Eyes of Valusia

So, this is a card that Alessandra may find useful, since she is the one who will spend Parley actions to feed this.

The thing is... this is underwhelming. Alessandra will always prefer to use her Parley actions in other powerful Parley cards as long as there are enemies in the map, and this is not hard to force in the vast majority of scenarios. You can even look for them with Kicking the Hornet's Nest or ask your Guardian to play On the Hunt.

Let's say you waste your precious Parley extra action and you add three charges. Then you activate the effect and play Blade of Yoth. You can attack 3 times for 6 damage, 2 times for 3 and 2 damage or 1 time for 4 damage. You have to basically wasted 3 extra Parley actions (probably along 3 rounds) that could have been used to win the scenario with cards like Vamp, Fake Credentials's , Grift, Power Word or Beguile's to feed this in order to get this numbers.

This is just so much trouble when you can simply play British Bull Dog and shoot 3 times for 6 damage ignoring Aloof or even not paying because of its . Do you need bigger numbers? Use Dirty Fighting since it also synergizes with Parley tests or the new Fox Mask.

Is this a boss killer? Not by any stretch, you will just perform worse during the whole scenario with Alessandra just for get this thing fed.

Marie Lambeau suffers from the same. Her extra for activating Spell assets' is way better spent in assets like Shrivelling, Rite of Seeking or any spell you want to play.

So, Alessandra and Marie Lambeau have way better options and ways to spend their extra actions, but, this card has another cool effect. When you load this thing using the Parley action, every investigator gets +1 to deal with the parleyed enemy during this round. I find this such a cool support tool for non other than Carson Sinclair. He can use this to ease hard Parley actions (There are some of this in The Forgotten Age if I remember correctly), or to buff any investigator while dealing with an enemy. He can get next to a big boss (or big enemy), use this card's three times and suddenly all investigators will consistently trigger cool effects with card like Switchblade, Mauser C96, Beretta M1918, .41 Derringer, Cheap Shot, Opportunist, Lucky Cigarette Case, etc. Kymani would love to get their numbers bigger by this in order to have an easier time discarding enemies. You can even join the fun if you've added enough charges and swing with a +6 bonus for 4 damage! Not live changing, but good enough for a exclusively support character, allowing Carson to have autonomy against enemies he draws from the Mythos deck as a consequence of perfoming good at his role

Sure, not all the campaigns have such dangerous enemies to get this rolling, but there are some other campaigns with a lot of bosses and beefy enemies (specially in bigger player counts) where other players will gladly take the bonuses and the help.

Is Eyes of Valusia the best option for Carson? I don't know, but it looks fun enough for me. Maybe this card needs to get mutated to be playable. Realisticaly, no Guardian (or Marie Lambeau) will pay 4 exp when you can get Brand of Cthugha for the same slots and bigger damage for less actions and ghost killing if they are a thing in the campaign you are playing. Maybe there is something I'm not seeing. I don't know.

rodro · 69
It’s a weird card to evaluate, because it’s hard to see the cards value… but it’s there. And this IS a boss killer for sure, but it performs worse with less players. It is descent support tech. Carson definitely comes to mind. — Therealestize · 61
A personally think it's great utility for Alessandra: — bernieschlotfeldt · 1
It helps buff all party interactions with one enemy / For Vamp •••, applies to each check / Helps burst skill checks on critical story parleys / Saves up for big damage output for Victory enemies. And, as you mentioned, it helps the entire party in a tough fight. True, there are other options with higher DPR, but the broad utility is pretty great IMHO. — bernieschlotfeldt · 1
Ravenous Myconid

Surely this will get taboo'd pretty quickly. It is not hard to use cards like Breach the Door or Skeleton Key to reduce a location's shroud to zero. Add in Seeker movement tricks to allow investigators to end their turn there and on small maps it means no mythos phase, ever, for anyone.

bayushi_david · 197
"Cancel that treachery's effects and discard it. Remove all growth from Ravenous Myconid." — MrGoldbee · 1391
Yeah, but 0 is less than or equal to 0. — Thatwasademo · 52
I could easily see a taboo to "less than" instead of "equal to or less than" or even an errata to "equal to or less than ... and Ravenous Myconid has at least 1 growth" — Thatwasademo · 52
Yeah, I think it's going to have to be changed to "less than" - I can't imagine the intent was to allow you to just blank the encounter deck. Especially since you can reduce a location to zero, designate it as the locas and spend your turn returning all investigator there. — bayushi_david · 197
Skeleton Key fixes the shroud to be 1, you cannot then modify it to be 0. — OrionAnderson · 26
You get growth for each point you succeed in an investigation check, this will often be quite high. Honestly I think the best way to fix these mushrooms would be to change Uncanny Growth to provide only 1 growth instead. — MegatonSamurai · 9
A bit of a hyperbole. It's not blanking the encounter deck, only treachery cards (and not perils drawn by other investigators). However, that's still a big chunk of the encounter deck, so I do agree this card will see taboo. — eapfel · 5
Kōhaku Narukami

Quick question about the "whichever there are fewer of" of his capacity, does it count all the or tokens which are in play, like the ones sealed on Favor of the Moon or Favor of the Sun ? I have this doubt since the wording of The Key of Solomon is not exactly the same, saying "if there are more [...] in the chaos bag" which doesn't count the sealed ones. The same question applies to his Book of Living Myths.

