Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Try and Try Again

IGNORE:

Stella is an amazing support survivor. Her unique card's ability to prevent failure penalties means that you could run low willpower investigators through tougher scenarios. With this, you get the chance to throw those No Fail cards at an ally once a turn. Especially in scenarios that add doom on failure, this combo prevents it. Worst comes to worst, you lose your Neither Rain temporarily until you play resourceful or True Survivor, and a teammate makes a vital but unlikely skill check.

2/13/21

MrGoldbee · 1512

That combo doesn't really work - Try and Try Again pulls the chosen skill during ST.6, and if you pull Neither Rain nor Snow from the check, by the time skill test results resolve the card is no longer there to stop them from applying. So if you use TATA to pull a card (except Defiance and Silas' personal skill, which have effects that resolve before ST.6), it's as if you had never committed that card in the first place. — TheNameWasTaken · 3 2/13/21

afaik grisly totem(3) should serve that purpose — schafinho1 · 55 2/13/21

Pretty certain grisly totem (3)'s effect is an effect of the failed test (rather than a response to a failed test) so if NRNS is in the test then Grisly Totem (3)'s effect gets cancelled — NarkasisBroon · 13 2/13/21

oh, you're right — schafinho1 · 55 2/13/21

@narkasis, not exactly, current community consensus (supported by the rules proofreader who I must disclaim is NOT a formal rules authority but is well-regarded) is that just like you get to choose the order of successful test results in ST.7 you similarly get to choose the order of failed test results. So, you could resolve all your "if you fail" effects and then trigger NRNS to cancel the rest. — Sycopath · 1 2/14/21

@Sycopath while you can choose the order, it doesn't matter. If you choose NRNS to resolve first, the totem's effect is canceled. If you choose to resolve the totem first, NRNS is returned and it doesn't cancel any fail effects. — suika · 9527 2/14/21

Tooth of Eztli

What's missing from consideration in this card is the number of persistent treacheries that could be cleared from another investigator or a location with this card. Consider Voice of the Jungle from TFA or really any of about a dozen from TCU where they sit in an investigator's threat area until an action will test is succeeded. This card gives you an incentive for clearing someone else's will test beyond just freeing them up, in that you get a card draw so the action isn't totally wasted for you. In a 4p run of TCU you could be using this almost every turn even without drawing the tests yourself or having Let Me Handle This.

Probably not the best use of actions for your primary seeker, but this card can be very handy in TCU for anyone who can take level 0 Seeker and has a high natural will as the designated treachery handler, and has a surprisingly long list of persistent treacheries it can be used on (some examples but I found at least 15 in core, TFA and TCU):

2/13/21

Time4Tiddy · 252

This gives a bonus to remove frozen in fear, what more do you need from your cards? — Zerogrim · 299 2/13/21

"Frozen in Fear" is a forced ability. This does not aply to the rule of triggered abilities, that can be done by other investigators at the same location. — Susumu · 383 2/13/21

It is indeed excellent for your own Frozen in Fear. Minh loves this card, since it allows her to test at 5 will against treacheries before committing; and Minh being Minh, committing anything will let her test will higher than most Mystics. — suika · 9527 2/13/21

Reckless

This card gives you an extremely solid reason to include lockpicks in your rogue deck. You can investigate any location, even if you wouldn’t get clues. If you’re another class, hopefully you have a stat that you can super succeed at, like willpower plus another stat in mystic. It’s a good reminder not to draw cards as your last action, because it’s a weakness that punishes that pretty intensely.

2/12/21

MrGoldbee · 1512

A flashligh investigation on a 1 or 2 shroud location would also work... most of the time. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1099 2/12/21

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 · 1512

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 · 1335 2/12/21

Rabbit’s Foot is actually almost as good. In Stella it’s fantastic. — StyxTBeuford · 13072 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 · 1335 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 · 13072 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 · 299 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 · 9527 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 · 13072 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 · 252

Alternatively, if it's in a slow draw deck like Tommy, you may only see this a couple of times in a campaign. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1099 2/11/21

Or scroll of secrets. Add more secrets as needed. — MrGoldbee · 1512 2/11/21