The Tower • XVI
Circumstances Beyond Your Control

Asset. Tarot. Basic Weakness

Omen. Tarot.

Cost: 4.

Neutral

You cannot commit cards to skill tests while The Tower • XVI is in your hand.

If The Tower • XVI is drawn in your opening hand during setup (before or after taking a mulligan), you cannot replace it. It must stay in your opening hand.

Robert Laskey
The Circle Undone #42.
The Tower • XVI

FAQs

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Reviews

–ASSET WEAKNESS RULES

This card is an asset weakness. An asset weakness is considered to be controlled by its bearer (source: my email to FFG). That means that this card can be targeted by

·Crypt Chill

·Dunwich treachery Pushed into the Beyond

·Forgotten Age Lost in Time

Other asset weakness that can leave play is Occult Scraps. Asset weakness that state "cannot leave play" are Necronomicon, The King in Yellow or Baron Samedi.

MarcMF3 · 7
Nice detail, but you probably wouldn't want to shuffle this into your deck with Lost In Time after playing for it Lol — Svyatoslav28 · 37
I don't understand how you could get around "A player may not optionally choose to discard a weakness card from hand, unless a card explicitly specifies otherwise." https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Weakness — Okami · 41
You don't. This review isn't about getting it out of your hand, it's about making it leave play after you've paid the 4 resources and play action to get it out of your hand in the intended manner, with the examples being mostly to protect other, actually useful assets. On that note, Subject 5U-21 can devour this card (or Occult Scraps) once it's in play, which can be pretty helpful. — Thatwasademo · 52
1 more asset weakness that can leave play: The Devil - XV, another problem tarot. Of course, much like The Tower - XVI, once it's an asset in your play area, it's not really a problem anymore. Occult Scraps is the only one you actively want to be rid of ASAP. — HanoverFist · 669
Now I had the Devil as my weakness and I hated how often I started with it. An action and resource hog that is really only “good” as a shield against the asset hating cards. One thing though that I learned as aI had drawn Kleptomania as my random basic weakness was this. I could take depleted assets that did not conflict with my slots to hold as a hedge against Crypt Chill and the like. We determined that Kleptomania could not be used on the weakness Assets so I turned my pain into a plus twice during the campaign. — Staticalchemist · 1

I think this card is very penalizing, as it imposes 3 negative effects that aren't all obvious:

  • The first is obvious, not being able to commit cards is often a problem
  • 4 ressources to play is a lot, for example leaving you unable to play most assets on turn 1
  • When played it occupies the tarot slot, which may discard an existing tarot card

However another tarot card can be played to discard the tower, once it's in play. The rules about weaknesses only prohibit players from discarding weaknesses from their hand, not from play (unless the card itself says so).

Django · 4907
I think a case can be made for The Tower to be the most heavily penalising random basic weakness, including Doomed. This is actually more than twice as bad as Indebted when you take into account the mulligan clause. — The_Wall · 275
The_Wall, I don't entirely agree with it being twice as bad. I agree it is very punishing. However, Indebted is Permanent, so it will hit you every scenario. This only matters if you draw it, so you could dodge it. Of course, never having to worry about drawing Indebted instead of this is also something one could argue about... — Veronica212 · 286
Is there any restrictions agianst shreading it through the Cornered for +2, or through Wendy's and Pete's abilities? — theczarek · 2
Ok, silly my - Review ansered my question :P — theczarek · 2
I think it’s really swingy and heavily dependent on: — carlsonjd11 · 488
The investigator and when it’s drawn. It’d crushing to Silas, Minh, and Calvin (or anyone who heavily relies on committing cards). It’s less so on investigators who rely on assets and events, especially after they’re setup. It’s also most crushing if you get it in your opening hand or in the middle of the game before you’re setup and are maybe still relying on committing cards. — carlsonjd11 · 488
If you are playing a Guardian, Ever Vigilant helps mitigate this weakness. Can save 1 action to play it and 1 resource. — Ezhaeu · 47
You forgot one thing, if in Mulligan, unlike other weaknesses it IS one l'ESS card drawn (and one less redraw). So anyway it is 1 lost draw ans a Mulligan fear, so another penalizing effect., — LeFricC'estChic · 86
Sorry, autocorrect gone wild, *less *and. — LeFricC'estChic · 86
This has been a rough weakness for me and my Joe Diamond. The past few scenarios in TCU I have either started with it or drawn it the first few turns and haven't found Milan until near the end of the game. When combined with Indebted... It has been a sad time for literally poor Joe Diamond. — cooker · 1
Just started a rum with Silas and this weakness is crippling for him. i think couldn't have gotten a worse weakness. — nungunungu · 4
I had two of these in my first deck; as I drew one for my random basic weakness and chose Intro 2 during setup of the Witching Hour. So stuck with two for the whole Campaign! — corbs · 10
In a recent scenario, I played this with ill grace, but then got an asset-eating Treachery, so it became a rather expensive shield. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1023
is it even a good idea to buy a tarot card once you get this as your weakness..? — FindetClemo · 1
I would add a 4th.... e.g. in my Preston deck that I dont do test, have resources to throw away, and more likely will never have a tarot card, the most punishing part is that takes a hand size, so in Preston your hand size get down to 7 unless you spent the action and your inherihance to play it. — marduke182 · 9
Starting a Circle Undone with this as Mark basically crippled me right off the bat. Just a devastating card to resource starved Guardians. — Pevsfreedom · 1

Honestly, if you have big enough card pool to not rely on skill cards and your name is not Silas Marsh, Amanda Sharpe, Winifred Habbamock, Minh Thi Phan, maybe Patrice Hathaway, or Mark Harrigan (his signature) you can probobly deck-build around this weakness to ignore it. Of course it hurts not to run Fearless in Agnes Baker, but is the absence of is really game-breaking?

With me, often times I struggle finding deck slots for cards to include anyway, because there are so many good options. So instead of planning how to find the resources and action to get this card out of my hand I'd rather thank the old soothsayer for making my deck-building choice clearer and just replace all my skills with similar banger cards.

As a certain magician you can of course still opt to bring The Tower • XVI down for discarding it later with your ability. I know, I know, you really really really wanted to include this one super-duper skill card in your deck, but maybe it's time to change your mindset. Become Adaptable.

AlderSign · 207
As far as I remember, I had this weakness for three campaigns: as Amanda, Wini and Minh. I dread playing Silas for it, because I'll sure draw it again, once I play him. — Susumu · 340
Though as Amanda, "Reckless" is probably even more brutal. — Susumu · 340
Oh my, I am sorry :( — AlderSign · 207
One thing to consider, if you draw it in a deck, where it has high impact is not to reduce the number of skills, but rather increase it even. Avoid in particular expensive cards or plan the extra resource economy for them. Because skill decks are cheap, so the resource cost isn't the biggest issue. It's more troublesome, that you have to adress the weakness as soon as you draw it with a play action. On the plus side, it's a weakness that stays in play ("Crypt Chill" and similar cards aside), so at least you normally only draw it once, which can be neat in a fast cycling deck. — Susumu · 340
Very true. Just hope you don't draw this AND Reckless (e.g. in a standalone). — AlderSign · 207