Event

Gambit. Double. Illicit.

Cost: 2.

Rogue

As an additional cost to play Bank Job, spend an action.

Investigators at your location gain a total of 8 resources, distributed as you wish.

"No names, Skids."
"Sorry, Finn."
Lin Hsiang
The Feast of Hemlock Vale Investigator Expansion #69.
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FAQs

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Reviews

As noted by Valentin1331 in one of the comments above, Bank Job's innate strength is in card compression, not action compression. This card nets you two emergency caches for one deck slot, which gives you more space to pack non-economy goodies. The big opportunity cost here is that Faustian Bargain--a card that's probably a little too good--can pull in nearly the same number of resources for a single action (and the same number, if you're willing to spend a second action on a regular resource action), so there's stiff competition. There is the curse cost, of course, but a couple curse tokens floating around in the bag isn't generally too threatening (though they can wind up costing you actions or other tempo in the future, which I think our present-oriented brains tend to dismiss a bit too cavalierly).

All that said, Bank Job does shine in a few situations:

  1. Fence decks, where this is suddenly one action and netting you nearly as many resources as Hot Streak (4). There isn't a Fence deck around that should fail to include this. Bonus points for attaching both to an Underworld Market to consistently go hog-wild early on in a scenario.

  2. Big money decks, where your number one goal is accumulating as much money as possible as quickly as you can.

  3. Action-generating decks and/or characters, which minimize the opportunity cost of playing this.

The more of these you're aiming for in a single deck, the more powerful this card becomes. So while it's not going to find a home everywhere, I think this is still a solid addition to the card pool.

Sandmole · 41

When I first read this card, I thought, "wow" eight resources!" and slotted it into my Alessandra deck. Two actions and six resource gain makes this equivalent to two emergency caches in one card! In reality, it just feels too clunky. Two actions is a lot of time, and other econ cards, like Faustian Bargain and Easy Mark put Bank Job to shame.

That being said, this does have a good home in a few decks. The first is big money, where it could be a nice shot in the arm and a placeholder for Unscrupulous Loan. It's too bad Preston can't take this.

The second, and more interesting home, is in the Underworld Market. One of the drawbacks of the Underworld Market is the resource cost, and Bank Job is a great way to afford it.

Lastly, It's nice in investigators who can take a lot of actions, though those actions are usually better used for basic actions like moving, investigating, and fighting.

Overall, this card looks better than it reads. It's good those who need a lot of money, but there are several more flexible options.

maxamaster90 · 11
I pair it with Geared Up. Make my guardian rich. — MrGoldbee · 1443
I think the main value of Bank Job is the card compression rather than action compression. When 2 copies of Emergency Cache will net you 6 resources when 2 copies of Bank Job will net you 12, so in theory, you could add 2 Bank Jobs instead of 4 economy cards and have roughly the same econ in your deck, while giving you 2 additional spaces for other good cards. This is increasingly good as the card pool increases and building decks becomes more and more challenging. Last but not least, you mention the Underworld Market, but I think it's good to almost mention Fence which cuts the initiation action of Bank Job! — Valentin1331 · 67118
I wholeheartedly disagree with this review, Bank Job is incredibly efficient, both as resource generator for yourself and as a way to play support, since you can generate tons of resources to your team, and spending two actions isn’t clunky, there are multiple situations in every scenario where you are searching for things to do with the actions you have (either because you are the cluver and there aren’t any clues right now or because you are the fighter and no enemies showed up, so you are in set up mode) and if this is in your opening hand, just play it and never have to bother with resources again. Card is also great in big money decks. — DakonBlackblade · 4
@valentin I agree! It's nice to have that extra card in the deck, which is why I like it in big money decks. I was going to talk about fence, but I found it's a big up front cost to pay 3 resources for fence and then 2 for bank job (plus the extra two resources if you place it in the market) — maxamaster90 · 11
@dakon. I did say it's good in big money decks, so you can't say you wholeheartedly disagree with it :P As a cluer Alessandra running through Hemlock, I found myself investigating the entire time and starved for actions, even with leo out. I think this card definitely improves if you're a fighter, who is more likely do have down time. I can also see this card going more up in value with more players, because more players leads to more down time. — maxamaster90 · 11

Wow! In the class of extra actions and big money plays, we have a new Level 0 king!

