Studious

Asset

Talent.

Cost: –. XP: 3.

Seeker

Permanent.

You begin each game with 1 additional card in your opening hand.

Possibly Gilman ought not to have studied so hard.
- H. P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House
Alexandre Dainche
In the Clutches of Chaos #276.
Studious

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Q: About Studious and Another Day, Another Dollar: when do you gain the additionnal card and the additional resources? For the second one, it doesn't really matter, but for Studious, is the extra card gained before mulligan (and thus you mulligan with 6 or 7 cards), or is it at the end of the setup? The wording "in your opening hand" seems to refer to the "drawing opening hand" step of the setup. But the wording "you begin the game" seems to refer to the end of the setup. A: The additional card or resource is granted during the relevant setup step (Step 7: “Collect starting resources” for Another Day, Another Dollar, and Step 8: "Draw opening hands" for Studious).
Last updated

Reviews

There's a card that will really shine
Every time
Stu-stu-studious, oh-oh
It lets me draw an extra card
And I get it from the very start
Stu-stu-studious, whoah-oh-oh

Oh, even better, I'll buy two
Now I have a bigger hand than you
And when I hard mulligan
My chance for Rook is oh-point-seven-one
Stu-stu-studious, point-seven-one
Oh Stu-stu-studious

Now it's only three XP
That's really not many
Stu-stu-studious, oh-oh
Try it out, you'll see it's fine
It's like a card gold mine
Stu-stu-stu-studious, oh-oh-oh

Uh, I've got to buy it, buy it now
I tried to play Mystic but I don't know how
The doom on Initiate, it makes me scared
But I feel so good when I play Seeker and
Stu-stu-studious play Seeker and
Ohhh St-t-t-t-st-t-studious
Ohhh

Ah, it's all I need in my deck
I just don't care what other cards I draw
Stu-stu-studious
Ah what else I draw
Ohhh Stu-stu-stu-stu-studious
Oh what else I draw
Ohhh Stu-stu-studious
What else I draw
Ohhh St-t-t-t-st-t-studious
Ohhh oh oh

Jaxtrasi · 35
For those unaware, the song being referenced is "Sussudio" by Phil Collins. — anaphysik · 97
Damn the user who started this musical review trend. — durah · 1
... How had I not seen this review until now? This is MAGNIFICENT — HanoverFist · 746

Alright mathematicians, I've got a question that requires some technical wizardry. If I had the option between this and Stick to the Plan, which one gives me better odds of drawing a tarot in my opening hand? We all know SttP thins your deck down by almost 10%, making your opening hand around 1/6th of your deck, assuming the deck is "clean" (i.e. it doesn't have a bunch of clutter from the campaign). Studious here has a similar effect by allowing us to see more cards with our opening hand, which lets us mulligan into our tarot more often. With 6xp put into Studious, we start with 7 cards, about 20% of our deck, so we see about 40% of it if we mulligan as aggressively as possible, right?

I'm not pitting the strength of one card against the other; I'm just curious what the math bears out in this particular scenario. Assuming we mulligan the whole hand, and the deck is clean and only 33 cards, which gives us better odds to draw card "x"? How about if we have two copies? How about if we mulligan 3-4 cards instead of the whole hand? Where do the curves meet up?

Anyway, I was just deckbuilding earlier and started to wonder about it. I think only Lola can actually take both cards, so maybe it'll be useful to someone deep into building her. What say you?

