Cryptic Grimoire

One thing you might not realize from this card: cursed tokens deplete rapidly, and more rapidly when you have more in the bag.

As I’m writing this, this is the most difficult seeker upgrade to get, and we don’t know what it does. To get it, you’re going to need other decks not only having cards add curses to the bag, but almost certainly “tides of fate”. (Or you could play solo, but if you’re playing solo seeker you probably don’t have the extra time and actions to flood the bag.) otherwise, you’re going to be putting tokens into the bag while your teammates remove them, unless they don’t have any skill tests, or encounter cards… Which requires them to build their deck around this room grimoire anyway.

Unlike the seeker cards that require you to pass skill tests, discard cards, or fill your hand, This one negatively affects your teammates in a massive way, and undoes itself.

Hopefully the payoff is worth it! Because when you succeed, you’re still going to have five curses floating around in the bag.

MrGoldbee · 1493
I've played one scenario with the innsmouth set and we got to 10 curses in the bag accidentally using only tempt fate and Amanda with a promise of power. I think if you want to get this it's pretty easier. Easier than the forbidden tome at least. It's rare that a seeker spends 5 actions drawing cards in a scenario. — NarkasisBroon · 11
Awkwardly, until the errata it, this is actually the EASIEST seeker upgrade since you don’t even have to play it. You can just use Knowedge is Power to trigger its second action while bypassing its cost. Plus you get to cycle it. Now, you can pretty easily argue that the 10 Curse tokens in bag isn’t a ‘cost’ it is a ‘condition’, but while the rules establish that there is a distinction, they leave it entirely to common sense discern what is which and never really define ‘conditions’ at all. Too pedantic? Very well. You can still get to 10 curses easily enough through other cards (such as everyone running Tempt Fate etc.) and still use Knowledge is Power when the condition is met and the Grimoire is in hand. It saves you 3 resources, 2 actions, 1 Card, and your hand slot. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
I don't think that is right, DbC. For something to be a cost, there has to be a potential change in the board state, which leaves out "if the bag has..." as a cost. It might cancel the swapping out 5 Curse tokens for 5 Bless tokens, which is a bit more like a cost. If it said "Add 10 Curse tokens to the bag..." I think you'd be onto something. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1084
@LivefromBenefitSt See, you SAY that, but if you check the Rules, you will not actually find that in the explanation of costs. It never actually states that 'for something to be a cost, there has to be a potential change in the board state'. I DO agree with you, that 'an actual change in board state' is what should probably be the difference between a cost and a condition, but that isn't actually supported by RAW. :) It very clearly would NOT cancel the swapping of tokens, because that is on the right side of the colon, and thus part of the effect/resolution. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
KiP is no longer 0xp! — MrGoldbee · 1493
@Death by Chocolate : By common sense "If there are 10 curse tokens in the token bag", is , clearly a "condition", not a "cost". So n, you can't play it easily like that. — Therion · 1
Tempt Fate

I saw a lot of people saying Tempt Fate is a free cantrip since the Bless and Curse tokens just cancel out each other, but I have a feeling this is not exactly the case. Let's look at the numbers.

Standard The Gathering, as -1, as +1 (probabilities from www.arkhambagcalculator.net):

At -1 / +0 / +1 / +2 / +3 / +4 above test difficulty, the probabilities to succeed are 13% / 25% / 63% / 81% / 88% / 94%.

With 3 Bless and 3 Curse, those probabilities shift to 17% / 29% / 59% / 76% / 85% / 92%, i.e. a change of +4% / +4% / -4% / -5% / -3% / -2%.

Given that it's likely that you do way more tests at +1 or above than at +0 or below, I would say the net impact of the 3 Bless + 3 Curse added is slightly negative.

