Strength in Numbers

I can hardly wait to start running this in Lola Hayes. It counts her permanents, like Shrewd Analysis and Adaptable! It double-counts multi-class cards like Enchanted Blade! She'll be able to get this thing up to 4+ wild icons easily! Wow!

mattastrophic · 3344
I forgot about permanents! Definitely makes Synergy even stronger than I thought. — MiskatonicFrosh · 344
21 or Bust

The expected resources is about 5.0 resources, same as Emergency Cache, in standard token setup. Many "5" give slightly better result, but many above 5 (-6, -8) give poor result. In this reason, this card is not suitable for expert difficulty. If you consider "fun", 21 or bust is good choice unlike Henry Wan, since 21 or bust at least achieves E-Cache.

Additionally, if your deck has Prophetic, 21 or bust may be better than E-cahce. Since 21 or bust has fortune trait, you can play 21 or bust for free with Prophetic. Sadly, Prophetic doesn't have , so that only off-class investigators can do.

Note: additional -5 or symbol token slightly increases the expected resources, and -7 or -8 token significantly decreases the expected resources.

The below is my stratagy. I believe your intuition is better, so please refer this just for fun.


Here is my stratagy to achieve E-Cache. According to the combined value of revealed tokens,

  • 11 or less: reveal 1 additional token
  • 12, 13: reveal 1 additional token only if and/or was revealed. (exceptional case: stop if you revealed but you bust if you treat as 11).
  • 14, 15, 16: reveal 1 additional token
  • 17, 18, 19: reveal 1 additional token only if was revealed and treated as 1.
  • 20: reveal 1 addtional token with above condition and if 2 or more "1" tokens exist in bag.
  • 21 or more: stop

Nevertheless, I believe many of you don't want to stop when the total value is 12 or 13 (including me) for fun. I also give the expectation value when you follow above stratagy but don't stop at 12/13.

NotZ Standard bag] ideal: 4.98, proposed: 4.96, proposed(non-stop): 4.86, 17-stop: 4.76
NotZ Standard bag + ] ideal: 5.01, proposed: 4.99, proposed(non-stop): 4.95, 17-stop: 4.85
NotZ Hard bag] ideal: 5.02, proposed: 5.00, proposed(non-stop): 4.97, 17-stop: 4.88
NotZ Hard bag + ] ideal: 5.07, proposed: 5.03, proposed(non-stop): 5.03, 17-stop: 4.96
Here, "ideal" means ideal stratagy. I reveal one additional token only if the expectation will be increased considering all cases. It's the upper bound if you don't know the future information.

With above stratagy, you can achieve below table in standard NotZ.

name
0
4
5
6
9
exp
ideal 3.6% 58.1% 9.6% 13.6% 15.1% 4.98
proposed 3.7% 60.1% 9.6% 10.2% 16.3% 4.96
nonstop 11.2% 44.0% 13.6% 12.9% 18.3% 4.86
17stop 8.8% 48.9% 14.8% 13.9% 13.7% 4.76
12/13/17stop 2.9% 61.7% 11.6% 11.7% 12.1% 4.83


  • 17stop: we stop whenever the sum is 17 or above
  • 12/13/17stop: In addition to 17stop, we stop if the sume is 12 or 13 (not 14~16).

(modified Oct 8, 2021)

elkeinkrad · 504
This card is probably really bad (if you stop at 17 it's sub-E-cache-efficiency), but it's really fun. — Zinjanthropus · 231
If you're expert gambler, you can earn more resource than E-cache. 0.1 higher than E-cache. However, I believe I cannot earn 5 resources using this card. (note: 17-stop gives approx. 4.75 resources) — elkeinkrad · 504
4.83 in standard notz + 1 additional symbol token (17-stop) — elkeinkrad · 504
Do you not put the token back in the bag after revealing it and drawing the next? — Olider · 1
I think the tokens are returned after the effect ends, like test. — elkeinkrad · 504
What does the phrase "(ignoring +/-)" on the card mean? It sounds like numbered tokens are ignored? But then you can't even get 19 or 18? — Nils · 1
It means that both -1 and 1 are calculated as "1". You just ignore the sign of the number token. — elkeinkrad · 504
That makes sense, thank you! Nice review! — Nils · 1
What happens when you play Wendy and "stack the deck"? — ErynnWoodward · 3
@ForrestWoodward // In that case, you can cancel last revealed token, return it, and reveal another. Canceled token don't be combined but you should reveal another. — elkeinkrad · 504
When busted, the number of tokens in chaos bag is small, so that Wendy's ability may not be efficient. — elkeinkrad · 504
Rite of Equilibrium

Let's evaluate two uses of Rite of Equilibrium.

