Eldritch Sophist

Hmmm. You can use this card to translate Forbidden Tome a couple of turns quicker, all while refilling Mr. "Rook", Encyclopedia, Esoteric Atlas, etc. Can you use it to translate Archaic Glyphs faster? It say so put a Resource on it "as a secret."

It's a pity that it's pretty hard to get ES in a deck with Quick Learner. I'd like the chess motif....

You could combo with Decorated Skull, which can generate charges to move to your spells. Unfortunately there are not many investigators who can take Decorated Skull and Sophist, and also care about charges. — Zinjanthropus · 231
@LivefromBenefitSt I don't think you can translate the glyphs with it. I believe there's a ruling somewhere that you can't put tokens (ammo, charges, secrets, etc) on a card that doesn't have the same "uses (token type)". The glyphs don't say "uses (secrets)" so you can't put secrets on them. The glyphs themselves override that with the specific>general rule. Otherwise you could translate them in a flash with Astounding Revelations or Truth from Fiction. — SGPrometheus · 849
The only such rule only prevents cards *which have a Uses keyword* from gaining other types of Uses - people do in fact use Astounding Revelations and Truth from Fiction for that purpose. — Thatwasademo · 58
@Thatwasademo Incorrect. "A card cannot bear uses of a type other than that established by its own "Uses (X type)" keyword." applies to cards without a "Uses (X type)" keyword. Since they do not have that keyword, no uses type is established and thus they cannot bear any type of uses tokens. Read another way: 'A card can only bear uses of a type established by its own — Death by Chocolate · 1484
"Uses (X type)" keyword. Yes, people do in fact use Astounding Revelations and Truth from Fiction for that purpose, but it is in violation of the Rules Reference. People play the game 'incorrectly' all the time. That hardly sets sufficient precident for anything beyond the rules being too ambiguous in the situation. (Which, as one of the only cards that puts 'use' tokens on itself without the "Uses (X type)" keyword, it is absolutely problematically ambiguous.) — Death by Chocolate · 1484
Hmm. By that interpretation, how does Tony's Bounty Contracts move bounties onto enemies? They're a use type, and the enemies don't have a Uses keyword, so this argument prevents them from bearing them. — Tamsk · 1
It is written if there is an established type, than it cannot bear any other. If there isn't any it can. Otherwise Glyphs couldn't translate itself as there is no established type on it. — vidinufi · 69
No, bounties and glyphs work because of specific beats general. These cards specifically allow for placing a bounty/secret, so it works. This card does not specify to specifically place a secret on a card without "Uses", so it doesn't work. — Nils · 1
As confirmed by a recently-posted FAQ on Truth From Fiction (among other cards), you can, in fact, use Eldritch Sophist to move secrets onto Archaic Glyphs, for exactly the reason I claimed six months ago. — Thatwasademo · 58
so i see 2 interpretations of his transfer ability. some argue you have to move charges from other charge cards. Others think that the secrets and charges are interchangable. this is in keeping with how Venturer works where his supplies can be supplies or ammo. Have we seen a decision one way or another on this? — Roakana · 2
Ive been playing it as it not being interchangeable, and I think that is the RAI. No idea if thats accurate though for RAW. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
Actually looking at the TFF FAQ demo mentioned, you can move secrets to a card using charges or vice versa, but predictably they don’t do anything. Implies pretty heavily that they do not change their element when moving from one card to another. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
In other words, Uses is merely the enabler- if the card gets more of those types of tokens somehow, it can use them. Glyphs is fine taking secrets any way it can for translation purposes, using Sophist or TFF or even Astounding Revelation are all valid ways to get to translating it. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
Actually the TTF FAQ only says that you can place charges/ammo/secret and so on on cards that don't have "uses". It doesn't reverse the general rule that you can't place uses of one kind to a card that has uses of another kind. So basically you can place charges on a Machete but you can't place charges on a .45 Automatic. — Killbray · 12493
Killbray, actually the FAQ says you can use it to Glyphs! — condedooku · 2
It seems you could use the Sophist to move secrets off the Forbidden Tome and onto the Archaic Glyphs, however, helping unlock both. — khoshekh · 6
To confirm: you can NOT take a Secret from this Ally (or another card) and put it on a card that uses Charges and expect them to work as Charges. They would retain their "type" and therefor unusable by a card that has Uses (Charges), correct? — slothgodfather · 7
Yes Slogfather I believe that is correct. Secrets remain Secrets and Charges remain Charges and you can't put them somewhere where they would look like the other thing. — Timlagor · 6
NB for Forbidden Tome: you have to do the last secret using the action on the card or it doesn't unlock (you must have a secret there to spend) — Timlagor · 6
Encyclopedia

Much like the original, very nice in Daisy, with that extra tome action, less nice elsewhere, because an for +2, especially in a deck with endless card draw, isn't as good as a card with you can afford to toss on the test. Still. it's a nice bridge for Daisy to the 2XP version, perhaps with the Library Docent to reload it, and you can use Eldritch Sophist to move secrets around, which might be nice, since this is 5 secrets for relatively low cost.

