Sled Dog

Sled Dog

We all had time to be razzled and dazzled by the good boys. You can have a legion of dogs at your command to destroy your foes and zoom about the map.

But these aren't even okay boys, let alone good boys.

As a 4 stacked ally, Sled dogs create what veterans of the TCG community know of as a 'Rube Goldberg Deck.' Your making a ton of effort and investing time and resources into a combo, which can be fine, but the payout isn't proportional at all to what you are getting. And understanding why they are bad is important to understanding what makes a combo deck actually good.

Sled dogs is taking up an ally slot, 12 resources, 4 cards, and 4 actions to come online. If your using the rod of animal magnetism that also comes out to a relic slot, and adds an action and card, but reduces the cost of the dogs by effectively 2, if you get the rod first. Because actions and cards are worth more than resources, this comes out to you 'behind' to play the rod in the best case scenario, and worst case if you need it to play your last two dogs because you found the first two before the rod, your looking at a grand total of 12 resources, 5 actions, and 5 cards to get set up for...

A damage 4 attack that can only be used once per turn, or the ability to move 2-4 spaces for one action, which doesn't even have the pathfinder or shortcut effect of actually saving you time to do things that turn (like fight) unless you 100% had to move all those actions anyway.

And its worse because this is a 5 card combo that really needs to be fully completed to get a payoff better than A worse Mauser. Would you pay your ally slot and 8 resources for an infinite ammo Mauser or a weird pathfinder pseudo-downgrade that only is usable if you move two spaces a turn? Probably not. But your going to be spending most of any given scenario doing exactly that. By the time your dogos are actually starting to resemble something better than a 3-4 cost level 0 weapon you could have just... played... your likely almost done.

Dogos show you what a combo element shouldn't be: Low payoff, high effort, and 'backend heavy' all at the same time. There are plenty of clunky combos in Arkham that are varying degrees of good, but in general for a combo to 'make sense' you want the payoff to be something that actively helps you win the game and thus worth time and deck inconsistency, relatively low effort (its ok that your going to go out of your way a BIT to do the combo, but not 20+ some odd cards, resources, and actions expensive), and should start paying off before it even is 'ready to go.'

It is ok if you don't have all of these qualities, but having all 3 is a bad sign. Sign Magick isn't amazing, it is a clunkier LeoDeLuca at first, but its offering you a bonus action every turn the second you get two relevant spells and it into play, which is probably just a 3 resources tax for ya, a card, and an action, and then it can scale up from there. So while its low payout, its also not a huge sacrifice (your playing spells anyway) and not too high in opportunity cost (Its half the price of leo, and while mystics have decent hand options they aren't going to lose sleep over it). Pendant of the Queen takes a lot time to do anything, but it is very cheap to do (your doing something you should be doing all the time anyway: Getting cards in seeker), and the reward is huge (extra testless actions and the ability to teleport anywhere in an action-less manner to boot). And while some recursive ally stuff in Guardian using things like Agency Backup and Beat Cop are going to take mountains of resources and a lot of your actions, they are going to be doing work from the second you initially play the card (neither of these cards require other combo elements to start to do something, and the payoff for the work is very proportional to it (who doesn't want effectively infinite free testless, action-less damage and cluevering?).

This is ultimately what makes dogos a 'Rube Goldberg' strategy: you are making a huge expensive machine that takes five minutes to set up and operate all to flick your lightswitch. Your paying a ton of money, slots, cards, and actions to... get a relatively janky weapon or movement too. It is a 'nothingburger' combo because what they give you doesn't really help you win the game (payoff), takes a ton of work and resources (effort) doesn't turn on until you get a lot of dogos (back-heavy). So, sadly, these dogos just don't make sense unless you know the scenario is going to demand you move 2+ spaces a turn constantly. At which point they kinda start to make sense, because while they don't help you 'stuff a turn full' like the aforementioned shortcut and pathfinder, if your always taking those actions even outside of reacting to threats you probably will save a lot of time in a scenario if you get two dogs and are using them most turns (and aren't able to slot a better action compression tool like Leo, Running Shoes, or those aforementioned cards) they will do... alright... but I think any campaign where sled dogs is a huge difference maker is going to be a deeply unfun campaign anyway.

And sure, they are neutral, but if you don't have a 'weapon' better than the sled dogs, you probably should be running other tools to defend yourself. Like I am sure Mandy COULD get the dogs out to serve as her 'offensive tool' but that isn't going to be a remotely good use of Mandy's time compared to the aforementioned Pendant, or the plethora of Seeker evasion tools that exist now.

