Rule from Matt:

Q: How does Grotesque Statue + Dark Prophecy (or the upcoming Oliva) work?

A: "Yes, you can use Grotesque Statue and Dark Prophecy (or Olive) during the same skill test. When you use multiple effects that replace “revealing a chaos token” with something, else, you must first declare your intention so you are reacting to what you draw from the bag, because each of these effects are meant to be triggered before you draw tokens from the bag.

If you say you’re going to trigger Prophecy's ability first, you should then say which of the 5 tokens you’re about to reveal from Prophecy's ability will be turned into 2 tokens from the Statue (For example, “I’m going to reveal 5 tokens using Prophecy, and for the first token, I’m going to reveal 2 instead of 1 using my Statue). Then you’ll ignore one of the 2 statue tokens, and be left with 5 total tokens, which you’ll then choose 1 to resolve (with a bad symbol on it). Because all of these tokens are considered to be revealed simultaneously, what you are not allowed to do is reveal the first few tokens with Prophecy, and then decide whether or not to use the Statue — by then you are committed one way or the other.

If you trigger the Statue’s ability first, you would do the same thing, declaring your intent. (For example, “I’m going to reveal 2 tokens using my Statue, but for the second token, I’m going to use Prophecy's ability to reveal 5 instead of 1”.) Then you would choose between resolving the first token or the 5 Prophecy tokens. (Here this is a little strange, because Grotesque Statue says "Choose 1 of those tokens to resolve, and ignore the other,” which implies that you only get to resolve 1 token and ignore 1 token, but for the purposes of resolving these types of effects, the 5 tokens revealed from Prophecy's ability should be treated as 1 revealed token). If you decide to resolve the 5 Prophecy tokens you would then choose 1 to resolve with a bad symbol on it and ignore the rest, as usual.

I hope this helps. I know it’s a bit complex, but it’s all optional (and of somewhat limited usefulness, in my opinion), so I don’t expect it to come up too often. That said, I will make a note to add this to next iteration of the FAQ. "

Some math is needed to see what this card actually does. Please forgive any errors-- I did my best!

1. Preventing the auto-fail versus causing it. Drawing the auto-fail and no other eligible symbol tokens would be a bad result for this card, since you have to choose auto-fail in this case. So what are the chances of this? I calculated that it is 4.8% with standard NotZ chaos token pool. This is based on the chance of getting the autofail in 5 token draws (31.25%) multiplied by the chance of drawing none of the other indicated symbol tokens with the remaining 4 draws (15.4%). Compared to the chance of drawing an auto-fail with 1 token draw (6.25%). this is a 1.4% absolute risk reduction, which means you would have to play the card on average 71 times before it actually prevents an auto-fail result. This is a little hard to wrap your head around, but easier to understand by remembering that the chance of drawing the auto-fail is already low, and this card does have some risk of forcing the auto-fail. In summary, I don't think this card can be considered a way to prevent the auto-fail token.