I love it for multiplayer... giving another investigator +2 for each of their 3+ actions is totally worth a single action. I like this even better than the XP version, since nobody but Daisy is likely to use this more than 5 turns a game. — Hylianpuffball · 29
I find Daisy doesn't actually need the 2xp version anymore with stuff like truth from fiction and enraptured to refuel it. — molybdenum42 · 1
Crystal Pendulum

As Gnarl's Apprentice and Zinjanthropus have noted in the comments, this card will work with Scrying Mirror and Premonition. And if it combos with those, then you can also use Dark Prophecy and Olive McBride as well, making the card draw an all but guarantee when you want it. You can also use Recall the Future to ensure a success. This makes it an incredibly powerful tool and worth considering in anyone who is going to pack even a few chaos bag manipulation effects.

Scroll of Prophecies has rapidly become a mainstay of mine, and I suspect it will continue to be so since it occupies the much less congested Hand slot. However, the Pendulum is cheaper, does not require an action to activate, and doesn't force you to discard. All of which are incredibly valuable traits that cannot be overstated. The reason the scroll works so well is that you're generally comfortable discarding something; I am anyways. And if that's the case, it means there are key cards in your deck you want to have down; the rest are just candy.

The Pendulum will help you draw up those axis cards you want to see as well as grant you that sugar rush I mentioned, and the boost ensures you aren't sacrificing your accessory slot. Really, the only downsides to this card is it will be inconsistent when you don't have tech to help see the tokens, and not all the tech is full proof. You could replace this with a different accessory once you've dug up those essentials, but again, that +1 means you don't have to.

This is an exciting card that plays well with the guesswork approach. 's have been a bit starved for card draw but that is changing. Crystal Pendulum is a welcome addition that makes your jewelry of choice all that much more competitive and rewarding.

EDIT: One thing I did not mention originally is that even taking a gamble is not hugely risky, and not simply because there's nothing lost if you guess wrong, but because you're guessing the modifier, NOT the token. Unlike Recall the Future, the Skulls could be say -1, which is a popular token already. You're statistically more likely to get the card draw in this way, and seems to be an improvement over Recall the Future.

LaRoix · 1646
The big caution with Pendulum is that it obviously competes with Rosary. Rosary is a better option, I think, if you are using suites of spells and not any real token pulling mitigation, since the horror soak is super relevant and the draw will trigger not often at all. In fact, I think the way I'd very loosely play it is Pendulum should pair with Olive while Rosary should pair with Initiate. That said, I could see myself Relic Hunter-ing for both. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
I actually found it a bit tricky to use with Olive, because she resolves 2 tokens, so it can be kind of unpredictable what the modifier will be. Still make sense in the same kind of decks, though. — Zinjanthropus · 231
It really boils down to how good you are at calculating probability or using other cards to lock in the result of your test. For new players, HR is much easier to use. But, once you are familiar with the chaos bag and potential outcomes, you will be able to get more than two horror worth of card draws from the pendulum. — TimTheEnchanter77 · 1
One thing to remember about Olive McBride is that you have two chances there to match up a modifier if card draw rather than success is your goal. Sometimes you just know that you will be failing a test in the mythos phase by 3 no matter what. And if not you then maybe a teammate will satisfy your requirements. — Staticalchemist · 1
Disc of Itzamna

At 3 Resources, this is a bit expensive, since that (and the slot) could have gotten you Tooth of Eztli or Grisly Totem, always assuming you can't take Crystalline Elder Sign or Rabbit's Foot. On the other hand, Seeker isn't exactly drowning in enemy control, so this isn't terrible, just a bit overshadowed by other choices. It's the kind of thing that you upgrade out of fairly quickly once your core XP plan is realized.

Fair assessment. I agree it's a little pricey, but Seeker's are kind of spoiled because of the good Dr. Milan. I think this will see more play than it's upgrade. The upgrade doesn't seem worth it, but 2 damage is enough to kill a handful of basic enemies, and an action-less and test-less evade will help get away from non-hunters if they have more than 2HP. — LaRoix · 1646
The damage is also nice against Victory enemies (it'll be dead and scored sooner, while discard would remove the threat from play, it wouldn't help you score the point). This cuts the other way (making the upgrade maybe worthwhile) in TFA. — Yenreb · 15
Anyone knows whether it defeats 2 (one health) swarming enemies? — Wuk wuk boom! · 1
@Wuk wuk boom!: — Total_DK · 1
(Let's try that again) @Wuk wuk boom!: "When a swarm card is defeated, any excess damage may be dealt to another swarm card underneath the same host enemy or to the host enemy itself." — Total_DK · 1
Obsessive

While most of the Starter Deck investigators got Basic Weaknesses tailored to make them (in particular) cry, Harvey got one that's reasonably mild for him. Sure, getting milled a random card each turn sucks, but Harvey can withstand a couple rounds of this better than, say, Ursula who struggles a bit with card draw. Annoying in HArvey, potentially devastating in almost any Guardian.

This one is actually the meanest of all the basics in the set imo. Because it hits you at the beginning of the turn, you rarely get a chance to kill it before it hits you, and losing 2 cards from one weakness (since it is drawn instead of another card) AND two actions is kind of brutal. Harvey can deal with it better than most since he's more likely to draw it with two actions remaining, and having more cards means it hurts less, but he's definitely still going to spend two actions ASAP to kill it. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
That’s why you ask your fellow investigators very nicely to take their turn before yours and remove it for you. :) — Death by Chocolate · 1484
Very good point. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
Since I mostly play over Zoom these days, it's pretty easy to forget that I can take the actions to clear a partner's weaknesses. It's a useful thing to remember. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1091