Henry Wan
Aspiring Actor

Asset. Ally

Ally. Criminal.

Cost: 3.

Rogue
Health: 1. Sanity: 2.

Exhaust Henry Wan: One at a time, reveal random tokens from the chaos bag until you choose to stop, or until you reveal a , , , , or symbol.

- If you chose to stop, for each token revealed via this effect, you may either draw 1 card or gain 1 resource.

- If you revealed a , , , , or symbol, do nothing.

Tiziano Baracchi
The Wages of Sin #155.
Henry Wan

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

This card is usually terrible, and needs support to be worthwhile. See the argument below to help understand why this is true. Support would be: campaigns/games with less of the negative tokens AND cards that can cheaply and repeatedly alter the outcome of a token draw (such as Wendy Adams).

The cumulative odds of continuing to draw favorable tokens, using the standard difficulty Night of the Zealot chaos token pool is:

  1. 0.6875
  2. 0.458333333
  3. 0.294642857
  4. 0.181318681
  5. 0.105769231
  6. 0.057692308
  7. 0.028846154
  8. 0.012820513

This suggests that on average, you will get slightly less than 2 tokens before failing. Assuming you pass each draw, the chance of not drawing a negative symbol on each token draw is:

  1. 0.6875
  2. 0.666666667
  3. 0.642857143
  4. 0.615384615
  5. 0.583333333
  6. 0.545454545
  7. 0.5
  8. 0.444444444
  9. 0.375
  10. 0.285714286

Strategies and outcomes:

A. If you always stop drawing after 1 token, you will succeed 69% of the time, which is terrible because you get less than one resource or card per action.

B. If you always stop drawing after 2 tokens, here is the likely distribution:

  1. Around half the time, you will pass 2 tests in a row
  2. Around 1/3 of the time, you will draw a fail token right away and get nothing.
  3. Around 1/6 of the time, you will pass the first test and fail the second and get nothing This averages to little less than 1 resource per action, which is still awful.

C. If you always stop drawing after 3 tokens, here is the distribution:

  1. Around 70% of the time, you get nothing because you fail either 1, 2 or 3, and the other 30% of the time you get 3 resources, a little less than 1 resource per action (terrible).
jmmeye3 · 625
Poor Henry. He's just not good enough to catch a break. This basically confirmed my instinct about this card. He might be worth a gamble if it was gain resources and draw, or maybe if it was a free trigger instead, but an action is just too much to spend on that level of risk - even with, say, Wendy it's not worth it to use her ability since you would need to pitch a card, trading a -1 successful draw for a <1 average gain. As it is, he only has some stupidly near-broken potential if you could somehow manipulate most (or all?) of the bad tokens out of the bag. — pneuma08 · 26
I think the one thing you could say about Henry is his ability gives you the option to gain a bunch of resources now, which if you really meed that many resources you probably built the deck wrong anyway. His soak isnt bad for the price also, but that’s a terrible reason to run any ally. Rogue allies are not particularly strong anyway, so it says a lot that Wan is probably the worst one. — StyxTBeuford · 12987
Sorry, I made a typo. Instead of “This suggests that on average...” it should read “This suggests that half the time...” The website did not allow me to edit the review. — jmmeye3 · 625
Good review for a terrible card. I think the only reason to take Henry is to troll your friends. — cb42 · 37
I don't know exactly how cursed and blessed tokens will work when they are revealed. If we don't have to draw another one, it might change the odds a lot if we have 10 or 20 more tokens in the bag ! Don't know if it's enough to make Henry good ! — Baker · 4

Here is a lookup table to check whether Henry Wan is useful or not (if no token ignore/cancel effect).

Strategy: I always reveal the same number of tokens. When I select the number, I choose for it to maximize the mean of success. Since I cannot choose to go ahead or stop when I fail, this strategy looks reasonable for me. But this does not consider the robustness of success.

Expectation Table: the table shows the required number of non-symbol(non-, , , , ) choas tokens to achieve the given success.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0.50 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 8 9
0.75 1 3 4 6 7 9 11 12 14 15
1.00 1 4 6 8 11 13 15 17 20 22
1.25 2 5 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28
1.50 2 5 9 13 16 20 24 27 31 34
1.75 2 7 11 15 19 24 28 33 37 41
2.00 2 8 13 18 22 27 32 37 42 47
2.50 3 10 16 22 29 35 41 48 54 -
3.00 3 12 19 27 35 42 50 - - -
4.00 4 16 26 37 47 57 - - - -
5.00 5 20 33 46 59 - - - - -

Row(0.5~5): expected success, Column(0~9): the number of tokens. (-: required number exceeds the total tokens in game (44+20)).

Usage: Find your chaos bag (close one), and then move left (by sealing tokens) and/or down (by adding bless/curse) until you reach your goal. For example, standard NotZ (5 symbols / 11 non-symbols) may exist between 0.75 ~ 1.00. For avg 1(), it is necessary to add 2 blesses/curses tokens or seal 1 token.

Revealed number selection: In my strategy, I select the revealed number based on chaos tokens for maximizing average. Here is my selection number (which is maximizing average).