2. Increasing the chance of getting a symbol to activate a player card effect. This includes the following cards (I'm ignoring a few like Ritual Candles): Hypnotic Gaze. If there are 5/16 symbols, this increases the chance from 31.25% to 89.4%, an increase of 58.2%, which means that almost 3 out of 5 times that you play this, it will give you a counterattack that you would not otherwise have gotten. This might be worth it in certain decks (possibly Diana Stanley, whose ability partially offsets the cost). Jewel of Aureolus. Odds are comparable to Hypnotic Gaze, this giving you the +1 card or +2 resources an extra 2 out of 5 times. But this one can be combined with other effects (including Hypnotic Gaze). So if you are already using the Jewel, Dark Prophecy becomes more attractive. Counterspell. This one is a little different, since you don't have to play the card unless you need it. But 2 out of 5 times you play Dark Prophecy you will generate a suitable target for Counterspell over the background odds, in which case you can decide to use the Counterspell. There are 3 outcomes from this: you get get no symbols so you can choose a nice token and save your Counterspell, you force an auto-fail (see above), or you get a symbol token and decide whether to counter it. I think if you are already using Counterspell, this makes Dark Prophecy more attractive. Defiance: If there are 2 skull tokens (or 2 of another symbol of your choice) out of 16 total, Dark Prophecy increases the chance of drawing one from 12.5% to 54.2%, a 41.7% increase which means 2 out of 5 times will create a new hit for you. But the "hit" is basically negating the chaos token, so I don't think this is worth two cards. Song of the Dead: Like Defiance, the Prophecy gives a 41.7% increase which means 2 out of 5 times will create a new hit for you. But this is just not worth it, considering Shrivelling and Shards of the Void are available, which will do as much average damage even if you had a Dark Prophecy for every attack. Jim's Trumpet. Same odds as the previous two, meaning you add a horror heal 2 out of 5 times more than the background odds. I think you'd have to be desperate to think this is worth it. (See below for general use in Jim Culver decks.) Recall the Future: Since you should choose a symbol, often the skull, this has similar math to the previous 3 above, thus granting you +2 skill an extra 2 out of 5 times. Not worth it, especially since the Recall the Future is then exhausted and can't be used for the rest of the turn!

3. Avoiding tokens that are worse than the indicated symbols. This is presumably the main use of this card. Let's use the standard NotZ chaos token pool, and using The Gathering symbol definitions with 2 or less ghouls in play, in which the -3, -4 and auto-fail tokens are worse than the negative symbols. The chance of getting one of these in 1 draw is 18.75%, while the chance of getting at least one token that is not one of these is 100% (since there are only 3 in this example). So this reduces the chance by 18.75%, meaning that one out of ~5 times it would prevent a negative result. But one should keep in mind the fact that you have to select a negative symbol, which could be only an auto-fail (4.8%, see above). This effect is more useful when there are lots of really harsh numbers (like on expert mode) but when the effects of the symbols are relatively mild. Often the symbols are at least as bad as the negative number tokens, which would make this effect less useful. The exception is Jim Culver, whose modification of the skull token swings this in your favor. Otherwise, I'm not impressed with this.

My conclusion based on all of this is that this card is mainly useful with Jim Culver and perhaps occasionally in a deck that uses cards with good synergy (Hypnotic Gaze, Jewel of Aureolus and Counterspell, etc). This card should not be used in most decks and I don't think you should base any deck around it.

Dark Prophecy is an interesting card. For 1 resource, you basically have the ability to hunt for a "bull shit" token on command. While you are not guaranteed to draw one with a 5 token pull, the odds do greatly improve.

Why would you want to draw a bullshit token? Perhaps you are hoping to have lots of options on a test to improve your odds of success. Maybe you are being defiant and trying to ignore a bad result. Or maybe you are hunting for a trigger off of a niche card like hypnotic gaze or song of the dead.

Usually, this card will let you succeed at a test when you need it, but it isn't always worth the slot.

IMHO, it justifies its slot when paired with other effects like Premonition, Glimpse the Future or Defiance moreso than it does to support cards like Song of the Dead.

In its shell of bag manipulation, it is a pretty neat card, but I don't know if all mystics would bother with it.

Just wanted to note that this card is great in a Diana deck with Sixth Sense, as it both increases the odds of getting the right kind of chaos token, and as it has an 'ignore' effect, you can stuff it under Diana to boost her will, get the spent resource back, and another card.

When it says “if no such token is revealed, choose one of those tokens and ignore the rest”, does it mean “one of the skull, cultist, tombstone, elder thing, auto fail” or does it mean “one of the 5 revealed” tokens?

Just realized this car + Armageddon) is insane? Can I get a rule check on if attacking with Armageddon) then using Dark Prophecy and revealing 3 curses means that Armageddon) hits for 5 damage if I succeed? This makes me think that Dark prophecy would be absolutely bonkers with Armageddon) and favor of the moon up.

Not to mention the power of Eye of Chaos.