Card draw simulator
| Derived from |
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| None. Self-made deck here. |
| Inspiration for | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monetary Jack in the Mountains of Madness | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1.0 |
| Monetary Jack in the Mountains of Madness | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.0 |
| Monetary Jack: frozen cheese (EotE Iron Man | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1.0 |
| Monetary Jack: frozen cheese (EotE Iron Man | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.0 |
| Monterey Jack: my definitive solo deck | 44 | 34 | 2 | 1.0 |
| Montagnani Giacomo - Immigrato in cerca di (s)fortuna! | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.0 |
| Monterey Jack Attack | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.0 |
| Monterrey Jack | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.0 |
StartWithTheName · 64110
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... (I also had some 70s/80s rock band puns left over when i did the Sister Mary parody song (here), and i figured everyone else would be doing the cheeses).... Annnyywaaayy....
This is a deck ive been working on for some time in a few different iterations and a few different IDs. A Daisy variant has cleared a blind run of return to the circle undone so I am very confident the main combo (Ariadne's Twine, Eon Chart (4), Milan/"lots of money") it is effective and fun. Versions of it in Jack as shown here have cleared a few standalones, a little (2h) solo testing with a Bob deck using a similar method, and I have just started an Innsmouth run with friends where I can confirm it worked even before it has the twine and chart in the deck.
I expect a lot of jack decks will have a similar core, and im not claiming to have innovated that much here, but much like my recent Lilly Deck (link here), I thought a guide might help people looking for ideas for their own decks, or just want to net deck something fun. It is shown here with 10xp (3 are from In the Thick of It) to show how the main synergies of the deck will be available from about sc 2 onwards if not earlier (relic hunter could wait).
As I publish this, i notice @valentin1331 has also made what looks like a another fantastic guide (here) for anyone looking for even more ideas.
For a campaign legal starter, drop Relic Hunter, and swap Ariadne's Twine and Eon Chart for Money Talks (will check coverage) and "Watch this!", or tbh other cards of your choice. For a 9xp standalone, Keep Money Talks instead of Forewarned. Notice that the 3xp from In the Thick of It is spent on Death • XIII, Hiking Boots and Forewarned. Not on the combo. death in particular is critical to get 3 stackable buffs in the deck early for consistency, and with low will forewarned does a lot of work on encounter checks.
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RUSH! (TL:DR)
OVERVIEW:
- CLUEING: ....................... Very High
- ENEMY HANDLING: ...... Evader, options for to add damage if req.
- ENCOUNTER PROT: ...... Moderate
- DRAW CONSISTENCY: .. Very High
- CASH ENGINE: ............... Very High
- HEALING: ....................... Low but some.
PLAYSTYLE:
- ROLE: ............................. Primary Cluer/Scout,
- COMPLEXITY: ................ Moderate
- JANK FACTOR: ............... Some Nuance, but intuitive.
- THEMATIC FEEL: ........... A cunning, hyperactive, elusive clue sniper.
SLOTS:
- Hands ............. Mag Glass (+) + either Bullwhip or Pocket Telescope.
- Accessory ...... Eon Chart (4) (actions) + Lucky Cigs (draw)
- Body ............... Leather Jacket
- Arcane Slots .. Ariadne's Twine (recharge charts)
- Tarot ............... Death • XIII (+)
- Allies ............... Dr. Milan Christopher (+), later + Gené (+ +)
- Feet ................. Hiking Boots ( +Moves)
A fast paced, high draw, high cash, evader cluer Jack focussed around stacking and high then spamming out free investigate and move actions to zip around the board sniping clues and benefitting from his free card and/or penny a turn.
The core of the deck generates 2 move/investigate/evade actions a turn from Eon Chart (4), generating a penny with Milan when investigating and/or Jacks after a move) to pay for a replacement secret with Ariadne's Twine (I know what youre thinking, yes Ursula should be able to do this too).
