“Always Current” Environment Review

I thought Cat Burglar was due a refresh, because (a) the previous review was published before Winifred’s set and the revised core were released, and (b) we’re moving to “current environment” becoming the established meta. This may come as a surprise but at the time of writing there are no other current environment Rogue assets which provide a +1 boost (current environment right now is TSK, FHV and TDC). Given this we should assume that there will be some current environment cycles where this is the only way for Rogues to boost their agility.

I'll be reviewing Cat Burglar on this basis and comparing to other cards that will seemingly be always current environment. Possibly this may all change and FF will introduce new sets which are persistently current environment, this is just working on the information available right now. I'll break this down into a couple of sections:

The +1 boost: The advent of Winifred’s investigator deck and to a lesser extent the revised core made mono-agility decks much more viable. To the pre-existing Backstab, Sneak Attack and Pickpocketing, Winifred's set added Pilfer, Lockpicks, Sneak By and Manual Dexterity •• plus reintroduced Cheap Shot and Slip Away. Meanwhile the revised core reintroduced Lockpicks •, finally allowing Rogue's to reliably and persistently clue-find (especially if you run two of these at once).

These neatly provide an archetypal Rogue build: evading most usually for enemy management but backed up with Backstab and Sneak Attack as damage dealing events, with Sneak By for resources from evading, with Lockpicks • for persistent clue-finding and Pilfer for clue compression, and with heightened card draw in Lucky Cigarette Case (again reintroduced in the Wini set), Pickpocketing and Manual Dexterity •• to help find your events. If your deck is likely to cycle level 0 Pilfer and Backstab should be fine, if not you can also consider Pilfer ••• and Backstab ••• which can recur.

From this I would say agility boosts are very handy. In terms of the shifting current environment, the cards in the revised core and Wini sets will always allow you to go-rogue, and the Cat Burglar directly supports you in that with the boost.

The Disengage and Move ability (and Comparison to Leo): The disengage and move ability is extremely helpful, and can often save 1 action (or more if you're swarmed by enemies). An extra consideration is it's not a move action, and there's no "then" linking its constituent parts, so it's an excellent foil for Frozen in Fear - considered to be the bane of low Rogues everywhere! For instances where you spent the last action of your turn finding a clue or you're moving to a location with clues but haven't got there yet (both of which are quite common) and then an enemy spawns, Cat Burglar is exactly what you need in those moments to maintain tempo.

The usual consideration here is that Leo is the better purchase compared to Cat Burglar, as extra actions allow you to do more things in your turn. However, how useful is that extra action really? There's a few subtleties here which definitely make him less worthwhile.

If you think about Lockpicks •, even if you're dual-wielding them, these exhaust and often leave Rogues ill-prepared to find clues in their remaining actions - especially now that Streetwise ••• isn't current. Meanwhile, Pilfer is already good clue compression, but that means there's not a dramatic need for a load of further actions find more clues in. Both of these diminish the utility of additional actions.

An extra action to evade in is fine, but Cat Burglar already allows for very similar action compression under these circumstances while being cheaper and offering an boost. An extra action for fighting is more worthwhile, but Rogues shouldn't be fighting all too often anyway. Extra actions can be useful to play events, but outside of pure resource events most of these will sub in for a fight, investigate or evade action.

The last thing to mention is Leo is expensive. Looking at the revised core and Wini sets, Rogue resource economy is a stripped back Emergency Cache, Sneak By, Burglary (which still sucks) and Hot Streak •••• (which is a big XP investment). The fact you can't pay for Leo with your starting resources is a sizeable negative. Likely current environment cycles will always contain Rogue resource cards to ease the burden here, but it’s always going to be a burden.

Soak: Cat Burglar soak is fair. If considering Leather Jacket you instead get dual soak with Cat Burglar for double the resource cost (a reasonable exchange) which is very handy given the Rogue class's below average stat. Horror soak is of course not as good as Lonnie Ritter from the Wini set, but equally Lonnie's +1 boost is often quite redundant on a class which likes to evade first and kill second.

Comparison to Chuck Fergus: Chuck Fergus is the only other "always current" ally at the time of writing. Chuck is obviously great, allowing for a mix of action economy, resource economy and/or a skill boost once per turn due to him exhausting. He also costs one fewer resource than the Burglar. However, the once per turn nature of his ability alongside his steep XP costs are considerable downsides - and he won't boost basic evades or Lockpicks • investigates which are the Rogues' bread and butter. For this reason Cat Burglar is more widely applicable.

