21 or Bust

21 or Bust

Sometimes in Arkham Horror we tend to get obsessed with Min-Maxing. 21 or Bust is a card whose greatest strength is that it is just fun. It's enough of a gamble that the team feels tense when you are at 17 and want to pull another token, it's not game-ruining when you fail, and it's an incredible experience for the group when you actually manage to hit 21.

Outside of gambling, this card does have some utility through the reveal token text. If you're running Favor of the Moon for curse mitigation, this is a really good card to release a sealed curse on. The curse token itself has no downside, and you gain a resource as part of the effect.

Side Note: If anyone tries to give you crap for running this instead of Emergency Cache, remind them that there are dedicated fighters out there running .35 Winchester.

SorryLaurie · 594
Winch is great for Mary! — MrGoldbee · 1461

Custom Modifications

Custom Modifications

After creating a killer intricate synergy deck for Daisy, where I upgraded for 36xp (factoring in Raven Quill, Refine and Delve Too Deep) imagine my disappointment when my promising bare bones Roland Banks deck ran up against the Xp limitations inherent in Custom Modifications and its associated synergy cards. What a disappointment; what a buzz kill.

Guardians really are the phlegmatic sick men (and women) of Arkham right now. Some serious xp boosting and extra synergies are desperately needed if they're to keep pace with the other classes, particularly Seeker. It wouldn't take much imagination to boldly redefine this class with a new suite of cards that injected more dynamism and excitement into the stogy cast of characters which are supposedly the intended action men (and women) of the game. More than any other class Guardians just don't have any headline shticks that the other classes do (though Mystics arguably suffer somewhat in this regard too), they just don't tick.

Blitheharrow · 38
After you fail a skill test on the attached asset place a resource on Custom Modifications it as a recalibration, if there are three recalibrations on this attachment when it leaves play reduce the cost of your next upgrade by 1 (limit once per game.)- Fixed — Blitheharrow · 38
It might just be me, but I actually think Mystics are one of the stronger classes, mainly due to their ability to, when they get set up, deal with the two main aspects of the game (enemy management and clue gathering) with their greatest strength, which simultaneously affords them some pretty good protection from the encounter deck. However, I will concede that that "when they get set up" qualifier is a huge weakness, especially since one of Mystic's weaknesses is lack of resource acceleration (and, at least with a limited card pool, it feels like card draw). Guardians suffer from a similar problem, where it feels like they have great toys but they lack the capabilities to reliably get them into play. I would personally argue that the main problem with Guardians is one of design philosophy; having a class specifically designated as "the combat class" severely limits that class' design space due to the fear that it'll become both great at combat and good enough at the rest of the game, to the point where it becomes the strongest class (this can happen, and I would argue has happened, with "the exploration class;" between the likes of 'I've got a plan!", Blood-Rite, and Occult Invocation, Seeker really doesn't look to have any problem with combat, at least to my eyes). Guardian is forced into an artificially weakened state because the developers are, understandably, afraid of making it too good at things other than its core competency of fighting and turning it into the new Seeker. — NightgauntTaxiService · 405
What I believe could serve as a fix is changing the design philosophy of the classes; instead of being "the combat class," make Guardian the class that turns the encounter deck against itself, growing stronger in the face of enemies and treacheries. Also, potentially expanding on the "asset-focused" theme of Well-Prepared (2) could give Guardians the identity of The Weapons Expert, the person in horror movies who always has the right tool for the job. Don't focus on what the classes do, focus on how they do it; Guardians are Prepared for the Worst, Seekers possess Deep Knowledge, Rogues know that Money Talks, Mystics Uncage their Soul, and Survivors Live and Learn. — NightgauntTaxiService · 405
@NightguantTaxiService Great observation, I completely agree. — Quantallar · 8

Shortcut

Shortcut

"Play only during your turn" (Investigation Phase) exists on both Shortcut and Shortcut (2). But this Shortcut (2) plays to attach, not to move. It then provide Move that is usable in any phase. I think the ability to fast Move outside of Investigation Phase is quite rare. (e.g. Pathfinder / Eon Chart has "during your turn".)

