Amanda Sharpe

Django‘s review explains many many ways to play Amanda, but doesn’t answer why.

Amanda is the seeker equivalent of Calvin or Preston, with low stats that are accounted for with a special ability. And while Prestons makes a lot of sense (he’s a lazy guy who makes up for it with money), and Calvin’s is a bit more tenuous (looking at rotting remains gives him additional willpower?), Amanda’s is amazing.

For young people, college is a time of unparalleled opportunity. Especially for a woman going to an integrated college in the 1920s, there’s really no archetype to fall back on, how to act, or who to be.

So Amanda gets to choose. If Roland Banks gives her a machine gun, she can lay down brutal attacks. But if she decides to spend her semester in the Orne library, she can equal the card draw of professor Harvey.

Unlike other adaptable characters, like Jenny Barnes, Amanda can be super good at what she needs to be when she needs to be it. No need to be broke to trigger dark horse, no need to flush cash into physical training or hard knocks. So what’s the downside?

Again, it’s like a college. You might run out of options and have to be someone else for a while. That someone else might be an ancient frog person. It could also be hard to prioritize playing assets, compared to using your high skills to just pass checks.

But as a seeker, Amanda is extremely well-positioned to cycle her deck and get her best cards back. She also has better self-preservation through most, able to raise her brawling talents or simply run away.

In solo, Amanda can hoover up clues, then deal with bosses. In multiplayer, she can carry fightier investigators without needing rescuing. And that’s a Major advantage.

MrGoldbee · 1492
Chainsaw

I think this item will make Yorick good for multiplayer as main dmg dealer again. This was exactly what he was missing!

Act of Desperation should be your main interaction. You will use it to gain resources back, get finishing hit and play it back into your play area for free. How does this work? AoE first discard Chainsaw and after the fight is resolved Chainsaw should be already in discard pile to pick it up with Yorick ability back.

Then you can use Resourceful to get your AoE back. In emergency case it should be of course used to get back Chainsaw directly (even if less effective)

Still not enough charges ? Use Emergency Cache to put up to 4 charges into your Chainsaw.

Still not enough charge? Cheeze it out with Versatile + Contraband 3 base +4 from cache doubled by Contraband for 14 supplies thats 42dmg in your disposal by 3 card combo that cost 8 resources. Who can do that? :)

Not forget that Chainsaw has 3 icons for Well Prepared You will test for 9 without any other buffs.

If you just count how much dmg you can put into your deck with all those interactions its getting pretty crazy with how consistent it could be.

atilak · 13
Well Prepared and Bandolier is a good way to go with this I've seen. Have your secondary weapon be something like Enchanted Blade or even .32 colt and just go wild. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Secondary weapon? Another chainsaw. — MrGoldbee · 1492
Juggling Chainsaws with Yorick is some of the most fun that can be had in Arkham. — Zinjanthropus · 230
Tempt Fate

I'm a little surprised that discussion of this card so far has been focused on two issues that seem to me secondary.

1) How bless and curse tokens change your odds of passing checks. 2) The advantages of deck-thinning.

The main reason to play this card, in my view, is because you're going for a build that exploits either bless or curse tokens to achieve other, card-based effects. And if you are, it's wonderful! Here are some nice combos that you can pull off with current and upcoming cards:

Bless deck:

1) Rite of Sanctification: If you happen to have both the Rite and Tempt Fate in your opening hand, you can immediately seal three Bless tokens on the Rite for a total savings of six resources over time. Not bad! If the combo emerges later in the game, it's less valuable, but still likely to be helpful.

2) Radiant Smite: If you have Tempt and Smite in your hand at the same time, you can drop the Tempt to make an absolutely bonkers attack with +3 Will and 4 damage.

3) Ward of Radiance: Unfortunately, I don't think you can use the player window in the Mythos phase to draw your card, dump bless tokens in the bag with Tempt, and then cancel with the Ward. BUT if you have the Ward and Tempt in hand heading into a Mythos phase and think you might want to cancel what you draw, you can increase your odds of doing so by plumping the bag.

4) Beloved: If you desperately need to pass a check but lack the skill value, you can increase your odds of an auto-success by dumping some bless tokens in the bag before you draw (heck, even if you draw a curse token, your second pull could be a bless).

