Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Lucky Cigarette Case

I’m playing through TFA as Winnifred... and even with moderate success in all scenarios, she wants to spend XP. Every card can get better, every gun, and then there’s bonus stuff, like sharpshooter or hard knocks(4). Obviously.

With a bless happy Mateo and Stella, this card --comes alive--.

On the right checks (momentum+lockpicks), with the right bonuses, you can guarantee to succeed massively. Even on the -6, Mateo turns the auto fail into “get all your cards back again.” Search your entire deck for the card you need exactly right now. Or plan ahead, and assemble all three easy marks. And the fewer copies of a card you need, the more XP you save. Which means more upgrades, which means bigger numbers.

2/12/21

MrGoldbee · 1498

Also has ridiculous synergy with any ‘Exodia’ class myriad cards (three aces, pendant of the queen, easy mark, empower self). Also makes surprising find truly shine, which makes this a great pickup for Tony or Trish (often to the point of 2 of plus Relic Hunter). Almost laughably superior to the equivalent rabbits foot. — Difrakt · 1333 2/12/21

Rabbit’s Foot is actually almost as good. In Stella it’s fantastic. — StyxTBeuford · 13053 2/12/21

Rabbits foot suffers from two things: first, unless you combo off of something else a failed test is still a wasted action. You can build off of it but it takes time and setup. Second, rabbits foot is bounded by 0 in a way that LCC is not, and with lockpicks (or any other of many good rogue content) its very easy to search 4, 6, 8 cards in a way that rabbits foot very rarely pulls off. — Difrakt · 1333 2/12/21

Oh if we’re only talking the upgrades then sure, I agree LCC’s unbounded nature gives it an edge. But the action cost of RF is overstated. Survivors often purposely engineer failure for benefit- you can do damage, get clues, and gain resources and draw cards all while failing in Survivor. Rabbit’s Foot is core to that. The other thing RF does that LCC doesn’t is it curbs the opportunity cost of failure, which helps maintain momentum. LCC is easier to trigger once a round than Rabbit’s Foot for the most part, but both cards are effectively the same in the right deck. — StyxTBeuford · 13053 2/12/21

I think LCC is more of an upgrade than rabbits foot is, reducing the need to succeed to only being 1 up for the draw is probably enough of a benefit on its own, the main reason I never ran LCC(0) is because it would just never trigger when I wanted it to, it cost more cards to commit than I would ever get back. (which also becomes less of a problem as you get better rogue synergy cards) — Zerogrim · 297 2/13/21

On Winifred in particular, I prefer Relic Hunter over LCC (3). Winifred cares more about quantity than quality. On someone like Trish, the opposite would be true. — suika · 9524 2/13/21

I will say though, Rabbit's Foot 3 in a Survivor with Drawing Thin is very nice. Of course, Drawing Thin is good anyway, but don't knock RF 3 too harshly. It's a solid upgrade, even if LCC 3 is probably a stronger one overall. — StyxTBeuford · 13053 2/24/21

Overzealous

The trick with this admittedly punishing weakness is to pull it early, and ideally early in the turn. Use your card draw skills/events during Mythos or action 1 so that you have some time to deal with the effects of this card. Burn your deck until this is in the discard. It's not about avoidance, it's about acceptance.

2/11/21

Time4Tiddy · 251

Alternatively, if it's in a slow draw deck like Tommy, you may only see this a couple of times in a campaign. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1092 2/11/21

Or scroll of secrets. Add more secrets as needed. — MrGoldbee · 1498 2/11/21

Dark Pact

"Why hello there Dark pact." Amanda said with a blush "Fancy seeing you here beneath me~".

This does work right, nothing prevents Amanda from choosing dark pact and placing it beneath her, then its forcibly gone next turn, you have one turn with a card that simply can't commit to anything and then poof its gone?

(I guess the sticking point is are you choosing to discard dark pact by putting it under Amanda or not, and that feels more like a table to table thing than something that would have a solid ruling against it)

Either way, an averagely below average weakness.

