Deny Existence

Not a review per say, just a pre-emptive question...

What if you draw a treachery where it is "Lose all resources"

What is the opposite of "all" in this instance, for the purposes of this card technically reversing the effect

Easy if it is something like, lose 3 resources, because it becomes gain 3 resources

Might need a FAQ on this one ASAP

Kire · 5
Adding to this: What about "discarding all but X cards from your hand"? — trazoM · 9
My assumption would be, if it asks you to lose all resources, then "all" = the number of resources you have. So, if you have 5, and it asks you to discard all, it's asking you to discard 5. So, in this case you would gain 5 instead. — Eschaton1 · 1
The opposite would be to gain ALL THE RESOURCES, so you should take every available token. — Azriel · 1
Crap, that previous comment was a joke, and I wanted to skip a like and ended up posting it. In all seriousness though, I think it's best to not overthink it: if it says to lose all resources, just count how much you would have lost. If it says to discard every card except one, just count how many cards you would have actually discarded. I can't see any other way to make this card work with these wordings, so it kinda has to be this. — Azriel · 1
Carolyn is able to play this card, right (but not the 0 xp version)? — Django · 5155
@Django I'm not sure. The looser interpretation is that yes, this card heals horror (even if it's unlikely to do so), so she can take it. A tighter interpretation would say that this card doesn't specifically have the "heals horror" wording mentioned in Carolyn's deckbuilding requirements. Personally, I interpret Carolyn as, "if it heals horror, she can use it," so I'd say yes. — SGPrometheus · 847
But it DOES specifically say " — CSerpent · 126
(fat fingered) it DOES specifically say "heal horror". But I agree anyway -- it can heal horror, she can take it. — CSerpent · 126
@Django Carolyn can take the level 0xp because she can take 0-1 Mystic card. — Cyiel · 1
What happens if you are supposed to lose say, five resources, but you only have one and you play this. Do you gain five resources? Or just the one resource you would have lost? — The1Aaron · 1
I emailed Matt Newman and he confirmed Carolyn can take Deny Existence lvl 5. — Cyggie · 7
@The1Aaron: The effect allows you to perform the opposite of what the encounter card asks you to do. So if the encounter card asks you to discard 5 resources, you do the opposite: gain 5 resources, regardless of how many resources you have in your resource pool. — rednar · 22
How would you rule this card interacting with Realm of Madness and someone having... say... 5 horror? Would they draw cards from their deck until they have a combined printed resource cost of 5? Only keeping cards that have a cost? — Sleffie · 1
I would say you draw until you draw a total of five cost and keep ALL cards, even the zero cost — PanicMoon · 2
Sorry, yeah... the distinction I tried to make was keeping cards that have a cost (even if it is 0), but not keeping skill cards. Or would you say keep those as well? — Sleffie · 1
For future reference: the correct way to resolve it is to pick the cards that you would discard from hand as a result of the effect: 5 resources worth of cards (including as many 0s as you want, but no skills). Then instead of discarding these cards, draw a number of cards equal to the number of cards you would have discarded. If you don't have enough cards in hand to reach the threshold, you still need to discard from play; Deny (5) will not help against that. — suika · 9511
And you would take 2 horror afterwards if you only chose cards in your hand (: — AlderSign · 391
Carolyn Fern

It's more a question / comment than a review, but did anyone noticed that arkhamdb treat the official starter deck as invalid? I guess it is because it doesn't take into account that the 15 Seeker/Mystic limit should only be applied to cards that doesn't "heal horror". That might be a problem when trying to save / publish self made deck too.

ChesterBlack · 1402
The official starter deck IS invalid. It has 17 non-horror healing Seeker and Mystic cards. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Sixth Sense

Sixth Sense competes with tried-and-true Rite of Seeking. They are both level 0 Mystic Spell assets that let you investigate with willpower in place of intellect, which can be a crucial ability for low intellect investigators such as Agnes and Akachi. Let's compare these two Spells:

  • Sixth Sense picks up clues one at a time, whereas Rite of Seeking picks them up in twos. Rite of Seeking is therefore more action efficient at clearing multiple clue locations, which gives it an advantage in high player counts by accelerating your clue gathering. In theory Sixth Sense can create action efficiency by saving actions that would have been spent moving, but obviously saving the skill test on an extra investigate is usually better. When playing solo though, Sixth Sense is just as fast against 1 clue locations.

  • Sixth Sense costs 3 resources and Rite of Seeking costs 4. Not a major difference but it might be important if you are playing Dark Horse.

  • Sixth Sense doesn't deplete charges. With Sixth Sense in play, you can investigate using as often as you like.

  • Sixth Sense rewards you for drawing , , , and tokens where Rite of Seeking punishes you (or at least restricts its use to your last action). This might make Sixth Sense more desirable for Jim Culver who is already encouraged to increase his odds of drawing tokens.

The reward Sixth Sense offers you for drawing a funky token is worth talking about in more detail because there's a lot going on there. It will allow you to sometimes investigate at dangerous or high shroud locations that you might otherwise be locked out of. It can also protect you from token effects, large negative modifiers, and the Haunted keyword by lowering the shroud of a location you are investigating (although you must change the location you are investigating at in order to use this effect).

