Empty Vessel

Empty Vessel

This one seems to be a very interesting card for Guardians since defeating enemies is basically what they do, but this card has a catch to it. Of current guardians, all but Carolyn Fern are able to take this card. A pity for Carolyn Fern, since it is the bonded card, not this card that heals horror.

For Leo, Mark and Roland this card has to compete with the always powerful Police Badge and the potential Police Badge/Well Prepared combo with one additional icon compared to this card. It also has to compete with the strong Hallowed Mirror. While also healing, the Hallowed Mirror does not cancel an icon from the chaos bag but does not need charges and does not cost any xp, so I think I would prefer the Hallowed Mirror over this card because of this. With Zoey Samaras, this card competes with one of the strongest investigator-specific cards in the game which is of course Zoey's Cross with an obvious outcome.

Of non guardian investigators Ursula is able to take this card currently (Father Mateo can take blessed only up to level 3), but she is very bad at defeating enemies with her 1 so she is not the obvious investigator to charge this card.

There is just one investigator I think of, when looking at this card, and this is (it might be a big suprise so tension is rising): Akachi Onyele - she can take "uses: charges" cards up to level 4. She does not really require the Holy Rosary because of her powerful stat and she definitly is able to kill monsters and she really like cancellation of special symbols for her spells and she starts this card with 1 charge and also can charge it with tokens. Akachi Onyele is a very potent monster slayer for a non Guardian so it might be worth a shot.

As a conclusion the most obvious investigator for this lv. 4 guardian card might be: A Mystic.

thakaris · 35
Guardians have some of the least useful elder signs and also have access to trusted, pushing this card into major feasibility territory. The only issue is the effective additional 3xp cost for Charisma — Difrakt · 688
Aaaaand whoops wrong card review — Difrakt · 688
It might be great for Akachi, but I don't think we can overestimate the value of a guaranteed attack (or three) against bosses for Roland, Mark, Leo, and Tommy. Healing 3 horror in a round (while dealing damage) is also probably enough to let you soak another attack from the boss, which might be worth 3 actions over the badge's two. All that said, it does feel like a very late upgrade card, after you've gotten your weapons up to god-killing mode. — SGPrometheus · 188
Also I just realized the fast action isn't forced; if you know a boss is coming later in a scenario, you can wait to swap this out until after the boss pops up. Also, i thought wish-eater canceled the auto-fail, which it doesn't, but I still think this is better than the badge because of the auto-heal. — SGPrometheus · 188
Just played a TCU campaign as Akachi, and after i got this every scenario basically turned around once it flipped. One health/sanity left with shriveling (5) out? Let's just cancel those pesky tokens that would kill us. Using rite of seeking? Continue taking actions despite bad draws. Additionally, if bad tokens account for most of the -3 or less modifiers in the bag, you increase your odds of success significantly with this out. The hardest part was taking enough damage before flipping it to really feel like i was wringing maximum value out of it. Can't wait to try with an actual guardian. — SGPrometheus · 188

Delilah O'Rourke

Delilah O'Rourke

One of the two incredibly strong Rogue cards added by Where the Gods Dwell. Strong soak paired with 2 attributes and a damage ability - this is so strong, that you have to really argue why you might not include this card. Rogue allies always have been pretty good so far, with arguably Lola Santiago being one of the strongest with the powerful resource generating abilities of a Rogue. Delilah O'Rourke is basically the final brick to seal Leo De Luca's fate in Rogue decks, since with Dario El-Amin, Lola Santiago and now Delilah O'Rourke to compete for the ally slot I don't see Leo De Luca in my decks. Anyway, especially with Finn Edwards free evade this is so incredibly strong especially when considering the evade value of the most enemies in the game. I did not count the absolute values here but my gut feeling is that most hunting enemies with high health and fight have low evade values.