EDIT: It turns out harshing folks mellow of leading a legion of dogos understandably ruffled some feathers. Some common counterpoints to the good dogos and why they don't make sense.

"You can't compare them to an XP card." I absolutely can, unless we are comparing the 2 dogs, which are the only ones who anyone but Leo can run. As a 0 XP card, dogs compare poorly to most weapons, as most weapons already grant you a +2 damage bonus. While dogs don't run out of ammo, they are once a turn, which is really bad for a 2 damage weapon, as anyone who has run a Mauser outside a 'success by X' test can tell you. The reason spammable, high/infinite 2 damage weapons are good is you can freely push up to 6 damage in a turn. Dogs can't do that, so not only is it action intensive to get the dog past a knife but you need to either have innate evade to handle 3+ health, or a secondary weapon, just pushing up the insane cost of dogs more. At 3-4, you can then directly compare them to XP cards (Both weapons, and 'assemble the pieces' cards like Segment of Onyx), and they REALLY don't do well there.

"What about the soak?": We all know highly action inefficient healing isn't good in Arkham, and the dogos are that. 2/2 is a very common ally statline on 'your not supposed to kill them' utility allies for a reason: it pushes the ally to being about as inefficient as something like Emergency Aid. Is emergency aid totally unusable? No, but you absolutely wouldn't rush to play it. Unless an ally is one shot or has unusually good soak values (ex: Peter, who effectively is infinite healing), the soak value is not the 'good' part of an ally. Would you run an ally with 2 health, 2 sanity, 3 resource cost, and no text box?

No one plays 2/2 allies as 'soak first' because the action economy is terrible. 2 Dogs takes 2 actions to play, 2 cards drawn (which are a little less than an action), and 6 resources (Valued at their lowest, which favors the dogs the most, a resource is going to be fractional of an action at around .75 resources to an action). This makes playing 2/2 allies that you need alive (And if you don't need the dogs alive play literally any ally that gives you either a come into play or on death benefit) at 3 cost worse tempo than first aid (Your looking at around .6 healing per-action spent from First Aid viewing resources as expensive as possible, with about .57 for dogs valuing resources as little as possible). First aid is probably the worst healing card in the game.

This means the 'text value' of the dog needs to be good enough not to just pass first aid, but to get past equivalent card effects. A lot of effects boost damage and to hit rates at a level similar to a fully assembled dog team at far less resources, decksearch effort, and action investment: Custom ammo, beat cop, enchant weapon, Delilah O'Rourke, Acidic Ichor, an upgraded shriveling, and the bows all will give the characters who can take them a larger effective boost than the dogs (outside of custom ammo obviously, but guardians have comically little need for the dogs), and only require one card and way less resource investment. You can (generally) evaluate a +1 damage for the rest of the game as about 3 resources and 1 card/action on top of your weapon, and some of these cards (such as the bows, or custom ammo) are doing even better than that. So, in reality, your dogs are just giving you 1 free 'first aid' in addition to the 2 you played first once you get to 3 dogs to match "weapon+enhancement." Would you play 2 first aids if, after clearing the first two out, you got a third one (Completely ignoring that you need to see 21 cards to even find the 3rd dog 50% of the time) finished for free? Almost certainly not.