Whether this is worthwhile for the deck thinning effect or not is debatable, but it is not exactly free.

ak45 · 469
I don't know, I feel like I'll probably never take this card for the sole purpose of being a cantrip. I'll play it if I want blessed and/or cursed tokens in the bag for a specific effect (blessed blade, cryptic grimoire, dark ritual to compensate, etc.). The card's worth seems entirely dependent on your other cards. Because you have to consider that the bag may already be full of curse tokens from something like Dread Curse and Faustian Bargain. In which case, you'd just get the benefit, no? — LaRoix · 1646
No. It says ‘Then’ which means the rest of that sentence is conditional on the previous effect being resolved ‘in full’. So if it adds 2 or fewer Curse tokens, then you get no Bless tokens and no card draw. — Death by Chocolate · 1489
Agreed. Having used this in practice in 4 player with one of us playing Sister Mary, this isn't nearly as cantrippy as it appears. Most of us sat with copies of this in our hand because we were at 8+ bless tokens in the bag and didn't want to add curses — NarkasisBroon · 11
Elina Harper

This is Trish Scarborough's girlfriend and they're in love. They're getting married as soon as they escape Innsmouth together. And with that much and attack protection they'll probably be out of there in no time. I expect to see fanart within the month.

SSW · 217
Sounds like canon to me. — SGPrometheus · 847
Add Lola Santiago to the mix for an even better time. — flamebreak · 27
Minor Spoiler: Even with the final Flashback, my Trish player was like "No... I love you too much to leave you behind." — Lemmingrad · 21
Mitch Brown

Mitch saved the life of Leo in the canon, so there would be no Leo without Mitch. He was the sole survivor of the last expedition from Leo and deserves our love just for that.

Mitch Brown is an wonderful Ally for Leo Anderson. At 3 cost, it is well priced for 2 sanity and 2 health, but you won't be using him for soaking damage. His power is equivalent to 2 Charisma, with the extra limitation to hold non-unique ally only. I don't find this limitation very problematic, as has enough excellent non-unique allies, between Beat Cop, Venturer and Guard Dog.

Mitch is also a wonderful target to Calling in Favors, as he makes it possible to replay the ally returned to the hand playable the very next turn - giving an extra ally slot and respawning an ally for 1 action. Finally, playing Mitch feels GOOD. You get the feeling of someone having your back. ready to deploy a full expedition behind you.

Overall, I love the card as it fits the mechanics of Leo extremely well, is well balanced and tells us super cool stories of friendship.

batman14 · 7
Hear hear! Mitch falls into that category of "boring, but awesome" that you occasionally see, much like Beat Cop or Lightning Gun. He's also one of those signature cards that feels like it completes your investigator when it comes down. He's great! — SGPrometheus · 847
I don't think the comparison with Charisma is fair. Sure Charisma only gives you 1 Ally slot, but on the other hand it doesn't take an ally slot as Mitch does. So if your purpose is to have 2 Beat Cop at the same time, both Charisma and Mitch can let you do that, in both cases at that point all of your ally slots would be taken. It would be more correct to say that Mitch is a Charisma with added Health and Sanity, but that is not permanent and he can only come in one copy, so it's not as reliable, plus it has an additional limitation, but that is minor. Apart from the health/sanity the only real advantage compared to charisma, is that it can combo with calling in favor as you mentioned. — Killbray · 12462
Tempt Fate

This card is much more potent and insidious than it first appears.

The effect of adding 3 [curse] and 3 [bless] to the chaos bag is not why I would consider running Tempt Fate. All that does is to increase the volatility of the chaos bag, unless you have a way to leverage blesses and curses (which I'm sure will be coming out in this cycle - I'm writing this review as of Innsmouth Conspiracy).

The secret effect of this card is that its a 0 resource, fast card (that can be played in any window), that says draw a card. Discounting the bless and curse mechanic for a minute, this is a completely free "cantrip" (or card that replaces itself). So it costs no actions nor resources to play and the only real opportunity cost to use it is to include it in your deck over something else. So lets think about that cost as a benefit.

There is speculation in many card games that such a cost-free cantrip would see play at the highest levels because it makes your deck more consistent. Effectively it can be considered to be "water" because it will always be played straight away and replace itself straight away; it might as well be considered not in your deck for most purposes. This means that you are effectively breaking deck construction rules by packing 2 less cards than your deck size, therefore making it more consistent.

