Cunning

Cunning compares rather poorly with generic skill cards like Perception and Unexpected Courage. It is decisively inferior when it gives a bonus of only +1 or +2. Even if it were to give a bonus of +3 all the time, I would think the card was maybe too good, but not by a large margin, it would still depend on what I thought was best for the deck. So in order for this card to be even average, it has to have a + 3 bonus most of the time. Meaning your deck has to be spending the great majority of the game with ten plus resources saved up. That means that Cunning can only be used in the type of deck which is specifically built around saving tons of money.

I have played that kind of deck and I find Cunning to be a perfectly useful card in that deck. The funny thing is that even in the deck which it is specifically designed for, I don't always include Cunning. It is good, but not so good as to clearly outweigh the value of other good cards I might be considering putting in the deck. It ends up depending a lot on how much I think that particular deck really needs a good skill card that gives both an intellect and an agility boost.

ChristopherA · 114
A Friend of mine wants to make big money, big hand trish work, and this card seems to be an obvious choice for that sillyness. — Zerogrim · 296
Tennessee Sour Mash

Wow, they really went out of their way to make this card overpriced.

The basic purpose of this card is to boost will tests. In my opinion, if there were such a thing as a skill card which just boosts a will test and nothing else, it should give a + 3 bonus to be competitive with Guts. This card gives a + 2 bonus twice, so at least the bonus you get is better than the value of a single card in your hand. But once you factor in that you have to spend an action to play it, I think this card would be overpriced for the value of the will tests if it costs 0 resources, much less 3. The difference would have to be made up by the value of the combat ability. But I think the value of that is really very marginal. First of all, a combat test which does not give bonus damage is rather specialized, occasionally it will be useful but mostly it is not something you want to do. But the real hidden problem is the ordering problem, not only do you have to wait for just the right situation to come up where you need that kind of combat bonus, it also might come up before you have used the will bonuses, forcing you to sacrifice one or more of the will bonuses if you want to use the combat bonus. If you don't want to waste the will bonuses, you may have to wait for a really long time before you can use the fight bonus. This all comes together to make the card really quite marginal. If the card had a resource cost of 1, I would consider it to be not that amazing but at least interesting to try in appropriate decks. But a resource cost of 3 is just insane.

Now, the above analysis discounts the fact that this is an Item, and thus can be used as part of a combo with other cards that only work on Items. However, you had better have a pretty great combo for this to work. Merely having a deck that plays Scavenging is not enough of a combo, the degree to which this card is overpriced is just too great. Maybe a William Yorick deck could somehow put together a good enough combo for this, but I can't think of one.

ChristopherA · 114
wait it exhausts! you can't even play it to get +4 versus frozen in fear, why wouldn't you just run guts!!!! (I think if the level 0 version did +1 damage I could see a place for it) — Zerogrim · 296
Such a shame that this card is overbalanced. It's got amazing flavor and could have been something special. — Soul_Turtle · 495
EDITED: I had originally suggestion maybe Act of Desperation could somehow save this card, forgot it can't be used on items that don't take up hand slots. — ChristopherA · 114
I really want to put this in my Yorick deck I'm about to run for Carcosa, but it feels so hard to justify at this resource cost. Even with the help from the janky combination of Geared Up, Backpack, and Schoffner's Catalogue. The 3XP version helps make this look more useable, but then I still need to budget 3XP for that over other excellent choices. If this card cost just 1 less over all versions it would maybe be alright. — rockmaninoff · 3
Enchanted Blade

Wait... is Enchanted Blade just three Knives duct-taped together?...Or perhaps the arcane slot it being used to super-impose three knives into the same hand slot?...Nah, I'd prefer to think of duct-tape as a arcane asset.

Lucaxiom · 4548
Yep, that's canon. — SGPrometheus · 855
Sneak Attack

After the enemy attacks at enemy phase, it's exhausted. Before that enemy is ready, the player has the chance to play fast event (between 3.3 ~ 3.4). Thus, if you give Sneak Attack to fast, you can play this without evading. As I know, Chuck Fergus and Directive can do.

elkeinkrad · 498
'When you play a tactic or trick event... The event gains fast'. I could see this implying that you have to have the action to play the event in the first place before you can make it fast. I certainly hope that's not the case, because if it isn't, there's a player window in the upkeep phase, before cards ready, that would allow this sick interaction to go through. Truly a sneaky attack. — Lucaxiom · 4548
@Lucaxiom In Fence FAQ, no action is necessary, and Chuck's text looks same as Fence. — elkeinkrad · 498
You take into account a cards resulting costs after modifiers to figure out when it can be played, I forget the exact wording but yea chuck does work here for the same reason fence does, so yea 0 cost fast 2 damage, its almost like chuck should be worth XP or something. — Zerogrim · 296
As per the latest Chuck Fergus FAQ of March 2024, you can't do it. — Gsayer · 1
.25 Automatic

I think this would be a lot of fun with Trish and enchant weapon. It’s XP heavy, and costs a lot, but every turn it’s out, you can turn a clue into an evade AND an attack. Winnifred can also have a lot of fun with pickpocketing(2), and since both cards are fast, she can set them up as soon as she needs them. What’s in your pocket? Bullets? It was bullets.

MrGoldbee · 1496