The trial number is expressed as simple formula: (reveal) = (# of total + 1) / (# of symbols + 1) (round down). If no remainder, you may choose 1 less value.

For example, standard NotZ (5 symbols / 16 toal) case, I'll reveal 2 (17/6=2.xx) tokens for maximizing (avg: 0.92). If I add 1 tokens (5 symbols / 17 total), I'll revel 3 (18/6=3) or 2 tokens (avg: 0.97); success rate is 48% for 2 revealed, 32% for 3 revealed.

elkeinkrad · 486
Most useful Henry breakdown I've seen! Thank you for running the numbers. — Miskatonic_Community_College · 20

Bless & Curse tokens give Henry an actual niche now: big money Rogue in a heavy Curse/Bless party focused on taking no or few tests. Add 10+ extra tokens to the bag (and seal a couple specials), and Henry's acting career suddenly looks a lot more promising.

NatesPromNight · 858
Specifically, running 2x Tempt Fate on everybody (along with whatever relevant class cards) ramps this up very quickly at no cost (other than increased bag variance). — NatesPromNight · 858
It combos pretty well with Lucky Dice assuming that you seal the auto fail and have a low percentage of spooky tokens — Zinjanthropus · 227

While Henry falls direly short of playable on his own, he's intended to synergize with Mystic cards that manipulates the chaos bag such as: The Chthonian Stone, Protective Incantation, and Seal of the Seventh Sign. You can potentially modify a chaos bag to have only a 10% chance or possibly 0% chance of drawing a symbol. Henry could, given the right circumstances, draw/gain 10 cards/resources in any combination of your choice. Henry's more of a theoretical 'this is very unlikely but amazing when it does happen' rather than reliable and generically powerful ally like Leo DeLuca.

darkernectron · 8
Agreed, but outside of multiplayer combo comps, we’re probably not going to see much of him since the only Mystic who can run him is Jim - and his ability strictly incentivizes wanting more skulls in the bag - not fewer. Sefina is also a consideration at the moment, but she can’t run SotSS. — Death by Chocolate · 1447
The problem is you have to seal 6 or so tokens to pull off a good combo. For every token you pull out, you lower the chances, but there's also less to pull from, so in a bag of 16 if I pull all the symbol tokens out aside from the autofail I've got a 1/11 chance of pulling the autofail, then if I don't it's 1/10, then 1/9 etc. To really make this card go off you have to get every single one of them out, otherwise it can too often whiff. So you'd need a Seal of the Seventh Sign which is already a mathematically terrible card to run) , 2 Cthonian Stones, 2 Protective Incantations (which on their own are costing you resources) and one other sealing effect (might require another set of cards, I'm not certain). After all that you get to dump the contents of the bag on the table and grab 10 resources/cards per action, which for the sheer investment and opp cost required is still terrible. So I guess early on in a campaign it's more doable (if someone runs Mateo for Seal) given that there's less symbols in the bag, but even there you have to rely on drawing all of these cards that, largely on their own, are not very good anyway. The only time I see this working is in a team of 3 Mystics (one of whom is Mateo) + Sefina, all of whom have their own set of cards. So... basically never. — StyxTBeuford · 12987
The Cthonian Stone is unique, so we only have access to 4 total spooky seals in a party. — Death by Chocolate · 1447
Yeah the problem is the cost/benefit ratio. A Protective Incantation will cost 1 resource but unless there's a critical mass of tokens out of the bag will in return gives Henry less than one extra draw so the net is negative. Chthonian stone and the Seventh Sign both help, and some campaigns run fewer bad tokens, but all told he just isn't worth it with the current card pool. The odd thing is like most rogues he has a potential to go nuclear with enough combo pieces but there's always risk there at the cost of one action unless someone can get ALL of the negative tokens out of the bag (it's scary enough drawing one token out of the bag, and Henry needs you to draw 4 or so to be worthwhile). — pneuma08 · 26
Wow yup Cthonian can't even be duel wielded so that limits things even further. So yeah, I don't see this happening any time soon. — StyxTBeuford · 12987
I've seen it happen, but I don't think it was really worthwhile. Or rather, the part of it that was worthwhile was not having to deal with the autofail and whatever the worst symbol token was. — Katsue · 10

With the combination Wendy's Amulet and Premonition, which forebodes every token and thus prevents Henry Wan to miss, you'll get on average 2.67 resources/cards on his action (with the starting-standard NotZ chaos bag). It is versatile as you can avoid the overdraw and choose what you lack most, even upgrade a Dark Horse deck; but it is unreliable, as you basically toss a dice to know how much you earn.

I feel like making his ability a trigger or even "when you are about to draw a card or gain a resource" would make it funnier and yet not broken.

Spending action for this effect feels wrong.

LeFricC&#39;estChic · 86
You can't play Premonition in the middle of resolving Henry's ability, since there's no action window. — Thatwasademo · 58
Indeed you're right. So, knowing your first token, and if you somehow always knew when to stop (as every AH player), you could expect on average 2.67 resources on the action. Still not worth the risk. — LeFricC&#39;estChic · 86

Maybe we have a new way to gain many resources with Lucky Dice and Henry.

