The Beyond
Black Netherworld

Здобуток

Sanctum. Spectral.

Cost: –.

Нейтральний

Jim Culver deck only. Permanent.

Each attached spirit loses all printed traits and gains the Geist trait. When damage/horror would be placed on an attached spirit, it must be placed on Jim Culver, instead.

Forced – When your turn begins: Attach the top card of the spirit deck to The Beyond, as a spirit. If 4 or more spirits are attached, flip this card and resolve its text.

John Pacer
Laid to Rest #52.

Story

Нейтральний

Forced – One at a time, choose each non-weakness spirit attached to The Beyond and reveal a random token from the chaos bag. If it is...

- ... an token: You may either heal 1 horror, or attach the top card of the spirit deck to The Beyond, as a spirit. (Do not reveal tokens for the spirit you attach after resolving this effect.)

- ... an token: Discard this spirit. Take 1 direct damage/horror.

- ...a token: Discard this spirit. Heal 1 horror.

- ...a , , , or token: You must either discard this spirit or take 1 direct damage.

- ...any other token: Discard this spirit.

Flip this card back to its asset side.


Reminder: Spirits attached to The Beyond are in play but only retain their names and text boxes. Spirits do not take up slots and do not have health or sanity values. When a unique spirit is attached to The Beyond, any other asset that shares its name and is already in play is discarded. Spirits are always discarded to the bottom of the spirit deck.

Laid to Rest #52.
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FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Q: For spirits attached to The Beyond: (1) Are they still considered assets or some other card type entirely? (2) Are they still considered under Jim's control? (3) If (2) is yes, if Jim fails a test on Crypt Chill and must choose and discard an asset he controls, can he choose to discard a spirit attached to The Beyond? (4) Can he play a card like Summoned Servitor, which requires him to discard a card he controls, to discard a spirit from play? (5) If the Vengeful Shade weakness in his Spirit deck is engaged with him, then defeated, is it placed in Jim's discard pile or at the bottom of the spirit deck? A: Yes, the spirits are still considered assets, but they are not Ally assets, and cannot be removed from play except by the abilities on The Beyond or abilities on the spirits themselves (e.g. Stray Cat). Jim could not discard a spirit from Crypt Chill or Summoned Servitor. And because the Spirit deck “owns” Vengeful Shade, if it entered play and was later defeated, it gets discarded to the bottom of the Spirit deck (per the rules for discarded spirits). (March 2024)
Last updated

Reviews

Parallel Front Jim Culver is what is known as a Jim Culver that has ascended past a Jim Culver.

And Parallel BACK Jim Culver... is to go even FURTHER BEYOND!!


To imperfectly sum up: Parallel Back Jim gets a separate 10 card "spirit deck", full of allies. Every turn he draws one and it enters play, free of charge, requiring no slots. They can't soak (no HP/sanity), but can do just about everything else they could as a regular ally.

You get to put Allies of ANY COLOR into this deck, of L2 or less. This can mean things like a free Leo DeLuca on turn 1.

The downside is reliability- most of the text on The Beyond amounts to "When you put a 4th ghost in play, (probably) discard each ghost." It's based on a token pull for each one, but without chaos bag manipulation, odds are they're gone.

So if you just chuck a bunch of powerful allies into the deck, Jim will ride an erratic wave of powering-up-and-down. With a bit of planning, though, he can instead get a couple high-powered allies in play and keep them there.


Keeping Your Ghosts ... uh... Alive?

This control falls into 2 main categories:

1. Token manipulation

Self-explanatory; when you hit 4 ghosts, you can still use most of the standard tricks to influence what tokens you pull on them, thus protecting the ones you'd like to stick around and allowing the others to move on.

Firstly: Curses in general. Curse tokens keep a ghost alive, and Parallel Front Jim further benefits from Curses, so really you're heavily incentivized to run a curse deck. Consequently...

2. Manual Ghost Removal

Discarding ghosts from play on your own time lets you to avoid the 4-ghost threshold to begin with. Now, there's not a whole lot of tech available to do this externally...

(UPDATE: An official ruling has invalidated the first two options here, see bottom of post.)

  • Sacrifice is great if you choose to run a few purple ghosts
  • Summoned Servitor transforms its usual drawback of discarding an asset on play into a blessing here, becoming the single most versatile "bump off a ghost" tool available to Jim. Just keep it as a normal ally so you control when it's played.
  • Promise Of Power indirectly helps here- one of the ghosts in the ghost deck is a nasty creature weakness that DOES count towards the 4 ghost limit. Connecting a single fight or evade removes it; Promise Of Power gives Jim strong odds of landing that punch.

... but the best manual removal comes from what's in the Ghost Deck to begin with, thanks to self-discarding allies. Stacking it with allies who's abilities cause them to discard themselves lets Jim aim for a few high-powered ghosts he wants to keep around, and a variety of little guys who give small boosts and then get out of the way.


