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Q: I have a question regarding weaknesses and Dilemma cards with Revelation abilities: If due to card effects (e.g. Deep Knowledge), both Amnesia card and At a Crossroads are drawn, is it possible to freely choose their resolution order? If so, and I choose to resolve Amnesia first, can I choose to discard the At a Crossroads I just drew? If I choose to resolve At a Crossroads first, choose myself to immediately get an action and then randomly discard 1 card from my hand, could Amnesia be randomly discarded due to this effect? The reason I'm having a problem with this is because I don't understand where At a Crossroads is when I'm resolving Amnesia? Is it in my hand or in "Limbo"? A: Good questions. We are ruling that the Revelation ability on a Weakness (or encounter) card must be resolved before the Revelation ability on a Dilemma card. We don’t believe this is explicitly stated, but we would like to include that in the next FAQ update. And yes, if you resolved the ability on Amnesia first, it would be possible to discard At a Crossroads, since it’s a card that’s in your hand at the time. At a Crossroads isn’t in limbo until you’re resolving its ability.
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Q: Should I resolve "immediately take an action" first, and then resolve "then discards 1 card at random from their hand"? What is the sequence of settlement of these two sentences? 2. When will "then draws 3 cards" be resolved? Do I have to wait until the actual loses 1 action on the next turn to draw a card? 3. Is "loses 1 action during their next turn" a Delayed Effects? If not, is it "now" to loses 1 action during their next turn? If I am now sure that I have no action in the next round or the mythos phase of the next round will end the game, can I still choose the second option? A: Yes, in the first bullet on At a Crossroads, the action should be taken before the card is discarded. In the second bullet on At A Crossroads, once the investigator that’s losing 1 action is declared, that investigator should then draw 3 cards. That investigator does not need to wait until their next turn. (We preferred this to alternatives we discussed.)
Event
Dilemma. Insight.
Cost: –. XP: 1.
Max 2 Dilemma per round.
Revelation - Choose an investigator and decide (choose one):
- The chosen investigator must immediately take an action as if it were their turn, then discards 1 card at random from their hand.
- The chosen investigator loses 1 action during their next turn, then draws 3 cards.
FAQs
(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)Reviews
A lot of positive reviews here, but I will go one step further:
3 cards for one action and 0 cost is already that good. Another way to read it is: draw 10% of your deck in one action.
Deep Knowledge will get you 2 for this and is considered one of the best lvl 0 cards, Preposterous Sketches will require 2xp and 1 clue at your location, and Cryptic Research will ask you 3 more xp per copy to get your action back. And as you probably noticed, all these cards are in , was one of the remaining draw-starved classes (with and ), until this card arrived.
So this card already goes in every deck that has access to it to increase consistency, but where it becomes insanely good is when you do not need the draw:
- Not only can you decide to take the other option, getting rid of one of your less useful cards in exchange of an action that will get you ahead of the game;
- But also, you can decide to give that draw to any investigator at any location.
Most dilemmas are "it could go well in the right moment, but terribly bad in the wrong moment", like Fickle Fortune that could heal your whole party for free during the Witching Hour but also have you deciding between killing Calvin Wright or turning into an Ancient Evils.
At a Crossroads, on the other hand is literally a win-win-win.
"...then discards 1 card at random from their hand." should let you use the action you take to mitigate the chance of discarding important card, such as just play it as that action, or take skill tests to commit valuable skill cards. Random discard can also hit weakness on hand, so you can play the other card to increase the chance.
The "The chosen investigator loses 1 action during their next turn, then draws 3 cards" option works particularly well with Geared Up. If you have a Revelation effect in your opening hand, after mulliganing you resolve it immediately (before your turn begins). With Geared Up, your first turn has no actions anyways, so: 1) You to draw 3 cards before triggering your Geared Up, which makes it even easier to hit 3+ Item assets. 2) You don't even lose an Action on that turn, unless you somehow have 4 actions on your first turn.
It also works well with Lola Hayes. The Revelation trigger is not an activated/triggered ability so it does not require Lola to be a "Survivor" to benefit from it.
Question: When exactly does the card draw occur? Is it you lose 1 action next turn and 3 cards now? Or are the cards only drawn on your next turn?
In my opinion the best Dilemma in The Scarlet Keys.
For 1xp, it's basically a 0-cost event that makes you draw 3 (you want the second option most of the time).
The downside is obviously that you cannot precisely control when At a Crossroads will trigger BUT :
- Most of the time you can spare an action for this.
- Don't forget you don't lose 1 action "immediately" but on your next turn so you can plan accordingly. And it will never destroy what you were planning to do this turn if you drew it during your turn (thus not during the upkeep phase).
- Katja Eastbank will help you with the "draw-timing" if it is that big of a problem for you.
- You always have the first option if you need a burst of action right now and/or you already have a lot of cards in hand.
Overall a really good card. Just be careful if your friends at the table also play some Dilemmas though ! :)
I ran this in a Tommy Muldoon deck focusing on Custom Modified Becky and it did not disappoint. Tommy often struggles with draw consistency because all those Assets shuffling back makes his deck that much thicker. Now you can just aggressively draw through most of your deck (including Resourceful for even more draw) in case Prepared for the Worst didn't find Becky. As a side benefit, Rookie Mistake is also likely to come up sooner with more draw, so you don't have to play around it all game long.
Carson Sinclair and Preston Fairmont will also appreciate this. Carson needs to draw his Skills to support his friends, while Preston is just a rich sack of meat before finding his loadout. Both of them don't really care about the lost action either. One's already giving his actions away while the other's likely running Leo De Luca.
Haven't played Vincent Lee yet, but if the synergy with Geared Up is legal, him being able to take Studious, Geared Up and this card without Versatile makes his 1st turn setup pretty consistent.
Not sure about the other investigators with off-class access to Survivor Level 1 events though. Tony may want this as Rogues don't have a lot of draw aside from Lucky Cigarette Case and some high-XP options, but Survivor seems like the least viable secondary class for him. Minh and Mandy already can draw and search very well, so their actions are better spent actually winning the game. Agnes' weakness is so simple yet brutal that adding more draw to her looks like a bad idea (unless you engage in liberal deck manipulation).
There is a very nice interaction for this card someone commented at Carson Sinclair page , it is getting it back with Resourceful with far more control. Commenting only so this combo is also here for anyone who evaluates this card.