dezzmont · 222
All of the complaints and concerns about the set-up are valid, but a once per turn 4 damage attack at +4 is an excellent payoff that will help you win the game. Nothing janky about huge damage and a huge boost. — housh · 171
The +4 to hit and damage is easily not worth the investment here. Again, we are talking 'I am building my deck to find these 4 dogs.' If you don't, you simply won't get the +4/4 damage, you won't accidently end up with this super attack. So it isn't even actually 10-12 resources, 5 cards, and 5 actions. If you run 'Calling In Favors' and use it to draw a dog? You spent another resource and action to get the dogs. Base 4 damage is nice, but is not so transformational on base damage 3 (A thing literally every class, even seeker, can reach on some form of weapon) to warrant this. And in the end, 4 damage doesn't help you win scenarios: Fighting enemies helps you avoid losing scenarios, and there is a huge difference, especially for a 'late game' combo. It isn't even good bosskill, because of the once a turn limitation it will turn out to be lower damage per-round than an ornate bow! The only thing going for it is that it is maybe +2 to attack? But your giving up a trinket or ally slot for that, and if you can't figure out how to consistently get +2 to hit on your character in a more efficient way with that pile of resources, cards, and actions, you probably shouldn't be attacking at all. — dezzmont · 222
I could have sworn they were 2r each and I already agreed with you. I wonder if they accepted all along this was going to be a meme card, or if they tested a more useful version and found that it broke Leo. — OrionJA · 1
0 actions for Leo tho! — MrGoldbee · 1486
At least it's not Wither. I think you're undervaluing the dogs, however, because of one important factor — dogs replace soak. You save on actions you would have needed otherwise to play soak, because the dogs give you a massive buffer. — suika · 9511
And well, comparing 0xp cards to high XP cards (or cards like the Pendant) is straight out unfair. Compared to 0xp weapons, they're not terrible, just 2 dogs is a once-per-round unlimited ammo Thompson that also provides 4/4 soak. You're right that they scale poorly with XP, though. — suika · 9511
You need to compare 0 cost cards with XP cards sometimes if they are close comparisons: Just because its 0 Xp doesn't excuse the effect just plain old not being good: Pickpocketing 0 is 2 whole XP less than pickpocketing 2 for example, but it is completely 'fair' to say 'this is so significantly worse than the XP card I don't think I should play it' even in a 0 XP deck. 0 XP weapons are really common after all and you have plenty of similar tools. But lets compare it to a weapon that used to be XP 0 at the very least: Machette. Would you pay 6 for a machette you could only attack with once a turn? Absolutely not, a huge reason infinite ammo weapons are even useful and why machette was good enough to last a significant portion of the campaign was because being able to repeatedly attack at 2 damage was a very powerful function of a weapon because it greatly increased the array of enemies you can kill in one turn. Being able to do two damage once a turn is not a very powerful effect because it doesn't extend your combat capabilities vs any enemy with an odd health value, or more than 2 health. On top of this, getting two dogs is not trivial, and deeply hurts the utility of infinite ammo: You need to draw 13 cards that are able to 'hit' on dogs, meaning your either mulligaining hard for the dogs (in which case you are playing primary combat and thus are making a mistake depending on the dogs for your role), or your seeing it maybe by turn 8 if your sneaking in a lot of draw effects on the sidelines. By turn 8 are you even really going to be able to attack with the dogs more than the 8 times you could with dual .45s, or the 6 times with two derringers? Is the extra +1 to hit worth essentially playing the entire scenario with a knife downgrade? The doggos are just not good at what they do. — dezzmont · 222
I think your review is unfair to the dogs. They are for sure not for every kind of build--but some characters--like Winifred Habbamock--can easily run them like a boss. I mean, come on, Wini + cigarette case regularly cycle through her desk 2 times per scenarios. And she has the rogue economic cards to pay for them. The only reason you don’t want Wini to take the dogs is because rogues have very good xp allies. But then it still make perfect sense to save her xps to spend on endless other expansive rogues upgrades rather than allies, like that good looking gold pocket watch. — liwl0115 · 42
Nah the hounds cost 3xp at least, because of Charisma. Still, getting 2 dogs out is trivial if you play them in an opportunistic manner, as you would a backup weapon. A deck of 4 hounds and 2 weapons has a decent chance of either ending up with two hounds or a weapon, after all. As to why you want to do that...its not the best, but it can enable interesting builds like the m1903, as seen here https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/33436. It's not quite the flamethrower, but then again few cards are the Flamethrower. — suika · 9511
Don't forget that some people play for the joy of the story/theme of crazy things. Your argument about efficiency is pretty much 100% correct, but some people play 4 dogs because the thrill of playing all four, then shouting "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?" (other dog songs are available) is why they play the game. — acotgreave · 887
I agree for sure that wanting to do the goofy thing is absolutely a valid way to play. But a review should give you an appraisal of the card's merits and how it is practically likely to work out. I love janky combo decks (its why I even mentioned Sign Magick at all!) but one shouldn't be confused as to what their goal is when putting dogos into their deck. But if we are going down that route, consider teamwork to 'break the doggo limit' and get 5+ into play.... — dezzmont · 222
Like it's been said here before, your review completely disregards the sheer amount of soak these dogs give you (4-8 health and horror). — Notter · 1
And in regards to other complaints - almost everything is solved.. with Yorik. — Notter · 1
I have added some stuff into the review to address some of these complaints. More specifically for Yorick: Yorick already can freely rotate allies for soak and has soak ‘solved’ meaning there is no reason for him as a character to play anyone for soak specifically (Why run dogs when you could run Tetsuo, for example? Or the actual Good Boy of Arkham, Guard Dog, who gives Yorick completely actionless damage infinitely?), and his current dominant archetype already uses a 3 damage weapon with many significant side benefits that he can infinitely recur, and he doesn’t not need a strength boost. While Short Supply will certainly let him get dogs faster, essentially no guardian actually wants the dogs just because they already have weapons and soak extremely well solved. — dezzmont · 222
Sign Magick doesn't actually cost you an action either, so it's a little better than you mention, only 3 resources and a card. — Malafar · 12
"Nah the hounds cost 3xp at least, because of Charisma." You can buy Rod of Animalism for 1xp. Leo Anderson can also run 4 dogs for free with his signature card. — heyo · 1
I agree that the action and resource cost is not equal to the payout on the doggos. However, there is a key value to them that I don't think many have discussed here. They are a recurring +x/+x Fight action that does not require a hand slot. This, I think, makes them very playable. Any investigator whose hand slots are precious would actually benefit very well from running Sled dogs. It's why Garrote is such a great card too. Green and Yellow have some very juicy hand slot items. If you can't run a bandolier, they're a fantastic alternative Fight. — Jackster · 17
This review made me sad, because I love the idea of running a dog deck, but I have to agree with everything you've said. In fact, I came here to read the card reviews thinking, "There must be some synergy I don't know about that makes them more practical." But no. Perhaps they will add one in later. Or maybe they will buff them in Taboo. Until then, the game has made them as expensive and time consuming as real dogs, but without the extra mental health benefits from cuddles and funny antics that make real dogs worth it. — SleepyLibrarian · 44
Maybe, just maybe this is hard to pull off - but I've been playing it with Yorick in Edge of the Earth, running Short Supply, Charisma and In The Thick of It. From the start that meant that my chances of getting at least 2 dogs up for +2/2 were pretty danged good, and turns out that was right. In Yorick these are great. You draw a dog in upkeep? Commit it for an icon on your next fight test, defeats the enemy and play it from your discard pile. Or maybe there's a dog or two already in there thanks to Short Supply. Honestly to have these dogs as a baseline for moving and attacking, while adding in and out other assets as needed - these babies are perfect for Yorick, and relatively easy to get into play. — Krysmopompas · 366
I think Charlie is the new supreme doggo handler, if you really want to go this route. I can Call in Favors to trade an injured dog for another dog and then motivate (give head scratches) to get that first dog back into play. Mr. Rook can also provide treats. Sure there might be better allies for Charlie, but the dogged campaigner is fun and silly. — arkhamgrad · 1
I’ve had outright good results with these for Leo. Ran a rod of Animalism and committed to the bit with guard dogs (and leveled them.). It’s possible the tutoring story asset made it work early but you lose them late and it still worked fine. Left my Runic Axe to rot most of it. — Lailah · 1

