Winging It

Winging It

I highly recommend Winging It in a Norman Withers deck.

Winging It has 1 cost, so can be played for free from the top of your Deck with Norman's ability. Norman would often be doing basic Investigate actions anyway, so seeing this on top of your deck essentially gives him card draw, much like fast 0-1 cost events.

His Signature Weakness, The Harbinger disables your Deck, allowing you to infinitely replay Improvised events from your Discard pile, without shuffling them back into your Deck afterwards. With your Weakness out and Winging It discarded, you've an got an endless 1 cost source of -1 Difficulty, +1 Clue Investigate actions. Use Sleuth or Dr. Milan Christopher to mitigate the cost.

In order to setup this combo, you must find Winging It before revealing The Harbinger. Norman has access to recurring searches to help ensure this happens:

You will have to take Versatile to include it, which decreases your deck's consistency with its +5 Deck Size, but there are a few benefits to that as well:

  • Norman can only have up to 5 level 0 cards. If you upgrade them out, you can save up to 5exp repurchasing new level 0 cards, as increasing your deck limit requires you to fill in the missing cards with appropriate level 0s from your collection.

  • Cards that are Tabooed to cost additional experience remain at their original level. Level 0 Taboos can thus be included via Versatile at no additional cost. This counteracts the spirit of following Taboo in the first place, but can save you a lot of experience should you want to include cards like Knowledge is Power or Mr. "Rook" (Who can help setup this deckless Norman playstyle). | Edit: The chained modifier applies afterwards. The fact that level 0 chains don't consume your upgraded experience when added via Versatile seems to be an oversight on ArkhamDB.

Linderwood · 7
Versatile definitely doesn't save you having to pay experience for level 0 cards, though it does give you access to them. Maybe Adaptable does? — Thatwasademo · 58
er, having to pay increased experience costs - obviously if you're adjusting to meet deck size after adding Versatile or exiling a card, a level 0 card with no chains is free — Thatwasademo · 58
I see what you're saying, and would have agreed with you until recently. It definitely feels wrong to do so... They're chained to cost experience to purchase, but remain level 0 cards. In the FAQ, point 1.18 under the 'Game Play' section states that: "...(An) investigator must purchase cards so that a legal deck size is maintained. When purchasing cards in this manner, that investigator may purchase level 0 cards at 0 experience cost until a legal deck size is reached." This applies if cards are forcibly exiled, removed or deckbuilding restrictions are updated. Arkham db's deck upgrading feature seems to follow this too. Purchasing a chained +exp level 0 card costs that much experience from your current upgrade. Filling in cards to meet your new deckbuilding requirements from Versatile does not. Perhaps this is just an oversight? — Linderwood · 7
*Adding chained level 0 cards to meet your Versatile Deckbuilding Requirements after an upgrade does not spend experience on ArkhamDB. — Linderwood · 7
That's clearly not the intent, and there's a reading of that sentence combined with the introduction text of The List of Taboos that doesn't mean that (applying FAQ 1.18 before the Chained modifier) -- if anything is a place to apply the Grim Rule, that is. — Thatwasademo · 58
If the FAQ would say, "that investigator may purchase ANY level 0 cards at 0 experience cost until a legal deck size is reached", I would give you a point. But as written, it is clearly just replacing the 1 XP you would normally have to pay to add a new card to your deck. Don't forget, the Taboo list is an optional variant, so it makes sense to not cover it in this paragraph. If you want to play with Taboo, you have to pay for the chained cards. Abusing such a highly questional loophole would defy the purpose of the Taboo list. — Susumu · 381
"The Grim Rule only comes into effect if players are unable to find the answer to a rules or timing conflict, and are thus unable to continue playing the game. It is designed to keep the game moving when looking up the correct answer would be too time-consuming or inconvenient for the players. The Grim Rule is not an exhaustive answer to rules/timing conflicts.". This is 100% not a place to apply the grim rule, if you are deck building/spending XP it is not preventing the game from advancing because you aren't in the game. That being said, I agree that FAQ1.18 applies before the chained modifier — NarkasisBroon · 11
Simply because taboo is an extra set of rules that take place over the existing rules. The core rules say you can purchase drawing thin for 0xp. The taboo rule says purchasing drawing thin costs +3 XP, 0+3=3 — NarkasisBroon · 11
I am not catching something. Is there a taboo rules list? Because I have only red the taboo card list. And, in my understanding, reading the Versatile page faq states than the level 0 cards purchased to meet the new requirements cost is 0 xp. — condedooku · 2
The cost of adding level 0 cards for purposes of filling your deck is 0. You can’t be left at less than your deck size. However, the cost of adding _those cards_ is not 0, unlike other level 0 cards. You’re ignoring the specific rule (these level 0 cards cost X XP) in favor of the general (you can add level 0 cards for free to reach deck size requirements.) This isn’t actually ambiguous. — Lailah · 1

Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading

Let's say I'm Preston. What stops me from using this card to exile lodge debts? I cannot choose to discard a weakness card, but don't see any prohibitions against exile in either the exile or weakness sections of the rules...

Bloodw4ke · 81
Lodge Debts isn't level 0-5. — Thatwasademo · 58
To be more specific, you can't use Burn After Reading to exile any card which has a filled in wedge rather than dots below its resource cost. — Thatwasademo · 58
Ah, subtle. Thank you. It does look like the original text of the card did exclude weaknesses but was modified to this version. — Bloodw4ke · 81
I guess they didn't want us exiling story and signature cards, so they changed non-weakness to just level 0-5 as a catch-em-all. — Nenananas · 267

Mysterious Raven

Mysterious Raven

This is a very situational card. Usually, it's a testless clue that costs you a horror, an action, and a resource. Which isn't all that efficient a way to gain clues, unless you have some way to lessen the costs. However, if you have some way to make the costs less severe, it's a useful card for any investigator who doesn't have great investigating skills. The best use of it I've seen was a Yorick deck where he had ways of dealing with horror (Meat Cleaver and Cherished Keepsakes being the primary ones), and with his ability, he could put the raven into play without taking an action.

Xelto · 7
In yorick with peter and rod of animalism you can make the raven completely free, its a neat little bird and worth considering if you have more than 1 ally slot. — Zerogrim · 295
I found it useful as an early card for Calvin. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1083
I've got a weird question - Since the action is a quick action, can the Raven absorb a horror (from an attack for example) and then activate the quick action to gain a clue and deal me a horror before it "dies"? — necroshey · 34
No. There's no player window there while placing damage and horror. Also they aren't "quick actions" but free triggers. — Heegu · 1

Curiosity

Curiosity

Yeah this card is Deck filler, If you don't understand what it does, it's Steadfast and its just as mediocre. To be fair to Steadfast and Curiosity, it'll never hurt you to use it, the effect might be minuscule but every little helps. The problem is that there's better options like Unexpected Courage, Perception, Guts, And a whole lot of other Seeker Skill cards. Its not bad, Not good, just Okay. Whenever I got it I just used it instantly or just forgot about it until the Scenario as it rots away in my deck. I would recommend ditching it and getting better cards. Also the image looks horrible, it looks like a rejected KISS member. However this card has the best flavor text in the game. "What if you are the cat?" Beautiful

MrEnricks · 1
Nah, the best flavor text in the game is on "a test of will". Compare it with "a test of will" from the lotr lcg — NarkasisBroon · 11
There are better flavour texts. "Breaking and Entering" and "Defiance" come to my mind. — Susumu · 381
I also like the quote on Machete, especially if you bring it to a certain party — Tharzax · 1

Butterfly Swords

Butterfly Swords

What is the secret of Lily’s Discipline was in front of our eyes the whole time?

Not through the main attack that does only 1 damage, but the empowered attack that does 3 damage in one attack (same as for the Butterfly Swords (5)).

So if you use Bandolier (2) to get 2 copies down, you can Enchant both Weapons and the beauty of it is that if you exhaust one pair and then the other, that would count as 2 attacks for your Discipline.

