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 · 1084
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 · 79323
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 · 3567
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 · 79323
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 · 3567
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 · 79323
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

Old Shotgun

Old Shotgun

Updated to include The Scarlet Keys Player Expansion cards:

Directly:

Indirectly:

There, someone should have catalogued Old Shotgun's enablers ages ago. Thank you to Until the End of Time for finding all of them.

Edit: Added Joey as per Django and Yenreb's insights. And I'll elaborate on how Dexter and Joey's fast playing of items allows Old Shotgun to enter play with ammo:

Step 1.) Play an event with a skill test (Backstab, Ríastrad, Clean Them Out, etc...).

Step 2.) During the skill test while resolving this event, you get a window of opportunity. Use this window of opportunity to trigger a fast play action with either Dexter or Joey.

Step 3.) You have technically played Old Shotgun while playing an event. Thus, is comes into play with its uses value as 2. Voila.

Lucaxiom · 4524
Wait, how does Old Shotgun combo with Dexter Drake? — Thatwasademo · 58
Also, all the ammo adding events work (though Contraband needs another source of ammo first, and 2 ammo isn't a great uses value for Swift Reload) — Thatwasademo · 58
Looked it up elsewhere; for those curious, if you use Dexter Drake's ability while resolving a skill text initiated by an event, that counts — Thatwasademo · 58
s/text/test/ — Thatwasademo · 58
Does this also work with Joey? Using his ability to play this while an even resolves? Should be similar to Dexters ability. — Django · 5162
Yes. — Yenreb · 15
What about the event Black Market, if you reveal an Old Shotgun and put it set aside?... I find it very hard to unterstand when an Event is finishing played and/or resolving (until you've read all of its text and are ready to go? Or until any of its effects are happened)? — Miroque · 25
@miroque As soon as you have reached the end of the text print on an event card, the "while playing an event window" terminates. This gets confusing when event cards have effects that last past its discard. But this extended effect doesn't count towards duration of playing an event. — Lucaxiom · 4524
Folks, there is a great new card in Scarlet Keys which is working which Old Shotgun: our good old friend "Prepared for the Worst" (Level 2)! — Miroque · 25
Hello , does this do damage greater than 3 to enemies ? Thanks , because i'm french and the traduction is not very clear — Tersayde · 1
@Tersayde non. — Lucaxiom · 4524
Just for the Clarification, you can play it using the action from honed instincts? — Castorp · 1
Hold Up from Hemlock Vale can also directly enable it now too. — clarence · 1
Also "False Surrender". — Susumu · 381
Also "Pushed to the Limit" — Databased · 1

Umôrdhoth

Umôrdhoth

Easy to kill if you have Butch with a sledgehammer on your team. Best paired with Aquinnah. She redirects the damage and the exhausts Umôrdhoth and (just) has to take 3 horror. And she has plenty ways to mitigate that.

In addition let her wield some Survival Knifes so she can counterstab once or twice.

GrueneLupenAufheben · 140
If you are playing with only core set cards, about the only weapon which can damage him reliably is Roland's custom .38, so try to fight him on a location with clues. Other investigators are going to need talents to pump their skills, testless damage, or a lot of good cards to commit. — tessarji · 1
Roland's .38 is only going to chip away at him, though. You can't afford to stall, since he hits like a truck. Shotgun, in my opinion, is probably the best from the Core Set, just make sure you have 2 or Extra Ammunition. — Tinkorn · 1