Empower Self
Stamina

Ativo. Arcane

Ritual.

Cost: 3. XP: 2.

Místico

Myriad. Limit 1 Empower Self (Stamina) per deck.

Up to 3 Empower Self cards take up a single arcane slot.

Anytime a card effect requires you to use instead of , you may ignore that aspect of the effect.

Exhaust Empower Self: You get +2 for this test.

Felipe Escobar
Point of No Return #241.
Empower Self

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

I don't see much use of any of the Empower Self cards.
Most Mystics will prefer to use their willpower since it's likely to be their highest stat, plus it takes up a highly coveted Arcane slot.
I can see it appearing in a Werewolf Diana Stanley deck, particularly in the Eldritch Knight variant.
Outside of Mystics I doubt Patrice Hathaway can truly capitalize with her low ,, and , particularly on higher difficulties.
Sefina Rousseau is plagued by the same limitations, while also having it compete with Double, Double (4), Borrowed Time (3), and Suggestion (4) for the Arcane slot.
Intriguingly, I can see a support Daisy Walker taking this, with limited competition for her Arcane slots and ability to maximize its utility combining with Encyclopedia (2), Strange Solution (4)
Norman Withers might be able to make use of Empower Self: Acuity, but the not much of the others. Besides, I'd prefer to use Scrying (3) as well as Shrivelling (5)/Mists of R'lyeh (4) on the Arcane slot over Empower Selves.

Did I miss out on any investigator who is able to pick up Empower Selves?
Or any combinations that maximizes its utility?

