Stella Clark

Detached from Reality

Detached from Reality

I agree with this previous reviews that this weakness is not a problem most of the time, but I can think of two occasions when this can cause a real problem. The first instance is where the act deck instructs players to be at a certain location at the end of the round before it can advance. Drawing Detached from Reality during the Upkeep Phase is a major blow to your tempo, forcing the investigators to waste an entire round until Luke can get back from his trip to the Gate Box.

The second occasion is the fact that for the whole of the next turn Luke is trapped and is not able to help the other investigators without major effort. Especially in solo having a cultist spawn and being unable to defeat it before it tips the agenda over can be very frustrating.

General_Ferere17 · 2
It is a card that does some funny things. Recently , I had it work the other way. I got out of a turn twiddling my thumbs in the Dream-Gate when I drew Detached from Reality in upkeep and in mythos the agenda flipped and moved all investigators to Somewhere Spoiler-y That Had Just Appeared — bee123 · 31

Occult Theory

Occult Theory

Despite being a Practiced skill card that can potentially give upwards of +4 to +6 to an investigator's Will or Lore, Occult Theory is largely made irrelevant by its restriction on only having icons when it is still in your hand or committed to a skill test. Since Occult Theory has no icons outside of those select circumstances, Occult Theory becomes a dead card when attached to cards like Astronomical Atlas and is never a valid target for events like Practice Makes Perfect or even Written in the Stars (since those cards have no icons while they're still in your deck). The card is still potentially playable as a Hail Mary for Investigators that need flexible skill dedications, but there are no actual combos or tech involving Occult Theory when Mystics already have access to numerous great Level 0 skill cards.

At the same time, Occult Theory compares poorly against Level 0 Mystic cards and doesn't provide good enough stats to meaningfully compare with other upgrades that cost experience. Investigators with access to Mystic Level 0-1 who need a large dedication to pass a Will-based skill check can just cancel treacheries like Ward of Protection and Deny Existence, while Mystics who need to gather clues can just use their will to investigate using cards like Rite of Seeking or Read the Signs rather than try to boost their Lore to compete with Seekers. And even in the event that an investigator still desperately needed a flexible skill dedication, Mystics already have amazing skill cards like Promise of Power that give +4 to every stat that they can filter out of their deck with Practice Makes Perfect or Astronomical Atlas. Occult Theory is the answer to a non-existent problem for Mystics, and even in the event that an Investigator wanted to try the card out, they should already have access to strictly better option within the Mystic card pool.

Telosa · 55
Occult Theory still gains skill icons when committed to a skill test, so it should still work with Astronomical Atlas — RexMars · 2
Hey I'm having problems understanding the limitations on this card. If I use Practice Makes Perfect and it finds the card and commits it, would it not add the icons to the test? if so, I take it like it would work... please help if you can — MartinGM · 1
@MartinGM Practice Makes Perfect reads "Search the top 9 cards of your deck for a Practiced skill and commit it to this skill test, if able." If you use Practice Makes Perfect and find Occult Theory in the top 9 cards of your deck, you would be able to select Occult Theory for your target, but would not be able to commit Occult Theory because it doesn't have any icons unless it's in your hand or already dedicated to a test. However, you WOULD get Occult Theory added to your hand if you succeed on the skill test. — Telosa · 55
@RexMars Occult Theory and Astronomical Atlas don't interact that way. Astronomical Atlas reads "Exhaust Astronomical Atlas: Look at the top card of your deck. If it is not a weakness, attach it facedown to Astronomical Atlas (max 5 cards attached)" — Telosa · 55
You can attach Occult Theory to Astronomical Atlas, However, Atlas's second ability reads "Commit a card attached to Astronomical Atlas to an eligible skill test. If that test succeeds, add that card to your hand instead of discarding it." By definition, Occult Theory doesn't have any icons while it is not in a player's hand or already dedicated to a test, so it would never be an eligible dedication to any skill tests. Occult Theory just turns into a permanent, dead card attached to your Atlas--taking up space but not actually doing anything. — Telosa · 55

Neither Rain nor Snow

Neither Rain nor Snow

Here are some rule notes for Neither Rain nor Snow. Notice that this is NOT offical ruling, but my interpretation of rule book. Please comment if you think something is wrong or another rule for note.

  • You can resolve some fail effects (like Take Heart) an cancel the other fail effects.
    • The fail effect includes "if you fail..." and "for each point you fail by...".
  • You couldn't cancel the failed effects if you return NRNS by Try and Try Again or Grisly Totem.
  • You can play cards or trigger effects stating with "when you (would) fail" like Lucky! or "after you fail" like "Look what I found!". In addition, you couldn't cancel the forced effects with "(when/)after you fail" like Atychiphobia.
  • Another investigator cannot commit NRNS by Copycat. (After FAQ 2.0, this is legal.)
  • You couldn't prevent discarding Baseball Bat with or jamming Old Hunting Rifle with .