Daniela Reyes

Daniela Reyes

We have a mechanic that is unable to Maintain equipment properly... Or who is too clumsy to screw a moderately different to handle ocular to a rifle. Not to mention that she is totally unable to show up well prepared to her job. She's unable to sticking to any plan... And her ability to improvise are quite limited...

Daniela seems to be the oil-riggy-kind of mechanic where screws come the size of swimming rings. She deserves the 1 intellect she has.

GrueneLupenAufheben · 140
This is barely scratching the surface of Daniela's flavor weirdness: Why is she a guardian 0? What does it even mean thematically to 'develop' into a survivor, isn't that the 'unprepared' class? I know the flavor has been moving on from that but what gives with Daniela starting out with access to police resources and fancy handguns but slowly becoming someone who depends on getting Lucky! or smacking folks with improvised weapons? All of the other 'evolving' characters have a clear in universe hook: Norman is a scholar who discovers magic is real and begins to learn it, Jack has to develop from being a globe trotter into an actual archeologist to solve his dad's murder, Lily Chen was trained by a mystical order but becomes more practically focused once she enters 'the real world,' and Bob starts out as an unready survivor but realizes he is far more cunning and deadly than he first thought. One would think a Guardian into Survivor might represent a burned out cop, a sort of degradation, someone who is becoming unready and just is barely holding on, but that doesn't make a ton of sense for Daniela, who is mysteriously starting out as a pseudo-cop/soldier out of the gate. About the only thing that really fits is the fact that weird quirky rituals of protection fit survivor very well and she is a great candidate for using A Test of Will, but even then she is going to want to use the level 0 version because she can consistently pass the test! — dezzmont · 222
Consistantly pass the test (3)? With 4 base willpower? Maybe on easy, but you need to invest into it even on normal. I also thin, Daniela is a weird mechanic. She does not heal horror on mending leather jackets! — Susumu · 381
What are you talking about? She has a 5153 statline — dezzmont · 222
She has 4152, acording to ArkhamDB and also the (German) card, I own. Where did you see 5153? — Susumu · 381
dezzmont is implying that Peter Sylvester is always the ally that she'll run. I don't agree though; the default allies of my choice would have been Guard Dogs, Rita, and Aquinnah. — suika · 9511
Its a joke yes, because of how popular Pete is, and how you would be taking it in that deck. Same reason Wendy is REALLY 5 willpower base. Pete isn't a bad pick for one of your allies though just because of how much damage you take and his purpose as fantastic encounter protection. — dezzmont · 222
@Dezzmont, maybe she's an army veteran adjusting to civilian life? — OrionJA · 1
Well, 5 willpower after playing your statboosting ally is still not a comfortable level to be to relyably use ToW (0). But I agree, he is a popular choice, so depending on team composition, he might not even be available, if another investigator (Agnes, Carolyn, Finn...) profit far more from him. I also agree, that there are other, possible better allies for Daniela. — Susumu · 381
Intellect seems to be the stat needed to repair vehicles ( https://arkhamdb.com/card/07099 ) so Daniela is actually one of the least capable mechanics in the game. Maybe she's a factory engineer, and her unique skills at reparing factory sized herring canning machines are distracting when she tries to fix small and fiddly vehicles such as... boats? — olahren · 3553