This card nets 6 resources for 2 actions and 1 card. For multiplayer, this is better than Stand Together if your team needs resources more than you. With support this card becomes even better; Underworld Market to consistently draw this card early, Fence to reduce the action cost, possibly the resource cost too. Cards that gain additional actions are great here. Play this with Double, Double at your own risk. Without additional actions, this will eat your turn, but for 12 resources that may be worth it.

The obvious comparison in Rogue will be to Faustian Bargain, which nets 5 resources for 1 action, 1 card and 2 curse tokens. This is better if you are leaning in to a curse related theme, otherwise the curse tokens will cause grief for you or your team, especially if you use any "succeed by" cards, such as Lucky Cigarette Case or Quick Thinking. Hot Streak & Hot Streak can replace this at the cost of XP and a higher initial resource cost.

In a 3 or 4 player game, this card is great!

4649matt · 6

The good -- +6 resources from one card, and they're shareable. Drawn early, it can help everyone set up crucial assets. Drawn later, it can pad out passive big money bonuses, or fuel a deck based on expensive events or consumables without taking up too many card slots, or bail out someone who got resource-screwed by the mythos.

The bad -- If you replace two emergency caches with one bank job, you do free up a deck slot, but also create a "feast or famine" situation where you're more likely to be either flooded or starved. The upfront cost makes matters worse here too. If you went to 0 resources before drawing this, then taking two resource actions before playing it cannot be done in a normal turn.

The ugly -- finding two actions for an event is just really hard, especially an AoO provoking event that does not advance the board state. If you need the money to get some other asset in play this just compounds the problem.

This will be playable for basically everyone with rogue access, but I think it will shine most in decks that have plenty of bonus actions to make the double less problematic, and even more than cards it will shine when you can reliably find it early. Fortunately as an illicit level 0 rogue event, there are lots of enablers and synergies available.

You can tutor for this with Underworld Market, Friends in Low Places, or Finn's Smuggled Goods . It is also a great find during a Black Market setup round; if the group is together then any one investigator who finds time to play it can fund the others to bring out the rest of the revealed cards.

If you use this to raise cash to play Leo De Luca, he'll refund you one action on the back end. "Skids" O'Toole can also refund his action immediately if he doesn't need that much money. The same applies if you need the money to turn on The Black Fan. Bob Jenkins may find the double action tolerable considering that he can cheat out a free item afterwards.

Once you get some XP there are a variety of ways one could shave off an action by playing the event itself as part of something else. You still have to pay the additional action cost, but it's much more tolerable if you can cheat on the basic play action first. Mandy Thompson can run this and with Old Book of Lore (3) can spend two actions (one on the book, one of the job) to play this at 0 resource cost and then throw down another big asset at the same time. Or, with Prompt+Swift Friends in Low Places a mono-green character can snag a pile of resources in one action while loading their hand with other illicit goodies (and maybe other items or tricks) at the same time. Honed Instinct with "muscle memory" is another way to compress your setup time a bit when you are resource rich. And, though I don't expect Trigger Man and [Summoned Servitor] (/card/09080) to see much play, this will feel nicer if you do have an ally cranking out actions for you, too.

Nice review! Yeah I think this gets stiff competition from Faustian Bargain, which doesn't have the 2 resource cost and only takes a single action for 1 less resource. I think the dividing line on whether you would use this is Rogues who do have a quantity over quality approach to their actions (so the opportunity cost to play it doesn't sting so much) and also may be a bit more sensitive to curse pulls for this reason. I played it on a Tony deck recently and it was pretty good, as he definitely fits in this camp. With it having varied icons, Crystallizer of Dreams squeezes a bit more utility out of it as well. — HungryColquhoun · 7251
Thanks! If you wouldn't mind liking a few more of my reviews from time to time, I am still rep-locked atm. — OrionAnderson · 60
I'll keep an eye out and like them if I like them! — HungryColquhoun · 7251

With Fence, the card becomes fast and spend only 1 action as an additional cost. By the way, do this additional action spent also count as "play" action in Haste for the purpose of performing extra "play" action? I thought it was not because it spent somewhere.