Card Reviews · ArkhamDB

Geas

This card is super fun for Dexter, who can remove it from play without paying any of the negative effects. And most Dexter decks are overloaded with assets, so not committing cards during your turn doesn’t seem like a huge problem. At 4XP, it’s expensive, but slotless plus-one to every stat can be useful against diverse encounter decks like Innsmouth.

8/7/21

MrGoldbee · 1493

If you are running Curse Dexter, you might as well play it, violate it, and soak up all those Curses for your spells.... — LivefromBenefitSt · 1085 8/8/21

Enchant Weapon

I'm loving this upgrade on Survival Knife (2), which allows you to fight and deal damage as a during the Enemy Phase BEFORE the enemy can damage you. That attack with this upgrade becomes ( + +2) and deals 3 damage (or more with Vicious Blow or Vicious Blow (2)).

Use your last action to move into a location with an enemy (or one location away from an enemy with Hunter) and deal at least 3 damage to that enemy when it attacks, which may kill it before it gets to damage you.

8/5/21

DrMChristopher · 509

The survival knife Reaktion is not a Fight *action*, is it? So it should only work with the basic attack? — trazoM · 9 8/6/21

Due to the bolt printed word fight in the description of the knife, the attack is a fight action (you just pay no action). So enchant weapon will work with the knife during the enemy-phase — Tharzax · 1 8/6/21

Enchant Weapon has done a lot to make low level weapon builds, which I already liked, incredibly viable. I usually just load up on Survival Knife 2 and maybe another level 2 gun or something, and do just fine. That said, Enchant weapon on holy spear can completely destroy final scenarios. — SSW · 217 8/6/21

Fun with sig weapons too. — MrGoldbee · 1493 8/6/21

Enchant Weapon does not work with the reaction ability, it's not a fight action. Compare with something like Marksmanship, that triggers off of any fight ability. — toastsushi · 74 8/8/21

So apparently a Fight-action designator does not indicate that something is a Fight action, but only a Fight-ability. Otherwise Frozen in Fear would make you pay an action if you used Shortcut(2) during your turn. — trazoM · 9 8/8/21

I've just looked in the rules and the fight action is clearly described as the usual fight. So using enchant weapon on the reaction is for me totally OK. (and you loose an action if you use shortcut as the first action with frozen in fear) — Tharzax · 1 8/8/21

You don't do that with Shortcut either. Frozen in Fear only affects move, fight, or evade actions, and Shortcut does not spend an action to use. — toastsushi · 74 8/8/21

But the action is in my opinion just a part of the costs, so if you don't need to pay it and you go through the steps you still perform the action — Tharzax · 1 8/9/21

You aren’t performing an action though, you are resolving an ability. You are ‘fighting/attacking’ (for things that care about it) but you aren’t taking a ‘fight action’. — Death by Chocolate · 1489 8/10/21

There’s definitely uncertainty around action designators and their effect on non-action abilities, and I hope an FAQ will weigh in on that soon because it’s a common issue, and I could see a strong argument for either side. — Death by Chocolate · 1489 8/10/21

I recognize this is old but on some level I actually want to see the argument that Shortcut(2) is not a move action. Would you honestly look someone in the eye and tell them they couldn't activate Haste to pop someone a third time with a .25 automatic(4) for triggering the evade, then spending the action? Literally all of them are triggered abilities, and gain additional descriptors that also turn them into actions of other types as well. Taking an action doesn't mean spending an action - if it didn't, Fast events would be inchoate, among many, many other points of failure. — Lailah · 1 11/3/22

The FAQ for shortcut now mentions that it DOES cost a movement with Frozen in Fear, which incidentally sheds light on how actions are percieved by game rules. I feel then that Enhcanted Blade should work on survival knife. — TehFrederick · 1 1/22/23

Shrewd Dealings

The Good, the Meh, and the Ugly:

The Good: A dollar off all items? Fantastic. It's doesn't even exhaust. Between this and Bob's free play-item action, you've got a mini Ever Vigilant forever.

The Meh: The second bit seems neat; in practice it hits the same barriers as Teamwork as you mess with other deck's plans for their limited Slots. Slotless items sidestep this, so here's hoping this cycle includes more things like Pills, Smokes, Booze... More Booze... uh...

...wow. Bob may be more of a bootlegger than an actual bootlegger.

The Ugly: SO SWINGY. Bob REALLY wants this in his opening hand. Get it anywhere from mid-game on, and you're probably just committing it for an investigate. And to my knowledge, there's literally no tutor that'll help. It feels wasteful to ignore, but risky to count on, sort of like Wendy's Amulet which you can at least find in a Backpack.

(EDIT: Building a Bob deck and realized that L3 Lucky Cigarette Case is an excellent tutoring option available to him, both for this and more or less anything else.)

+++

So, tl;dr... make friends with your local seeker!