Unless you're willing to use Dark Prophecy this effect isn't reliable, but it is a kind of insurance against the chaos bag. Finally, a location must be revealed for Sixth Sense to let you investigate at it instead or use its shroud, meaning it pays to follow another player around, investigating to pick up clues left behind with the added possibility that you sometimes get a clue from a location they just revealed instead.

To conclude: Rite of Seeking is still the premier level 0 Spell for picking up lots of clues quickly, but Sixth Sense offers a persistent and highly reliable way to investigate using willpower. Having played a little with it at this point, its definitely a strong card for allowing Mystics to consistently contribute to investigating, so try it out!

Trinity_ · 203
Great review! 2 thoughts: First Sixth Sense might be better in solo than Rite of Seeking, second I don't see Sixth Sense as much as a competition than an additional option if you want your my stic to investigate reliably. — mogwen · 254
I didn't go into a lot of detail about why I think Sixth Sense competes with Rite of Seeking because I wanted to focus on comparing it to the older spell, but basically I think it isn't worth giving up two Arcane slots to both investigate with when Mystic combat spells are so powerful, and because Sixth Sense persists and doesn't deplete charges, I don't think you want to play both it and Rite of Seeking in the same deck. — Trinity_ · 203
If you're going for dedicated clue-gathering, it's actually pretty viable to run both, especially since you can replace Rite of Seeking once it's empty. Grotesque statue and Eldritch Inspiration help with using Rite of Seeking quickly, though. — Chitinid · 14
Good review! I'dd like to mention that the infinite nature of Sixth sense, a high stat isnt quite so crucial. Unlike Rite of seeking youre willing to make half-assed attepts at 4 or 5 willpower since there is no risk of loosing the charge — Tsuruki23 · 2571
How do this interact with Eldritch Inspiration? Do I get to investigate again either in my location or a connected (with the same token from the bag)? — Old_Man_in_the_Mist · 1
You would get again the choice to "choose a revealed location connected to your location; you are now investigating as if you were at the chosen location instead of your location (you may use either shroud value)." Now, since you were already investigating as though you were at the first location you picked, you might have the choice now of locations adjacent to that one. But you'd still only end up investigating at one location total. — Yenreb · 15
Scroll of Secrets

We've known what this card's effect was going to be for a little while, and it feels like maybe as a result its slipped under people's radar a little with all the exciting new cards being revealed.

I tend to like to evaluate cards in the context of existing cards that do similar things, or at least fill the same role. In the case of Scroll of Secrets I feel that it kind of demands a comparison to the core set's Old Book of Lore. Both are seeker tomes taking up a hand slot, both give you an action that lets you look at 3 cards and draw 1.

However, Scroll of Secrets costs 3xp to the OBoL's 0, and only has limited uses at that. To make up for these downsides, it costs two fewer resources and gains some pretty interesting additional utility. It's pretty unlikely that most people would consider a 2 resource discount to be worth limiting the uses to 3 and upping the level to 3, so we have to look at what benefits the particulars of the cards effect bring.

First of all, the OBoL lets you choose one card from the three and then shuffles the other two back. The Scroll lets you make a few more choices. It allows you to choose to discard one of the three cards, this lets you get rid of a weakness or a card you dont want to see this scenario. Or even, for example, discard an Insight card to hit with Eidetic Memory. Additionally, the scroll lets you put the card you dont draw or discard back on the top or bottom of the deck. This means that if you see two cards you want, you dont have to shuffle one away. You can draw one now and put the other on top to draw at the end of turn. Putting a card of your choice on top also allows you to dodge drawing a weakness for that turn. I think the power of this effect shouldn't be underestimated, allowing you to actually start to thin out your deck and control what cards you are going to draw is a huge benefit over what is essentially just an upgraded draw action on Old Book of Lore. The power of this effect also clearly justifies the limited uses, otherwise you would be able to delay drawing a weakness indefinitely.

The second option that the Scroll of Secrets provides you is the ability to use it on the encounter deck. This acts similarly to the much maligned Scrying, only with similar benefits to those outlined above. If you see a card you really dont want to deal with such as Ancient Evils you can just get rid of it. It also lets you place a non-enemy card on top, which in solo could be a huge benefit. I think this mode is significantly weaker than using it on an investigator deck however, since in Solo you are unlikely to have the actions to be using this when you most need it (ie when you're already engaged with an enemy or dealing with a tough treachery). While in multiplayer you are only changing the encounter drawn by a single player which is only marginally beneficial in the best case. It is always nice to have this option though.

In terms of investigators, this is obviously good for Daisy Walker for all the same reasons Old Book of Lore is. Given how core that card is to her general strategy, I feel that this would be worth it even if it was just a third or fourth copy to improve her odds of drawing it. As it is, having all the benefits that I outlined above I think this card fills it's own niche in the deck and provides a lot of new potential power. For other investigators I do think this starts to look a little less appealing, Minh Thi Phan already draws enough cards that she doesn't benefit much from an upgraded draw action once per turn. Ursula Downs is good enough at both investigating and dealing with enemies that she can usually profitably use all her actions as it is, similarly for Joe Diamond. I think Rex Murphy is the only other investigator who I might consider taking this in, if only for the fact that it lets you actually get rid of his weakness for good.

