Ancient Evils

This is probably my most hated card in the entire game. It gets more powerful as you add more investigators because you can set up a dreaded "draw an acolyte, draw an acolyte, draw ancient evils" chain that advances the agenda much faster than expected.

I think this card makes the game less fun. Drawing it has abruptly ended multiple scenarios for me. Being defeated from damage or horror or otherwise losing after drawing a token from the bag is much more fun than pulling a card that basically says "Game Over".

2/27/19

micahwedemeyer · 60

I don’t think scenarios should ever have a mixture of ‘doom in play’ and ‘+doom which can advance’ cards in the encounter deck. They both have interesting effects on their own (interactable high priority threats or added uncertainty in the doom clock) but together they can create those really feels-bad moments. Hope someone brought Ward of Protection 2... — Death by Chocolate · 1446 2/27/19

I think the devs have recognized how un-fun the card is; they've replaced it in both "Return" campaigns so far (I think). That being said, this card is responsible for one of my best Arkham memories: my four friends and I (we decided to just say screw the player limit) were playing our first-ever attempt at Essex County Express, and had all taken the first round to set up. In the mythos phase we drew at least two copies of this and advanced the agenda, killing everyone in the party. Setting the scenario up took longer than playing it. — SGPrometheus · 809 2/28/19

Personally i don't like this card, but moments like describes are part of the Cthulhu Mythos — Django · 5070 3/1/19

Sry, last comment incomplete. I meant that moments like "you'll die and you can't do anything about it" are part of the Cthulhu mythos and this game has far too few of such elements. — Django · 5070 3/1/19

Oof. I just created the encounter deck for Shattered Aeons. It has a plethora of "put 1 doom out in play" cards (like Acolyte) along with 3 copies of Ancient Evils. I think I'm just going to remove Ancient Evils altogether. In our 4-player group, the swinginess factor is massive, and losing multiple rounds due to an unlucky draw order in the mythos phase is un-fun to the max. — micahwedemeyer · 60 9/11/19

You know, I've played The Untamed Wilds from TFA like a million times, and I'm pretty sure that this card is a good 75% of how swingy the scenario is in true solo. If you don't draw it, you can pretty easily get almost all of the victory, if you're unlucky and draw it 5 times (the encounter gets reshuffled twice, usually) you just can't actually finish. — Zinjanthropus · 227 5/27/20

Played Return to Untamed Wilds last night at 4p, with me playing Gloria. She was an absolute wrecker of the encounter deck nearly every turn. Before we had gone through encounter deck the first time, I had tucked all 3 Ancient Evils underneath her card. We gained 8xp easily by the end. We were considering going for the final 2xp with 3 turns left, but we didn't want to risk it, so ended the game with 6 out of 9 doom on Agenda 2a. — clydelucy · 5 3/4/21

I totally agree this is by far the most unfun card in the whole game. Specially in multiplayer. I'd rather consider something like "Place 1 doom on the current agenda. If this is the first Ancient Evils card revealed this turn, this effect can cause the current agenda to advance." Or even something considering if there are doom tokens or not. This way it would still leave you with the unease that the agenda can accelerate (or inmediately advance if it's only one doom away), but wouldn't allow those unfun nasty combos to take place inmediately (you would have the current turn left).

8/16/23

Jotaknight · 1

That doesn't fix the actual problematic part of Ancient Evils, which is when it combos with otherwise-removable doom such as doom on an Acolyte to advance the agenda without giving you a chance to respond. For example the classic Acolyte into Mysterious Chanting into Ancient Evils advancing you 4 doom early. Drawing two Ancient Evils in a row is not the problem with the card, so I don't really understand your fix. In any case, if Ancient Evils bothers you, I would recommend using Resurgent Evils instead. — Soul_Turtle · 434 8/16/23

I think ancient evils is a good way to balance the game for larger parties a bit (since larger parties tend to make the game significantly easier compared to playing on low player counts). A way to prepare for AE is always to pack cancellation. In 4p it's very likely that someone can run two copies of Ward of Protection (2). This card can cancel AE for any player at any location, provided you have it in hand. Players not teching for the scenario and player count is usually the biggest issue here, not the card itself. — PowLee · 20 8/16/23

I like the Resurgent Evils idea, the problem is that the company is not reediting the Returns in my language and there's nowhere I can get them. I didn't pretend to fix the combo with other doom placing cards, but to balance the power of the card in multiplayer. Most of the threats presented by an encounter card are dealed with a few actions, but placing doom means all players lost an entire turn. Moreover, forcing to have a mystic with those two cards doesn't feel like a solution. Or at least, it takes away the fun for me of really creating a deck and choosing the cards you want. It's not teching for a scenario, but for a card. — Jotaknight · 1 8/19/23

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