Book of Shadows

Asset. Hand

Item. Tome.

Cost: 3. XP: 1.

Mystic

Exhaust Book of Shadows and spend 1 resource: Add 1 charge to a Spell asset you control.

Dimitri Bielak
The Unspeakable Oath #154.
Book of Shadows

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

The creators of this card are the same masterminds behind the upcoming Level 1 version of the Springfield M1903 seen below:

Springfield M1903

Guardian
Asset. Hand x3
Item. Weapon. Firearm. Hex.

Cost: 9. XP: 1.
Test Icons:

Uses (3 ammo).

Spend 4 ammo: Fight. You get -1 and deal 0 damage for this attack. Cannot be used to attack enemies.

bricklebrite · 502
I was impressed by the designers' ability to create a worse Book of Shadows. Not easy, but they did it. — CaiusDrewart · 3125
Errrh. Okay. Its sees a lot of play in Daisy decks for good reason. Its a strong card there - a charge for a coin aint a bad deal. — aramhorror · 700
It's not a charge for a coin. She's giving up her tome action, which is super valuable, too. — CaiusDrewart · 3125
'Tome action' being a Book of Lore, which is good early game, not so interesting late game. And Book of Shadows is handy lategame. Anyway. Think what you want. I think this card is a cornerstrone for somedecks. — aramhorror · 700
Her tome action is grand but so is the option to trade it in to infinitely refresh shriveling, or guiding stones. Especially with Dr Milan around Daisy can be a hyper-Rex and a caster rolled into one. It’s nothing to sneeze at — Difrakt · 1287
Your lv 1 version of Springfield M1903 is great, i laughed hard. However the book isn't as bad as it seems. I know both are rather action ineffective, but it can be useful for daisy (free tome action) and sefina (lots of ressources + leo) and running out of spell charges.. — Django · 5070
There is a niche for this springfield — petercheungjr · 1
Use it with Acts of Desperation — petercheungjr · 1
For this card (I mean the tome) to be useful for Daisy, it should read "an investigator at your location", where is printed "you". I think level 0 Shrivelling can be usefull for solo Daisy, but only if she buffs it with Higher Education, at what point it becomes really expensive to pay the recharge and use of the additional charges. Unfortunately the next upgrade for Shrivelling is level 3, and therefore unavailble for her. Now, if she could recharge spells like level 5 Shrivelling or level 4 RoS for her buddy mystics, THIS would sure look like good uses of her tome action. — Susumu · 363

I am a firm believer that this is the worst card in the game as of 2020. Sure, Henry Wan's ability is usually awful, at least he is 0 exp and he can soak for you. The Springfield M1903 is rightfully ridiculed but with support it can be a worthwile janky weapon. Book of Shadows (1) is slow, clunky, expensive and just feels bad to play. At least the 3 exp version gives you an arcane slot, which is somewhat useful for most decks that rely on spell assets, and it adds charges for no continuous money sink. And mind you, the upgraded version rarely sees play. So that tells you enough.

Absolutely awful.

Cpt_nice · 77
A few years back I played daisy with mystic focus for combat and used her book action for this, worked quite well. — Django · 5070
The problem is you could do so much better for her free action, even back then. And now, with tons of new tome support, the card has completely fallen of the wagon — Cpt_nice · 77
I'm planning a Daisy spell slinger using this as well, but I can't argue that it isn't a terrible card. Any house rule ideas that would improve it? — LaRoix · 1643
It should cost 0 or 1, IMO. — FarCryFromHuman · 1
Like I wrote in the comments of the other review: it should at the very least work on investigators at your location to make it a decent Daisy multipayer card. Daisy using her free book action to reload Agnes' "Shrivelling" (5) or "Rite of Seaking" (4), sign me in! But Daisy's own "Shrivelling" (0)? Not worth it. — Susumu · 363
"Rite of Seaking," use Water Gun! It's super effective! — SGPrometheus · 809
This book has its primary user - Dexter Drake. Since he loves Haste, Alchemical Transmutation and Shriveling, this is a half path item to the upgraded version to get one more arcane slot. — ambiryan13 · 177
Daisy with Archaic Glyphs: Guiding Stones and Higher Education ...in multiplayer you can empty out any amount of clues in one action ...and this fuels it the whole game ! Worst card in the game lol ...it caps my Multi-clue Fracking strat and easy to find with my 2 Research Librarians and 2 Old Books of Lore. I can do it for free every turn ...and those who say there are better things to do with your free action..I say ...what better thing to do in the game than win it ? And clearing clues in one action wins games and gets exp . With this gem of a card I can do that EVERY TURN lol. And if I do not find my Archaic Glyphs ? It just goes to fuel my 2 Earthly Serenity I use to heal the group and my squishy self . — Dugbo · 1

The card has been deemed (one of ) the worst card(s) in the game. I do feel why - using so many actions and resources to recharge spells is very poor and there are so many better ways to put extra charges on your asset.

With that being said, I have a feeling we're missing a good interaction here. Maybe due to the fact, cards are pretty old - Daisy can take it to poor endless charges into Archaic Glyphs, particularly the Guiding Stones version. Since it;s a free action, she can produce endless charges at ease. While it might've been a minor thing in the past - for 2p there hasn't been that many multi-clue locations, thing change a bit in the recent campaign as Antarctica contains a lot of 2p and more clue locations. Granted, they sort of slow down towards the end of the campaign, but even then a free deduction each turn feels quite nice. Not sure what the community says?

Eruantalon · 104
It's not a bad combo, but Winds of Power probably is just better for recharging your glyphs. Both are 1 XP, but Book of Shadows eat up your Tome actions (and a lot of resources), plus a hand slot and you have to spend an action playing it. Winds of Power has no such problems - you can draw it off of Old Book of Lore, play it without spending an action, and get 2 charges. If you do that twice you have 7 charges on Guiding Stones which is likely enough to win the scenario. It's just way more resource and action efficient - playing Book of Shadows and using it twice costs 5 resources, a play action, a hand slot, and two tome actions. Playing Winds of Power costs 2 resources and that's it, maybe an action if you drew it during upkeep instead of off of OBoL. It's so much more efficient. — Soul_Turtle · 434
Exactly why I put it in my Daisy deck ...then looked at the comments and laughed ...I can empty out all clues on any location every turn with Archaic Glyphs : Guiding Stones and Higher Education . And its not really hard to get this out with my 2 Research Librarians lol ..Worst card in the game ! OMG lol . And who cares about using up my tome actions if I am winning the game so fast that we can collect every objective with time to spare . Its much better than Winds of Power as I only need one and my RLs will dig it up if my Books of Old lore do not . And its a Tome ! — Dugbo · 1