Robes of Endless Night

In addition to the considerations of the level 0 Robes, which I've written a review for, for 2 XP you get the following:

  • Cost is reduced by 1
  • A icon for your trouble
  • "Playing that card does not provoke attacks of opportunity."

That last one is the big ticket item. We've all been in this situation: you didn't get Shrivelling in your opening hand, your apprentice is truant, and then you finally draw it during Upkeep, just for an enemy to spawn on you in the next phase. In the past, you used to dread these situations, especially if that enemy had some other nasty Forced effect if it hits you. Now you just laugh.

Sadly, these robes have the disadvantage of being in the Mystic card pool, which tends to be the most competitive in terms of upgrades. Of course, you can always Delve Too Deep or do a little Arcane Research.

EDIT: The cost reduction is actually also really nice and worth emphasizing. You're not just saving 1 resource on this upgrade--you're lowering the buy-in for a card that saves 1 on the first spell you play per round. That's a lot of savings.

Im a huge fan of this card. It’s great for the soak and the economy in a way that could easily replace something like Uncage the Soul. Sefina and other off class Mystics are interested. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
Does anyone know how this combo's with Uncage the Soul? Firstly, do I get 4 discount? And secondly, if I am engaged with an enemy I presume I will take an attack of opportunity as I am playing an event, not a spell? — AnyoneForSnakeStew · 1
@AnyoneForSnakeStew Yes to both. — MiskatonicFrosh · 344
Chainsaw

DeathbyChocolate's inspired jankery aside, 4 XP and 4 Resources are nothing to sneeze at, but a more or less guaranteed 9 damage, plus bonus effectiveness from Oops!, Oops! (2), and/or Act of Desperation allowing you to get maybe 20 damage across 2 turns is pretty good for a Survivor combo. And, with Scrounge for Supplies and Resourceful, you might be able to get most of the parts of the combo back in your hand for another go.

Slightly more seriously, comparing it to Old Hunting Rifle, its +1 XP, + 1 Resource, and -1 seems about right for its considerably better consistency. I have my doubts the 1 Damage Fail effect will be used much except in dire emergencies, but it's nice to have options.

I don't see Ashcan, Wendy, or Patrice packing this (although a chainsaw in a viol case is a striking image), but Silas and Yorick might well consider a trip to the hardware store, with Stella and Rita more on the fence.

After running Chainsaw Yorick for a few weeks, let's consider the case of Chainsaw Yorick:

Good Stuff

Bad Stuff

  • It's hard to keep Yorick's resources where you want them. If you can finagle enough Act of Desperation plays, the saw pretty much keeps paying for itself, but you also need to get down Well Prepared, Tetsuo Mori, and pay for some events (it's the only way you are getting clues), so he doesn't always have the resources he needs.
  • The saw taking both hands means that, while Yorick is going to kill and kill and kill, he is going to collect approximately no clues unless the shrouds are very low. No Flashlight, Lantern, or Old Keyring for this guy! Well Prepared can help with this occasionally.
  • Running a fighting deck with 2-3 weapons is an exercise in luck and nerves. Tetsuo Mori and Prepared for the Worst (or Backpack (2) can help find the saws, but they cost resources, which orick needs to get the saw into play or recover from misfortune. Vicious Blow and/or Brute Force can fill the gap a bit.
  • You live in terror of any treachery that consumes Assets or prevents their play. Chainsaw Yorick without a Chainsaw only has some Shakespeare to fight the Mythos.

