Beloved

Previous review was based on wrong rules (my mistake) and edited.

The icon // seems good enough to counter many encounter tests. If you don't believe you'll reveal [bless] during the skill test commiting Beloved, one possible combo is Scrying Mirror. After you reveal bless token, you may commit this card for auto-success.

elkeinkrad · 497
Note that Scrying Mirror performs Step 3 (Reveal Chaos Token) early, but not Step 4 (resolve chaos token effects), so you will have revealed a Bless Token, but you will NOT have revealed any additional tokens yet. While it’s true that if you skill boost with Beloved and draw a bless, you might just succeed anyways, an important advantage of Beoved is that you don’t draw any additional tokens (so you don’t waste other Bless tokens if you have a lot) and the Bless you revealed doesn’t return to the Token pool (so it doesn’t reduce the number of Bless tokens in the bag). — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Thanks to comment @Death by Chocolate! — elkeinkrad · 497
Cryptic Grimoire

One thing you might not realize from this card: cursed tokens deplete rapidly, and more rapidly when you have more in the bag.

As I’m writing this, this is the most difficult seeker upgrade to get, and we don’t know what it does. To get it, you’re going to need other decks not only having cards add curses to the bag, but almost certainly “tides of fate”. (Or you could play solo, but if you’re playing solo seeker you probably don’t have the extra time and actions to flood the bag.) otherwise, you’re going to be putting tokens into the bag while your teammates remove them, unless they don’t have any skill tests, or encounter cards… Which requires them to build their deck around this room grimoire anyway.

Unlike the seeker cards that require you to pass skill tests, discard cards, or fill your hand, This one negatively affects your teammates in a massive way, and undoes itself.

Hopefully the payoff is worth it! Because when you succeed, you’re still going to have five curses floating around in the bag.

MrGoldbee · 1493
I've played one scenario with the innsmouth set and we got to 10 curses in the bag accidentally using only tempt fate and Amanda with a promise of power. I think if you want to get this it's pretty easier. Easier than the forbidden tome at least. It's rare that a seeker spends 5 actions drawing cards in a scenario. — NarkasisBroon · 11
Awkwardly, until the errata it, this is actually the EASIEST seeker upgrade since you don’t even have to play it. You can just use Knowedge is Power to trigger its second action while bypassing its cost. Plus you get to cycle it. Now, you can pretty easily argue that the 10 Curse tokens in bag isn’t a ‘cost’ it is a ‘condition’, but while the rules establish that there is a distinction, they leave it entirely to common sense discern what is which and never really define ‘conditions’ at all. Too pedantic? Very well. You can still get to 10 curses easily enough through other cards (such as everyone running Tempt Fate etc.) and still use Knowledge is Power when the condition is met and the Grimoire is in hand. It saves you 3 resources, 2 actions, 1 Card, and your hand slot. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
I don't think that is right, DbC. For something to be a cost, there has to be a potential change in the board state, which leaves out "if the bag has..." as a cost. It might cancel the swapping out 5 Curse tokens for 5 Bless tokens, which is a bit more like a cost. If it said "Add 10 Curse tokens to the bag..." I think you'd be onto something. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1085
@LivefromBenefitSt See, you SAY that, but if you check the Rules, you will not actually find that in the explanation of costs. It never actually states that 'for something to be a cost, there has to be a potential change in the board state'. I DO agree with you, that 'an actual change in board state' is what should probably be the difference between a cost and a condition, but that isn't actually supported by RAW. :) It very clearly would NOT cancel the swapping of tokens, because that is on the right side of the colon, and thus part of the effect/resolution. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
KiP is no longer 0xp! — MrGoldbee · 1493
@Death by Chocolate : By common sense "If there are 10 curse tokens in the token bag", is , clearly a "condition", not a "cost". So n, you can't play it easily like that. — Therion · 1
Tempt Fate

I saw a lot of people saying Tempt Fate is a free cantrip since the Bless and Curse tokens just cancel out each other, but I have a feeling this is not exactly the case. Let's look at the numbers.

