Black Market

Black Market

Unlike Teamwork, Untimely Transaction and "You owe me one!", you don't need a team combo to take Black Market (though it's a great moment when team synergies spontaneously arise). Black Market is just an amazing addition to many event-heavy Rogue's arsenal.

If your deck is light on skills* this is literally a Fast 1 resource draw 5 card that can't draw weaknesses**. That's incredible value at 2xp even if you end up only playing 3 of those cards. Just make sure that you and your team has sufficient actions and/or resources to play those cards you just drew, or pack low cost Fast assets and events.

Like Joe's Hunch Deck, this works better when your event selection is more generally applicable (Shortcut, Intel Report, Faustian Bargain) instead of being situation-specific tech (Money Talks, Backstab, Elusive). Cantrips like Easy Mark and Tempt Fate also doubles in value, turning the fake draw from Black Market into real draw.

You can even Double, Double it, and play another Black Market straight from Black Market to reveal 15 cards from the top of your deck! Be sure to pack an Ace in the Hole for when you do, you'll use every one of those play actions on your shopping spree.

* As is common for Preston, Sefina, Bob, and many builds running Geas

** Crystallizer users, take note!

suika · 9511
The ability to draw 5 cards that get discarded next turn is crazy good, agreed. It's a very "Red" effect, in Magic terms, and I like seeing that mechanical overlap. — SGPrometheus · 841
Seems crazy with Ever Vigilant. — OrionJA · 1
EVEN crazier with Geared Up. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Can i commit card revealed this way or not? Is the 'play any of those cards as if they were in their hand' sentence supposed to indicate that i can only Play them as a play action from hand and do not commit? — Cyby · 1
No, you cannot commit these cards. “Playing” only refers to playing events and assets for their effect, and never to committing them. — Eike · 1
Why can't it draw weaknesses? — Eetami · 1
@Eetami Black Market will reveal 5 cards regardless of what type they are. The revealed cards are not "drawn" so revelation effects will never trigger. — snacc · 1014
How does Black Market interact with the Dilemma cards like At a Crossroads? It's still max 2 per round, but it is a Revelation effect that should take place once it enters your hand as an Event. Going by what has been said, is it an unplayable dud? — Eriol · 1
Dilemma cards revealed by Black Market are dead draws like skills. — yinwhite · 19

Robes of Endless Night

Robes of Endless Night

Just a quick question. I was wondering if Robes makes something Sefinas Painted World copies cheaper regardless if it's a spell being copied or not? I think it does based on the q&a regarding Uncage the soul

JourneysintoArkham · 7
Yep, looks like. — SGPrometheus · 841
Specifically, Painted World is 'itself' when you are a selecting a card to play with Robes of Night. Once it is played, it is no longer a spell, the second you actually play it (before paying its costs), but that is ok because it was a valid target for the effect when this happened. This also means that you could in theory 'double dip' into another effect like say... Chuck, to make the card cost 3 less, and if you are feeling goofy make it DOUBLE FAST. — dezzmont · 222
You are not selecting a card with Robes of Night. It has the same triggering condition as chuck. Therefore, I imagine it to be either Robes of Endless Night or Chuck (in case the chosen card is Tactic or Trick). Since "When" happens immediately after playing the card but before any effect happens, Robes of Endless Night works with any effect chosen by Painted World. Still I am not quite sure about it. — Scythe · 1

Defensive Stance

Defensive Stance

Defensive stance is practiced, making it an unexpected pick for a Roland or Joe who prizes all-around success*. It’s also a great option for Lily Chen, obviously, because it supports whatever stat you didn’t build out first. And you can give it to others, like the un-agile seeker or a Succeed by X rogue.

*Man, it’s tricky to describe cards without using the adjectives adaptable or versatile!

MrGoldbee · 1486
The thing with this card is that it doesn't have any icons while it is in your deck. So Practice Makes Perfect *cannot* be used to fetch and commit this card, because there's not "matching" icons while it is being searched. Searched cards are not considered in your hand, or committed to a test, yet. — 1337duck · 1
In response to practice makes perfect, your getting into lawyering. Practice makes perfect says search for a practiced card. Defensive stance checks that, and commit it, defensive stance activates once commited, I see that as working. I get how you could interpret it the other way, but I'd say unless you don't want it to work with practice makes perfect, I think the intent is for them to work together.. — . · 35
Defense stance activates once committed, not before then except in hand. So it has no icons in the deck. If they intended it to be used from these zones it would just say it has Agility icons equal to Combat and vice versa without any conditionality. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
If you want to play that you can commit it with Practice Makes Perfect, you can, but it’s a homerule. Which like, it’s your game, do what you want, even the devs explicitly support that. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Just to add onto the PMP example, this along with the other new skills also don't have any synergy with Amanda, as this has no icons while placed underneath her. Until we get an errata (assuming the lack of synergy wasn't intended in the first place, which is possible), the new Practiced cards actually have little to no synergy with existing Practiced tech. — Lasiace · 23

Indebted

Indebted

I just played a dunwhich campaign solo with this weakness, and I have to say I'm a bit lost as to why people find this weakness anything more than a slight annoyance.

