Unearth the Ancients

Unearth the Ancients

So, can I choose 0 assets and combine with Shed a Light to ignore whatever shroud and discover 3 clues? (or maybe use other cards that can decrease difficulty to make it 0) I think Darrell Simmons will be happy to find this

Lumina637 · 5
Using this card to reduce a shroud to 0 is cool in theory, but looking at the list of level 0-2 Seeker assets that cost 0 there's not much here. In the current card pool Darrel's options are Archaic Glyphs (which he can't upgrade), a couple of Talents (Higher Education 0 and Hyperawareness 2), and Magnifying Glass 1. The combo has some potential, but at 2xp per copy and limited options to combo it with, I think most Darrell decks will get more value out of other shroud reduction cards (at least with the current card pool). — Pseudo Nymh · 61
I suppose lumina ask if it is possible not to choose an item so you don't have any costs. Personally I think if you have seeker assets you have to use them, but as far as I remember the rules it should be possible to choose no asset, as far as there is at least one clue. Finding this clue would alter the game. — Tharzax · 1
"Personally I think if you have seeker assets you have to use them": I disagree. That's why the phrase "up to" is present. If there was no "up to", you would need to choose 2 cards, if you have 2 in hands, because you would need to do as much as possible. But "up to" overrules this. The review rises an interesting question. I see no reason, why you can't. — Susumu · 371
I believe at least one asset is necessary to be chosen. It's because of Target rule (https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Target), which is related to the term "choose". According to Target rule, at least one target need to be chosen for successful resolution; it's can be found the third bullet. — elkeinkrad · 499
I don't have a specific rule to point to but it seems unlikely to me that this card is intended to be played with 0 assets chosen. Most shroud reduction effects reduce shroud by -1 or -2, even in Survivor (the class that specializes in shroud reduction). To get more than -2 reduction you typically have to meet some kind of condition, such as crushing a skill test to maximize Momentum. I find it a bit hard to believe that there's a single card that's intended to reduce any shroud in the game to 0 with no questions asked or support cards needed (let alone that card being only level 2). Then again, it wouldn't be the first time Seekers broke the design curve of the game. I would still like to see an official ruling confirming this before I start celebrating it as the best single card shroud reduction in the game. — Pseudo Nymh · 61
Since Darrell is mentioned in the review I would actually flip the idea around and use difficulty-reducing effects like Map the Area and Flashlight (2) to easily succeed at the test and play those assets for naught. — AlderSign · 309

Blade of Yoth

Blade of Yoth

Personally, I think that, regardless of its power level, Blade of Yoth is a very good card for Arkham because of the thematic point it makes, that the Mythos is not inherently evil. The point of Lovecraft's creations wasn't that they were hostile to humanity, it was that they were largely indifferent to them, and the cycle that gave us this card's name is one of the best examples of that: in the Forgotten Age, neither the Valusians nor the Yithians were, strictly speaking, evil, they were only trying to save their homes. Yig, the Father of Serpents, only fights you if you threaten his children, and in one resolution is willing to give you gifts for helping his children.

The Mythos is not a monolith of evil; it's a collection of non-human individuals, oftentimes possessing as much capacity for good and evil as the investigators. We can't sing Kumbaya with them, our needs are too diametrically opposed (again, the Forgotten Age shows it really well with Ichtaca's point about Earth belonging to humanity now, not the Valusians), but that doesn't mean that we're inveterate foes, utterly incapable of benevolent interaction. We're people, with all the messiness and conflict that brings with it.

NightgauntTaxiService · 430
It helps that Yig (whom this blade of Yoth seems at least partially aligned with, as it seems to be intended to be summoned to defend the serpent people of Valusia) is, despite being very angry, one of the more 'cuddly' and anthropomorphic great old ones, to the point it is theorized he would side with us against the outer gods and many of the other old ones who would serve them. As a bonus, his character is ultimately philosophically aligned with the guardian class, much like Bast is, to whom he shares a LOT of similarities. — dezzmont · 218
There are also other stories where the great old ones helps the humans. Just read "out of eons" where the high priest of shub-niggurath get a spell from her to defeat another god. Or Yog Sothoth in "trough the gates of the silver key" where he offers Randolph Carter a wish. Even Nyarlathotep in "dreams from the witch house" seems to be a protector of the ones who travel through the dimensions (and yes they have to sacrifice humans for this, but who understands a great old one) — Tharzax · 1

Eyes of Valusia

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 · 205
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 · 73
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
While this is less good for Alessandra solo or in 2 player, than say 3 or 4, the value of essentially charging up a weapon overtime while also getting a boost on every interaction with that enemy for the round is very nice. In 2p, you can expect to need to deal between 12-20 damage on a boss, and we can talk about using the bulldog, but this can have more bullets, and ultimately compress the fights into fewer actions as well. If you want to do 8 damage for example, ignoring the play action, you need to have triggered the parley 6 times. And then you get to make 2 four damage attacks. So 8 actions. For 8 damage. Put that way, it sounds not too efficient. But Alessandra not only wants to find an additional use for her parley every round, but she can also take Haste, and any other rogue cards for more actions. The true value of this is being able to bank the actions for when you need them. A support or flex Alessandra could dump so many actions into this that she could deal 20 damage in 5 attacks very easily. The math is pretty static at 4 actions for 4 damage. So it feels low, but also, its a high value attack, where she can attack at skill value 11, almost guaranteeing a hit. — Rolandironfist · 37
Also notably for Alessandra, this can be a reliable way to kill her own weakness later in a campaign. — Rolandironfist · 37
If you had The Raven Quill attached to it, would you lose it as part of the swap? — Norrin · 1

Ravenous Myconid

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 · 365
"Cancel that treachery's effects and discard it. Remove all growth from Ravenous Myconid." — MrGoldbee · 1470
Yeah, but 0 is less than or equal to 0. — Thatwasademo · 58
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 · 58
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 · 365
Skeleton Key fixes the shroud to be 1, you cannot then modify it to be 0. — OrionAnderson · 79
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 · 11
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 · 6
I'm wondering whether the mutation will be to limit it to "at your location" first of all. — dysartes · 1

Kōhaku Narukami

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.

KaiserKlaus · 8
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 · 13028
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 · 73841