2/10/21

Zerogrim · 297

I dunno; I think this would be forbidden by the you cannot choose to discard a weakness" principle, since you can't claim to be using it for a different reason. In different news, I got this as a "bonus" weakness in Dunwich, played it once, failed to play it a second time, thne had "The Price of Failure" milled out of my deck. Dunwich giveth and Dunwich taketh away, I suppose.... — LivefromBenefitSt · 1092 2/11/21

I think that works, both raw, and I don't think it needs fixing, because turning off Amanda's ability for a turn seems like a reasonable penalty for it — NarkasisBroon · 13 2/11/21

@LivefromBenefitSt You can't choose to discard a weakness, but Amanda's ability doesn't involve choosing to discard anything. Placing a card beneath her is not discarding a card, and the effect that discards the card that was beneath her is forced so it works on weaknesses too. — TheNameWasTaken · 3 2/11/21

Also the rule is that you can't choose to discard a weakness from hand. Once the card is beneath Amanda you absolutely can choose to discard it. So it's fine to discard it this way — NarkasisBroon · 13 2/11/21

By the Rules as Written, nothing stops you from putting Dark Pact or other asset or event type weaknesses beneath Amanda. My understanding is that this is not RAI. However, any logic which would prevent it would be by classification 'weakness' and would inadvertently stop skill weaknesses -- but those must be allowed for her signature weakness to work! I will be surprised if any official correction is issued which would prevent Dark Pact from going under her. — Yenreb · 15 2/11/21

I think her weakness would still just about work on specific beats general. If her text hypothetically was identical except for adding non-weakness you wouldn't be able to voluntarily choose a weakness, but her forced would still read "when choosing a card to place beach Amanda, if this is in your hand you must choose it" which can override the non weakness part because it's a specific situation. It wouldn't be elegant though — NarkasisBroon · 13 2/11/21

Bandolier

This card is really good for any Sistery Mary that wants to uses the .35 Winchester plus any other hand cards like The Chthonian Stone, Enchanted Blade, or Sign Magick (for more Spells!). And with a previously used Rite of Sanctification you may not even get the problem for paying all these assets.

2/10/21

Enrif · 4

Pretty good for solo Nathaniel Cho as well; his boxing gloves are great but one of these with a Flashlight not only helps his investigation but also that little Will boost can be surprisingly helpful during the Mythos Phase. — Krysmopompas · 367 12/13/22

Flashlight — Nils · 1 10/7/23

Flashlight? How about a second pair of boxing gloves!! — Nils · 1 10/7/23

Hot Streak

This card is not gonna see a lot of play after Innsmouth cycle; with the same price of 2 XP you can get two Faustian Bargains and a False Covenant (which practically negates the curse tokens)

[review needs to be 200 characters long]

2/9/21

wjr · 148

Double Double. — MrGoldbee · 1498 2/9/21

False Covenant cancels one Curse token a turn at your location, and nothing prevents you from drawing another curse after canceling it. In most cases, this just means that other investigators not at your location will be the ones paying for the curses you add to the bag. — suika · 9524 2/10/21

Faustian is good, but you know what is better than one or the other? — Zerogrim · 297 2/10/21

Hot Streak (4)? /s — suika · 9524 2/10/21

I think zero meant both is better than just one... — Django · 5171 2/10/21

There needs to be a more universal way to denote sarcasm over the Internet. — suika · 9524 2/10/21

/s is my go to as well — StyxTBeuford · 13053 2/10/21

You just need to play the "Hot Srcasm" card... — LivefromBenefitSt · 1092 2/10/21

There are some (I'm betting many) tables that don't run bless/curse every game. This is a potential problem for the LCG I'm finding; adding more options like Bless/Curse and Tarot is ok in certain campaigns, but it can lead to a *lot* of min/maxing in certain groups. To me that means theme is secondary to winning (but that's just me - Tarot card in Antarctica anyone?), and perhaps more importantly it means fairly useful cards like Hot Streak (2) (good in Leo for example) will get relegated to the binder. — Krysmopompas · 367 5/2/22

I want to explicitly point out that Faustian Bargain can benefit other players if you like other people messing up your “perfect” deck design. Hot Streak(2) you have to play an action for as well. If I’m spending experience on something you can sure I want it start and will look for it with my mulligan. Compared with Another Day Another Dollar, both Faustian Bargain and Hot Streak can be played multiple times depending on you card draw ability versus only being used during setup. Minmaxing can be a problem in any game, so if you enjoy running cards for thematic effect you really don’t have to worry about justifying your deck mathematically. I would like to see an Antarctic Tarot card in the next set though. — Staticalchemist · 1 1/1/24