Split the Angle

Uses for this strenght card:

  • Kill a bad treachery. The inbuilt helps make this happen but this use really takes off with Alyssa Graham in your deck. Mind the strict build restrictions and potential inconsistency since youre not guaranteed to draw Split the Angle. If ally slots are hard to find then Scrying and Scrying

Obviously the 5 mythic level 0 card limit can affect your ability to field Alyssa, but take it from me, this is a hugely powerful interaction.

  • Kill a useless draw. Your top card is always revealed and if you see something that isnt helpful, for example Emergency Cache when you're sitting on 7 resources, you can rid yourself of the dead draw action-free and reveal something immediately useful.

Be mindful not to kill cards you need later or yourself with the horror from cycling your deck.

  • Foresight is good. The least useful ability in my opinion, but you can always spend a few actions to spy on the Mythos deck. You wont always see stuff to kill and Norman struggles with action econ, but knowing the future is helpful, especially in larger groups where each unique action is less important. In a 4 player game you can help your friends prepate for enemies and if you spent 6 actions spying and kill just 1 Doom generation thats a return of 6 actions for your investment.

Norman cant gain cards like Deduction, Archaic Glyphs and his is so high that he gets limited returns from Drawn to the Flame or Rite of Seeking, this may mean that youre picking up every clue singly with an test, thus actions will be primo real estate, especially solo.

Tsuruki23 · 2588
My general take on this card is that it's not really worth actually putting into play unless you have Alyssa out there. And I don't think that combo is really worth it, since you only have one Split the Angle and won't draw it most of the time, and Norman has several other allies which are much more consistently powerful. — CaiusDrewart · 3200
I do agree the interaction with Scrying is pretty nifty, but you would really want the level III Scrying for this, and that's pretty expensive... but maybe. — CaiusDrewart · 3200
I think Scrying(3) is pretty good for Norman (mid-late campaign). He doesn't need Rite of Seeking, so he usually has a free arcane slot. You also want to be investing in the expensive XP cards, else why not just play Daisy? — duke_loves_biscuits · 1285
@duke_loves_biscuits: Totally reasonable. I'm definitely not going to buy Scrying III before Shrivelling V, cool synergy with Norman or not, but you'll probably be able to pick it up eventually. (Especially if you spend two of Norman's 5 Mystic slots on Delve Too Deep, which I would recommend.) At that point this combo looks fine. I agree Norman can skip Rite of Seeking and doesn't have a pressing need for his second Arcane slot (though Protective Incantation is a fine way to spend Milan money, and he does need one slot for Shrivelling.) — CaiusDrewart · 3200
Sefina Rousseau

I just wanted to provide a bit of statistical analysis for Sefina's alternative opening hand in an attempt to help people with the question of how many events should you have to get the most value out of the ability to place cards beneath her.

For a standard deck For at least 2 cards tucked: 3 (non painted world) events provide a 30% chance and 6 provide a 72%

For at least 3 cards tucked: 5 events provides a 24% chance and 9 events provide an 72% chance

For at least 4 cards tucked: 8 events provide a 30% chance and 12 provide a 73% chance

For all 5 cards tucked: 10 events provide a 24% chance and 15 events provide a 74% chance.

For those interested in the impact of cards added during a campaign, adding 4 non weakness non event cards to your deck lowers the above odd around 7% for the 20-30% values and around 12% for the 70% values skewing worse for the larger amount of tucked cards.

sol · 9
Disc of Itzamna

Just want to make a few quick points here. First, I think this card is somewhat underappreciated. Three resources, a card, and an action to automatically dispose of a Hunting Nightgaunt or Conglomeration of Spheres is a great deal. It's a shame that this is a Seeker card, because Seekers have some of the most valuable resources and actions in the game. If this were a Rogue card, it would be much better. Still, there's nice value here.

Remember that reaction triggers are optional (so you don't have to throw away your Disc if you draw Swarm of Rats), and that you can use this to discard a teammate's draw (provided you're at their location, which you should always try to be), so getting good value out of this is pretty easy. Unlike something like Tooth of Eztli, you can get full value out of the Disc even if you draw it in the mid-to-late game.

There's a nice interaction with Scavenging. I don't really recommend this for Rex (he has far, far better things to do with his actions and money), but I think this is a pretty reasonable build for Minh.

Finally, this card gets much better in the Forgotten Age campaign. Ordinarily, the fact that this card discards rather than defeats the enemy is a drawback. That means it doesn't add victory enemies to the victory display, reducing the number of attractive targets. In Forgotten Age, though, Disc of Itzamna is an outstanding response to big Vengeance enemies like Boa Constrictor.

CaiusDrewart · 3200
Excellent review, the optional part was a good thing to remember! The interaction with scavenging can be completed by cornered too! — mogwen · 254
This card gets better if you‘re a guardian with „on the hunt“ or „let me handle this“. Alternatively such a player could be at your location instead. — Django · 5171
Can you use the Disc of Itzamna to get rid of The Thing That Follows without shuffling it back in your deck? It seems so, since the enemy is discarded and not defeated... — Iluvatar · 1
The scenario would have to have only one location, since otherwise The Thing That Follows would spawn elsewhere. — Katsue · 10
It will hardly help with the thing that follow, because that enemy doesn't spawn engaged with the bearer, it spawns in the furthest location away from he bearer. So someone with Disc of Itzmana should be at the opposite side of the map in relation to someone with the thing that follow at the very time they draw it from their deck. That's a very unlikely scenario, but yeah in that case you would be able to discard it. — Killbray · 12660
A decent card. Not a priority upgrade, but something to keep in mind. Dealing with an enemy can often take at least 2 actions from your group. This lets you do it in 1, as long as you do it preemptively. — Blackhaven · 9
Unexpected Courage

This is such a prominent and frequently-referenced card that I thought it deserved a quick review. In the days when we only had the Core Set, Unexpected Courage was absolutely one of the 15 best cards available to every investigator, and you saw two copies in pretty much every decent deck. To this day, people use Unexpected Courage as a benchmark for evaluating new releases.