It's worth mentioning this does synergize with Enraptured and Truth from Fiction, if the limited uses are getting you down.

Overall, I think this another solid addition to Daisy's library, and an interesting niche pick for investigators that are worried about drawing their weakness.

birdfriender · 1241
Excellent review for what I consider an excellent card. You didn't overly touch on the fact that you don't have to use it on your own deck, nor do you have to be at the same location as the target. This is a great way to spread the card draw love around, and add a little more support to Daisy. — cb42 · 38
I actually didnt pick up on the fact that you dont have to be at their location, that's a huge upside that I hadn't considered. — birdfriender · 1241
Quick question: does this count as a "draw" for the purposes of Ancient Stone: Knowledge of the Elders, by the way? It doesn't use that language, but Old Book of Lore does — Malgox · 20
You’ve answered your own question. OBL involves drawing a card (because it says a draw occurs) and SoS does not (because it never says a draw occurs). — Death by Chocolate · 1489
If Daisy already has better books in play, this combines really well with Knowledge is Power. After you select one card from the bottom three, you can put the rest on top and Knowledge is Power then gives you a free draw, handing you one of the two cards you didn't pick as well! — Dissonant Whispers · 30
.45 Thompson

So the upgrade to the Thompson has not generated as much buzz as the version, which doesn't surprise me too much. For 3xp, it drops a resource in cost and gains a niche but powerful oversucceed effect. Altogether not mind blowing.

This card is very interesting to me, not necessarily because of its power or interactions in the game right now but because of the sort of scenario it seems to be designed to handle. At the moment, we dont have a Rogue with a better stat than 3. This means that against moderate to high fight enemies its going to be pretty tough to oversucceed enough to get the benefit. If you're engaged with two 3 fight enemies then you need to hit 6 in order to get the action compression from the Thompson. This means you'll probably want to be pushing your initial value up to 9, a full 4 points over the bonus provided by the gun itself. I think this high cost to using the gun in this manner, even for just medium fight enemies, relegates this sort of plan to a desperation manoeuvrer. Where the gun does shine however is in situations with multiple low fight enemies, or at a push ones with combinations of low and medium fight. The Secret Name comes to mind as a scenario where I imagine this card would do a lot of work.

One powerful upside to consider for this card is that the second enemy you choose doesnt have to be engaged with you. This makes it particularly good for dealing with, say, the awful bastard birds. Unfortunately its usefulness for dealing aloof enemies other than the birds is a little limited again by the earlier point about Rogue values. A lot of the aloof enemies that you'd be hoping to use this against aren't slouches when it comes to combat either, so the Thompson is not going to be a reliable way to handle them for the most part. Also, for this plan to even be possible you need to be engaged with another enemy at the same location, which further limits is application.

The resource discount is significant, 6 down to 5 means that this can be played turn 1 without having to waste an action gaining resources, which is always a plus. This same discount was worth 1xp on Leo De Luca so I dont think I'd spend 3 for this benefit alone, but it does sweeten the deal somewhat.

In terms of investigators that can make use of this, "Skids" O'Toole is the archetypal "combat rogue", but then he has access to the .45 Automatic which does a large percentage of the work of the Thompson while leaving a hand and an xp free for Lockpicks. Jenny Barnes doesn't have a lot of better options for weapons, so I can imagine it being a reasonable fit for a Jenny deck that's not interested in Lupara. Perhaps a Jenny deck that's looking to be a dedicated fighter and so doesn't want to be limited to single turns of effectiveness with Sleight of Hand. As for the third 3 Rogue, Finn Edwards: both version of the Thomspon are actually Illicit. This means that the version of the Thompson has to compete with the much flashier one. I dont think the Guardian version is always better, but refunding its resource cost is a real bonus for a Rogue that cant take Hot Streak. That's assuming Finn wants either of them of course, which is a little doubtful given that he is the poster boy for Lockpicks and cant take Bandolier.

All in all, a pretty interesting option that opens a little more space in the rogue weapon pool, but one that I thing struggles to find a home among the investigators we currently have. I think when a 4 rogue who can more reliably trigger the bonus effect is released it may be worth revisiting this card. Either that, or when we have a cycle focused more on swarms of enemies.

birdfriender · 1241
I've been having some fun with this in Skids in a 4 player game, where I'm putting a lot of +combat effects in my deck, with the plan of consistently hitting the bonus. The extra attack does the damage — legrac · 115
--the extra attack does the damage of the primary one, so it's really good with Vicious Blow, and awkwardly, Marksmanship. I find myself burning out of ammo really quickly though. — legrac · 115
Well Connected in a big money rogue can get high as needed for combat once per turn. — jmmeye3 · 631
Tony Morgan and his 5 Combat are gonna have fun with this. — Amante · 10
Might work well with the recently teased Sharpshooter. Rogues have a lot of good options for boosting agility. — Zinjanthropus · 230