To the chaos bag beforehand I believe is meant to imply that it’s based on what’s in the bag. That is how the bless/curse tracker that comes with him is supposed to work, so I would assume for simplicity that that’s how you’d play his ability. — StyxTBeuford · 12918
My understanding, and so far of everyone who engaged with me in discussions is that it only refers to tokens that are in the bag, and not tokens sealed. The reason for the different wording is that the chaos bag is mentioned literally just a few words before in both Kōhaku's case and in the Book of Living Myths. — Valentin1331 · 55088
Ravenous Myconid

When i first saw these Myconids (This one and the one for threacheries) i immediately voiced my concern, but was bashed a bit and told how limit 1 per deck is enough of a restriction to not make it too powerful. Well, having played 2 full campaigns now with them, i officially declare them BANNED at my table. Don't think it was banned by me alone, but my whole group unanimously agreed that we haven't seen anything so broken as these 2 motherfuc*ers ever since my friend abused the crap out of The Necronomicon, so we kiiinda semi-banned it. But that semi-ban of the book was simple, we all agreed not to abuse it like crazy and if we play it fair and square you are allowed to put it in your deck. It is a co-op game, so it is not a big issue as we are all friends and like to have fun, which is the most important thing in this game. Fun!

Now these 2...oh boy, where to start? I cannot even complain about them that much because we all just vented out in person, so i will just say a couple of things. They are so insanely broken that i cannot wrap my head around how the fck they got out of print like this, but the same brain thought that this for 4xp is fair but a card like Miracle Wish which is just a bit improved Lucky! in Guardians costs 5xp, and you have to wait to see some blesses before you play it LMAO, and don't get me started on Flurry of Blows! You see, when this bad boy hits the table, you just play the normal game as a seeker. You for free trigger get the event to investigate, and as you already have ATLEAST 4 or 5 int as a base stat, you will probably have something to commit or have other boosts like Dr. Milan Christopher or Magnifying Glass or some skills, so you will get this creature powered up almost every turn. So if you pick the one for threacheries, you just move with Shortcut or Pathfinder or any other move effect that you have in your deck, and make yourself safe. If you don't have them, you just spend 1 action to move, you know, the action which you have to use anyway if you wanna get to the next location and progress the game? Or if you are not so sure about the shroud, just move back once if you wanna feel secure, or stick at your location as you already know the shroud so you make sure you succeed for the right amount. And what does it give you? Well, not so strong effect if we ask the designers. You just get a free Ward of Protection or the insane enemy deleter that guardians can only dream of. The whole community is bitching about seekers not being fair and how their enemy removal is even stronger than what guardians have, and the designers answered our calls and made sure that now they don't even need to spend the ONLY thing they had to do, which is use an action for it!! You don't even spend an action to fight anymore, you just investigate and when an enemy shows you eat it. No test, nothing. What the actual fck?

Imagine if guardians had a card which takes up no slots, okay make it limit 1 per deck (which would nerf them because they are not even close to the drawing power of seekers) and make it cost 4xp. The card says = Whenever you defeat an enemy, place X growth on this card. Free trigger = spend X growth, discover that many clues". What idiot would not play that card? It would be the most broken shit in the game, but then you still have to wait for enemies to show up so you can use it so it means it is STILL WORSE than this card, because with this thing you progress the game as usual and then when an enemy shows up, then you react to it. What.The.Fck? This is just straight up ban, if you don't believe me, play an optimized seeker and see for yourself. Both versions are completely banned at my table, period. We will only use the third one which seems like an actually playable and strong card, without this all seeker bias.

Blood&gore · 352
At the very least, it does say non elite so you can't *totally* solo the scenario, but yes it's definitely an egregious amount of power for a card to have in the class that's supposed to be bad at fighting enemies. — Spamamdorf · 1
'Cause if you feed me, Seymour I can grow up, big and strong Would you like a Cadillac car? Or a guest-shot on Jack Paar? How about a date with Hedy Lamarr... You gonna git it! — MrGoldbee · 1391
Survival Technique

At the time of writing (before Hemlock Vale Encounter Cards are added to the database), a rough search shows that 17 treacheries attach to locations and test some skill and 21 treacheries attach to locations and have a // ability, which likely involves a skill test. Combining and eliminating duplicates and duds in both results gives us 18 treacheries that actually has "a skill test on a treachery attached to your location". Add the 2 new "attach to location and test" treacheries from Hemlock Vale (edit: there are 3 but one can usually only be tested from a connecting location) and that gives 20 valid treachery targets for Survival Technique, more or less.

As for locations, depending on search criteria anywhere from ~150 to over 450 turn up so let's just say it's more difficult to give an accurate estimation.

Notably this can boost the basic Investigate test on Searching for Izzie, but given that Jenny cannot actually use Survival Technique without advanced jank and less roundabout ways such as Flashlight (3) or commiting skill cards being available, it's more a curiosity than a legitimate answer to that weakness.