I think Unexpected Courage is still a perfectly decent card, and will not cripple your deck should you run it. More often than not, though, I omit this card in multiplayer these days. Although +2 to any test for a card is not a bad deal--you can almost always find a situation where the test is important and the +2 is a significant swing in probability--for the vast majority of investigators, there is more than a full deck's worth of more powerful cards available. Simply put, the standards have risen.

This card does offer a lot of flexibility in exchange for relatively low power. But in high-level multiplayer, that's not the kind of trade you want to be making. The best approach there is to have investigators hyper-specialize and spend as little time as possible taking tests outside of their area of strength. You can see how Unexpected Courage is not one of the most powerful cards for this strategy.

Besides, this card's flexibility diminishes on high levels. On Easy, this card gives almost any investigator a decent shot at doing almost anything (except maybe the very hardest tests in their very weakest stats.) On higher levels, when the average pull is -a -3 or worse, you would have to stack a lot of additional boosts for the card to function this way.

I think this card is better in true solo, where flexibility is much more important. And there are some investigators who have special synergy with skill cards, like Minh, for whom this card is obviously more powerful. But these cases aside, I'm usually not finding room for Unexpected Courage these days.

(By the way, nothing in this review applies to the other core skill cards: Guts, Overpower, etc. Those cards are a totally different kettle of fish and continue to be outstanding, in my opinion.)

CaiusDrewart · 3200
I largely agree! I do think it maintains its value in multiplayer better than you're suggesting, though, mainly because you can commit it to other players' tests. That's a lot harder to do with skill cards that pertain strictly to your own specialty and not to the other investigators'. — sfarmstrong · 272
High Roller

This card is almost OP on standard difficulty, if you are playing an investigator that can gather resources quickly and have some static +1 skill boosting cards (like the new Lola) Santiago ).

I tried it in my Solo-Jenny Barnes deck on the Carcosa campaign, wich focuses on resource gathering, converting those resources into skill boosts through talents and having a decent amount of static +1 skill boosting allies (like Lola) Santiago and Dr.) Milan ) and amulets (like St.) Hubert's Key ) in play. The set up is a little slow depending on what you draw but once you have it rolling you can hit anytime with relative low resource commitment 8 or 9 in any skill that you are testing, meaning you will only fail to the auto-fail tentacle chaos token. Under this conditions you are normally able to activate this at least 3 times/turns before it fails and you loose your 3 resources, wich for a Rouge is very efficient. I think this will still be good on hard, but I haven't tested it yet. In Summery, if you have the cards to back High Roller up, you will dominate the scenario and steamroll your way to victory (at least on standard :P).

Alogon · 1145
Not so OP in my opinion since you have to exhaust high roller! — mogwen · 254
The fact that you have to exhaust the card doesn't diminish it's worth because this card is used to cover skill tests that you can't boost through other talents or to pass tests that are critical to your success. On my Jenny Barnes deck for example I use High Roller mostly to boost willpower and , if i don't happen to have Hard Knocks yet, to boost combat, the other skills, namely intellect and agility, don't need it because Streetwise and my other cards cover them. This card increased the consistency of my deck considerably, I managed to dominate scenarios that in the past I failed at or barely past (I am looking at you Black Stars Rise). Here is a link to my deck https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/212291 — Alogon · 1145
Using this card to boost stuff you can't boost otherwise seems like an approach that would be restricted to low-levels. On high levels, you'd be using this while having a high chance of failing the test, which seems like a recipe for disaster. If this card was going to be useful it would need to complement something like Streetwise. — CaiusDrewart · 3200
As the review states..."almost OP ON STANDARD DIFFICULTY". I think this strategy is still decent on hard difficulty. On Expert it may not work as I explained, but you can use High Roller instead to evade with 11 Agility (3 base +1 from Lola+3 from Streetwise+4 from High Roller) or to investigate with 12 Intellect, meaning you could even survive the -8 chaos token of dread, at least on 1 test per round. Nevertheless it may be better to try another strategy altogether on expert, I have to admit. — Alogon · 1145
@alogon. Yah. I do think this card is worth trying on Expert. Using it to get from +4 to +6 or +6 to +8 seems to me to have some potential. It's a win-more card, obviously, but maybe so efficient that it's nonetheless worth it, especially if you're rocking the "succeed by 2" effects. — CaiusDrewart · 3200
If you lose your money on the 3rd try, you've spent 7 "resources" total for a net total of +6 across 3 tests, max 1 per turn, with a "frozen 3 resources" while it's out. That's actually not that great, especially if you were mainly doing Intellect/Agility tests and you took this before Streetwise. You need to get a lot more return on this card to make it playable. — duke_loves_biscuits · 1285
Don't get me wrong, it's a decent enough card. I've run it, and probably will do again. However I do think Rogue has a lot better initial options for Pay-to-Win that I would generally prioritize, and even when the card does land, you need to work it quite hard to make it worthwhile. — duke_loves_biscuits · 1285
True. You get this card after you have Street Wise and you play/use it after you already have most of your important assets on play. You need a set up to make this card work and ideally you wanna use it in a way that only the tentacle token (auto fail) will make you fail the test. — Alogon · 1145
A Streetwise Preston's favorite way to embezzle his trust fund. And the best things is, it's all completely legal. — Blitheharrow · 51