Esoteric Atlas

Good example how Daisy Walker existing makes for some pretty wonky card design.

Tome's for her are so outright powerful that if they make tomes with triggers at all the book has to suck for everybody, only to be viable on her. An irksome thing.

This card is an outright terrible variant on Pathfinder, both cards can routinely get you 2 locations of move in one action, this one requires a revealed location, a slot, and has 4 uses. What??? WHY??? Also, Pathfinder moves you for totally free if you're moving just 1 location anyway.

This thing is easier to tutor, there being some tutors that target items and tomes specifically, but really. WHY??? Sure, Pathfinder is above curve, I'dd still be looking at it if it cost 2 XP, possibly 3, but I don't really think Pathfinder is OP enough to warrant that, just to incite excitement for this cruddy thing. Personally I'dd mutate Pathfinder to be 1 / Investigator but that's just me.

Binder fodder.

Edit: In case you're thinking this might get you past enemies.

In solo, the revelation requirement can be a hard-shutdown of this tactic, leaving you just as stuck and down 3 resources and this card that's not helping you at all. Besides, often when an enemy is barring your way, the Pathfinder trigger to engage it as a free action gives you 3 tries to evade it. In multiplayer if you're the sort of person who is avoiding enemies hard enough to consider this use of this card, there's probably a person who is chasing after them just as hard, I.E, them moving in to engage and kill the enemy leaves you free to move past and do your thing.

Tsuruki23 · 2581
You're forgetting one very important distinction. If you're going A->B->C, then Pathfinder will have you enter B whereas Esoteric Atlas will not. Plenty of locations will have penalties on entering, enemies that would engage you or maybe they flat out can't be entered. The Atlas gets you past all that. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
There’s also the matter of enemies. An engaged enemy locks down pathfinder, but Esoteric Atlas can be used to move two locations for only 1 AoO - which could be especially handy for Roland to move to a higher shroud location before killing an enemy. I do agree with TheNameWasTaken that they primary selling point of the atlas is the ability to skip locations, although the revealed limitation means it’s only good on backtracking, which makes it very scenario dependent in terms of value. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
While I agree, this is primarily useful in solo where a person might want to evade bad guys, but then in solo the chance that the location you want to go is'nt revealed yet.. Yeah. In multiplayer If youre the sort of guy who agressively avoids enemies, there's also a dude who agressively chases them, I.E no risk of engagement, your friend will already be there. — Tsuruki23 · 2581
There are a couple scenarios -- The Wages of Sin, the upcoming Point of No Return -- that start with all locations already revealed. This card, which costs a mere 1xp, might be a good snag for seekers in one of those. The Wages of Sin in particular tends to pile up with enemies, including a certain spectral someone... Leapfrogging these enemies as you dart back and forth trying to banish those heretics would be a beautiful thing indeed. — Mordenlordgrandison · 464
Death • XIII

One of the good tarots.

Compared to Dr. Milan Christopher and Alice Luxley costing 4 resources, paying 3 for +1 is very feasible. The fact that the card is worth the cost, even if you dont luck out and get it in the opening hand, that's a good tarot.

You can swap from Dr. Milan Christopher to Death • XIII to leave your ally slot free for other characters, for example Mr. "Rook", Leo De Luca, Beat Cop.

Obviously, you can stack Death • XIII and Dr. Milan Christopher, especially seeing as how Dr. Milan Christopher can pay for Death • XIII. This may or may not be too expensive in many decks, especially flex decks that are supposed to fight and clue even handedly.

Tsuruki23 · 2581
Seekers have access to Studious. Two copies of Death hard mulligan'd for with two copies of studious gives you a 71% chance of seeing one in your opening hand. For comparison: 55% without any Studious, 45% with only one Death and both Studious, and just one Death with no Studious has 32% chance of appearing in your opening hand. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
Ace of Swords

This is generally one of the better tarots.

Beat Cop costing 4 resources means that 3 for +1 is perfectly feasible, if the tarot is worth the expense even if you didn't get it for free, that's a good tarot.

A flex build might straight up upgrade beat cop to Ace of Swords and leave the ally slot for something else (Mr. "Rook", Dr. Milan Christopher, Art Student, Jessica Hyde, Alice Luxley, Leo De Luca, Agency Backup, all these come to mind). Meanwhile a full-on fighter might decide to have both Beat Cop and Ace of Swords for a persistent +2, which is obviously very strong but costly dedication to nothing but combat for the rest of the scenario.

Do get 2 copies, even if the second copy is dud the chance at getting it in the opening hand is worth 2 xp.

Tsuruki23 · 2581
Dayana Esperence

Edit 3/4/2020: Rewritten to represent a much changed selection of spell events.

Dayana Esperence is a crazy powerful card, but she is expensive to run. The trick is to have a strong money engine or cheap enough cards to keep her up and running.