8/5/21

HanoverFist · 755

Question is, can this be used with Bob's ability to play from another investigator and place the item under Bob's control? If so, that might be a good way to utilize duplicate items from other investigators. — Valkun · 41 12/6/21

Fair question- for my take, I can see no reason it wouldn't work. Shrewd Dealings triggers off Bob playing an item, and Bob's ability is for him to "play an item" out of another's hand. Where the item was played from is of no concern to Shrewd Dealings... Bob played an item, so he gets to use SD. This would mean (and it seems very much the intended design) that all of Bob's & SD's abilites can be used together to play an item, on his turn, with a free action, out of somebody else's hand, into that same person's control, at a 1R discount. Bob just got that person the toaster they always wanted at wholesale price! — HanoverFist · 755 12/15/21

Friends in Low Places now tutors this. — MrGoldbee · 1493 10/11/22

If this combos with Bob's normal ability as suggested, that suggests he can take an Item from any player's hand and play it under ANY player's control. In that case, Bob isn't limited to pushing his own Survivor and Rogue merch--he can deal stuff from any class he's playing with. — SleepyLibrarian · 44 10/18/22

Vicious Blow

Just here to say that I find the duplicate cards in the investigator packs rather nice, for multiplayer deckbuilding with a single physical collection. Most of these cards are considered essential for their class and you almost never want to go without two copies. Vicious Blow especially is one that you always want if you plan on doing combat, but if your friend is building a main fighter then you're stuck with either sharing and thereby making her deck weaker, going without, or buying a couple more core sets (at which point you'd be better off proxying, which I personally try to avoid). In the past my group has always just tried to pick investigators whose card pools don't overlap so nobody has to share or make suboptimal compromises. I still think that can be a fun limitation, but it's nice to have a bit more freedom through these extras.

8/5/21

MiskatonicFrosh · 344

That's very true for VB and Deduction". Less so for "Switchblade". — Susumu · 381 8/5/21

It's to replace the switchblade copies you threw away — MiskatonicFrosh · 344 8/6/21

this is why a lot of people are proxying the cards from the core set, can't blame them — danila99 · 1 8/9/21

Sign Magick

Sign Magick is a combo card, and one with rather strict limitations. You need to have two different Spell or Ritual assets in play, both with an => activation cost. And you need to have useful targets for those assets.

Would you like to combine Shrivelling and Rite of Seeking? Then you need an enemy and two clues on your location. Want to combine Sixth Sense and Rite of Seeking? Fine, but there better be at least 3 clues on your location for that to be worth a RoS charge, and it better be your last action this round (Since a special token + Rite of Seeking will end your turn early). What about earning cash from Alchemic Transmution while searching for clues with Sixth Sense? Yep, that can be effective but you need to include Alchemic Transmution in your deck - a card that's almost never worth it unless you can activate it for free.

In reality it's hard to line up three, often expensive assets in Arkam Horror, and then find enough useful situations to make Sign Magic worth your time. Especially since Sign Magic is quite useless on its own and since the combo falters as soon as one of your spell/ritual assets run out of charges.

I can see some use for this card, however. For example an Akachi deck with lots of spell assets. She has her own charge economy, so it's easier for her to find room for the necessary pieces and get them in play.

8/5/21

olahren · 3579

I think this works best with support spells like alchemical transmutation or scrying 0. Or assets with unlimited uses like wither and sixth sense — Django · 5163 8/5/21

I suppose the upgraded version of sixth sense is also a potent option only fot the chance to find a clue at another location — Tharzax · 1 8/5/21

You definitely need a lot of play actions to take use of this card. You likely want to take use of the third arcane slot anyway. I think Dexter and Mystics with access to "Ever Vigilant" have an advantage here. On the other hand might Agnes want this card to try to make "Clarity of Mind" work. (Or in case of parallel Agnes "Healing Word".) I don't think, this card will become a Mystic staple, but I see decks, that might want it. — Susumu · 381 8/5/21

The community has long since criticized this game for how boring mystics came be. This card, as Django points out, enables you to play spells that you ordinarily would never touch like Alchemy (which is cheap) or Wither for a combat focused multiplayer mystic. Yes, it’s not likely to help with your generic fight and clue spells, but it does shake up the class and help unplayed cards see the table now. — LaRoix · 1646 8/5/21

Let's hope for a 4 Xp, Exceptional version of Sign Magic that's a *permanent*. Now that would open up some interesting playstyles. :) — olahren · 3579 8/6/21

Oh man, a permanent version of this card would be so good! — snacc · 1020 8/13/21

Does this card allow to play the 2nd spell without using it's charge? — Gracchus · 1 10/11/21

@Gracchus You should pay all cost except action, so that you should pay the charge of second spell if necessary. — elkeinkrad · 497 11/11/21

"Different spell" does not mean "spell with a different name", right? Means I could use two copies of a spell/ritual with it? — Magitator · 1 11/15/21

As per the "Different" entry in the Rules section, it does need to be a different card title so two copies of the same spell/ritual would NOT count as "different." — MindControlMouse · 45 1/10/23