Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

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I still can’t really figure out if this card is good or not. Scarlet Keys is extremely stingy with XP so far — I’ve played three scenarios and gotten a total of 5 XP. Yet, I’ve also taken Down the Rabbit Hole and so my customizable cards already have a total of 7 checkboxes checked, which is nice. Still, two actions and three resources is expensive, and it feels really bad to tell my teammates, “Hey, I’m gonna move once this turn and then give myself an XP.”

1/7/23

thadcar · 4

It’s a neutral card so everyone in your team can use it. Like delve too deep it’s a long the me investment. You need to find the right moment to use it without risk losing the scenario — Django · 5078 1/7/23

Posting an independent review that goes more in depth, but its good! Think of it like investigating twice in solo to clear a 2 clue per investigator VP location with a 3xp tax to do it testless and create the location from nothing. — dezzmont · 213 1/8/23

Trigger Man

Question about this card.

Does "without paying its -> cost” mean, we don't need to spend bullets/resources on cards with limited uses?

Also, does the attached card really take up my own slot? Where can I find such rule stated? Was really hoping to put a weapon on Trigger Man as my hands are already full with other tools.

1/6/23

castletime · 1

You just ignore the action cost to activate the ability. Each other cost like ammunition need to be payed additionally. — Tharzax · 1 1/6/23

Cards like Abigail Foreman and Elli Rubash state, that attached assets don't take up a slot, this card doesn't. Hence it's save to say, that it doesn't. — Susumu · 366 1/6/23

*Elli Horowitz of course. — Susumu · 366 1/6/23

I don't think you would pay and costs associated with the -> ability. If the card only removes the activate action, then it wouldn't need to say that at all because it's already triggering off of a free trigger. — Divitkid182 · 1 3/15/23

What about Sledgehammer with several actions cost to use? Is it also cost 0 actions with Trigger Man? — Pr1celess · 1 1/22/24

When they print multiple action arrows on a card it's shorthand for "as an additional cost to use this action, pay (extra actions); ignoring "the arrow cost" only ignores the first arrow, not the extras. "Ignoring all costs" will do it, though. — OrionAnderson · 70 3/18/24

It really is a bit ambiguous, because "resolving" is not the same as "triggering" an ability, but actually only the effect, i.e. the text after the ":". So unless they intentionally wanted to put redundant text on the card (and let you ignore all costs) I assume they meant in fact "trigger". This distinction is also important for cards like Colt Vest Pocket (2), which in my point of view demands a ruling regarding whether "resolving" counts as "triggering" in this case. — AlderSign · 291 9/19/24

is there an actual rules reference, if cards that refer to ignore the "arrow" cost don't ignore other costs like ammo? And in your opinions, is there a separate "arrow" cost to an action plus ammo cost, or is this viewed together? Then in theory, trigger man could shoot endless with no ammo, which just seems wrong to me. In my opinion, just the existence of "all costs" vs. "arrow costs" proves that they are different and therefore, ignoring "arrow" costs doesn't pay for ammo cost. — Khaleasi1110 · 1 9/29/24

Arkham Officer

How would the forced condition on this card react with Hiking Boots if I am discovering the last clue on a location? Do I get to choose or does this one trigger first?

Edit: sorry, indeed It was about the agenda 2 interaction with hiking boots. Thanos!

1/6/23

Gsayer · 1

The forced effect is discovering clues, only moving them. — Therealestize · 72 1/6/23

*isn't, the forced effect isn't discovering clue.damn phone. — Therealestize · 72 1/6/23

Are you perhaps referring to the Forced effect on Agenda 2 that makes the police attack you for discovering clues ? Either way, there is a rule that states that Forced effects happen before optional reactions if they have the same trigger timing (ie "after discovering...) — DrOGM · 25 1/7/23

Dmitri Konstantinov

Read from the left-to-right, top-to-bottom, this is the only enemy whose stat line counts down to 0 one at a time.

4 Fight, 3 Health, 2 Agility, 1 Damage, 0 Horror,

A close second is Lurker in the Dark with its 3>2>1, 1>0 progression (or Stalking Manticore). There's also Roald Ellsworth, Nihilistic Stargazer, and Interstellar Traveler whose top stats count down, but whose bottom stats count up. For the reverse, we have Enthralled Security Guard.

