth playing late? Is it as good as Zoey's Cross? Absolutely not, but I think it's a much harder decision now whether to mulligan it out of the starting hand or play it first turn over Rosary. In a deck that's built around having spells to play, which is totally realistic now, it would be a very powerful card.

Spells continue to be released, and they can only make this more powerful.

SGPrometheus · 856
Hilariously Time Warp doesn’t work with the heirloom because the reaction trigger is ‘after you play’ a spell, but after you play Time Warp, the game state reverts to before the action - which Is a game state that is NOT immediately after a spell was played. That said, still a great card she might want to run. — Death by Chocolate · 1492
I don't think that's correct; Time Warp completely resolves first (resetting the action), THEN you get the opportunity to react to it being played. You wouldn't draw the card from playing Shriveling until after Shriveling was in play and has resolved; Time Warp is confusing, but the same. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not like in Magic where you can respond to the spell being played, but before it resolves. In either case, Time Warp resets the game state to how it was before THAT action; Time Warp isn't that action, so our response to it is not inside its purview. — SGPrometheus · 856
@DeathbyChocolate If you read the last bullet of the FAQ for Time Warp, it says that Time Warp is still "being played while you are resetting things," so we definitely can't respond to it with the amulet until after everything's reset, since it hasn't been played yet. — SGPrometheus · 856
I do agree that Uncage the Soul was a big help to this card. It's now much easier to play this on turn 1 without cripplingly slowing the rest of your setup. Still, the overall rewards from this card are probably going to be pretty modest even now. — CaiusDrewart · 3202
Backpack helps you locate this card — Django · 5172
Django: But would most Agnes-decks have enough items to make Backpack worth it..? — olahren · 3651
@caiusdrewart You might be right; I tried building a really spell-heavy Agnes deck on here but it felt pretty sub-par, especially if you never saw the amulet (since it's a one-of). — SGPrometheus · 856
olahren: That's not the point and not a good idea. Backpack can help you locate a single card, even if you waste the rest of it's effect. Her amulet wants spells not items. Not sure if you could built a mystic deck around items at all, to make real use of backpack.. — Django · 5172
I think the addition of Mists of R'lyeh and Shards of the Void has also helped to solidy this card. Sacrifice interacts with this card in a weird way - it's easier to play more spells because you have more resources, but you can't discard this card with Sacrifice and this card can result in you reaching a saturation point where you just don't need more card draw because all that does is cycle cards in your hand. — Katsue · 10
"Getting a free draw for playing spells even makes some sub-par includes like Alchemical Transmutation and Recharge more attractive" - I'm sorry but no, it does not. Having two cards that can combo of each other does not mean automatically mean that the combo is good or warrants investment, and you always have to take into account that you may not have the pieces for your combo, meaning that each card must have an intrinseque value (except if the combo is so OP that it would win the game by itself, but this is not the case). It is NEVER a good idea to include sub-par cards in your deck (and mind that they are taking slots for cards that could ACTUALLY be useful), especially not for a pretty weak combo on the chance thay maybe you might get 1 free draw. Oh and by the way, that draw is not actually free, because you still have to play the spell (1 action) and its cost (1 resource for Alchemical Transmutation). Sooooooooo basically, you'd be better off just using the Draw action instead of playing any of these cards. — Alleria · 116
@alleria Oh yeah, those cards are still really bad. "More attractive" isn't "auto-include," far from it; but if you think those spells are interesting and want to chuck them in for funsies, good news; they suck less! Furthermore (and unrelated), TCU introduced a whole swath of spell cards that make this a pretty crazy engine. — SGPrometheus · 856
the Dream Eaters spell events probably make this even better now. you could build a spell event focused deck and use this to help refill your hand with said events — Zinjanthropus · 231
Also combos with Dayana. — Zinjanthropus · 231

Sacrificial Beast

Sacrificial Beast

This card really screws you over more often than not. Green Man Medallion is great, but Sacrificial Beast often spawned in a locked location, essentially blanking Jenny and Lone Wolf for entire scenarios for me.

lootfisk · 3
There are a couple of cards that allow you to deal damage to monster that aren't on your location or even move them to your location. Sacrificial Beast isn't an elite enemy which means there are quite a bunch of cards that can deal with him from afar. — Hitchslapped · 1

Recall the Future

Recall the Future

Defiance, eat your heart out. (Worth it!)