In summary: I think Cat Burglar is a really undervalued card that a lot more players should be considering. As we can't anticipate what FF will through at us in new current environment cycles, having a card which supports so much Rogue tech through its agility boost, in addition to providing action economy in a situation where you'll very often need it, and which will always remain current is pretty good! The interplay with Frozen in Fear is also something that seems to have gone largely unnoticed. There's a Reddit thread here and here which talk about it, and it makes sense when looking at Astral Travel which has a Move designator printed on the card (and the fact that you don't need to fully resolve an ability so long as it changes the game state), but I don't see people discuss it considering how much people worry about Frozen in Fear on Rogues.

Anyway, this was a bit deep dive. What inspired this review was a new series I’m running, the first deck featuring Wini and Cat Burglar can be found here. TL:DR I really like Cat Burglar...

At risk of being a hot take merchant, this is one of the greatest cards ever printed. You need at least one other player before it brings enough value to merit +3XP from its previous version. But it’s incredible at 3+ players. In particular, with 3 players, you’re getting nearly the equivalent of an extra turn of tempo + a Stand Together’s worth of resources. The effect is slightly diluted in 4p because you have more actions across the team to begin with, but it’s still incredible.

I play a lot of multihanded solo, and I’ve reached the point where I literally don’t build teams without this + Stick to the Plan access anymore. And even if my Guardian is my main fighter, I’d rather invest the first 10 XP in that combo than fully upgrading Runic Axe or buying two Cyclopean Hammer. Tempo gain snowballs hard in this game, and it’s not hard to make up the lost tempo from an inferior weapon with this much of a head start. Plus, this gives tempo to your proactive win-the-game parts of the team instead of investing it in your reactive deal-with-the-monster part.

It pains me that Carolyn Fern can’t take this card. What I’d give to bump her deckbuilding up to Guardian 4…

I couldn't find a place for this card. I have played a whole The Forgotten Age campaign with Hank Samson enemy-killer and George Barnaby clue-finder and do-it-all. I played with current (Scarlet, Feast, Drowned). I played every scenario several times, and I have never used it, I only have committed it. So, I tried for maybe 20+ games.

I thought this card would be okay in Hank Samson, since he can't heal when he is in boss mode. The thing is, the best opportunity I found was having Coat, Cherished, and two allies in play, even though George had Improvised Shield and Profane Idol in the deck. The thing is, things never align to do the draw 4 or 5 and "heal" Hank.

Let's begin by saying that playing this for draw 3 is bad (you "heal" 3) and draw 3-1=2 cards. Let's think this begins being good at draw 4.

You need to have 4 or 5 damage/horror on you. You need this card in hand. You need two actions (why??). You need four or five assets that are 1 point away from dying (you can use other people's assets). Then, all your soak dies and you draw 4-1=3 cards. Two actions to draw 3 and "heal 4" while losing allies. This never aligns in current, and you have to use Coat and Cherished level 0 instead of 1. I lost the assets to Treacheries, I lost cards in my hand, I suffered only horror and no damage, all kinds of things that prevent the situation from happening.

(how to play it?)

I have not played all the campaigns. Maybe other campaigns have some kind of slotless cheap 1-point soak, using composures, moving damage to Memento, Peter or Jessica (not to defeat them, but to heal). But, in the end, this is two actions.

The only reason I kept this is because in TFA, in this team, two foot or two brain icons are good, but I could have taken Unexpected Courage.

Vincent Lee can only use this strain not the other two because of deck restrictions.

Still a slotless 3/3 soak for 2 cost ain't bad at all to work with, though not as strong as the other two strains hence it dodged the additional experience taboo.

For one resource and one action Vincent needs to put 4 growth on it. I cannot see the benefit of putting more than 4 as that is the limit of how much it can soak before it is defeated and then goes to the discard pile. What other assets can compete as a self healing soaking mechanism?

Just full cleared Midnight Masks with lv0 test decks for Amanda/Carson/George. Stumbled bad early because the encounter deck noticed we were lacking sustained sources of Combat and Agility. Then in agenda 2, George went on a heater of passing something like 11 straight tests at +0 or +1 with Artistic Inspiration + Lucky! backup. Don't bother looking up the odds, they're insane. Think about the game I would've missed out on if not for Lucky!!

Arkham teaches you that there is only one tail end of the variance curve and that it is very bad and you should invest in mitigating it. Every now and then, Lucky! reminds us that the other tail end of the curve does actually exist and that it's a glorious and beautiful place.