thakaris · 35
I just finished The Boundary Beyond in TFA with Finn and Delilah and she is as awesome as you can imagine. Lone Wolf almost sustained her Assassin costs each turn. I disagree a little that Leo is out of Rogue decks at any point in a campaign. Delilah is another great option but Leo is still the best combo with Charisma out of most options. It would be interesting to see what kind of combo you could pull off with Lola and Delilah. Somebody would have to have a ridiculous economy although that is possible if you can't Paint Hot Streak with Sefina a couple of times or Lone Wolf Jenny with a pair of Hot Streaks. Dario is a poor pairing with either imo since you will spending resources like crazy. The Cat Burgler will likely be totally forgotten due to yet another fantastic Rogue ally. And the Cat Burgler is really strong himself. — TWWaterfalls · 361

Garrote Wire

Garrote Wire

Okay, Where the Gods Dwell seems to be made for Rogues with 2 absolutely insane cards to use in Rogue decks. Yet again with this card a Rogue has an ability for a free action. As far as I understand the Rules, the ability here triggers the bold Fight action, which than is an action on it's own, so it would add to Pay Day or Haste. Imagine being engaged with 2 enemies, using a fight action on the first one, putting it to 1health remaing, using Garrot Wire next to finish that enemy, afterwards using Haste to attack the other enemy and that just was 1 action! On top of it, a rogue does not have such strong competition on the Accessory Slot, there is no St. Hubert's Key or Holy Rosary or Police Badge to compete so it is very close to an auto include in rogue decks to me.

thakaris · 35
Disagree on the lack of competition for accessories. Rogues have both Crystallizer of Dreams (an amazing flex accessory) and Lucky Cigarette Case (an amazing econ one). A rogue taking lots of extra actions is going to be drawing a card almost every turn from the Cig Case. The Garrot Wire seems fine in some specialized decks, but you probably don't need its ability that much with good action economy, and you might have a lot of trouble even using its ability since it basically requires an odd health enemy. Without combat boosts the wire doesn't even hit that reliably, and the only Rogue for whom it would hit reliably- Tony Morgan- get a free fight action anyway and would vastly prefer either of the other accessories. The fact that it works with Haste is cool, and I could see it with Relic Hunter, but I definitely do not think it's that easy of a take. — StyxTBeuford · 974
Ahh Action/Action/Ability confusion. I don’t think this qualifies for haste as, while it has the Fight action designator it isn’t *really* an ‘action’ it’s a triggered ability. I don’t think it qualifies for either Haste or Payday etc — Difrakt · 688
As I understand RAW it qualifies: „ Some abilities have bold action designators (such as Fight, Evade, Investigate, or Move). Activating such an ability performs the designated action as described in the rules, but modified in the manner described by the ability.“ so the fast action designator on the Garrot triggers the action fight. As I do understand RAW, fight is an action and the trigger ability is fast which are different components. — thakaris · 35
Regarding the competition on the Accessory slot, in my opinion Lucky Cigarette Case is kind of redundant the way I play most Rogues. Usually I build my Rogues with a 2 Pickpocketings lv.2 and have them do a lot of evasion which will give them 2 cards if both are in play. That is already a pretty decent card draw, so I usually don't take the Cigarette Case. This might not be true for all Investigators (e.g. Jenny) and it is just my playstyle, but that is why in my opinion competition is not that strong. — thakaris · 35
It’s a free fight action, it does qualify for Haste. — StyxTBeuford · 974
It's not a free fight action, it's a free fight triggered ability. Therefore no Haste nor PayDay combo. — Fishiste · 2
That is actually correct, it doesn't qualify for Haste, that was my bad. Similar to Shortcut 2 and Leo Anderson's ability- it doesn't actually cost an action so it doesn't qualify. — StyxTBeuford · 974
Actually, looking back at the rules, I have literally no idea. Bold designators do *perform* the action. It doesn't require you spent it, only that you performed it, so I kind of feel it does count. I'm not going to say definitively one way or the other because this has been a headache for me today. — StyxTBeuford · 974
Free Triggered abilities neither trigger nor interrupt Haste, just like they don't provoke AoOs or cost an action. — Xenas · 3
They dont provoke AOO because the rules ref specifically says they dont, but I found the reason why it doesnt work. Bold designators are modified by the cost, and in this case the modifier is a free trigger, so they are no longer actions and therefore do not count towards Haste. You still perform a Fight, but it’s not a performed action. — StyxTBeuford · 974
For me, this is still absolutely clear. Haste triggers, if you PERFORM the same action twice, Pay Day counts the actions PERFORMED., they do not state anything about cost or require one of your investigators actions to be spent, Haste and Pay Day talk about PERFORM. Now, the rules for bold action designators read "Activating such an ability PERFORMS the designated action". Pathfinder does not qualify, since "move" is not bold on this card, if I remember correctly. — thakaris · 35
If it doesn't make Take the Initiative worse, it doesn't work for Haste. Thats my take. — Xenas · 3
@thakaris I understand that rationale and I was having trouble seeing past that as well. The reasoning, again, is the rules also say the designators perform the actions as modified. It turns out the fast triggers weirdly modify them to simply not be actions. Haste cares that they are performed actions, but modifying them to not be actions means they no longer count towards Haste (because they need to still be actions). If you want to hear it from Matt Newman himself, this thread explains it: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/301629-what-counts-as-a-performed-action-and-what-doesnt/?tab=comments — StyxTBeuford · 974
I will correct myself on one thing though- this thing is actually a ton of fun with Tony. Maybe it is a bit redundant, but if you're specializing as a fighter it's a great end game accessory. — StyxTBeuford · 974