Firstly, as a rogue you can hard counter it with 3xp, which is what I did scenario 3, using Another Day, Another Dollar. This means for 3xp you can remove your weakness from the game. That is insane value, that ANYONE would take, as tempo and consistency are everything. Survivors also aren't resource hungry, so to them this is a mild speed bump, as its seldom you build a deck that requires 5 resources turn 1. Leaving 3 classes that MAY struggle with this.

Secondly, it's consistent you get it every game. That to me is it's strength. There is no swing. Knowing you have to play around -2 resources means you can hard counter it with tech options, or taking two SAFE actions to counter it. Sometimes I'm engaged with something and can't two action Chronophobia, but need too. This is "whenever you want spend two actions to counter". This game is all about chaos, and your deck ideally is designed to counter it, this "weakness" removes luck and chaos, which overall makes the game easier.

In solo two actions for a weakness is crippling, in multiplayer its light, but with so many players two resources means nothing, so this weakness really hits hardest in duos, when you run the traditional "seeker/guardian asset heavy" combo. When you do run guardian/seeker combo and get indebted it isn't that big of a deal because guardian/seeker is so insanely strong.

Also remember that this makes drawing FAR less scary, which unless you have a helpful weakness i.e Dread Curse in a curse deck, is a major help. In summary, this weakness is consistent, meaning you know how to counter it, thins your deck (which is great), can be hard countered or ignored (depending on class), can safely be countered, doesn't swing games.

, · 561
I think most of the reviews that call it a bad weakness are pretty old. Probably back when Dunwich was the only full campaign, so the benefits of a weakness you don't draw were less obvious, since in Dunwich weaknesses get milled a decent amount of the time, and it discourages the kind of deck cycling that this weakness enables. — SSW · 217
They may also come from a time before AD,AD, which you accurately note may as well read, "Remove one basic weakness from your deck," which is insane. It's an annoying weakness, it's just not dangerous. At all. — SGPrometheus · 841
I mean, rogues are made of $. — MrGoldbee · 1486
Yes, every weakness is kind of depending on which investigator draws them. Of course Rogues have the least issues with it. (And Leo isn't the omnipresent Ally he used to be any more.) I also would particularly "like" it in a drawheavy Seaker. Most Mandy or Minh decks see each of their weaknesses at least once per game, even if they are not permanent, and not oncommonly twice. This weakness guarantees, that it triggers only once per game. — Susumu · 381
A lot of cards from very early on in Arkham's history have funky reviews. I would say Indebted can hit really hard if your in a class that wants to have a very accelerated 'rollout' (read: Any guardian that isn't rich like Zoey or Tommy), but otherwise its pretty mild. — dezzmont · 222
Card draw was a lot lower back then, so the fact that you might not see your weakness was an actual disadvantage for Indebted for many classes. Now though nearly every class can cycle their deck once per scenario if built for it. — suika · 9511
I feel like people also tend to forget that the gameplay was also more asset-focused in the Dunwich+Core-only era. The standard mode for turn one was usually setting up your weapons/spells/allies. What made Indebted a problem was that it could lead to an early-game tempo loss for this particular playstyle. — PowLee · 15

Talisman of Protection

Talisman of Protection

Equip Calvin with this and Scavenging (0) + Schoffner's Catalogue and you are now unbeatable!

The fact that this is an Arcane slot and non-unique makes it possible to hold 2 at the same time. If you would lose one, you could easily recycle it before you lose the second. And no need to upgrade to Scavenging (2) for this because this card is Fast!

Schoffner's Catalogue finances it all so that you can make this cycle Dark Horse friendly, and what's best is that it is an Item so also comes back using Scavenging.

Backpack (2) will be your friend to then pull it out before you reach the amount of damages that would put you in the danger zone.

Now bring your Five of Pentacles + Moon Pendant and bring Mysterious Benefactress on a 9-9-9-9 statline journey without any fear of dying.

This card is also good in Lily Chen that wants to fill up her Arcane Slots to use her Dragon Pole and benefits from this being the only Fast Arcane Slot Filler available to her.

Valentin1331 · 78297
How are you gettin to 9/9/9/9? Two Pentacles make you an 8/8 so your stats can reach 7/7/7/7, +1 for Dark Horse is 8/8/8/8. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Although this does ALL also synergize really well with Ice Pick (3). — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Dark Horse is not unique hehe - And yeah Ice Pick indeed works well, I created a deck like this with Fire Axe+Ice Pick and Winging it, I haven't tried it yet but it seems quite good! — Valentin1331 · 78297
Dark Horse has "Limit 1 per investigator". Still, nice combo. — Darth Sithius · 1