  • First off, Dayana is beefy, 3 health will keep her alive through some ally-killing mythos cards and help you outlast the mythos deck in general.

More importantly than her health however is the tripled spell event ability. Many events are strong enough to warrant playing by themselves, Ward of Protection, Deny Existence and their upgrades are among the most useful cards in the game and getting triple the amount of cancelling from them is outrageously good, especially Ward of Protection which can blanket protect the team and Deny Existence which is, for obvious reasons, incredible. Be mindful about using a tripled Ward of Protection though, that's 3 horror on top of whatever the scenario throws at you.

Because Dayana and the repeat casting of a spell will often be very expensive, absolutely make sure to bring methods to fund the combos, cards/combos like Forbidden Knowledge+Peter or Alchemical Transmutation might be needed to keep this build rolling. Absolutely make sure to pick up whatever out of faction resource cards are available to you, including Crack the Case, Easy Mark or Take Heart as appropriate.

Aside from the cancels, many other spells are good enough to want to play them repeatedly and there's a few spells that start off weak but being able to play them 3 times makes the mechanics much more interesting. Here is a list of every spell Dayana can triple:

  • Astral Travel is simply too expensive to use in this manner, there is a small handful of scenarios where being a master of movement can be very useful but usually the benefit of multiple Astral Travels is marginal and unnecessary.

  • Evade spells like Banish, Ethereal Form, Blinding Light and the upgrade are weird options because cards like Mists of R'lyeh and Ineffable Truth exist. Using Dayana for this is a way to have a routine spell for all three major actions but frankly, you probably dont need to play these spells more then once or twice per scenario, especially given their cost.

  • Counterspell gets expensive fast but undeniably powerful. Good combo if you've got money generation.

  • Eldritch Inspiration is great with an asset in play that you want the token trigger on repeatedly. A workhorse combo if your deck is using the upgraded Sixth Sense and/or Wither cards to clue and/or fight.

  • Read the Signs and Spectral Razor are very powerful cards because of their often huge skill bonuses. You do need to be able to fund them, but the end result is most likely worthwhile.

  • Hypnotic Gaze, just too expensive, the mechanic is nice but the card is already so expensive that people arent playing it -once-, much less three times!

  • Mind Wipe, this one actually takes flight on Dayana. Playing the spell just once to negathe the threat of one enemy for a round is useful but, MEH. Playing it 3 times to completely ignore something for a good while, THAT is a very cool mechanic. Campaign conditional but absolutely useful most of the time, especially for a clue-focused .

  • Moonlight Ritual is very specific but having it around for repeated use can unlock a lot of extra actions via doom on Blood Pact for Marie or enable the use of De Vermis Mysteriis or David Renfield.

  • Recharge and Recharge on Dayana basically gives you endless use of a good spell asset (if your token pulls are lucky). Rather good actually, especially with the upgrade.

  • Using Storm of Spirits in this manner is just too expensive, by all means go ahead though if you want to pretend you're this anime character www.youtube.com

  • Repeat rewinding via Time Warp can be very, very useful. It's not overly strong but being able to play it three times makes you a lot less stingy with it.

  • Word of Command is a spell you really only need to play the one time, tripling it is overkill.

  • As of the yet only characters capable of this are Marie and Lola but Blood Eclipse is cheap enough to repeat-play, it's a surefire way to get yourself killed though.

  • Alter Fate is probably one of the best spells to repeat-play, especially in the right campaigns where persistent treacheries are common. A top-notch use of Dayanas abilities.

