Dynamite Blast

Dynamite Blast is the biggest "noob trap" card in the game, and by that I mean this: Imagine you just bought the game, know very little about it and decide to get started with the Core Campaign. You pick Roland as your Investigator, as naturally Guardians are usually the Investigator that attract greenhorns the most for solo play, and decide to build a deck yourself. You pick cards to build your deck, see Dynamite Blast among the main offensive events, pick it up and try using it... And then realise how botherline useless it is.

Let's talk about the positive: 3 AoE damage that doesn't not require a test to deal is extremely good. If you nail a room of 3 enemies or so, it already pays for itself despite the high resource cost. The cards also gets a discount and makes you immune to attacks of opportunity when played when upgraded

As for the negatives: you provoke attacks of opportunity when played and it can cause friendly fire, these two combine makes it impractical to blow your location up with it, because most of the time it will leave you and your companions in pretty awful conditions, making any kill you score with it a phyrric victory at best

And now let's talk about what actually makes the card nearly useless in my opinion: it is an issue with the card itself, is an issue in how the game is designed, specifically about one aspect of the game: enemy spawning

Enemies in Arkham spawn usually in 2 ways: on top of you, or in an empty location (connecting or otherwise). Sometimes they spawn the furthest location from you, very rarely on a specific location (that is usally reserved to Elites), but the mayority of spawn instruction are usually right in your face or annoyingly close and separated.

That means, it is rare for enemies to clump up in any location beside your own, if all Investigators are in the room: which is NEVER when you want to chuck dynamite. You never get your dream scenario of blowing up 3 Acolytes and their leader with one explosive because they all spawn separately. You never get a chance of annhilating every Ghoul Minion on the board without first exploding alongside them.

This is a perfect example of a card that would be better if it belonged in a different class: Rogues can make much better use of this because at least they can run away from enemies using Elusive or Cat Burglar and then chuck a stick of dynamite in the room just left, but even you run into the issue of having to evacuate your buddies as well to avoid frindly fire. Still "Skids" and Jenny can take it, and Skids can even upgrade it to level 2, if you are considering running it to make up for his average fight.

I do not think Dynamite Blast is a good event: it is not completely useless, but most of the is impractical to properly use in most situations, and the few time where you can get that perfect scenario where you get to blow up 6 enemies without hurting any Investigator means you just failed your job as Guardian by allowing these many enemies to be alive at once.

It rules in Carolyn, who doesn't want to run most weapons. — MrGoldbee · 1492
@MrGoldbee Carolyn still has to deal with the main issue of enemy spawning in awkward places, even if she has an easier time to play it with her superior economy. I think Fang of Tyr'thrha, Mano a Mano and Blood Eclipse are better picks for her if she wants to defend herself (Mano and Blood Eclipse especially because the former doesn't require a test and the second uses her second best stat, Fang require tech to increase either your agility and fight first, because attacking with a base value of 4... Isn't great) — HeroesOfTomorrow · 61
I still run Dynamite Blast as a one-of in many Guardian decks and usually get it played a few times per campaign. I think I agree with a lot of OP's points, but I also think blasting 2-3 enemies for 3 damage each is still pretty good. It's a situational card, not a staple, but it has its uses (especially in team compositions that include evade-focused investigators). — Pseudo Nymh · 67
@MrGoldbee I just now remember that Fang of Tyr'thrha is level 4, so one of my early Carlolyn decks was illegal, great — HeroesOfTomorrow · 61
Lightfooted

Beautiful card! I'm one of the guys who said that a card like this should have been in the core set, and would make Rogues in the early days a much better experience for new players. There are many situations where you will have 2 enemies on you, or your friend will have one engaged with them, so this in one action of your evasion saves you a whole turn basically, as you don't have to engage their enemy and then for the third action evade that enemy too! In reality, this is a real powerhouse of a card and is just a pure value, and will probably never whiff. It makes an evader of your group much more efficient. Simple, yet powerful, and will probably see a lot of play. Rita Young can take this too, which is just an icing on the cake!

Blood&gore · 437
Hold Up

If you play this card in combination with Kukri, it might be good! But you know, that means you are playing a deck full of the worst cards ever printed in this game, so why stop at that? Put in a Quickdraw Holster in your deck maybe, maybe then you wanna play a Springfield M1903 which you will then realise you fcked up the timing and you will discard the Kukri you played before, so at that point you will feel sorry for yourself and take all 4 cards and throw them into the fire.

