The Eye of Truth

The Eye of Truth

For a skill card to cost 5 xp, the effect must be awfully useful, and this card definitely is. It's not just that you're helping the entire team pass an annoying treachery easily; you're also permanently removing one such copy from the game, which is useful in every scenario you can think of and especially ridiculous in The Circle Undone with its "if three of these are in play, bad thing happens" treacheries - Terror in the Night, Ultimate Chaos.

And if that wasn't enough to convince you, it's practiced, meaning you can just pull it with Practice Makes Perfect on any kind of non-treachery test you're having difficulty with. Parley/evade/whatever at +4, then get the card in your hand ready for the next treachery.

Erdjo · 329
Yeah, I feel like Practice Makes Perfect combos quite well with this. I think it especially deserves mention for Joe Diamond, as he both has a ton of good targets for Practice Makes Perfect, and tends to get beat up by treacheries a lot. — Zinjanthropus · 231
Wouldn't you not get the card back in hand? It says "add that skill to your hand instead of discarding it", but the Eye of Truth's text prevents the from happening, so the replacement effect fails — Chitinid · 14
Depends on the skill check. You would not get it back if it was used against a Treachery skill check but any other skill check would have it return to your hand. — LikeWise · 1
Yeah, it's great, you get +4 to _any_ test, and then you get it in hand to use against a treachery later. That's incredibly efficient. — Zinjanthropus · 231
As a side note, how does this behave if you commit it to the test on Slumber (from GotA)? The wording would imply that you could remove Slumber from your threat area (which you normally can't do until you lower the strength of the abyss). — Zinjanthropus · 231
@Zinjanthropus ‘If the test is successful, add that treachery to the Victory Display’. It is as simple as that. The ability you mention is a way to remove Slumber, but there is no card text preventing it from being removed by other effects. (For example, see Straightjacket.) There are plenty of other ways Slumber could be removed from play without using that ability, including Cheat Death, Otherworld Codex, and Alter Fate. — Death by Chocolate · 1484

Open Gate

Open Gate

As the other reviewer said this card is printed for Luke and only him. His ability to play an event in a connected location is just so versatile. I've recently finished the Return to Night of the Zealot campaign on Expert with Luke and Zoe and Luke was definitely a lifesaver! Especially, in the last scenario he was able to set up a link between a ritual sight and another location in the woods to help Zoe skip the cultists! And he himself Shortcuted through the enemy. The deck I used arkhamdb.com

Inference: I wouldn't use the gates outside that mystic.

Moreover, I feel like Open Gate has such a synergy with Arcane Initiate.

And... A question: If an investigator with an enemy moves through a gate, will the enemy follow him to that location?

ambiryan13 · 179
Nice review! Arcane Initiate is definetely a must. I will try to give some insight to your question because I am not sure too. I think this works like shortcut: If you are engage with an enemy he moves with you. If this card was like pathfinder the text would be something like "each unengaged investigator etc etc." — Sotosprotos · 86
That means that every treachery, scenario card, attack of opportunity, card and investigator abilities such as Ursula's free movement triggered too. — Sotosprotos · 86
I think enemies in player threat areas don't care about locations, so they will come with you. They only do when they move by themself (for example being hunters). — Django · 5165
Open gate is slighty situational, but I've always found it between awesome and good to have (i never play solo). In worst case it saves some move actions for the other player, in best i can move to the other end of the map and/or park a hunter there. I think every mystic should have an arcane initiate, it's like drawing another card per turn. — Django · 5165
Opening a gate in Pointless reality is also a way to never care about investigating that location! — ambiryan13 · 179
Not really. It helps you once, but it's discarded once the location leaves play, so it's rather a waste. — Django · 5165
It's discarded once it leaves play, but you still paid a card and a resource to save yourself 2 horror and get most of your turn back, which is not a bad ROI. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
Definitely not a waste if you have two party members carrying Open Gate. You "wasted" one copy, but you still have two to spare — Yenreb · 15

Decorated Skull

Decorated Skull

This card became more useful with the new swarm mechanic introduced in Dream Eaters circle. Now investigators such as Leo and Tony can benefit from killing a lot more than before. Some low enemies like Zoogs and Rats can be killed easily with a weapon with +1 damage, so the charges will stack a lot faster than normaly. Combine it with Haste and you can trigger the action of Decorated skull by free. I am looking forward to test it!

