Alter Fate

Oh my god this card is amazing.

Whenever I draw this card I swear I can hear Samuel L. Jackson somewhere in the background saying "Motherfucker" with an approving tone.

The sheer amount of garbage that may pile up in any given scenario is crazy, literally like an ever growing headache. Alter Fate is the pill that makes the headache go away, or perhaps cures the cancer outright! In many scenarios this is the card you save Resourceful for in particular.

Admittedly, I don't think a solo player draws persistent gunk at a speed fast enough to warrant Alter Fate, it's a liability when you dont need it and your deck probably requires other, important, level upped mechanics. In two player or three player the amount of gunk goes up and the sheer usefulness of making the gunk go away is stupid good. I did a little check and every single scenario from the release up to the conclusion of Path to Carcosa and start of Forgotten age had at least a couple perfectly viable targets. Every scenario!

One of these days, if you haven't already, once you've slotted your first 8 XP worth of important XP upgrades, try spending you next 6 on a couple of these. They are great.

Edit, campaign evaluation:

Dunwich and Circle unbound in particular reward playing with Alter Fate.

Forgotten age it can be clutch, but there are less "GOTCHA!" persistent treacheries in this one.

Carcosa has a few good targets, but also an occasional dud scenario. Definitely lower priority due to the deckslot.

Tsuruki23 · 2581
Well, you don't benefit from discarding Spires of Carcosa, due to its own wordings, so practically there is no valid target in Black Stars Rise. The card is definitely campaign-dependent. I find it great in Dunwich and TCU, ok in TFA, and not very good in Carcosa. — ak45 · 469
This card in The Circle Undone. I don't think I need to say anything more than that. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
I will concede that Carcosa has less targets — Tsuruki23 · 2581
I really liked it in TFA with Patrice, because she can play it quite a few times. It also forces you to play it even on minor annoyances, because if you don't you just have to discard it, which means that you end up not having a lot of persistent treacheries in play at all. I feel like when I've taken it in other investigators I just never play it because I'm waiting for the moment where it'll actually win me the game, or whatever. — Zinjanthropus · 231
Infighting

Baffling card, it's literally so bad that words can barely describe it. It's barely useful even if it were a 0-xp card, much less 3!!

So, what does it do exactly? It:

  • Negates all non-elite attacks during the enemy phase.

For this to be useful, there needs to be an enemy phase where enemies are going to attack you, an unideal circumstance to start with, if there is a non-hunter enemy attacking you that means that you've gone a full round engaged with an enemy, failing to deal with it or ignoring it wholly, or ended your round for some reason with a ready enemy. The other case is if a hunter catches you, this might be more probable but still not ideal or common by any means (Not that hunters are uncommon, but the usual response to a nearby hunter is to go and deal with it, not stick around and wait for it!)

There is another card that harkens to this one, On the Lam, seing how this strength operates and gives you total freedom for a round sorta displays what they were thinking for Infighting, it's just not nearly as useful!

The biggest issue with Infighting is that its a niche card that does nothing but ease the pressure off you a LITTLE, but only when you're completely drowning in trouble. The non elite text is the real dealbreaker here because it's during battle with Elites where this particular effect would be good (or rather, the time where youre most likely to drown in enemies), Infighting is basically a fancy Dodge, in fact I think 3 Xp is just right an amount of XP to turn Dodge into an "AoE" effect, but it isn't, and it's just terrible.

P.S Oh, just to be fair, at least it has pretty great icons. Most of the time it'll be a 3-xp Unexpected courage with some rarely helpful text on it. I quite often use Eucatastrophe for the icons rather then text so i'm not kidding when I say that sometimes an Unexpected Courage with extra text on it is perfectly reasonable. Infighting is not one of those cases.

Tsuruki23 · 2581
To make it worse, it only works on the caster, not other investigators. Engage actions also provoke OAs, so drawing monsters to you without Taunt or similar, is not a viable strategy either. — Django · 5163
I am 100% sure that the text on this card is lacking a tiny clause or element that got changed on judgement day when they were sending it to the printer and when they saw it come out printed Matt was like "wuh.. oh.. crap" — Tsuruki23 · 2581
@Tsuruki23 I bet it was "this round" instead of "this phase" — Nenananas · 271
Guiding Spirit

Wonderful card for certain investigators, namely those with decent investigative power and innate resilience.