1/6/23

SorryLaurie · 594

Nature of the Beast

I'm not going to comment on the viability of the card too much, (other then to say that in 4 player especially 1 clue isn't really that significant because you're at best removing one of 4 clues from a location which isn't that high impact) but I've seen a couple comments saying that this card lets you filter the encounter deck. This isn't really true. Sure, if you draw a problematic encounter then you can bin it and not have to worry about one copy of it for the encounter shuffle. But you're also fairly likely to not find any particularly bad encounters and end up removing two of them that would have been relatively easy for your team to deal with and cause you to draw the harder ones sooner. You're not actually filtering your draws, because these are cards that you wouldn't have drawn anyway. It's similar to how discarding cards from your deck doesn't substantially effect your draws aside from having to take a horror from the reshuffle earlier as it means that cards you would have drawn in the middle of the scenario are drawn earlier, and later on in the scenario you'll be drawing cards you otherwise wouldn't have if you didn't discard the cards.

In the end, you're about as likely to discard difficult encounters as you are to cause your team to draw them earlier and more often. Not saying the card is bad or anything, just that "improving your encounter draws" isn't a thing this card really does as it is about as likely to make them worse.

1/4/23

Sylvee · 101

I think you're overgeneralizing the mill lesson, and this card does actually improve encounter draws like people say it does. I'd need to do substantial math to prove the general point, but if nothing else, in a three or four player game, going through the entire encounter deck is in many situations inevitable. There are only a few ways to avoid resolving, say, Ancient Evils: either you cancel it, you discard it (and this is the only player card that does that), or you get lucky and the scenario ends or shuffles the encounter discard pile into the encounter deck before you see it. Nature of the Beast doesn't make the third more likely, of course, but it does make the second possible at all. Meaning that if the scenario was in fact long enough to draw through the encounter deck anyway, you've turned a guaranteed draw of whatever card you're worried about into a possible draw of it, which is in fact less likely. — Thatwasademo · 58 1/5/23

Suppose you were going to draw through the encounter deck exactly once during a scenario; that's exactly 3 Ancient Evils (or whatever card you most want to avoid). Now suppose you resolve Nature of the Beast once during that scenario; you get to discard an Ancient Evils if you see it, but now you're 3 cards deeper into the encounter deck so, before the game ends, you will draw the top 3 cards of a reshuffled encounter deck — which are just as likely to contain an Ancient Evils as the 3 cards you revealed before. Nature of the Beast did not change the expected number of Ancient Evils you drew, it just increased the variance — which is probably a bad thing. — Spritz · 69 1/6/23

There are ways to target bad encounter cards: using Nature of the Beast with Katja Eastbank and Scrying, for example. And, like player-deck-discarding effects, Nature of the Beast gives you potentially useful *information* about future encounter draws. But I am fairly confident that Sylvee is right and Nature of the Beast on its own does not improve encounter draws. — Spritz · 69 1/6/23

But if you can avoid drawing ancient evil now, this get you enough time to finish before the next was drawn. In a thinned encounter deck the chance of drawing a specific card might also be higher then in a fresh encounter deck. Nature of the bead is not reliable without scying etc but it can change some odds — Tharzax · 1 1/6/23

@Tharzaz this card does impact the odds of drawing certain cards after you play it similar to how resolving the encounter part of the mythos phase impacts odds. And if you have tools that both let you see what the next 3 cards of the mythos phase are as well as a way to consistently trigger this when you got a batch you want to discard, (as Spritz mentions you could do this with Katja and Scrying) you could theoretically use this card to improve your draws. But absent those things, this card is on average about as likely to cause you to discard an Ancient Evils as it is to cause you to draw all of them a turn sooner and potentially draw one more. Without information of what's on the top of the encounter deck and the ability to trigger this card when it's something bad, it's random chance what you hit with it and over the course of enough games will end up improving your draws as much as it worsens it. — Sylvee · 101 1/6/23

It took me a little while to understand the argument but now I see it: we all focus on the chance it has to discard 1 (or 2) annoying encounter cards, without seeing that it can also have us discard 2 non-threatening cards, bringing us closer to the cards we actually want to avoid. — Valentin1331 · 70731 1/6/23

Yes on its own this card is not really good since you don't since it's effect resolves after drawing and you can't time it. Even the effect is mediocre. You need additional card to get good combos. Like Katja, scying or a ward of protection to fish and prevent a bad encounter like ancient evil. — Tharzax · 1 1/6/23