Tsuruki23 · 2581
Moonlight Ritual is potentially huge as well. It allows mystics to heavily rock the doom effects. — Sassenach · 180
Some good points. Putting a counter on her with Diana is pretty cool, gaining a ressource and drawing a card each time, while not losing the counter. Moonlight ritual is also pretty cool, if you go crazy with 1 or 2 blood pacts. — Django · 5164
Why wouldn’t you lose the counter? Diana’s ability would still put the card under her, so it will no longer be attached to Dayana, and be pretty wasteful unless you did it only on the third use. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
Question about her and Time warp - Time warp's text say to return the game state to how it was before the event, including it's cost. Normally what prevents you from playing it over and over is having to discard it, but she doesn't discard it. And the secret spent is part of the cost. If even seems timewarp would have you un-exhaust her. So it seems that you could just play time warp over and over, unlimited. I feel like I must be missing something. — khoshekh · 6
You don't rollback the cost of Time Warp. Exhausting Dayana and spending a secret becomes part of the cost. — Yenreb · 15
With Diana you might move your card from Dayana under Diana because you drew into a card you really wanted on Dayana after having settled for a card you kinda wanted on her. Or just because your weakness hit and you really need to refuel your will. — Yenreb · 15
According to the comments on Time Warp, https://arkhamdb.com/card/03311, you do roll back the cost on her. — khoshekh · 6
More specifically, it says the cost of playing timewarp is reset. Timewarp itself is not returned to your hand because it's in an 'inbetween state' while the reset is happening. But the cost you paid happened before the reversal, so it's reset. In normal use, as long as you have the resources to play it, you get them back, so it's essentially free. Now, when attached to Diana, this really seems to me that it'd make her exhaust/secret reset too. — khoshekh · 6
To avoid confusing players who may stumble across this, khoshekh is incorrect. The comments there predate the FAQ erratum that came out over a year ago. Any costs to pay for Time Warp are not reset. — eapfel · 6
Dayana + Alter Fate in TCU is pretty amazing — Zinjanthropus · 231
This review mentions Dayana and Alter Fate (level 3) as a good combo. But correct me if I'm wrong - aren't there zero investigators who can take both level 3 mystic and survivor cards? — snacc · 1021
I think Marie Lambeau could do it because Altere Fate is a Spell. — GWItheUltimate · 1
Ah, good point, thanks :) I guess also Father Mateo because Alter Fate is a blessed card! — snacc · 1021
Is it possible to change the spell on #Dayana? I understand that she only has 3 secrets. — VanyelAshke · 188
Robes of Endless Night seem pretty good with Dayana. — Zinjanthropus · 231
Segment of Onyx

Fun card that requires a little help.

Segment of Onyx is fun and powerful, but not without the right tech. You need drawpower to find it, or tutors, and you need deckspace. It's actually quite costly at 3 resources to "complete".

For a full on this card will probably pull it's weight, Preposterous Sketches, Cryptic Research, Mr. "Rook" and Glimpse the Unthinkable make actually finding the things relatively easy, Feed the Mind will find it in a jiffy! For a full-seeker there is one problem though, 3 slots might be very hard to come by! Segment of Onyx competes HARD with the classic "research" cards, Strange Solution and Archaic Glyphs, if it's not pushing those out then it's competing with powerful mechanics like "I've got a plan!", Pathfinder or Connect the Dots. Don't forget that Segment of Onyx also needs support to find them with.

For a non the prerequisite for card support is harder, there are no Glimpse the Unthinkable, Cryptic Research for them and Mr. "Rook" charges might very well be better spent on other things (finding weapons, useful skill cards in the moment). If you get Segment of Onyx then you should probably also be getting Preposterous Sketches ASAP. Feeling like you HAVE to tutor fragments can actually get in your way and until you complete the damn thing the early shards will feel like duds.

I dont think I really need to talk about how powerful this thing is when you complete it, crazy movement efficiency, evasion and unstoppable clue gathering make it rather awesome, Pendant of the Queen is perhaps one of the single strongest items in the game. It's particularly interesting to multi-role characters like Roland Banks and Joe Diamond since they can make full use of every facet of the card, it's also rather attractive for Daisy Walker who can assemble it with Old Book of Lore and she can use Recharge and Enraptured to get extra uses from it. Minh Thi Phan will be a natural fit, she runs through a deck at rapid speed and the flexible uses are of particular interest to her.

Tsuruki23 · 2581
Allow me to speculate rampantly with you before the card is even released! (Which I mean with love :-) ) *** I think you are correct that Segment of Onyx will require significant support from other cards/mechanics given that each segment is individually meaningless and all three are required for value. That said, many cards have a similar constraint. For example, Guardian Big Guns(tm) often require support to find them, reload them, etc. *** One card I would add to your list of searching cards is Backpack. I can easily imagine a deck with 3x Segments of Onyx, 2x Emergency Cache, 2-4x hand slot items (even if just 2x Mag Lens), and 2x miscellaneous item/supply cards. Backpack could work quite well for finding segments and generally thinning the deck. *** I respectfully disagree with your statement of "it's actually quite costly at 3 resources to 'complete'." I think three resources is really cheap for what you get! Working a Hunch, Connect the Dots, Intel Report, and other cards are 2-for-1 with resources-for-clues while this is 1-for-1. Elusive is an amazing card and is 2-for-1 for a teleport (though you also get free disengagement) while this is 1-for-1. Decoy is 2-for-1 for an evade while this is 1-for-1, and this can affect Elite enemies. *** Lastly, something I think is very important about the Pendant is that it recycles itself. When then Pendant runs out of charges it goes out of play and shuffles the Segments back into your deck. This means you can find it again, and hopefully easier the second (third?) time because your deck is smaller. I would design my deck with the expectation that I'm going to build the Pendant at least twice in cycling through my deck for the first time. — SocialPsientist · 148
I agree with Social, the value you get from 3 resources and the card set up seems pretty worth. — applejuice4spill · 1
Abusing this card has been loads of fun. On it's own it has a pretty useful effect and is worth 1 experience. — Vultureneck · 74