Top of the list:

Wendy Adams with her high , and ability.

"Ashcan" Pete with his high and ready made soak from Duke.

Minh Thi Phan with great and high enough to really benefit.

Take note that Guiding Spirit only exiles if defeated, I.E killed. If you play over it's ally slot to discard it (for example: your other copy of Guiding Spirit) or it gets discarded by a mythos card, it will not be exiled. High willpower and secondary soaks (Lieutenant Pawterson and Peter Sylvestre ) will basically make it so that your spirits will never go away.

Tsuruki23 · 2581
It's also non-unique, so you can stack them for a double boost and spread out any horror between them. Minh probably gets the best use out of this card, since she begins with a higher baseline stat and is likely to be doing way more investigating than any of the survivors. — Sassenach · 180
I'm gonna agree that this fits best with Minh. No one else with access to Survivor 1 cards can protect it as well and take advantage of the extra intellect. Pete is a close second. — StyxTBeuford · 13051
Good cathc, ill add Minh — Tsuruki23 · 2581
While I do think it probably achieves its greatest potential in Minh or Wendy, I actually liked this a lot as a backup horror sink for Rita (until I could find Peter). That was a solo run, so the +int was actually quite helpful (in combination with Flashlight, and/or to be able to LWIF on slightly higher shroud locations). — Zinjanthropus · 231
[Tommy Muldoon](/card/06001) loves the Spirit too, as he is pointing him to some treasure. +2 net ressources when the spirit dies, a nice effect when he is around and then he keeps coming back because of Tommies ability. Solid ally. — jcdenton · 10
Tommy cannot shuffle Guiding Spirit back into his deck because it would be exiled — suika · 9506
Occult Lexicon

I think it’s worth mentioning that this (along with Hallowed Mirror) are Occult cards, meaning they can be taken by your favorite shaman and mine, Akachi Onyele! Blood-Rite is pretty versatile, the full suite netting you 6 cards over 4 actions (if you value such strict mathematical breakdowns) and can let you pitch cards you don’t need for resources that you probably do and some damage pings to boot.

Not saying it’s an automatic include or anything, but I think it’s got some good applications in her deck.

Nerindil · 5
I think running Lexicon with Akachi is a pretty good idea! She tends to be dependent on drawing key assests and has a very powerful signature card -- Blood Rite helps you find them while potentially helping you pay for them. Additionally, Arcane Initiate can draw Blood Rite, and Akachi probably doesn't mind using a hand slot for the Lexicon. — Spritz · 69
On the other hand -- having given it more thought -- spending an action to play the Lexicon so that you can spend actions to play Blood Rite so that you can spend actions playing spell assets so that you can finally be useful may not be the best plan. On the other OTHER hand, if you are reliably beating up enemies testlessly while doing the above it looks a lot better, it's just expensive. — Spritz · 69
Yeah, using Blood Rite for card draw is not super great since it draws two cards - one of which you could have drawn instead of it and the other of which you could have drawn with the action used to cast Blood Rite. It is still valuable for its flexibility and testless damage. (And it does add more targets for Arcane Initiate.) — Death by Chocolate · 1484
I played this card with Carolyn, but i think it's too slow and blocks one handslot that could hold a weapon (meatcleaver in her case). It also costs 3 actions to draw the Lexicon and the 2 rites that are shuffled into your deck... — Django · 5163
I published a Minh deck a while back which was built around this card. She can take Research Librarian to tutor for it and Scavenging to fetch it back when it leaves play. combo that with Mag Glass(1) which can be used to bump it from hand at will and it means that you can continually recycle the Blood Rites without needing to draw them from your deck (although Minh has draw for days in any case) — Sassenach · 180
You don’t need to draw them with that combo, but having to spend another action and two resources seems a much steeper price - especially for Minh. — Death by Chocolate · 1484
Sure, you wouldn't want to do that if you don't have to, but it does mean that you're not stuck with having to draw through the deck and allows for you to play Blood Rite multiple times in a scenario — Sassenach · 180
that sounds like it gets a lot better with Scavenging (2) if i understand you correctly — Zinjanthropus · 231
Arcane Research