SGPrometheus · 841
Two situations-one with each card--that further increase your odds: 1.) Roland or Zoey with Stick to the Plan AND 1x Astounding Revelation will thin your deck by 4 cards instead of 3. 2.) Joe Diamond with 2x Studious draws his hand & mulligan from a deck of only 32 cards, since his signature weakness is in his hunch deck. — Herumen · 1741
Not useful for Lola because Stick to the Plan is a Reaction Trigger ability on a Guardian card which Lola can't use unless she's in the Guardian role - which she can't be in until AFTER she draws her opening hand. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Carolyn can also run Stick to the Plan with Surprised Rabbi. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
What’s Surprised Rabbi? — Django · 5154
@Django Astounding Revelation — TheNameWasTaken · 3
Oh yeah, I forgot that little wrinkle for lola. I guess it's just pure thought exercise then. "Surprised Rabbi" is Astounding Revelation, the card that gives you two bucks if it's in the search, which it always will be since SttP searches your whole deck. — SGPrometheus · 841
The answer is you should run whichever one your class restrictions let you run anyway, because they're both stupidly powerful cards. 2x Studious goes in every Seeker deck I make, and Stick to the Plan in every Guardian deck I make. — StyxTBeuford · 13049
Purely academic answer to a purely academic question: To make it simple assume you use your whole mulligan to search for a card you have one of. Your search is double your initial hand size. You search out of 31 cards (weaknesses don’t count) or 28 with SttP. Studious gets you 12/31~38.7% chance of drawing your card; two Studiouses gets you 14/31~45.1%. SttP gets you 10/28~35.7%. — Kergma · 11
If you hardmulligan for a 2-of tarot card in a 33 card deck with 2 weaknesses(so effectively 31): Hit at least 1 tarot: 54.8%. Same deck with Stick to the plan(effectively 28 card deck etc.): 59.5% Now, with just 1 Studious and hardmulligan for your tarot, which you have 2x in your deck, you see up to 12 cards before you keep 12: 63.2% chance to have it in your opening hand. With 2x studious, you see 14 cards: 70.7%. This goes to reinforce the old wisdom: deck thinning is a fairy tale. You want to draw more cards. To equal 1 studious(1 more card drawn, 1 more card to mulligan), you would need to remove 5 cards from your deck. — Mataza · 19

One extra card in the opening hand sounds tame, but mulliganing with 6 cards is so liberating. The usual mulligan flow if your deck is with enough redundancy (not really having to hard mulligan for any key card, however hate to get the similarly tasked cards) is :

  1. You pick your initial role from what you see, this gets more varied if your deck is capable of flexing multiple tasks or play with "phases" of using 1H / 2H assets.
  2. Set aside cards that is not working out economy wise or has slot/task conflict (e.g. cards you included for redundancy ended up coming together)
  3. Same amount of cards are added back and hope you get a better synergising cards to what you keep, or more "light" cards that can be readily played from hand (Magnifying Glass (1) with its 0 cost and Fast, "I've had worse…", Perception, etc.) So the failing case at this step is when the new cards you get are still conflicting in task/economy/slot.

Step 1 is improved because you see 6 cards and there are many more possible asset pairings than 5 cards. Step 2 and 3 is improved since while mulliganing those cards are excluded out and guaranteed to turn into something else, the more cards you can exclude out the better you can tailor your opening hand.

My evaluation is that this card worth the XP the more a deck can flex (than getting it for the sole purpose of finding specific thing / hard-mulligan). How many ways your deck can flex, at start of the game you gotta be one thing first and do reasonably well at that before you transition to truly flexing. Mulligan mechanics + 6 cards can really let you choose what you want to be at first clearer.

So if you are planning to play investigators that can access Lv.3 and want to not just vacuum clues, reserve early 3 XP and give this card a try! (e.g. Joe Diamond of course, Daisy Walker with her access, Ursula Downs / Monterey Jack fighting with , Vincent Lee getting opening setup.)

5argon · 11190

If you have two of these, does that mean you draw 7 cards during setup step 8? So you could potentially draw another 7 during a mulligan?

This is filling text to meet the 200 characters prerequisite. This is filling text to meet the 200 characters prerequisite.

Django · 5154
The card is non-unique and not exceptional, so you could buy two of them. — Daerthalus · 16
And, due to the wording, running two copies means you would start each game with 2 additional cards in your opening hand. — Daerthalus · 16
Is it just me, or does the guy in the art look a little like Lovecraft...? — cb42 · 38
It’s Gilman. — Kozz84 · 1
I don´t understand if you have studious when you draw this extra card and if you mulligan it or not. The card refers to the beginning the game but you draw your opening hand during setup and after the setup ends the game starts. So you begin the game and draw an extra card afterwards or you draw it and mulligan it during setup? The wording is not clear to us. — Rado Gaman · 2
The wording could be more clear, but if that were the case I'd have expected a rules clarification, since the dominant presumption is that it would take effect during setup step 8. It's when you draw your opening hand, and it's the only part of the rules that formally details the process of drawing your opening hand. I can't imagine that's not the intended timing point. — MiskatonicFrosh · 344
I agree with @MiskatonicFrosh. Card states "opening hand" and you are given 1 chance to draw your opening hand in game. — Makaramus · 9
This card does not say "during setup when you draw an opening hand, draw one additional card" this means you cannot do a mulligan which is performed during setup step 8 — Rado Gaman · 2