Crystalline Elder Sign

I think this card becomes a straight upgrade to St. Hubert's Key in 1-2 gator teams. And I think pretty highly of Hubert, so that's saying something. This takes Jim, Mateo, and Akachi to new levels, and Agnes won't complain about being able to save Shrivels with a Baseball Bat, Fire Axe, or Knife.

It is much less good at higher player counts. 4 gators means 4x as many checks, and losing the (+1) token can be a real drag on your team when they have to take a treachery on the chin.

Conversely, this is a bomb solo card and will probably go into every solo mystic I play until the end of time. Oh, and Lola likes this one too.

I love this card and its ability to make well-rounded investigators quite powerful.

PureFlight · 783
Yeah, love this for solo Jim Culver! He's well-rounded enough to benefit fully from its bonuses and can use 2 of them with Dr. Elli Horowitz (or Relic Hunter), especially since his lackluster Elder Sign ability makes sealing the Elder Sign no big deal. Running 2, though, does increase his chances of drawing the Autofail, but he's got other ways of mitigating that... — Herumen · 1741
On Your Own

Definitely a decent economy card, although only once you hit a critical mass of 2+ cost events.

When talking strictly about "click economy" (or action economy), this card can easily be compared to Emergency Cache[3]. Cache[3] costs 6xp for the set, and will net you 6 resources for their slots (you could have gotten a resource with the action spent to play it, so it's only +3 resources per copy, not 4). To achieve that 6+ resource mark, you will need to save 9 credits on events over the course of the scenario. This means seeing it as early as possible (so you definitely want both copies) and making sure you have enough events to target.

Survivors have a fistful of good events, with staples like Lucky! and "Look what I found!" as a starting point. Various Survivors will also use Dumb Luck, Close Call, Perseverance, Waylay, Winging It, and Improvised Weapon. I found Will to Survive the tipping point, where once I added it to my deck I started exceeding the 6+ resource mark. By recurring these events with Resourceful, you can get a lot of value with On Your Own.

But the cost is more than that. It takes up your ally slot - more than that, actually, seeing as you can't Charisma your way around it. Allies tend to be the strongest assets in your deck, so this is a huge deal. No Peter Sylvestre. No Aquinnah or Yaotl. No Leo De Luca or Cat Burglar or Beat Cop or Dr. Milan. That's a massive opportunity cost. If you're looking for static stat boosts and raw power, I'm not sure you can achieve it with On Your Own given what you have to sacrifice.

There are ways to get around it. Trench Coat and Hemispheric Map are ways to get some static boosts. But I think the most notable one is Dark Horse. I've struggled in Dark Horse decks to afford playing these aforementioned events because you're staying broke while you smash dudes with a Fire Axe. On Your Own lets you play your Lucky!s, Oops!, "Look what I found!"s, and Flares. You can upgrade your Madame Labranche into On Your Own in a Dark Horse deck pretty easily. You then of course lose the impact of your second Fire Axe attack (without LaBranche to tap for a resource), but I think it's a place to start.

We've grown accostumed to Allies ruling our decks. Really enjoying how this card makes you second-guess that decision.

PureFlight · 783
Now that you mention Dark Horse, i think it works well with "own your own". Think about it, you can play Survivor Events with up to cost 2 without having any ressources, like lucky. — Django · 5163
Stubborn Detective

This isn't so much a review as a short thought about the battle between the literal and metaphorical in the player cards of AH:LCG. So, what do I mean?

Ok, you draw and play a Research Librarian... depending on the setting it's quite believable that you may have stumbled upon him at Miskatonic University and he just so happened to have "that book that you asked for". It's also believable (though less likely) that the same kindly librarian happens to be on the Essex County Express at the same time as you... and he has yet another antique tome with your name on it (what a guy). Equally, we can explain away the bevy of other allies who make appearances in unlikely places as abstraction, rather than a solid physical presence, e.g. we tell ourselves that Madame Labranche hasn't literally just appeared from around the corner in the Eztli ruins of southern Mexico ("Oh, hi there!"), we're merely remembering her advice and her generosity and how it led us to prepare our resources and assets in advance.

... all of which is a long way to say that the thematic possibilities of the Stubborn Detective have made me giggle on numerous occasions. On the one hand he turned up in the Clover Club. Makes sense. On the other hand he literally pursued me to the edge of the universe. Someone give that man a promotion. Really first class police work. Still... he's going to look pretty silly when he tries to get me back to the station for processing. And, no, I really didn't have anything to do with those murders.

mythosmeeple · 473
We’ve endearingly named our stubborn detective Charlie. He chased us to the edge for the universe too and got trapped there with Jenny when things went south. At least he finally caught her, and perhaps one day, when the stars align, he will return. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
I feel that Charlie needs his own Netflix show. — mythosmeeple · 473
Something like that happened with the Mobster guy. Literally followed me to the 'abyss like space void' for his 50$ — MrEnricks · 1
Magnifying Glass

Earlier, otherwise sound reviews did not mention good synergy with Higher Education and a good insurance against some seeker weaknesses . You should generally almost always take it on your hand if you can. Daisy Walker has it's The Necronomicon, Minh Thi Phan also likes to read, e.g. The King in Yellow. So you always need a free hand slot in case you'll all of a sudden feel an unresistable urge to read something spooky.

And about Higher Education? Well, imagine you're on 3 cards at the end of a turn. First, hide the glass to your pocket. Then draw the card at the end of the round. You're on 5. Then move to a location where you'd like to investigate. Bump your with resource, drop the glass as a fast action. Profit.

Onetribe · 344
It's also nice to return to your hand if you have Dream-Enhancing Serum out. Maybe you draw your copy during upkeep and can exhaust the Serum to draw another card. If not, just play it again in the next turn. — Miroque · 25
Thermos

This is a really cool idea, especially if campaigns going forward emphasize trauma like The Forgotten Age has.

But there's two shortcomings:

  1. As others have said, 4 resources is just way more than you want to be playing for this kind of effect. I know healing is supposed to be low-powered in this game, but that is pretty much prohibitively expensive.
  2. It's 0xp. You might think that's a benefit, but rarely would you take an card that helps manage trauma when you start a campaign. You know, before you have any trauma.

I would have MUCH rather had this be a 2xp card that came in at a cool 2 resources. Even with a more manageable resource cost, this card is still costly in terms of tempo and deck slots.

Maybe if we see more self-traumatizing cards like Arcane Research this could find a home. I'm pretty sure mystics won't take this because they have Fearless and Clarity of Mind, though, so it would need to be a different class.

PureFlight · 783
Why wouldn't a Mystic take this?? If you have 2x Arcane Research this card can heal a total of 6 horror!! Which other card in the game can do that?? — matt88 · 3228
It also costs 4 resources and 4 actions to get all that healing, and those are substantial costs. Besides, mystics have high max sanity and high will to mostly protect them from taking that horror. Two copies of Fearless (particularly the upgraded ones, which you'll be able to easily afford because of Arcane Research) is most likely all the horror healing a mystic not named Agnes needs. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
This card is very good for Agnes though. She can trigger forbidden knowledge to pay for thermos anyways (while killing monsters). — liwl0115 · 42
@matt88: I'm pretty sure that Liquid Courage can do that, though most Mystics can't take that. — Zinjanthropus · 231
Another great target for Act of Desperation ;) — AlderSign · 416