Wither

Wither

So with the release of edge of the earth there is new life injected into old cards as ever and I am here to try in vein to prove every card has its place, now the place wither occupies is a niche one, but less niche with a spicy little hotness.

Wither is worse than Swordcane because you can't evade. Wither is worse than Katherine(+big spell) for lack of damage. Wither is worse than Knife because even knife is cheaper.

Well.... Wither is a Spell and that means it has nice place besides (one of my new favorite cards) Prophetic, it now can be played for free and can give a boost to attack, if you are running Prophetic anyway (you should, its amazingly powerful) then wither I think just out competes a lot of other side weapons you'd use to finish of enemies.

A 0 cost asset that is very easy to search out of your deck with other good mystic cards seems like it could easily pay for itself, in Dexter you likely won't even end up losing an action to play it, and if you are going Dragon Pole route it gives you a very cheap approach to filling your slot with an emergency method to attack.

ALL this said.... Brand of Cthugha is an absolute monster of a card, which also only costs 2...so maybe wither will never enter the spotlight and just warm the bench for the new brand, but it has a use that's worth exploring and considering.

Edit: Two card corrections. C>K, Sword Cane>Dragon Pole.

Zerogrim · 295
Who'se Cathrine? — Django · 5154
Zerogrim is presumably referring to Twila Katherine Price. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
My mistake yes, I meant Katherine, thanks Death by Chocolate — Zerogrim · 295
Wither worked nicely with Lily Chen's Agility Discipline as the first of the 3 fight actions. — dlikos · 160

Cyclopean Hammer

Cyclopean Hammer

This card is absolutely bananas on Lily. Out of the box, she fights at 7, but you probably have a Discipline boosting either or , which puts her at 8 (equal to Leo, Mark, Natcho, Akachi). Once you hit 15 xp, you can either put in the other Discipline stat to baseline fight at 9 or get Discipline to get that "Three attacks for one Action" effect. At 30 xp, you have both. This means she has the potential to do 15 damage in a round every other round or so while fighting at base skill of 9.

This item also turns boosts like Holy Rosary (or the upgraded version) and Brother Xavier into combat boosts that also protect you from the Mythos.

I realize Butterfly Swords are more in line with her theme, but the Hammer provides insane value for her, while also being a Relic for when that matters. Even on Hard, she will regularly test 4-6 above "hard" enemies without commits making passing by 3 pretty easy. It's also a decent target for Well Prepared for further flexible boosts.

seasonedcoma · 651
Its 3 *different* actions, so you'd need two different sources of attacks to do 15 damage in one round with this set up, which just requires two Brand of Cthugha's or whatever. — Zerogrim · 295
Ah. You’re right. I still think it’s a good card for her to leverage her Will scaling ability. — seasonedcoma · 651
Not all guardians or mystics will suit this weapon, but it's so terribly broken that I'm playing a solo campaign, but playing both akachi and mark harrigan and akachi easily does double the damage Mark does. It leaves timeworn brand almost obsolete (hits easier if you have VOL3+, can move enemies, which is devastating against non-hunters and if lucky can do even more damage than timeworn brand). But the biggest gain is for mystics. Guardians had good choices and many decks will resist to add this weapon to have a free hand for torchlight or similar, but many mystics can now make hamburgers without fearing to run out of charges on their offensive spells. — druchii7 · 1

Mind's Eye

Mind's Eye

Will this work with Gloria? IF find once she has teamed up with Alyssa she sails through the scenario until made to take a strength/foot test. Then she is stuck. It does limit her control for enemies she has to fight to Spectral Razor, Ethereal Form, or sword can without sign magik to hold her spells. But that is often enough.

LegendRJS · 3