5) Ancient Covenant: Once a turn, bless tokens are pretty much auto-successes. They therefore become MUCH more valuable, and worth the 3 curse tokens.

Curse Deck: As a general rule, curse decks love this card even more than bless decks do. Bless decks are willing to deal with the three curse tokens in order to achieve some other benefit, but if cursing is your jam, it's not like you HATE having bless tokens in the bag as well. Tempt Fate simply becomes a win-win!

1) Blasphemous Covenant: Tempt Fate works great with this card. Just play Tempt Fate as soon as you draw it, and feel the math of the bag bend in your advantage...

2) Skeptic: This seems like a weak card to me, especially at 1xp, but if you happen to be running it, Tempt Fate does make it mathematically more advantageous.

3) Eye of Chaos: Once again, the bless tokens help you pass checks; the curse tokens get you clues. If you're into ocular entropy, you're happy about all SIX of the tokens that Tempt puts in your bag.

4) Gaze of Ouraxsh: I have no idea whether this card is good or not, but I do know that the cursier the bag, the better it gets!

5) Cryptic Grimoire: Man, this thing seems hard to translate, even with a couple tempts in your deck. But the tempts will certainly help.

Summary: To me, it's kind of an academic question whether this card is good or bad in a deck that has nothing else to do with blessing and cursing. Clearly, it's a FANTASTIC card, probably even an auto-include, in decks that are using bless and curse tokens to do other things.

It's also entirely possible that you have one person in your team using bless tokens and another using curse tokens, in which case both of them running this card gets you *even more value*. — Thatwasademo · 58
I agree. All you need to make this very powerful is a 2xp covenant. Only risk in my experience is in a 4 player game you might end up with too many blesses and curses in the bag and you can't play this until a few curses have been removed — NarkasisBroon · 11
As a rogue card, we should also think about how amazing this can be in conjunction with Eye of the Djinn and Tristan Botley. Both cards don't really care if it is a blessing or a curse. Tristan just needs you to stuff the bag, and this does just that. While Djinn gets a benefit either way and a powerful boon if both come up. — dkilkay · 4
Clover Club Cardroom

Are blessing/curses an even number or are they a dud draw?

the rules say they have no effect does that mean a null value or does that mean a 0.

I'm playing it that they count as 0's for blessing and curses draw by effects like this, which is good for some stuff, badish for others.

Zerogrim · 295
At my table, "Draw again." — MrGoldbee · 1492
This is a good question, and I'd like to see an official ruling. My sense is that it's a dead draw, though. Here's from the rules: "tokens revealed outside of a skill test have no effect on their own unless otherwise specified by a card effect." No effect, to me, means no modifier at all (including a zero modifier) and no redraw. — Mordenlordgrandison · 464
It is pretty simple. They are a symbol token, but not any of the listed tokens. They are not a number. None of the three listed effects will resolve, so nothing will happen. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
The real question is why is the last sentence written on the card at all? — NarkasisBroon · 11
It was almost certainly added for clarification, but it isn't technically necessary with the way the rules work. I doubt the designers expected to add new tokens back when they started TDL. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Burning the Midnight Oil

This is an Insight, so it could be a good card for Joe Diamond's hunch deck, yes? If you are playing a resource-intensive deck, then this is action compression in that it grants 2 resources for doing the thing that you want to be doing: getting a clue. Basically, it reads "gain 2 resources and a clue for 1 action". Paired with Dr. Milan Christopher, you get an 3 resources instead. Seems good. I'm going to try it.

VanyelAshke · 182
but then, adding it to the hunch deck just adds a virtual card draw, you dont benefit from the cost reduction. It is a great card anyway. — trazoM · 9
It’s a good hunch because it’s compression you can easily take advantage of and because it fits well with other cards that ask for you to be near a clue- Preposterous Sketches and Working a Hunch in particular. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Precisely. I value having a card that gives me action compression, guaranteed when it gets revealed in the Insight deck. Having a useful, universal card is important; getting to save 2 resources is a bonus rather than the primary evaluation. — VanyelAshke · 182
Well, I don't like that you worded it as if it's a testless clue, but I agree that I do really like the resource reward for something you were going to do anyways, whether your deck was resource-intensive or not. — TheDoc37 · 468
In my opinion this is one of the few insights like crack the case or connect the dots that Joe might consider running in the main deck instead of the hunch deck — molybdenum42 · 1