Kind of Useless Stuff

  • Oops! is not as good as expected. With 6-7 attacks, Yorick doesn't miss that often, and, when he does, he often doesn't have 2 resources to spare. This can be mitigated a bit with Drawing Thin, but then you are including cards to include other cards, and you only have so much deck space. I suspect with Stella's lower combat (and better use of Drawing Thin), it might be more effective.
  • Emergency Cache (3) looked very promising, but it actually has a slightly lower damage rate than Act of Desperation for reloading the saw, and it puts you in danger of Attacks of Opportunity. In a lot of TFA scenarios, Yorick is engaged with enemies pretty much constantly, so it's hard to find a moment to play Events.
  • Relentless seemed promising, but, in TFA at least, there are a lot of 3 Health enemies to chop up, and you want to save the 2 Health enemies to fuel Act of Desperation, so you overkill less often that seems likely. After some fussing, there just wasn't a place for it in the deck. (Sorry DAAAN, I tried.)
The dream is to teamwork this onto Joe Diamond so he can hold it in his shoulder holsters. — SGPrometheus · 847
For Yorick, Well Prepared can help make up for its low combat bonus. For Patrice, not being able to equip the violin seems prett rough, but otherwise she can use Chainsaw + Cornered for serious consideration. I think the biggest 'real talk' about Chainsaw is that it is a 3 damage weapon that can be directly reloaded with Emergency Cache (3). No need for a Venturer playing middle-man. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
Wow! I had not even considered the Cache angle! That's very nice. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1091
SGPrometheus -- I had considered suggesting Bandolier (2) in Yorick, so he could have a lantern, a shovel, and a chainway all strapped to him as he yelled Shakespeare like he was Patrick Stewart chewing the scenery! Then I thought that was too silly. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1091
Nothing is too silly. — SGPrometheus · 847
Contraband also works (i guess it also runs with alcohol) — Django · 5163
Track 5 will not be called Chainsaw Juggling, and this is not Track 5 — Zinjanthropus · 231
Crafty gives you $ and +fists now. Booyah. — MrGoldbee · 1493
Unexpected Courage

It's not a terrible card; 2 icons and a "return to hand" effect is a nice hedge against failure, but I am not sure how often this will get played, given that 2 XP in will get you a Peter Sylvestre (2), "Look what I found!" (2), .18 Derringer (2), or 2 copies of Brute Force or Sharp Vision. I suppose Silas might like a situation where he contributes this and something else for, say, a +4 to a skill test, draws badly, then pulls the second card back with his Reaction Ability and this back with its own ability. That would feel pretty good.

Pair with "Look What I Found" on (4) tests. — MrGoldbee · 1493
Survivor upgrades tend to run fairly cheap (though there are some more niche expensive ones entering the card pool as of late). For me, it's not an issue of if, but when I'll buy a certain survivor upgrade. And yes, I agree, Silas could do some really good work with this to make sure he's getting clues or passing willpower test especially. — LaRoix · 1646
UPGRADE WISH: This card should get a 3XP version with "If this skill test succeeds, draw a card". I would gladly pay +1xp for a level three version that did that (sort of like lucky! got a 3rd tier). — Antiundead · 31
Tommy Malloy

If we consider a weakness' strength based on how many actions it takes to get rid of, Tommy Malloy is pretty harsh. His ability basically requires your team to spend three actions, minimum, to off him, which is more than most weaknesses.

There's also very few ways to mitigate the action sink, especially at level 0: you can use one-two punch to get 2 damage in one action, but you just played an event that normally does 4 damage for 2. The other option is Beat Cop, who you'd rather keep around as long as possible. Combine both and you can do it in one action, but you just spent six resources, static +1 combat, some soak and your most damaging event to remove a weakness. I'd rather just blow a whole turn taking basic fight actions, since Tommy's crummy fight stat makes him easy to hit.

In multiplayer someone could evade him, but solo that's really not an option. Even then, someone has to deal with him eventually, eating up your team's actions.

In short, he's really annoying, and will probably take three or more actions to get rid of. At least you can play Glory when you kill him.