Firstly, playing the second option with a full bless/curse deck can almost guarantee total horror heals. But is it worth the cost? While Horror is a problem in most games, this card seems unreliable if it was the only source of horror heal and normally, the game does not care if you finish with 1 sanity or full sanity so over healing is not necessarily the best use of the card. Choosing this option means you are playing with a blurse deck and this move tends to reset your deck (which is not good)

Secondly, the first option can be used to replenish your bless/curses. As others have mentioned, this can be paid cheaply with Tempt Fate so unless you use Dayana Esperence to squeeze more juice out of this single card, it is normally better to stick with tempt fate (having both to fill bag up faster is an option, but usually there are more things that need to be added to a blurse deck before this one)

Overall this card does not seem playable without Dayana, and if we look at the other spells cards that are 0-cost high xp cost that synergizes with Dayana ( Deny Existence and Recharge), Equilibrium seems to fall short of the other two of the effectiveness though (even Soothing Melody seems to do better)

It could be a niche card to take in Carcossa (or equivalent) campaign with more horror but little damage.

Overall, this card does have a unique effect and can be used in some cases (e.g Agnes Baker to continue her ability) or if there were better rewards for over heal. It might be balanced if the 1st option came with a card draw to at least be on par with Tempt and makes it worthwhile to combo with Dayana, and the second option included damage heal as well (or did not remove the bless/curse)

Hulahoop12 · 1
Wendy's Amulet

With the new erratum on Wendy’s amulet from FAQ v.1.9, do cards like Lure and Hiding Spot now go to the bottom of your deck instead of going to the discard pile? If not, then what events are discarded from play? I’m assuming you can still discard an event from hand to cancel a token and that card does go to discard because your hand is not considered in play.

You are absolutely correct, lure and hiding spot (and premonition if you are pulling nonsense) now go on the bottom of your deck instead of your discard pile — NarkasisBroon · 13
Before FAQ 1.9, 1 premonition would last forever, basically. — 1337duck · 1
The Fool • 0

How about Dark Horse deck? You could play 1-cost fast event card for free, such as Lucky!. You could play 2-cost asset with 1 resource from upkeep + Fool, or 3-cost asset with upkeep + Labranche + Fool. Similarly, you could play Will to Survive with upkeep + Fool + On Your Own, or 3-cost event, such as True Survivor, Waylay, with no cost.

One problem is that The Fool is 3-cost asset, which is hard to play Dark Horse deck in the middle of the game. Luckily, here is a solution; if you find Fool in your opening hand, you don't need to concern this. What you need to do is improving your drawing ability :) Of course, my drawing ability is too poor to find; my Fool always places among the bottom five cards.

elkeinkrad · 504
I feel like the 3-cost investment actually isn't that bad in a dark horse deck, since dark horse itself costs 3. Whichever you get first, you can just play, and paying this has the benefit of making Dark Horse cheaper. Seems solid to me. — SGPrometheus · 855
I tried this card in a Bob Jenkins deck, and found it lackluster. Yes, it's great if you have it in your opening hand. If not, you'll have to take a tempo hit (three resources!) to hopefully make a worthwhile return later on. Opportunity costs means that paying 3 resources, a card and a play action in round 3 isn't always going to be worth saving 10 resources during the entire length of the game. Also I think it's overpriced at 3 Xp. — olahren · 3606
Agree... on it's own, it's IDEALLY a net +1 R/turn... and that's only realized if you can play at least 1 card per turn. Not bad in a vacuum, but 3R 3XP? Tempo-wise, if it's not in your opening hand, it'll be 7 turns before it competes with a single Take Heart. That said, as OP suggests, it really feels built for the niche of lifting the operating bar of a Madame LeAxehorse deck from 2 to 3. — HanoverFist · 758
I just realized this card is almost the same as the card resourceful in the lotr card game. Niche but works great in a hobbit deck. This has me thinking a deck likely exists where this is a really good card as well…not sure what that looks like yet though. — spoonman2084 · 1