This card is basically insurance against the chaos bag. All of those narrow "I am fine so long as I don't draw this token" situations can now be eliminated due to this card. It works really well with cards that draw multiple tokens and might have some interactions with ritual candles (which, again have interesting interactions with multiple token draw cards).

Add in some token sealing and you have some consistent tests. Most mystics will like this card, but it will really shine in any investigator (Jim Culver and Father Mateo especially) that is considering the upcoming Olive Mcbride and Dark Prophecy.

-Edit-

This card does some serious work with Premonition, Olive McBride and Dark Prophecy. I also think that this package is particularly potent in Sefina Rousseau as she also has a pretty bomb diggity elder sign trigger AND she can play premonition on tests with cards like Double or Nothing.

So in closing, this card is amazing. Play it with Premonition, Defiance, Dark Prophecy and Olive and you should be well on your way to having a consistent experience through Hard difficulty.

Myriad · 1226
Can you trigger 2 of these on each test? — Rio_D · 14
Yes. You can either double up on the same token OR name two different tokens. In either case, they only exhaust if you named a token you pull. — Myriad · 1226
Could you name a "numeric" chaos token, like say "-3"? I guess you can, correct? — XehutL · 48
Yes — Myriad · 1226
Obviously, announcing this every time you make a test is a real pain. The solution is simple. Announce that you will always be naming -4, and a -3 if you have a second one out, unless you say OTHERWISE. Then, place a -4 token on one, a -3 token on the other, and just play. If you pull a -4, exhaust the -4 Recall. If you pull a -3, exhaust the -3 Recall. If you don't want to waste it, announce before you pull, "No Recalls on this." This methodology will save you a bunch of time. And, oh yeah, Recalls are so freaking good, it's ridic. 2 cost/2 exp, slot-less, always just sitting there being powerhouses. I love this card a LOT. — crymoricus · 252
Cant wait to try it in Jaqueline. Should be very likely to trigger it. — Someguy11 · 1
How does this work together with Sacred Covenant? Can I draw a blessed, then draw something that makes the bless unnecessary, then use Sacred covenant to put the bless back into the chaos bag and still — trumpetfish · 21
Get the boost from recall the future, as the Bless token was revealed (without resolving)? — trumpetfish · 21
Sacred Covenant doesn't cancel or ignore the token and it only says that you ignore its modifier. The token other effect still takes place. I.E. if you trigger Sacred Covenant right at the time you draw a Bless Token at St.3, even if you return the token to the bag, you still need to resolve its effect at St.4 and draw another token. So I think the token still counts as having been revealed for the purpose of cards like Recall the Future. — Killbray · 12853

Quick Study

Quick Study

"Hey bad guys, get a clue!" - Roland Banks

Run this in Roland, Rex or Ursula and become a beast on command. Outside of these investigators, I would probably avoid this card for now.

Although, I love the idea of playing it in Lola Hayes (she IS an actor!) and playing cards like Scene of the Crime and Working a Hunch for clue manipulation. It might even be decent as this would let her do clutch tests at a 6.

Myriad · 1226

Take the Initiative

Take the Initiative

If two guardians show up to the party, one of them will probably have to change.

This card is an auto-include, probably over unexpected courage. If you play it for encounter card protection, you will be pretty resilient against treacheries.

Also, you are probably going first to nab bad guys or defeat enemies for allies.

AND even if you don't use it on a first action in a turn, you can use it on the second for an unexpected courage.

HOWEVER if you are in a two+ guardian party, someone probably will need to change this card out for something.

The possibilities of running this card next to Inquiring Mind, mean some investigators will have high quality skill cards.

Myriad · 1226