Fortunately Arkham Horror is different to most other card games: card draw for us is not necessarily king, owing to every deck having at least one weakness that it mostly doesn't want to draw into. However, digging deeper that's not really true - most weaknesses can be handled, but you just don't want to draw them at the wrong time. So given that you can control when to play the cantrip, the main reason against making your deck smaller can be ignored with smart play.

Do you run Prepared for the Worst / Tetsuo Mori to get away with running fewer weapons in guardian? Tempt Fate too. Do you use Mr. "Rook" to help find specific cards or to set up a combo? Tempt Fate too.
Do you ever spend experience on cards and want a higher chance of finding your powerful cards each turn? Tempt Fate.

I fully expect this to get hit by the taboo list; such consistency feels like the sort of thing that gets put onto XP cards. I only hope it doesn't set a precedent.

The_Wall · 288
I think you're really underestimating how bad adding 3 curses to the bag is. I don't think this card is worth playing unless you have a way to exploit curses. — OrionJA · 1
The thing is, I dislike the idea of running this card just for thinning your deck. You know what else effectively does that while also giving you a net benefit? Any of the neutral skill card assuming you can trigger them reliably. If you're Joe Diamond, and you're not already running both of Overpower and Perceptions, and you have no blurse synergy, DO NOT TAKE TEMPT FATE. — StyxTBeuford · 13050
I agree that curses are bad, they are pretty likely to make 3 tests fail. Tempt fate is easer to play than the neutral skill cards, as they require an approriate test. Overpower doesn't do anything when there's no enemy around. However with more XP your stats will increase so the curse's modifier is less likely to cause a fail and tempt fate makes it more likely to draw your XP cards. — Django · 5163
Unless you get both at once. Or all 3. — MrGoldbee · 1493
I still think you take the appropriate skill cards first. Overpower has done its deck-thinning job if you get it to trigger at any point, so unless you get it in your hand and never see an enemy, it'll work effectively the same as Tempt Fate, while also boosting a fight and not hurting you randomly later. If you want to add in Tempt Fate after than, fair enough. — StyxTBeuford · 13050
That* — StyxTBeuford · 13050
Overpower is not guaranteed at all, there has to be an enemy, then even if you cover the -7/-8 there is still tentacles. This is actionless and testless, Overpower requires a test and probably an action. Therefore guaranteed deck thinning (and yes the point is to dig faster for your XP cards). Also the bag has increased volatility as I said, but adding 3 blesses generally counteracts adding 3 curses. Unless you'd like to show statistical analysis to the contrary? — The_Wall · 288
I think you guys are getting hung up on the fact that I called out Overpower specifically. I really do mean whichever neutral skills work for your build. If you don't think Overpower will trigger reliably, then don't take it, but still look at the other neutrals based on your stats. — StyxTBeuford · 13050
I haven't seen the statistical analysis yet comparing curses to blesses, but the general consensus from people who have played with the mechanic right now is that curse hurts more than bless helps, and I think that makes a lot of sense as you're typically overcommitting to tests anyway. Bless is more likely to be helpful when you're meeting a test value (so it cancels a negative) or under (where it brings in the potential to succeed where you otherwise wouldn't), while curse can cancel your overcommit and destroy your odds, which hurts much harder and is more likely to happen. Of course, that doesn't factor in how one would play while knowing the tokens are in the bag, so that comparison is still a bit choppy, but I think generally it makes sense that curses hurt more than bless helps. — StyxTBeuford · 13050
Many decks rely on some powerful combos. In these cases this card is probably more useful than on average. The cost of increasing the randomness of the chaos bag is small copared to pull off your combo sooner. Finally, if Harvey Walters is on your group ot seems the easiest way to trigger his ability. — Matamagos · 4
Sure, I'll agree if you're staying away from the bag and you really need to pack as much cantrip as possible, this card makes total sense. But I absolutely reject the idea that every deck under the sun must include 2 of these forever to be optimal. I think all else equal, the cantrip skills are a better include first. — StyxTBeuford · 13050