But back to the topic of treacheries from the encounter deck. Even if one may think "Sweet! Now I can get +2/+4 on my Locked Door test!" or likewise, Alter Fate (1) from the same faction takes care of most problems of similar calibre with the same one action and testlessly. So ultimately, my final verdict for the second ability on Survival Instinct is that be glad if it comes up but don't count on it to save your run.


The first ability is where the real meat is at. Being able to recycle the likes of Shrine of the Moirai and Barricade (3) is obviously very good and in the latter case potentially scenario-breaking, but I believe the best "attach to location" event that synergizes with Survival Technique is Breach the Door.

Breach the Door is a decent card that allows monster killers to help with clueing duty in 1-2 locations per game, Now Survival Technique asks: What if you can do it more than twice? Better yet, what if you can use BtD to reduce the shrouds of multiple locations to 0, multiple times per game?
Shed a Light already showed us how broken 0-shroud locations can be and it got instantly chained. But aside from that. a bunch of other cards also interact with shroud, with Lola Santiago being the most prominent example. It is a combo so amazing that it's worth building around, from the econ to repeatedly replay BtD, Farsight to play it fast, ways to tutor for both cards and whatnot.

I think two investigators in particular would want to take a long hard look at the ST-BtD combo:

  • Charlie Kane. Has access to both cards and Lola Santiago. Get Bonnie Walsh in play and maybe add an Inspiring Presence to your 0-difficulty investigation test to overwork poor Ms. Santiago into giving you 3 testless clues for free per round. He could have trouble oversucceeding on the Breach test, but hey, that's what his allies are for.
  • Kate Winthrop. Has access to both cards as well as Ravenous Myconid (Sentient Strain), Farsight and Barricade (3). When your location's shroud is 0, Myconid can block any non-weakness treacheries you draw even at 0 growth (because 0 shroud is equal to 0 growths and the cancel itself already changes game state). Combine with Barricade (3) to build a command center that's also a literal fortress where nobody except an Elite boss can get in. She can also stack +2s with her Flux Stabilizer to help with the oversuccess.

William Yorick, "Ashcan" Pete (normal and parallel) and Tommy Muldoon can also take this combo (edit: Daniela Reyes can too! Thanks to MrGoldbee for the catch), and could probably play it to decent effect though definitely not as spectacular. Probably involves way too many role changes to be worth it on Lola Hayes though.

koaexe · 25
You forget the 5 Fight survivor, Daniella! — MrGoldbee · 1391
Nice review! I hadn't realised about the combo with Breach the Door until someone else mentioned it to me recently, but it's definitely a cool one. Definitely want to build a deck around it at some point... — HungryColquhoun · 2161
Nothing requires Jenny to actually search for Izzie herself. She can certainly delegate the job to Minh or Darrell or whomever. — OrionAnderson · 26
Of course, I have tried to build this Kate deck already. I gave up on Farsight because I needed to drop clues for the Combat Test, and Press Pass was more experience-economical to get this one extra action. Other interesting things are that Kate can actually take Shed a Light, Seeking Answers (2) is a great way to leverage your 0-shroud location, and Stirring up Trouble gets you 2 clues for free. But in practice, the deck was horrible to play and assembling it was slow and tedious, especially compared to how fast other seeker decks can be. Here is the link if anyone is curious: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/3670649 - Now to mention this combo in particular, I agree with MrGoldbee that Daniella is probably the best user I can think of, as she usually fights enemies outside of her turn, doesn't have loads to do during her turn, and doesn't usually need much experience to reach her ceiling, so Shed a Light, OK(3) and Survival Technique are easy to get. — Valentin1331 · 55088
Thanks a lot for the catch and feedback! I have updated my review to include the stuff I missed. Regarding Searching for Izzie, I guess I just wanted to point out it is also a skill test on an "attach" treachery as a curious observation, but ultimately that weakness is defined more by its action tax than the basic investigation, so it was probably an unnecessary tangent. — koaexe · 25
Also, glad to see another great deck from Valentin! I was actually inspired by your thoughts in #deck-tech of the Mythos Busters Discord to write this review and it is amazing to see you improving on this concept. I'm now on my second run of Hemlock Vale as Kate and I'll definitely try to pivot into your deck to see more of it in action. — koaexe · 25
Oh please, don't! This deck link I have posted was more a thought experiment to see if abusing Breach the Door and the Myconid was possible. Turns out that in practice, it is really not so fun and doesn't even work so well, so don't waste your time with this! — Valentin1331 · 55088
Certainly, I understand what you mean now. Went through Written in Rock last night and it was rather miserable. I was perpetually broke and most of the time didn't have more than 2 clues to place. Now I see the problem is that without some really powerful multi-clue action you're just using your actions such that others can do your job for you. I still think ST+BtD is worth trying, but perhaps only in Daniella as you and MrGoldbee suggested. — koaexe · 25
I like that Tommy Can put BtD on Stick to the Plan to make the combo MUCH more consistent, and it's thematic for him too. — Death by Chocolate · 1359