- Q: Hidden Pocket and Occult Reliquary both give you an additional slot, but allow you to choose what type of slot you gain. Are you allowed to change your mind about what kind of slot you gain from these effects (similar to the other slot-related effects in FAQ 1.24, "Shifting Slots"), or is it determined when the card enters play? A: With cards that allow you to choose what type of slot you gain, you should declare a slot type immediately, but you can still re-assess what type of slot it is once an asset enters play that can use either slot. It’s fine if you play Hidden Pocket, thinking you’ll use the hand slot, but later you play an accessory that you’d rather put in Hidden Pocket instead. (Rules Form, January 2024)
Evento
Mejora. Ilegal.
Coste: 1.
Rápido. Juega esta carta sólo durante tu turno.
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FAQs
(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)Reviews
I'll offer a less... apocalyptic take on this card.
All in all, the possibilities aren't mind-boggling, merely intriguing. Like many of the Upgrade cards, it requires you have something you want to attach it to, so you're not going to take it willy-nilly. On top of that, the thing you're stowing needs to be Illicit and take up a Hand or an Accessory slot.
The "vanilla" use case for this card is straightforward: you're playing a Rogue with your hands full, and, in typical Rogue fashion you'd like to squeeze just a little more out of your deck. Say you're Wini with Lockpicks and Mauser C96 out, but a miniboss just spawned and you'd like to legerdemain out a Lupara for that sweet 6 damage turn. Your Hidden Pocket on a Leather Jacket (impeccably maintained by your favorite seamstress) lets you do just that.
A lot of things need to happen before this can work, of course, but I'd argue that a decent number of things need to happen before you find yourself with full hands (and a need to continue to fill them). Upgrade cards are by their nature dependent on other cards hitting the table before them, so it's corresponding a gamble to choose to include them. I think Hidden Pocket's saving grace is that you can let it ride until your slots are full; it's not the kickstart to a combo, it's the flourish at the end to round things out.
Admittedly, I'm a sucker for Upgrade cards, personally, so I'm biased. :)
Let's talk about some potential combos.
At the time of writing, there are 14 (non-signature) level 0 Illicit 1- or 2-Hand slot assets, and all of those are pure Rogue cards except for .18 Derringer ()and .45 Thompson (/).
- I'll lump all the Firearm cards together: You can store an extra gun (or half gun). Handy for Tony, Leo, and Zoey, to name a few popular enemy managers. Finn might like it as well, since you can run him flex and he might have his hands full of Finn's Trusty .38 and 2x Magnifying Glass.
- Lockpicks and Thieves' Kit: both neat Investigate pairings. Sef, Finn, Kymani, and Trish can dig it.
- Switchblade and Knuckleduster: maybe a curious choice if you're not playing Tony, but a weapon with infinite use can come in handy (er, pockety?).
- Damning Testimony: I haven't run DT yet, but it seems good (or at least fun!), so I'll offer proportional hype to be able to hide it in a secret pocket.
I won't say anything about the XP Hand slot cards except that I think the above comments apply to them uniformly. I'll highlight Lupara and Sawed-Off Shotgun as two fun ones to store in a pocket, though.
At the time of writing, there are no cards printed that are Illicit Accessories. With that said, you can always play "I'll take that!" to make any Item card Illicit. In this way, a very charitable interpretation of Hidden Pocket is as a poor man's Relic Hunter.
Simple Armor choices include Leather Jacket (or Leather Coat if you have access). Lonnie Ritter will be happy to tailor these for you, of course, but as others have mentioned, we often run these cards as throwaway soak.
Correspondingly, I think the hype rests with the Clothing assets:
- Robes of Endless Night is usually taken for its economy over its soak, so it's a candidate for an extra pocket if you're Sef or Dexter (or Jim or Jenny, I suppose).
- Track Shoes and Hiking Boots are both great choices. They're slotless themselves and are generally robust to being taken from you (knock on wood). Also, you can attach multiple copies of Hidden Pocket to an asset, so you could conceiveably fit a Chicago Typewriter into your boots. Cheeky!
- Tool Belt is interesting, since it's already affording you a bunch of slots. Kymani likes this combo, obviously, and I suppose you could always Versatile the pocket in to let Joe get an absolutely disgusting number of things on the table.
- Fine Clothes deserve a mention. I usually only take it as teching for Parley-heavy scenarios, but, hey, Clothing is Clothing.
Sadly cannot be combined with Quickdraw Holster, Bandolier, or Backpack... But for some Old One forsaken reason can be used with Improvised Shield.
Also... I'm not quite sure who technically owns the Straitjacket treachery, but I'd imagine a certain magician wouldn't mind keeping a little something up his sleeve when he preforms his next show at Arkham Asylum.
Thanks to this card, any 4 of the Dunwich investigators who aren't above taking things can work together to create a garbage can lid that has 7 other, smaller garbage can lids hidden inside of it.
Has science gone too far?
EDIT: No it has not, due to the play-from-garbage-only clause on shield, which I overlooked. Wow. What a literally garbage card.
Turns out I shouldnt be posting reviews when Im having a bit of a manic christmas stress episode. Sorry y'all! Apocalypse averted.
So anyway, to properly review this thing.
Hidden Pocket does by itself a relatively weak thing, +1 hand slot. It does not change the board state but enables more flexibility with weapons and tools. Hand slot tools universally take 1 slot, so the point of extra slots is all about enabling greedy strategies with 2-slot weapons. Ornate Bow comes to mind. The illicit requirement is'nt much of a drawback, but "I'll take that!" can help with this issue.
In an older version of the game, or with a limited collection, this would be a very, very bad card. Card draw used to be a premium that only had. Wasting a draw to find Hidden Pocket with a core+Dunwick Jenny Barnes would be like shooting yourself in the foot. The reason it'd be so bad is that a card like this needs a strong, dependable flow of cards to find all the pieces. You need to find the clothing, find the weapons and tools, find the pocket, find money generation to pay for it, find the card draw. For a large swathe of characters this is a ridiculous stretch.
But the support does exist, and the synergy, particularly if you have Underworld Market which single handedly assays the card's downside of dudding a draw and the deckspace issue. Also of note is the synergy, not only can you use Pickpocketing to fund the expensive boardstate, you have good illicit hand assets like Thieves' Kit to put into the extra slot.
I misjudged this card first time around. Even so. It is -very- niche. I wouldnt reccommend it for most decks without careful planning.
Just my 2 cents, but I haven't read anywhere that you can't have 2 copies of this on the same card.
So I went down a rabbit hole and thought, if you put 2 of these on bandolier, you'd a total of 6 handslots. 2- per normal, 2-bandolire, and 2- hidden pocket.
It'd be pretty sweet to hold double Thompson and double mouser. Though, that's over 20 resources, but talk about being loaded for bear!!
I just realized there's no "limit one per item" text on here.
That means with 2x hidden pockets + 2x .25 Automatic (2) + 1x .41 Derringer (2) + 1x any one handed gun + 1x dirty fighting (2) + 1x stealth (2) you could have a round in which you attack 7 times.
As I typed it out I realized you technically don't need the second hidden pocket to pull it off, but the visual is much cooler if they're dropping two guns to pull out two new ones, trenchcoat flared out behind them, like Neo attacking the lobby in the first matrix.