TLDR: Nobody will ever play this, sadly. But not so sadly, as the artwork is also one of the worst in the game, and i swear my AI image generator has done better

Blood&gore · 437
I'm confused about how Kukri is supposed to be relevant here. — OrionAnderson · 125
A quick card search reveals that Rob Laskey was culprit responsible for the images on Hemlock's suite of new animal mask cards, which instantly assult your eyeballs with easily some of the most atrocious art in the game. This the kind of cheap hackery that lowers a game's prestige. N — Blitheharrow · 51
Fire Axe

The most boring, unimaginative and weirdest upgrade in THE WHOLE game. For 2xp you get "Fast"? What? Such a bad upgrade to one of the most classic cards in the entire game, the one that was designed ages ago and started making a whole archetype with Dark Horse. I know some folks like to say "heeey but you can save it in your hand if you play somebody like Minh and then when an enemy shows up you put it into play hoho i am so smart" yeah, but you can do that with the other Seeker cards like "I've got a plan!" or Occult Invocation, you know, the card that is meant to be saved in your hand for when you need it, which is why it is an EVENT card? And with it you just spend a bit of resources and blast 2-4 dmg and be done with that enemy that is sooo problematic as you say, and still keep 2xp and save yourself a hand slot.

They could have given us another +1 to combat maybe, or make it do something else, maybe another ability that is a reaction which says if your last resource is spent by the above ability, gain 1 resource. That way it would make it so when you destroy the only enemy with it you still get 1 resource for other cards when you need it and would make an interesting combo card. Such a disappointment :(

Blood&gore · 437
From all the community DIY player cards i've seen, this one is the most boring one — OnThinIce · 27
Miracle Wish

No. Its NOT an ultimate producer. It's a 5 EXP Lucky+ and one of the most hard using 5exp cards ever, evenly matched with Flurry of Blows .

Most investigator have an of +2, with a little bit cards, resources or other bonus. So if you play miracle wish with just 1 token, its effect now reads "1c. Fast. after an an investigator at your location would fail a skill test: they get about +2 skill value and a personal bonus." The more it draws, the more copy of Lucky you got. It cant save your ass unless you are running standard difficulty. is also unchangeable.

You probably want bring Evanescent Ascension into play with multiple wishes, cause Miracle Wish its an disposable card. So you want multiple token revealed in a single test, to do so, you need cards too catch it, or being lucky enough. Then you need to pay the X price. Its quite expensive when you were a guardian (If your bless deck seals in Rite of Sanctification to get resources, its more harder to get more bless tokens form the bag).

So who probably want to use it? OH OF COURSE, Father Mateo! He got an automatically succeed, but wait! How the hell they only give him Bless cards 0-3??!! Or, Kohaku and Mary? Maybe their +1 can change something...Nah. To me, seems that Carson Sinclair with a bless theme deck is the only reasonable choice. Once you give your teammate an , you can trigger your own to draw 1 card. Now it became a 5 EXP Lucky(2)+ ! Thank you FFG janitor.

OnThinIce · 27
Thank you for using my term "FFG janitor". It cannot be anything else, because nobody sane would put this and Flurry of Blows to cost 5xp. Guardians are already the weakest class of them all, so he's gotta be the one to blame — Blood&gore · 437
Compared to seal of the elder sign it seems ok in terms of xp for the effect. You trade the secure token pull for the ability to use the card more often. Nevertheless only use it if you have a good elder sign effect. — Tharzax · 1
I have to disagree you Tharzax, seal of elder sign is way better than this. One auto success is better than many Luckys. It gives you a sure win in any important or deadly test, a sure success point for crystal pendulum. Once you decide to use it, you basically dont need any other cards or resources input. None of this can MW do. — OnThinIce · 27
You know when I read Evanescent Ascension I just automatically assumed that the elder sign replaced all other revealed tokens — OrionAnderson · 125
I suppose you can abuse this with Rod of Carnamagos, but Carson can't use it. I agree that the best user for Miracle wish should be Carson. — joster · 96
This would be Father Mateo's new signature card if not for Bless 0-3 limitation. What a shame! — liwl0115 · 42