Ghosts Of Interest To Jim

Self-Discarding Ghosts:

Add these, and use their ability when drawn to stay under the 4-ghost threshold, keeping your Superghosts in play longer.

Superghosts!

Allies with great powers that you can build your deck around, and want to remain in play as long as possible.

Delivery Ghosts

Another angle for building the ghost deck; these are Allies who give you something on arrival and/or over a few turns, and whom you don't mind losing upon hitting the 4 ghost limit.


I'm sure there's others who have potential value to Jim- this ability and his statline are amazingly versatile; it's not hard at all to picture a STR or INT based Jim given all the static boosts available, and base stat replacers from Hound & Servitor.

No matter what you do though, you'll have fun with your personally customized audience that gives even Charlie a run for the money.


(Appendix: At time of writing, there's apparently some debate as to whether the text on The Beyond removes the "Asset" quality from ghosts. If so, some of the methods listed above- such as sacrificing a ghost to bring a Servitor into play- would not work. My interpretation of the card is that this isn't the case, and it only affects italicized text traits, but if an official call comes out to the contrary, I'll modify this review.)


UPDATE: As of Mar 13 2024, @HatfulBob posted on Discord an official response to several questions asked about this card. The full list of questions, and their answers, follows:

For spirits attached to Jim Culver's "The Beyond":

  1. Are they still considered assets or some other card type entirely?
  2. Are they still considered under Jim's control?
  3. If 2 is yes, If Jim fails a test on "Crypt Chill" and must choose and discard an asset he controls, can he choose to discard a Spirit attached to the Beyond?
  4. Can he play a card like Summoned Servitor, which requires him to discard a card he controls, to discard a spirit from play?
  5. If the geist weakness in his spirit deck is engaged with him, then defeated, is it placed in Jim's discard pile or at the bottom of the spirit deck?

RESPONSE:

Yes, the spirits are still considered assets, but they are not Ally assets, and cannot be removed from play except by the abilities on The Beyond or abilities on the spirits themselves (e.g. Stray Cat). Jim could not discard a spirit from Crypt Chill or Summoned Servitor. And because the Spirit deck “owns” Vengeful Shade, if it entered play and was later defeated, it gets discarded to the bottom of the Spirit deck (per the rules for discarded spirits).

HanoverFist · 711
Love this deep dive! — MrGoldbee · 1442
A 3rd way to keep your ghosts alive: pair up with Suzi (Subject 5U-21) and have her devour all but 3 of your ghosts. At the begining of your turn, since there's no more card in the deck, none will be attached, and thus you will never hit the 4 ghost threshold. A fun note: if Suzy Regurgitate your ghosts, they become alive somehow! (Regurgitation put those devoured ghosts into your hand, rather then the spirit deck) — ethereal64 · 479
@MrGoldbee: Thank you! Really hope it helps make him more approachable. @ethereal64: DEVIOUS! So long as Jim has a way of dealing with the Vengeful Shade he'll have to draw every round for the rest of the game, but there's probably a few answers to that. — HanoverFist · 711
Binder's Jar solves the Vengeful Shade in this situation. Vengeful Shade is a non-elite enemy and Binder's Jar seals defeated enemies, so you can (ab)use Binder's Jar to permanently seal the Vengeful Shade the first time it appears. — Telosa · 53
["Devil"](/card/10119) says move a damage Does move damage to it also count as place damage on it ? — Lumina637 · 5
Miss Doyle seems fairly legitimate as a geist too? Similar to how Patrice's weakness works, you can use the mini-cat to get rid of Vengeful Shade when it shows up. — slyguavas · 49
  1. As I understand, the attached allies (new geists) don't take any slots. At least it should be so or the whole concept doesn't work. But I cannot justify it via the current rules. Can you help me?
  2. If a treachery card or any other effect causes us to discard an asset, can we choose an attached ally? I'm not sure as per the attachment rules.
chrome · 56
1. The Beyond says spirits do not take up any slots, what else do you need? Slots are not part of the text box (which is remains). 2. The Beyond says those cards are in play so they can be discarded if the source effects can target them (they dont have the ally trait or costs so treacheries that target allies or the highest cost asset wont hit them). Also remember that they are discarded to the bottom of the spirit deck and not your discard pile. — Django · 5063

EDIT: This original review contained misinformation about the spirits you could attach to The Beyond. After reaching out to FFG, I have added some of their rulings about the card.


Official rules response from FFG:

  • Q: Do Jim Culver's spirits attached to The Beyond count towards ”synergy” traited cards like Close the Circle?
  • A: Yes; Jim controls The Beyond and any spirits attached to it, so they count for Synergy cards such as Close the Circle.
    • Alex Werner, FFG Game Rules Specialist
Calprinicus · 5761
You seem to have missed that the Spirit deck requires 10 *different* allies. — Eudaimonea · 5