Interpretation:

  • This effect is delayed effect. If you confront multiple forced/delayed effects, you determines the order as priority of simultaneous resolution. Therefore, you could determine resolving some (good) failed effect before you resolve NRNU.
  • To maintain delayed effect, NRNS should remain commited to cancel the failed effect.
    • The triggering timming of TATA is preceded, so that you couldn't cancel the failed effects if you return (see next bullet for detail).
    • If you resolve NRNU effect, the effect of Grisy Totem is canceled, so you couldn't return NRNU; if you resolve totem effect first, you couldn't cancel other fail effect.
  • "after you fail (ST6)" is the early time point comparing "if you fail (ST7)"; see the review at Take Heart. When you resolve the effects with "after you fail", you cannot resolve the effect of NRNU.
  • When you commit Copycat, you temporally control the target card. Since the signature card cannot be controlled by another investigator, you cannot commit NRNS by copycat. Notice that I guess the control ruling from the offical guide in wini pack. It states that wini can draw a card when you commit copycat (and another card commited by copycat), and wini should commit 2 cards to draw a card.
  • Baseball Bat or Old Hunting Rifle is not a effect from the failure, so NRNS don't cancel.
elkeinkrad · 499
I believe you are correct on all counts. The key phrases to look for are "if the test fails..." and "for each point this test fails by..." those are the effects that NRNS cancels — NarkasisBroon · 10
Thanks to commit @NarkasisBroon. I'll add this one! — elkeinkrad · 499
this is how I think of it: — zakglee · 1

True Magick

True Magick

True Magick doesn't work with Seal of the Seventh Sign.

The Seal keyword is stated as "As an additional cost for a card with the seal keyword to enter play, its controller must search the chaos bag for the specified chaos token and place it on top of the card, thereby sealing it."

True Magick's ability is "Treat True Magick as if it were the revealed asset".

Hence, if you try using True Magick on Seal of the Seventh Sign, the card does not "enter play" because True Magick is already in play and thus no token is sealed.

kongieieie · 13
Not using them together is good advice, but it is not actually true that they 'don't work together.' (I wouldn't recommend it though...) Forced abilities are abilities so you may choose to reveal Seal of the Seventh Sign when somebody reveals a spooky token from the chaos bag in order to remove a charge from True Magick. (Again, not recommended, but technically legal.) — Death by Chocolate · 1479
There is no reason why true magic should not work with seal of the seventh sign. According to the "as if..." rule true magic becomes technically the seal of the seventh sign with one charge until all effects are resolved (including the removal from game) — Tharzax · 1
@Tharzax, there are four abilities on Seal of the Seventh Sign: two keyword abilities — that resolve when it enters play, a constant ability — the sentence about removing it from the game, and a Forced ability. True Magick is treated as a copy of a spell in your hand throughout the resolution of an ability on it, but there is no way to resolve the Seal ability as long as no card is entering play. — Spritz · 69
Incidentally though, you can make an argument that the timing of the Seal keyword must be such that, if you play True Magick with 7th Sign in your hand, you can seal the Autofail. Should you make that argument? Probably not. — Spritz · 69
@Spritz I don't think you can make that last argument because True Magick's constant ability isn't active until it is in play, at which point it is too late to resolve Seal (which it would need to already have as it is trying to enter play). — Death by Chocolate · 1479
There's a problem in that (non-deckbuilding) keywords shouldn't be active until the card they're on is in play either — and it's arguably relevant that additional costs can be paid outside the normal timing. But I agree that it should be ruled the way you describe. — Spritz · 69
You could argue that if you choice the sign with true magic the card switches from an out of play area to a play area. But nevertheless if it work or not I think you shouldn't waste true magic in this way — Tharzax · 1
@Spritz That ("non-deckbuilding keywords shouldn't be active until the card they're on is in play") is objectively wrong. See: Fast. — Death by Chocolate · 1479
The rule I think was being misinterpreted is (from "Ability") "Card abilities only interact with the game if the card bearing the ability is in play, unless the ability (or rules for the cardtype) specifically references its use from an out-of-play area." But the definition of the Seal keyword specifies "as an additional cost to put this card into play", which suffices to meet that requirement. — Thatwasademo · 58
That said, True Magick's constant ability to resolve abilities on Spell assets can't work at the time Seal needs to, so the only abilities you could copy from Seal of the Seventh Sign are its forced effect to remove a charge from True Magick and its constant ability to remove True Magick from the game. — Thatwasademo · 58
You Definition of seal is not correct in the rules is written that you seal the token if it enters play not if is put into play. Als look at the description of a card enter playing:it just need to change from an out of play area (hand) to the play area. For me the as if condition on true magic fulfill this requirement. — Tharzax · 1
https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Seal — Thatwasademo · 58
It says if a card enters play and gladly there also a rule entry for this wording: https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Enters_Play . Does it work with true magic? Loook at the rule for "as if": https://arkhamdb.com/rules#As_If . I think if i use the as if ability of true magic i have to treat it like the card in my hand in all aspekts which also includes a sudden appearance in an ingame area from my hand. This meets the requirement of the rule for cards to enter play and therfore to seal tokens. — Tharzax · 1
You can be engaged without ever engaging (see massive enemies and Zoey's cross), so you can also be in play without ever entering play. — Nils · 1
I think that this cases rather depends on the fact that the engagement is never fully solved, since the massive enemy don't enter your threat-area. Also you're "consider" to be engaged. For me the ruling for "as if" is more direct (I think there is also some time between both cases). Probably try to change the rule for massive enemies so it becomes an as if condition. — Tharzax · 1