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Q: I have a question about some card interactions for cards that trigger 'at the end of your turn' and 'during your turn'. To draw a specific example, if Monterey Jack's ability draws Cryptic Writings, is he allowed to trigger Cryptic Writing's ability and play it? More generally, when an ability triggers 'at the end of my turn', is that 'during my turn'? And similarly, if an ability triggers 'at the start of my turn' is that 'during my turn'? A: Short answer, yes, “at the end of your turn” is still “during your turn”, so you would be able to play Cryptic Writings if you drew it with Monterey Jack’s triggered ability. (By extension, “at the start of your turn” should also count as being “during your turn.”)
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Q: Can I trigger Cryptic Writings' ability from the discard pile if Cryptic Writings is not in my hand "After [I] draw" it because it was discarded by Scroll of Prophecies? A: This one was tricker to determine [cf two rulings on Easy Mark], because of how “then” and “After” in abilities interact. What we determined is, Scroll of Prophecies’ final sentence would be treated as a single triggering condition, given priority because it has a “then” clause in its ability whereas Cryptic Writings has an “After” in its ability. To put it simply, Scroll of Prophecies needs to resolve in full before Cryptic Writings resolves. If Cryptic Writings was discarded as a consequence of resolving Scroll of Prophecies, Cryptic Writings could not trigger from the discard pile, as it cannot be “played” from this out-of-play area. Hopefully that makes sense! Further discussion: There's one thing I don't understand about your explanation, and I was wondering if you could indulge me with a clarification. You mentioned that Cryptic Writings can't be "played" from the discard pile. Is that because of "Card abilities only interact with other cards that are in play, unless the ability specifically references an interaction with cards in an out-of-play area." under Ability in the RR? If so, why can Cryptic Writings be "played" from hand (also an out-of-play area)? To be clear, obviously it must be playable from hand, otherwise the ability doesn't function... but how does that fit into the rules framework? I noticed that most of the other cards that work like this (particularly Easy Mark, but also e.g. Archaic Glyphs, Dexter Drake, Ever Vigilant, Farsight) specify "from your hand" - i.e. specifically referencing the out-of-play area. Should Cryptic Writings have this text? Or is there some implicit reason that Cryptic Writings can be played from only the zone we expect it to be in after its triggering condition? A: Unless something states it can be played from the discard pile (like Winging It), you can’t play it from there. Easy Mark’s ability can be activated while in the discard pile, but that’s not the same as playing Easy Mark from the discard pile. It’s the same for Cryptic Writings; it cannot be played from the discard pile.
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- Cryptic Writings (2) (Харви Уолтерс #24)
FAQs
(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)Reviews
Cryptic Writing, Crack the Case, and Burning the Midnight Oil all fulfill very similar roles: actionlessly turning cards into resources.
Of the three, Crack the Case has the highest resource potential and the ability to support your allies, at the cost of not being always available when you need it. Burning the Midnight Oil is more reliable and only asks that you be able to make a basic investigate action, which any Seeker should be able to do. Where does that leave Cryptic Writings?
Cryptic Writings will far less reliably give resources actionlessly (especially at lower XP), but it does have icons. This means if you don't need the resources, you can simply treat it as a skill card , and it makes for good Crystallizer of Dreams fodder for Ursula and Trish. With a bit of XP, seekers will draw far more cards on their turns than during Upkeep so its reliability in coughing up resources will improve. It also has a slight edge in speed over Crack the Case or Burning the Midnight Oil it'll due to not having to wait for the right timing, again assuming you can reliably draw it on your turn.
If you're running Higher Education, you'll most likely be looking at one or both of the other cards. If you're running a heavy card draw or cycle engine, Cryptic Writings could merit a second glance, although most likely Astounding Revelation would be all the resource you need unless you're hoarding cash for some reason or have really good resource sinks not named Higher Education.
You're just never going to draw it during your turn.
Finding it is nice, but most of the time you will just feel bad and annoyed. It's not important enough to try and search for it with search effects. And the rest of the time it's just a bad Emergency Cache and you'll be cursing it in anger!
The card is quite decent in Norman Withers decks, and I could imagine it in a deck with Scroll of Secrets.
It's a nice adjunct to/replacement for Burning the Midnight Oil. Rather than being 2 Resources for something you would probably be doing anyway, this is fast in a different way. I guess it would not fire if Minh Thi Phan recurred it from her discard pile with Scrounge for Supplies, but why would she do that? NOt flashy, but a nice utility card, especially since Seekers often need to spend resources on Assets to really get going. This might also help Roland Banks with his perennial resource problems.
Disclaimer: Weird and probably insignificant meta ramblings ahead.
I used the card in Norman Withers for the obvious implication: You see it on the top of your deck and draw it, instead of, say, doing something else and and cursing RNGsus for drawing it in the upkeep phase. Great. Best case scenario. Maximum outcome. Here comes the first "weird" part: For Norman, depending on what else he does in his turn, it might make no difference if he draws it or plays it using his ability - in both cases he gains 2 resources. Like I said, he might need the use of his ability for another card on top of his deck in the same turn, but it is likely enough that the player can choose which action to use for the effect. Why could this be important? I don't know, maybe for Stupor or Panic? Otherwise not so much probably.
But what even more puzzled me is that seemingly for Norman Withers, Burning the Midnight Oil performs better than this card in their best (i.e. playing it from the top of your deck using Norman's ability) and "worst" cases (i.e. playing it from your hand) and as well in its "worst" case as Cryptic Writings in its best case.
Best case vs. best case: So what the hell am I talking about? Playing (or drawing, see rambling above, hehe) Cryptic Writings from the top of your deck costs you an action to gain 2 resources. Neat. Playing Burning the Midnight Oil from the top of your deck costs you an action to gain 2 resources AND take an investigate action. That's one for the midnight oil!
Worst case vs. worst case: On the other hand, playing Cryptic Writings from your hand costs you two actions to gain 2 resources (unlucky you). Playing Burning the Midnight Oil from your hand also costs you two actions, but nets you 2 resources AND an investigate action. Better again.
As you can see above, since Burning the Midnight Oil is always one action ahead of Cryptic Writings, playing it from your hand is just as good as playing Cryptic Writings from your deck. That's a huge burn from the midnight oil, poor crippling writing!
Conclusion/TLDR:
If you are playing Norman Withers and have enough space to take both, just do so, but in the case of lacking card slots I would almost always pick Burning the Midnight Oil over Cryptic Writings as it saves you one action in most cases.
Side note: Yes, I did not include the eventualities of not needing or wanting to investigate, in which case that benefit of the card would be rendered meaningless.
Since this review is a comparison between two cards, I postet it on both pages (yes, of course I want to maximize my steet cred).