Man, this might be my favorite Mystic card. I expect it to get Taboo'd at some point, maybe with that replacement ruling reverted back to the original, because an essentially free 14 XP (because you always take two) is just too easy to take in this game. Even Agnes should consider it despite the anti synergy with her ability- her Mystic/Survivor card pool gives her decent access to horror soak, heal, and prevention (you can always try and infinitely recur St. Hubert's Key with Scavenging for example) which makes the 2 horror she starts with not too big of a problem. But let's check in now and see what spells we can upgrade to as of The Circle Undone wrapping up:

Blinding Light Blinding Light 2 for 0 XP

Clarity of Mind Clarity of Mind 3 for 1 XP

Deny Existence Deny Existence 5 for 3 XP

Mind Wipe 1 Mind Wipe 3 for 1 initial XP

Mists of R'lyeh Mists of R'lyeh 4 for 2 XP

Rite of Seeking Rite of Seeking 2 Rite of Seeking 4 for 0 XP

Scrying Scrying 3 for 1 XP

Shrivelling Shrivelling 3 Shrivelling 5 for 1 XP

Sixth Sense Sixth Sense 4 for 2 XP

Ward of Protection Ward of Protection 2 Ward of Protection 5 for 1 XP

Wither Wither 4 for 2 XP

Also in Return to Carcosa we're getting a lower level Suggestion, so look out for that Sefina Rousseau and Akachi Onyele.

So which of these upgrades do you shoot for? Remember that you only get the benefit on the first spell you buy, so a chain of three cards like Shrivelling to Shrivelling 5 is going to take 4 scenarios to reach if you want the full discount. In other words you'll get the benefit 7 times in a standard campaign (though side stories will help you out quite a bit). There's a few up there that stand out to me:

Obviously if you're going to be a fighty Mystic it's a good plan to move through the Shrivelling chain. However you might find you have XP to spare in which case it's probably better to spend the XP for the other upgrade sooner, making you more powerful more quickly (and increasing the liklihood of picking up enemy Victory points later). Instead, I recommend using AR's savings in other areas.

If your name is Diana Stanley or Agnes Baker then I strongly recommend Deny Existence 5. If you plan on running Diana with Dayana then I even more strongly-er recommend it.

Mists of R'lyeh upgrades into a big +3 bonus and an added charge. Particularly good for Jim who is just a bit lower in than anyone else, and also valuable for that one campaign we all know where evasion is super useful.

Ward of Protection 2 is usually considered superior to its overcosted counterpart upgrade Ward of Protection 5, so probably just go up the first step in this chain and then stop. This is especially true in higher count multiplayer, and especially extra super true for Diana in multiplayer. In solo with a less fight capable mystic you could eye 5 instead, or else skip the chain entirely.

Jim should probably always take Sixth Sense 4 since it becomes a very consistent multi clue gathering tool for him, assuming you're building him in the traditional manner of drawing more spooky tokens.

StyxTBeuford · 13051
This card is insane. We played a group of 4 Mystics in Carcosa with 2 copies of Arcane Research each. We ended with 40+ xp worth of cards each at the end of campaign. — Ezhaeu · 51
I only take one with Diana. She can't afford two mental trauma. — Tilted Libra · 37
I took two with Diana in Circle Undone, and did not regret it. It was particular nice with St. Hubert's Key and Desperate skills, which could then be used right at the beginning of a scenario, when she was still comparable week on willpower. — Susumu · 382
Diana absolutely can afford two mental trauma, as you'll be prioritising "I've had worse..." and other damage-mitigation cards anyway. Once you get two copies of Deny Existence (5) in your deck and have your Twilight Blade in hand, she becomes absurdly tanky. — snacc · 1021
How in any way is the 2 trauma for "In the thick of it" balanced, when this broken card, or two if them can gain you add much as having the Charon's Over, without any downside other than two measly trauma? This is ridiculous. I like that Charon's Intel exists, even like in the thick of it, but as yourself if you'd like to see a red version off this or guardian version for weapons, yeah, that's be fair, but no, I wouldn't like to see it because it breaks the balance of the game. — Quantallar · 8