The Great Work

I wonder why anyone would not take this card in pure standalone decks. Although the card's effects only refer to campaign mechanics it does not prohibit you from taking it, granting you 6(!!!) extra health and sanity. Yes, the stat dump is suboptimal in some decks, but everything is better than dying, right? And since you are only playing a standalone you are not stuck with this crappy investigator for the rest of the campaign.

I guess I have my answer after reading the last part of the card: "for the remainder of the campaign."

So sadly (or luckily, balance-wise?) no abusing it in standalone games. Also, I only just realized that flipping the card is not a replacement effect for being defeated, so also no bonus health/sanity.

Always fun talking to myself...

AlderSign · 423
Vale of Pnath

I'm very late to this, but I wanted to add my 2c.

On a blind playthrough, this card can easily be a full bottleneck. If your clue getting strategy is event based, or commit based, you just can't get past this.

Our blind run was particularly nasty. We had an event based mystic cluever (who was surprisingly good at recycling read the signs 1-2 times every single round) and Nathaniel Cho as our fighter. Without events or committing, neither could get their score above 3, so we were literally digging for 2 tokens while sitting on a place that let us play no events to deal with the mythos deck.

We had to sit on this single location for 6 rounds, ducking in and out of it to play events just to not die to the build up of mythos cards and carefully managing health/sanity. Eventually, we managed to pull a +1 with Agnes (no rite of seeking) while Nathaniel managed to kill an enemy with basic attack actions and trigger Grete Wagner for the other clue.

I'm personally not a massive fan of cards that turn off your deck with no way to counter them. Sometimes the game will turn off committing cards 'or' playing events 'or' assets, but usually not for more than 1 round (or 2 actions to discard the problem). This card is particularly nasty for the fact that it turns off 2 of your potential 3 options and gives you no way to get access to those options again. Really, the way to deal with it is 'play an investigator with 4 or 5 lore'.

Darble529 · 3
Well, the other way is to play assets elsewhere and walk in. But yes it is definitely a hard counter to a couple deck archetypes which isn't particularly fun. — Spamamdorf · 5
It also scales poorly with difficulty. It’s brutal to Expert players. — Eudaimonea · 6
Who plays expert without knowing the scenarios? Masochists! — MrGoldbee · 1497
Forbidden Sutra

Can only review this from the perspective of playing ||Agnes, but boy, is this card a doozy for her!

First, lets break down what this card does.

  • It helps with the actual test numbers. I don't need to wax lyrical on why this is useful. Bigger numbers = better tests. It's a little more narrow, in that it only helps with Spell event tests, but given they're typically higher impact, getting them to 'go off' more reliably is always a bonus.
  • It helps beat the Chaos bag. Sometimes, this is just making sure you don't draw the auto-fail. Sometimes it's two bites at the apple for your Hail Mary. Spell events are generally costly, and for the low price of one horror, you can turn off the swingiest token in the bag, ensuring you get the bang for your buck.
  • It helps maximise your and minimise your . We've all been there. I need two clues with my Read the Signs, and I'm testing 7 vs 1. Draw 3 Bless tokens and a +1. Almost feels as bad as drawing . Flipside, when you're making these huge tests, you can deliberately fish for Curse tokens to try and 'purge the bag'.
  • You can use it to fish for bonus effects. This is, for the most part, limited to Spectral Razor, Ethereal Form, Read the Signs and Banish within spell effects, but can be useful for triggering your other assets, like Ritual Candles or Paradoxical Covenant, or even just fishing for the .

So, it boils down to an amalgam of Holy Rosary and Grotesque Statue, without the soak, and strictly only for spell events. In other decks, this would be a little limiting, as your spell events deplete. For ||Agnes, this just doubles down on what you're already good at. You're already needing to set up to weather the damage you take from your own ability, and potentially having to soak Dark Memory.

For ||Agnes, I think that Sutra has a very strong and positive effect on how your deck functions. Are there better cards? Certainly, but for 2 XP, you get a lot of slot compression, particularly around your neck slot, which is heavily contested between Hallowed Mirror and Heirloom of Hyperborea. Bonus points when paired up with Prophetic so you can bump your spells even more!

I wonder how this works with 2 of them out and triggering them both... Do you eventually resolve 2 tokens? — AlderSign · 423
End of the Road

I've had a lot of fun with this card, and I think it is a slodi include in decks that can handle drawing it early. This is now easier to do with access to red, as the Survivor card pool has a very fledged out "Discard" archetype. It also has two relevant traits in Insight and Spirit, which are constantly getting more support.

However, I have also come to like this card in general in lower player counts where additional actoins are more valuable. I do think it is able to pull its weight, and more people should try it out.

K_oroviev · 243
Robert Castaigne

You can use Robert's ability to shot and then put .32 Colt into play. Shot couple more times and use .32 Colt's ability (by paying 1 resource) to take it back to hand, where it's ready to be used by Robert next turn.

It's possible but costly to repeat it each turn. This could be mitigated by shooting Colt at least once before returning it to hand, if you're [Michael McGlen that gives 1 resource (2 if combined with [Stylish Coat).

bugiel_marek · 24