The Black Cat

The Black Cat

Finally a card to dump an otherwise unused . How often did I draw an when playing Zoey Samaras and felt betrayed by the chaos back, because I was testing on a Willpower treachery and not on a fight check. Countless time I drew the when playing Ursula Downs and quitly thought "Okay, I have a free move, if I would only need to move right now, which I don't". Any Investigator with a pretty situational effect should consider this. It is Chaos Bag control at its best. It is absolutely worth 5xp to me.

thakaris · 35
Guardians have some of the most situational/least useful elder signs, plus access to trusted which boosts this cards effectiveness by a bunch — Difrakt · 688

Crystallizer of Dreams

Crystallizer of Dreams

Can we get an official ruling on whether The Painted World can be placed under Crystallizer of Dreams? I understand the arguments for and against this in other reviews, but there still seems to be some uncertainty.

My take is that according to the section "Play" in the Rules Reference, TPW is played after you choose a card to copy and pay the appropriate number of resources. You can then activate Crystallizer of Dreams, and only at this time. Then the Painted World/copied event effects are resolved, including a new "Instead of discarding..." effect. Then according to the "instead" section of the rules reference (see below), the most recent replacement (the one on TPW) is used. So the combo doesn't seem to work.

"The word “instead” is indicative of a replacement effect. A replacement effect is an effect that replaces the resolution of a triggering condition with an alternate means of resolution. =If multiple replacement effects are initiated against the same triggering condition and create a conflict in how to resolve the triggering condition, the most recent replacement effect is the one that is used for the resolution of the triggering condition."

jmmeye3 · 224
TPW does the replacement effect while playing, Crystallizer’s replacement is *after* playing, therefore is the more recent effect — Difrakt · 688
I like that interpretation because I want to try the combo, but the "play" section of the Rules Reference seems to suggest that the card is "played" after its cost is paid and any restrictions and conditions are met, but before resolving the effects of the event. Here's the quote: "Any time an event card is played, its effects are resolved and it is then placed in its owner’s discard pile." This seems ambigious, but to me fits better with playing being separate from both resolving the effects in the text box and separate from discarding the event. — jmmeye3 · 224
It's been debated back and forth and no one can come to a solid ruling right now- strong arguments exist both ways. It's literally just going to have to be FAQ'd. Until then, play this in Sef however it makes sense to you, or just don't play it with her. — StyxTBeuford · 974
i don't see, where can be any confusion. Apendix I. clearly states, that the card is considered played AFTER its effects are resolved — Adny · 1
I really do not think this is the place to settle FAQ disputes. Threads upon threads, even here, have already gone back and forth over the card. Just wait for it to be settles officially, there's little point in continuing these discussions on DB. — StyxTBeuford · 974