Every time we failed,we use Lucky Dice to try it again and this drawn token is not returned to the chaos bag before we success.This is means as long as we let the number of these four tokens is less than 5(usually,there are around 18 tokens in chaos bag) by Protective Incantation and seal tentacle by Seal of the Seventh Sign,we can darw tokens forever.

unnamed · 3
Seventh Sign cannot seal autofail. — dezzmont · 212
seventh sign cannot seal anything but the autofail, what are you talking about? — SSW · 209
It's the only semi-viable way to run Henry Wan and Lucky Dice — notably Dexter Drake can take all of those cards. In practice...it doesn't work well, and if it works, it breaks the game, as infinite cards and resources are wont to do. So it's an entirely impractical combo. — suika · 9419
@SSW I am talking nonsense, apparently, carry on paying me no mind! — dezzmont · 212
@SSW seal autofail so that Lucky Dice won't be removed. — unnamed · 3
As i understand it, the combo does work, but the break even point is the tricky part. Base parts of the combo are Henry, Lucky Dice and Seal of the 7th sign (so lucky dice is not discarded). Before you start, you need 2 resources in your pool for each remaining Henry fail token in the bag. On each iteration, you must gain 0 or more resource spent or you can't go unlimited. Remember that you can stop early if your gain is higher than your loss, you don't have to draw all tokens. — Django · 5072
For example if you have 18 Tokens, seal autofail and have 4 remaining fail tokens. You spend 8 resources each time on the dice and gain 13, which is 5 total gained. Remember that tokens replaced with dice don't count for Henry. Different example, if the bag has 15 tokens, seal autofail and 6 fail symbols remain, you'd spend 12 resources but only gain 8, so -4 total and the combo fails. — Django · 5072
Other seal cards like Protective Incantation and Cthonian Stone can be used to improve the break even point. Applying these to the last example: 15 tokens total, seal autofail and 3 symbols, you have 12 tokens and 3 fail symbols remaining. You need 6 for dice and gain 8, so total gain is 2 and the combo works. — Django · 5072
So you should calculate wether the combo works before you start a campaign. But the bag changes over a campaign so this can be hard to predict. — Django · 5072
I once wrote a program to prove that it's true we can do it,but I forgot that Henry gives cards and resources after you stop(instead,I think it works every time you draw).I'll soon calculate it again to show if it really works. — unnamed · 3
The combo always works because you can always improve the payout with blesses and curses which are incredibly cheap to add with Tempt Fate. — suika · 9419

It strikes me that this card may soon see a new lease of life (or rather a lease of life, since it fizzled on arrival). The reason is that Haste is now a thing. Haste is a fantastic card that will most likely see an awful lot of run in rogue decks. It combos with Henry Wan really well.

The problem with Henry, as has been comprehensively demonstrated by various mathematical savants from the moment this card was released, is that it's almost never worth using the action it requires to trigger his ability because you're only about 50/50 to succeed on more than one pull, meaning you might just as well have taken a standard resource or card draw action. But what if it was a free action ? Haste effectively turns it into a free action because it's an 'activate' action. Fighting with any kind of weapon counts as an activation, as does investigating with Lockpicks or Sixth Sense or any number of other useful actions. This means that you can theoretically do any of these things, gaining a free activate action that you use to trigger Henry's ability. You wouldn't even need to gamble very much. You could just make one pull and in effect it would become "take two fight actions then draw one card", which would be awesome. If you want to gamble for more then you can still do that of course, and since it would only be a free action that you're using it wouldn't be the end of the world if you whiff.

This could be a great combo for Tony or Skids in particular since they value the horror soak. I can't wait to try it out.

Sassenach · 179
I'm not sure if Henry Wan is worth the opportunity cost. I think if you're really trying to get extra resources, Dario El-Amin could probably offer a more consistent two resources every round. For Henry to be better, you'd need to either be in combat a lot (in which case Haste would be usable for combat purposes), or really need the draw rather than the resource. — Ruduen · 985
That, and of course, all rogue allies still have to compete with Leo De Luca giving you the same draw/resource every turn directly or more flexibly by simply giving you an extra action to draw/gain a resource with, meaning you're probably looking at secondary options after already getting both Haste and Charisma. — Ruduen · 985
Leo de Luca is better than almost every ally in the game. It gets boring after a while. What's the point in having a diverse card pool if you never use most of it ? — Sassenach · 179
There is room for other Rogue allies. Gregory Gry and Dario are good backups if you want more resources. The problem is that even for Haste synergy Wan is awful compared to those guys. Wan will really only ever get played if seal gets buffed in such a way that we are able to seal all of the spooky tokens. — StyxTBeuford · 12987
The difference here is that it can be used for either resources or card draw, and the latter is more valuable. I think it's worth experimenting with. Henry is still most likely going to be a useless card most of the time, but the addition of Haste does at least make him viable, — Sassenach · 179
I still dont see it. Safer to take two draw actions and use your Haste trigger to get a third card. — StyxTBeuford · 12987
How can you use Henry twice in a row? You have to exhaust him. — batman14 · 7