unremb · 252
(Not my idea) Lola Hayes can take and probably benefit from all 3. — StyxTBeuford · 12987
@StyxTBeuford True... I always miss out on Lola Hayes - I tend to play on Hard difficulty and Lola's 3 on all stats just doesn't cut it. — unremb · 252
@unremb you are clearly missing the piint about this card. Hard. Empower Self allows enables you to play previosly unmatching skill icons into the test. Acuity allows you to combine the upgraded sixth sense with deduction to gain 1 or 2 extra clues on every location you may be considered investigating. Stamina allows you to add vicious blow for extra damage (if you can muster enough combat icons). But most of all Purple can finally use enraptured on investigation spells to add more charges. And Mystic has some good wild card icons on its cards so you can reasonably expect to pass them. I am looking forward to try this in Maria Lambeau. — Skeith · 2388
Maybe I'm being dense here, but I don't really understand your point Skeith. I mean, I get it, but I can't think of many examples where this is going to actually help. The only one that immediately springs to mind is with Rite of Seeking, where an off class mystic like Daisy who has a baseline Int that's much higher than her will could choose to use the higher stat and to commit Deduction to get 3 clues with one action. That is admittedly a pretty sweet combo, but in most cases mystics will have much stronger Will than they do any other stat so where is the advantage ? You're only going to be able to commit unmatched icons if you're not choosing to use Will for the test, so most of the time it'll be a wash even with the boost from Empower Self. What am I missing ? — Sassenach · 179
@Skeith I get what you mean with combination of Shrivelling/Rite of Seeking with Vicious Blow/Deduction/etc, however, Arcane Slots are highly coveted for all Mystics. Marie Lambeau can somewhat make use of Acuity (like Norman Withers as described in my review), but can barely make use of the other 2. Is it worth the 2XP, 3 resources, and Arcane Slot for a 1/round +2 boost to your intellect? I very much doubt so. Daisy can reasonably make use of each skill, which makes the cost much easier to stomach. With Akachi is somewhat reasonable, with her decent 3 combat, but as described above, my personal favourite to use Empower Selves in Mystics is Diana Stanley, with her 1/3/3/3 statline (and moderate resource generation). — unremb · 252
I really think people are overestimating the impact of changing skill cards for a test. Throwing a Vicious Blow onto a Shrivelling as Diana for example sounds good, but then you have to also have weapons in your deck as Diana to make that worthwhile- if you slot VB in just for empower self, you're relying on a one of in your deck to let you do that, and if you do have other weapons then it's not hard to just play those and use VB on those instead. Enraptured on investigating is nice, but Read the Signs already does that anyway, on top of boosting your investigating power enough that you're unlikely to fail the test, thereby all but guaranteeing the Enraptured charge. Deduction with Sixth Sense/Rite also sounds nice, but again it's adding a dead card into your deck unless you have some way to investigate normally that isn't dependent on the one of card. For Marie in particular that seems really bad because Deduction is eating two of your five splash slots and she didn't need to use the investigating spells anyway, so switching icons isn't so meaningful for her. — StyxTBeuford · 12987
@StyxTBeuford not to mention it’s a limit 1/deck for each Empower, making this janky combination extremely unreliable. — unremb · 252
@StyxTBeuford my bad... didn't notice you already mentioned that it's 1/deck in your comment. I'm liking Empower Self less and less :-( — unremb · 252
As you'd probably expect, it's on a par with other on-demand +2 boosting assets. Well Connected can boost any test but requires you to keep 10 resources on hand. Cornered requires you to discard a card every time you use it. This doesn't have any activation cost so in that sense it's superior, but it requires a greater resource cost to get all the boosts into play, takes up an arcane slot and uses up more of your deck space. That seems about right tbh. We wouldn't want it to be much more powerful. I think it'll likely find a home in off-class mystics more commonly, who don't have access to the higher level spell assets or who don't have very high willpower. — Sassenach · 179
I didn't say that it is a very good by itself. It is niche card that serves a specific purpose and that it does well. Only the skill boost is once per turn. The stat change can be applied at any time. That makes it useful for building combo decks. — Skeith · 2388
For example I am currently trying to abuse defiance and dark prophecy to draw bad tokens and negate them most turns. To do this I use dream enhancing serum and lab assisstant to hold the entire deck without discarding. This enables redrawing everything you play in action via feed the mind. Why is that good? Because with knowledge is power you can use feed the mind to redraw everything fast and thus have every powerful once or twice per game event available on every action. This also enables you activating spell assets from hand. No need to worry about arcane slots at all. I actually use six. 2 from sign magick and 2 in hand. The only thing missing was something to consistently recharge the played spells without spending an action. Rapture fits the bill but was not playable with clue spells aside from guiding stones. This fixes that nicely. — Skeith · 2388
Given your requirements, I gather you're referring to Marie Lambeau. I don't see why you wouldn't just use the Archaic Glyphs then, instead of jumping through hoops using Empower Self. Other candidates are Daisy Walker and Akachi Onyele; Daisy is already discussed above and Akachi would prefer to use her 5 willpower vs 2 intellect. — unremb · 252
You are correct of course. But I have developed the deck basically to make bad token fishing worthwhile via consistently replaying dark prophecy. And I wanted to use as many bonus effects that trigger of it. So sixth sense > archaic glyphs. But yes, the latter would save me some headache. I also included jewel of aurelious even though alchemical transmutation 2 is far more effective generating resources then used with knowledge is power. Neither Akachi nor Daisy can pull off what I want to do here. Only Ms. Lambeau has access to both feed the mind and the high level mystic spells. — Skeith · 2388
@Sassenach I think it's not truly on par with other +2 boosting assets. Cornered has the benefit of being able to activate more than once per round. Well Connected can boost an insane amount for any test if resources permit (e.g. Preston/Sefina moneybags). Well Prepared does not take up any slots. Quick Study's cost is prohibitive, though certain builds depend on the clue manipulation afforded by it. I think the resource and the slot cost for Empower Self might be too much, looking at it from purely the 1/round +2 to 1 stat point of view. Perhaps it might improve with future expansions adding new combinations. — unremb · 252

These Myraid Cards are specifically for one person and one person only.

Sefina Rousseau.

Spectral Razor and Read the Signs are the Events to duplicate and she has no innate ability to boost her Intelligence and Strength. And here is where these cards come into play.

Empower Self is best used with Mists of R'lyeh or later in the campaign with Ornate Bow to get up to 8 Agility. Yes, she does want Suggestion as well, so there would be three cards for evading in one arcane slot and the other three for basically everything else in another.

Also one other thing. She is so RICH she could solely afford to use those spells.

No paranoia.

ambiryan13 · 177
Or Patrice — MrGoldbee · 1451
They are very useful in Diana, n a build that doesn’t care about Willpower. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1052
The EotE spells are better for Diana. Here you have to find Empower first (1 per deck), then Shrivelling before low-WP Diana is ready to go. With Brand she can use Combat immediately at 1/3 the cost of this combo. — MindControlMouse · 41
If you're using the brand, you probably would welcome more fist icons. Diana can also take Well Prepared. — Lailah · 1

I know it´s a bit pricy, but for what I understand the effect to exhaust triggers with any copy of Empower Self so if u have all the 3 copies in play you could exhaust all 3 of them to get +6 to any skill test other than .

You just have to be able to generate resources failry quickly with Alchemical Transmutation, Forbidden Knowledge and/or Sacrifice.

I think it´s other way to deal with the treacherys and/or Scenario cards test other than .