Sotosprotos · 86
I agree that you'll get lots of charges, but i don't think you have enough time to spend them all if you want to complete scenarios. — Django · 5165
I have wanted to love this card with Leo (or Tony) but I just couldn't take the action in the middle to the end of the scenario to use the charges. The Haste combo that you mention might make it possible though. — The Lynx · 999
I used it with Tony to good effect. He already gets plenty of resources, but sometimes you need to take draw actions, and getting even more resources helps pay for the new weapons you need to play, since he tends to burn through ammo fast. — Yenreb · 15

Entombed

Entombed

Something funny happened in a Forgotten Age Campaign. Because Rita Young drew this this card while engaged with Harbinger of Valusia, she was able to repeatedly evade it without re-engaging in order to give it resources and make it go away!

jmmeye3 · 632
Haha! I've done that trick with Unspeakable Oath (Cowardice) before. — Zinjanthropus · 231

Cryptic Grimoire

Cryptic Grimoire

I have a rules question about the second action on this card. The second action does not say to only trigger "If there are 10 [curse] tokens in the chaos bag...". Rather, the first sentence is contingent on "10 [curse] tokens in the chaos bag". Can I trigger the second action without 10 curse tokens and just replace 5 curse with 5 bless tokens?

CrimsonMatt · 2
You cannot. Everything before the colon is the ability's cost; if there are fewer than ten curse tokens in the bag, you cannot satisfy the cost and therefore cannot initiate the ability. I think you're saying you could activate it with fewer than ten curse tokens and avoid discarding the grimoire, but since discarding the grimoire is part of the cost, you can't initiate the ability without ten curse tokens. — SGPrometheus · 855
Can I ignore the cost by "Knowledge is Power"? — king_doragon · 1
@king_doragon Huh. Uh... I don't see why not. Surely that doesn't work? I'd submit that to the devs; that's a good one. — SGPrometheus · 855
Yeah, that’s really awkward and definitely works as written. It should probably have that ‘if’ clause within the effect of the ability to avoid that. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
This will definitely get errata'd and/or FAQ'd real fast cause the wording is so awkward. As its stands, the second action could indeed be activated if there aren't ten curse tokens in the chaos bag. Discarding the grimoire is part of the cost only if there are 10 curse tokens in the bag. You are paying the conditional cost of discarding it and the rules regarding costs do not address this, so no other way to interpret it. — heppu · 2
I disagree and feel Knowledge is Power will not work for this. The only costs on the 2nd action are 1) the actual action cost and 2) the discard of the grimoire ; the "if there are..." line is a Triggering Condition, not an actual cost. It's like if you have a BOGO coupon for something but they only have 1 of that item; you can ignore the cost of the 2nd one, but you don't actually have the 2nd item available to complete the transaction. — Vafruvant · 1
It is not a "Triggering Condition": Triggering Condition A triggering condition indicates the timing point at which an ability may be triggered. Most triggering conditions use the word "when" or "after" to establish their relation to the specified timing point. Each eligible ability that triggers in reference to a specified timing point may be used once each time that timing point occurs. If multiple instances of the same ability are eligible to initiate, each instance may be used once. — Yenreb · 15
The "If" clause is a "prerequisite" of the ability. "If the ability has one or more prerequisites (costs and/or conditions), these are listed in text immediately following the icon. A player must always meet the prerequisites of a triggered ability in order to trigger that ability." But the instruction on Knowledge is Power is "resolve" (not "trigger") "an [action] or [free] ability," so as written I don't think the prerequisite would prevent you from choosing it. Hopefully an FAQ will clarify. — Yenreb · 15
Although the next phrase on Knowledge is Power is "ignoring all costs" -- as card text, not reminder text. The word "resolve" is used throughout the Rules Reference, but nowhere well defined; we might treat it as "do". In which case "resolve, ignoring its costs" could well mean "but still obey conditions," as you argue. No existing Tome or Spell assets have non-cost prerequisites on Action or Free triggered abilities, so it's not a question to have come up before this previewed card. — Yenreb · 15