Standard The Gathering, as -1, as +1 (probabilities from www.arkhambagcalculator.net):

At -1 / +0 / +1 / +2 / +3 / +4 above test difficulty, the probabilities to succeed are 13% / 25% / 63% / 81% / 88% / 94%.

With 3 Bless and 3 Curse, those probabilities shift to 17% / 29% / 59% / 76% / 85% / 92%, i.e. a change of +4% / +4% / -4% / -5% / -3% / -2%.

Given that it's likely that you do way more tests at +1 or above than at +0 or below, I would say the net impact of the 3 Bless + 3 Curse added is slightly negative.

Whether this is worthwhile for the deck thinning effect or not is debatable, but it is not exactly free.

ak45 · 469
I don't know, I feel like I'll probably never take this card for the sole purpose of being a cantrip. I'll play it if I want blessed and/or cursed tokens in the bag for a specific effect (blessed blade, cryptic grimoire, dark ritual to compensate, etc.). The card's worth seems entirely dependent on your other cards. Because you have to consider that the bag may already be full of curse tokens from something like Dread Curse and Faustian Bargain. In which case, you'd just get the benefit, no? — LaRoix · 1646
No. It says ‘Then’ which means the rest of that sentence is conditional on the previous effect being resolved ‘in full’. So if it adds 2 or fewer Curse tokens, then you get no Bless tokens and no card draw. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Agreed. Having used this in practice in 4 player with one of us playing Sister Mary, this isn't nearly as cantrippy as it appears. Most of us sat with copies of this in our hand because we were at 8+ bless tokens in the bag and didn't want to add curses — NarkasisBroon · 11
Elina Harper

This is Trish Scarborough's girlfriend and they're in love. They're getting married as soon as they escape Innsmouth together. And with that much and attack protection they'll probably be out of there in no time. I expect to see fanart within the month.

SSW · 217
Sounds like canon to me. — SGPrometheus · 847
Add Lola Santiago to the mix for an even better time. — flamebreak · 27
Minor Spoiler: Even with the final Flashback, my Trish player was like "No... I love you too much to leave you behind." — Lemmingrad · 21
Mitch Brown

Mitch saved the life of Leo in the canon, so there would be no Leo without Mitch. He was the sole survivor of the last expedition from Leo and deserves our love just for that.

Mitch Brown is an wonderful Ally for Leo Anderson. At 3 cost, it is well priced for 2 sanity and 2 health, but you won't be using him for soaking damage. His power is equivalent to 2 Charisma, with the extra limitation to hold non-unique ally only. I don't find this limitation very problematic, as has enough excellent non-unique allies, between Beat Cop, Venturer and Guard Dog.

Mitch is also a wonderful target to Calling in Favors, as he makes it possible to replay the ally returned to the hand playable the very next turn - giving an extra ally slot and respawning an ally for 1 action. Finally, playing Mitch feels GOOD. You get the feeling of someone having your back. ready to deploy a full expedition behind you.

Overall, I love the card as it fits the mechanics of Leo extremely well, is well balanced and tells us super cool stories of friendship.

batman14 · 7
Hear hear! Mitch falls into that category of "boring, but awesome" that you occasionally see, much like Beat Cop or Lightning Gun. He's also one of those signature cards that feels like it completes your investigator when it comes down. He's great! — SGPrometheus · 847
I don't think the comparison with Charisma is fair. Sure Charisma only gives you 1 Ally slot, but on the other hand it doesn't take an ally slot as Mitch does. So if your purpose is to have 2 Beat Cop at the same time, both Charisma and Mitch can let you do that, in both cases at that point all of your ally slots would be taken. It would be more correct to say that Mitch is a Charisma with added Health and Sanity, but that is not permanent and he can only come in one copy, so it's not as reliable, plus it has an additional limitation, but that is minor. Apart from the health/sanity the only real advantage compared to charisma, is that it can combo with calling in favor as you mentioned. — Killbray · 12462