Fenrirgarm · 11
Treacheries don't require you to use willpower instead of other stats. Cards like Shrivelling, Rite of Seeking, etc. do. And (at least with the current card pool) they just replace one other stat. If they would ever create a mystic card, that let you do a test on an encounter card with willpower instead, there would be a certain scenario in TCU, where you might use multiples of this. But I can't think of any other possibility. — Susumu · 366
That's... not how this card works. _None_ of the cards boost willpower, so there is no way to increase that stat. Each flavor of this card has its own different stat boost, so you can only rarely combine them when you're doing a test that uses multiple stats, like Lockpicks. Third, as Susumu says, the ability to choose the stat you test with only applies to certain player cards right now, and lets you use the default stat (so you can boost it with this card) instead of willpower (which Empower Self can not boost.) — Hylianpuffball · 28
...or perhaps this is what we misunderstood: you can only bring a single copy of each flavor in a deck, so you get one copy each for three stats. You can't stack up and bring 3 Empower Self: Stamina cards to give yourself +6 fight on a single test. — Hylianpuffball · 28
To clarify Hylianpuffball's final point I'm regards to Fenrirgarm's misunderstanding of the card: see the RRG entry for 'self-referential text'. "When a card's ability text refers to its own title, it is referring to itself only, and not to other copies (by title) of the card." This is why you can't get the +6 to any non-Will test. — Death by Chocolate · 1447
Ohhhhh, thanks DeathByChocolate, that was the problem. Yeah, you can't pay for the cost of ES: Stamina by exhausting other cards, even if they are also named Empower Self. — Hylianpuffball · 28
How would it be written if you could exhaust other copies of ES as well? — Nenananas · 251
Ok, my bad. The text of the card where the limitation of one copy is stablished sais "Limit 1 Empower Self (Stamina) — Fenrirgarm · 11
But later in the fast effect sais "Exhaust Empower Self:" without clarifig — Fenrirgarm · 11
Even after the limit of the Empower self clarify it sais "...3 Empower Self cards(again here doesnt clarify wich titles and it's not self ref only)" — Fenrirgarm · 11
I understand the point of hylianpuffball but i dont think that rules apply to this card. They have diferent subtitles and clearly inthe effect text clarify whent the effect reffers to this card and the other copies, basicly by specificly clarifying it. And there's also the Golden Rule, in wich if the text of a card directly contradicts the text of either learn to play or reference book, the card tales precedence. — Fenrirgarm · 11
While the stuff I said is true, you really only need to look at the rule DeathByChocolate referenced. Cards that mention themselves always refer to ONLY themselves, and not any other card. Empower Self doesn't contradict this rule. — Hylianpuffball · 28
Though honestly, I understand how it could be confusing, since some cards in Arkham DO use "this card" to reference themselves, which is treated the same by the rules, but is much clearer. I think the makers prefer to use the card name when it fits for flavor and immersion reasons. — Hylianpuffball · 28
@Nenananas I don't know if any current cards that care about cards with a certain name in Arkham, but I imagine it would be something like "exhaust a card named 'Empower Self': Do thing." — Hylianpuffball · 28
Actually, I guess it would work like some treacheries do, so it would probably say "exhaust a copy of Empower Self". — Hylianpuffball · 28
Found one, Mind's Eye actually does work this way, and it uses the "copy of" language. — Hylianpuffball · 28
They could´ve written the effect " Exhaust this Empower Self card..." like you said Hylian. Because it´s a little ambiguous. First they use the entire name of the card, then they use just the "Empower Self" to refer to all copies with different names, and at the end they use the same name just to refer the card with the power. They fixed many other anbiguous text in the FAQ, taboo & mutated cards but not this one? — Fenrirgarm · 11
Minds Eye has the same name in every copy, its not exactly the same situation. But I guess they could have added "copy of Empower Self" too. It would be nice they at least address this issue for the return. — Fenrirgarm · 11
The triggered ability doesn't include the subtitle because it doesn't need to to work as self-referential text. The deckbuilding limitation does use the subtitle because it would be mechanically different (and nullify Myriad) to not include it. (See Precious Momento for similar templating.) Personally, I wouldn't mind if they taboo mutated Empower Self to change the ability to "exhaust a copy of Empower Self" because it is currently SO expensive at 3 resources' each and inconsistent at 1 each per version. Being able to exhaust each other would make it much more compelling to include them all, while still being VERY expensive to play them all (9 resources and 3 actions). I don't think it would be over-powered and maybe open up some interesting new Mystic builds. — Death by Chocolate · 1447