So you may find some niche use in Mythos Phase that you can suddenly move to change its difficulty. (e.g. Go to where your friends are to get commits, attempting to get Fieldwork boost, changing shroud that affects the test, alter skill card's value like Inquiring Mind / "Not without a fight!", etc.) Or some creative use in Enemy Phase by using the fast window after Hunter enemy moves but before it attacks (e.g. Get the engage and drag the enemy where your Guardian is, so they can respond with Dodge / Heroic Rescue / "Get behind me!" / True Grit, etc.) There is one window in Upkeep before readying the cards so you can still Move late if it turns out no one used it yet back in Investigation Phase.

5argon · 10212

Power Word

Power Word

10 XP for a card that can't target elites? Can someone convince me this is a good card to pick up? It is obviously less optimal than Cyclopean Hammer, but I don't think it can even compete as a late-game enemy management because it can't interact with Elite enemies.

Innsmouth Conspirator · 57
It can interact with elite enemy's, just not directly — Therealestize · 72
You can't attach this card to elite enemies, but with distract, you can Evade any enemy withe the same or lower. Which is okay, it's not the best,bur this is a card you look at and go "do i want this? I want this." And it definitely not a stable by any means. — Therealestize · 72
1. basically turns hard to kill 3~4 hp enemies into assets that heal, gets clues, etc 2. great target for arcane research, since this is a spell you can dump 10 exp onto it. — gyrjsrla · 31
This isn't a combat card. It's a clue card that just happens to come with healing and free enemy management attached. You just drop this on any medium-sized enemy and it immediately becomes an asset for you instead. Power Word is ridiculously good with Thrice Spoken and Tonguetwister. Note that exhausting enemies does not disengage them, so you can drag around your army of helpless clue-finders for the entire game. If you haven't tried it, you are missing out. — Soul_Turtle · 460
There are some niche enemies that surprisingly don’t have the Elite trait but possess massive healing, evading, and cluevering potential. Playing blind through TFA rn and it was a blast being able to mind control 2 Yithian Observers to steam roll everything in Pnakotus (that was particularly helpful since that scenario seems to be rough for many players that don’t build for it). It also just makes for some hilarious storytelling. Just used it on Eater of the Depths in The Depths of Yoth and the big bad couldn’t really focus on his job because of the distracting behemoth snake pet rampaging in the corner healing much of the damage he was trying to do. — Synthboy · 1
This card is bonkers good, and there are ways to make it actually not 10 earned XP (add in some Refine on off turns in the beginning of the campaign, go all in with Down the Rabbit Hole, or Arcane Research). Like everybody else is saying, with Tongue Twister and Thrice Spoken, you just plop it on a tough non-elite enemy when it spawns, they also exist lategame, and as long as you can spare your first action to activate it, you can damage some elites, evade them, or collect clues testlessly while the elite is just standing there.. or even heal, so you can tank more damage/horror from said elite enemies. Not auto-include since you definitely need to dedicate XP and resources to it (but since it's a spell, a lot of the mystic money cards help it anyway). The thing that makes it good is that everything it does is testless so there's no chance of drawing the auto-fail and wasting the action. — midnatssol · 2

The Skeleton Key

The Skeleton Key

Remember that skeleton key sets the shroud location to 1, after modifiers. This means that you can't use other effects that reduce the test further to further reduce to 0.

I think this card is as such still too expensive (both in actions and experience) to use for most classes.

drjones87 · 193
It's noted that the shroud value cannot be reduced, but the difficulty can be reduced. "Difficulty 0 test" can be generated with the following cards: Map the Area, Quick Learner, Flashlight(3 level only), Gumption... — elkeinkrad · 492
Another way to get the test to 0 is for Alessandra to investigate with Beguile while having Fine Clothes in play. With 3 copies of Beguile and probably every Alessandra will play 2 copies of Fine Clothes and put them in play early, this will be a common and useful interaction making Skeleton Key very strong for Alessandra. — Sayre · 1
I think the best interaction is with Quick Learner, playing with Wendy. Because you can use your first actions to detach/atach the key, and investigate in your third throwing Shed a light. still very action consuming which is the worst part of this card. Can be mitigated with Haste, maybe, but still... — joster · 40