SGPrometheus · 847
Or bring some Handcuffs so you can deal with him in 2 actions (and not shuffle him back in when you draw through your deck. Then drag him around for Scene of the Crime or Interrogate. Or better yet, hand the cuffed thug to the newly spoiled Trish. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
We’ve been waiting a long time to finally get a Guardian with a humanoid weakness enemy, so don’t complain too much! :) — Death by Chocolate · 1484
May be a few actions but you also get a draw, with upgraded boxing gloves that nine cards you get to look through. So he pays off more the further you go in a campaign with him. And if you have Trish... — MrGoldbee · 1493
It’s a bit dubious to say he helps Nathaniel by being an enemy. Presumably, as Nathan, you would have killed a different enemy that turn to activate gloves. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
You can use him to put tokens on Relentless, if that floats your boat. There are a ton of weaknesses that take 2 actions to clear; three actions is annoying, but it doesn't hold Nathaniel back that much, plus you can use cards (One-Two Punch as noted above or maybe Counterpunch) or other resources (Beat Cop). Malloy is certainly not in the ranks of the worst weaknesses. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1091
I thought relentless only got tokens from extra damage you deal? How does that work? Aside from that, it's true he's not in the stable of weaknesses that will flat-out kill your investigator, like Cover Up, but he's still damn annoying. Another interesting tidbit is that his prey is only Nathaniel, so he actually won't bother other investigators if they're around. — SGPrometheus · 847
I think the Handcuffs suggestion is the best one. Handcuffs are good anyway, but they’re much easier to take when you can lock your weakness out of your deck using them. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
Got this one popping up on a gondola in the middle of the Venice lagoon, while rowing for our lives, chased by an ancient one... those personal enemies really are committed. — minosrd · 1
Lucky!

AquaDrehz is right that this third version and Parallel Skids's spicy Deckbuilding Options allows you to bring 6 copies of Lucky! (2x each of level 0, 2, and 3) for 10xp. But why stop there?

19 Clove Gar-luck Chicken:

Let's take a closer look at his Additional Options. "When you upgrade a Fortune or Gambit card, you may instead pay the full experience cost on the higher level version and leave the lower level version in your deck (it does not count towards your deck size or the number of copies of that card in your deck)."

So, we start off with a couple of Lucky! (0), and we spend 2xp to upgrade one to Lucky! (2) and leave a special Lucky! (0*) that doesn't count towards size or copies. Now we pay 3xp and upgrade again to Lucky! (3) and leave a second special Lucky! (2*) in our deck. Awesome. Here's where things take a turn. We spend 1xp to buy a NEW Lucky! (0), replacing Lucky! (3). We have to replace it since we can't fit three honest Lucky!'s in our deck.

Now, hold up - buying a level 0 to replace a higher level version of itself, can we do that? Yup. It's already fairly standard practice if you want to change what Strange Solution you got (refer to its FAQ entry) after you got greedy and careless.

So we're currently at 2x Lucky! (0), 1x Lucky! (0*) and 1x Lucky! (2*). Special upgrade it two more times and you have 1x Lucky! (0), 2x Lucky! (0*), 2x Lucky! (2*), and 1x Lucky! (3), for a total of 11xp. Ever 6xp past this adds another Lucky! (0*) and Lucky! (2*). The sky is the limit in campaign mode, so lets use the Standalone Deckbuilding XP cap of 49. Spending 6xp at a time six more times, leaves us with 2 left over, which we can use to special upgrade that other level 0 that's been patiently sitting there. Final tally at 49xp:

For a grand total of 19 Lucky!'s of various levels. 17 of which don't count towards your deck size or card limit. Worth it? Probably not. Tasty? Definitely.

Lucky Number 13:

Realistically though, you probably don't want that many copies of Lucky! (0) in your deck unless you have enough other draw because it doesn't cycle, so maybe just stick to the stronger versions. We start with 2x Lucky! (0) (because why not?) and special upgrade them up to level 2 and then 3, but this time we purchase new level 2's to replace the 3's and do an abridged loop costing 5xp per loop.

Much less chaff, an extra level 3, and 4 xp left over to maybe buy yourself something nice.

(You could also pull this trick to get 10 copies of Hot Streak or 19 copies of any other Fortune/Gambit with level 0/2 versions. "Look what I found!", A Chance Encounter, Daredevil, Dumb Luck, Oops!, or Daring Maneuver. Daredevil deserves special mention because you can use it to get +19 on any skill test and turn your deck into a pile of 6 weaknesses!)

If that's not enough, you can get Double, Double one of them 1/turn — Zinjanthropus · 231
You can't Double, Double when using Parallel Skids's back (Rogue level 0-3 only) and Double, Double is level 4 — arkhamproxy · 1
Nevermind, apparently the Parallel back displayed on arkhamdb is different than the Parallel back on the downloaded card from FFG — arkhamproxy · 1
Could you not also just skip/replace the first level (0) Lucky and thus only run with 9x level (2*) and 2 regular level (3)? — legobil · 4