Use your Enchant Weapon boost on your first attack to give it all the chances to land and trigger the second one.

This requires a bit of set-up and at least 5 cards, but this way you will be able to deal 8 damages reliably in 2 actions, without any lvl 5 weapon.

Keep Galvanize in hand for an extra burst, or your Fight Events like Spectral Razor, Toe to Toe or Sweeping Kick.

A nice deck for this version of Lily could look like this: arkhamdb.com and evolve with the Side Deck for a lot of stat boosts making her compatible with Hard/Expert

Valentin1331 · 78265
But... That's five cards, five play actions, 14 resources and 12 Xp. That's not "a bit of setup" in my book. Why not just upgrade the Butterfly swords to the less sucky level 5 version? (or something better) — olahren · 3553
While I agree with you that it is substantial, compared to a lot of Dragon Pole Lily Decks, or most guardians, that is still reasonable. And the lvl 5 are not necessary as the idea is to skip the normal attack — Valentin1331 · 78265
But why avoid level 5 weapons? Enchant Weapon is a level 3 card, so your combo is only accessable to the more dedicated guardians anyhow. A single Flamethrower can deal 8 damage in 2 attacks. Cyclopean Hammer can do at least 6 damage, often more, in three attacks. It just seems excessive and cumbersome to dual wield two pairs of enchanted Butterfly swords. — olahren · 3553
What I am trying to do here is to leverage the Agility Discipline for Lily, and the Flamethrower or the Cyclopean Hammer do not synergise with it, when that combo does help you with 2 attacks out of 3 with a good amount of damage. Also the flamethrower can do the same, but has a very limited amount of Ammo, and you need to work around that aspect with a good amount of cards in your deck, the hammer is good but you will often also attach an Enchant Weapon on it. I’m not saying it’s the best weapon in the game, but it might be the best way to use Lily’s agility discipline! — Valentin1331 · 78265
This is an, at minimum, 12 XP, 14 resources, and 5 card combo to... achieve 8 damage in 2 attacks. This is, suffice to say, not a good combo. While I understand you are trying to work around Balance of Body, this isn't actually doing much with balance of body, and this intended combo I would say is a good example of everything a combo shouldn’t be, and a good collection of classic mistakes one might make when trying to invent combos. For example, you picked non-synergistic elements (enchant weapon and butterfly swords don’t work well together because enchant weapon gets much less value on a two attack weapon), elements that don’t synergize with the core concept (enchant weapon is not useful for a ‘spam attacks’ strategy, it is there for one punch strategies), and combined elements that reference each other’s mechanics but don’t actually synergize (while balance of body adds speed and butterfly sword uses speed, the speed does not meaningfully help the combo because you are already going to hit with enchant weapon basically every time). While I think balance of body has potential, and butterfly sword 2 has more utility than 5 just because of the XP cost and card access, this its really bad way to use them even in your intended circumstances (Ex: no ammo, lilly chen and thus no guns anyway, balance of body). — dezzmont · 222
Any combo to work essentially needs to take the output, subtract the input, and see if it is actually doing anything better than ignoring combos and doing things normally (in this case, equipping the hammer and going wild). In this case, this combo wildly underpreforms to the hammer striking even with just one action for most of the game (as the level of resources, cards, and XP mean this combo probably never fully goes off in any given campaign you play! Guardians aren’t known for being able to draw 5 specific cards or pour out a pile of resources turn 4). A good balance of body combo should focus on the strengths of what balance of body offers (mainly, emergency damage as long as you have lots of cheap ways to attack you otherwise can get utility out of, such as Survival knife 2, rather than anything to do with speed) rather than trying to arbitrarily use every element of balance of body. — dezzmont · 222
I don't think you can use the Balance of Body Discipline to trigger two different copies of Butterfly Swords anyway. See the rules for "different": They specify that the same ability on two instances of the same card (by title) do not qualify as "different actions". — Granfalegion · 1