Super high draw gets through the super thin deck from Underworld Support to find components fast (you can get 3 cards a turn from upkeep, Lucky Cigs, and Jacks ). Crucially there are multiple stackable cards for key early game buffs like +, with other components arriving in due course as the deck will cycle several times a game (heal back with Logical Reasoning, and pray you dont get Doomed as a basic weakness, or Spoiler if playing dunwich).
This arrangement lets you get away with single copies of high xp keystone cards meaning you can consistently get the engine going with just 7 non Thick of It xp (10 if you want Relic Hunter to have cigs in play too), or basically about 1 map.
The rest of the deck focusses on leveraging positional play, rogue tricks, and defences. Pocket Scope can be used to clear adjacent locations to trigger Hiking Boots for a move, and/or move to trigger Fieldwork, then use The Scope to investigate the location you just left. Note that Scope is a Tool so tests using it can be boosted with Crafty, which can also pay for Insight (thats a lot of seeker events) and Tricks (a lot of rogue events). (ahem. Ursula again anyone?)
Encounter defence comes from high , Money Talks for checks, "You handle this one!", and Forewarned - which can drop a clue for you to pick up, trigger Milan, and move via Hiking Boots.
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ROCKING UP THE CHARTS! (Upgrades)
PRIORITIES:
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"Watch this!" Eon Chart(1) Lets you defer spending 3 of the xp needed for the lvl4 version if you didnt get quite enough in one map.
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Money Talks Ariadne's Twine You`ll have less money once you are paying for secrets.
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Eon Chart (1) Eon Chart (4) And now its caught up to the list
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Relic Hunter lets you have Lucky Cigs and Eon Chart at the same time. Note you can only have 1 of each permanent with Underworld Support.
LATER OPTIONS
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Studious Being able to dig 12 deep from a 25 card deck is a big deal. Thats almost half of the deck to let us see those buffs reliably. Note that a 30 card deck needs 2 copies to see 14 cards with a hard mulligan (also almost half). This is how Underworld Support saves xp. It often halves the xp you would need to spend to see something early. Note also that like relic hunter you cant have 2 copies here either with due to Underworld Support. Though seeing 14 cards from 25 might be a bit much!
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Perception Deduction (2) More clues.
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Magnifying Glass (1) Opens up a lvl0 slot, and has the option to return to hand to play Trusty Bullwhip when needed (your deck will cycle, you will see it again after you put the Magnifying Glass back down.
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Ancestral Knowledge, Note you can get "Watch this!" and Perception back again plus other skills of your choice, Unexpected Courage and Cunning are also good targets. or if you have relieved some lvl0 seeker slots, so are Inquiring Mind/Deduction (if not on level 2 version) yet). With xp other options open up: Fey (its 3 pips even without curses in the bag), The Eye of Truth Survey the Area and Perception (2) all look good. Importantly, while these will be in your deck for the second cycle, you should have seen enough of the main set up on first cycle, so thickening the deck is fine and with that much asset draw, skills become more valuable.
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Logical Reasoning(4) Its a lot of xp for what it is, so think about it late campaign. But trust me, you will be playing Logical Reasoning a lot. Being able to hard reset the whole team is often handy. it also frees up a lvl0 seeker slot for skill card options with Ancestral Knowledge
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Faustian Bargain Crafty You have a lot of tricks and insight cards. you will get 2 pennies of value most turns here. It can also be used to boost tests when using Pocket Telescope as this is a tool
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Call for Backup You will almost always have 1 (clue) and you will always have (move) due to your ID and Underworld Support. With Crafty you will also heal 1 hp from helping compensate for the 2 hp trauma from In the Thick of It. Having moved you will then also be able to trigger your later on.
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Cryptic Research Untested, but should be really useful in cycling the deck
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Gené Beauregard & Charisma/Miskatonic Archaeology Funding. She should have massive synergy with the Pocket Telescope/Fieldwork/Hiking Boots combos. I have yet to personally test it, but a friend who did (shout out to @Turbinismo) swears by her.
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Higher Education (permanent) You will be rich and you can keep your hand stocked easily. Now you can pay to pass checks.
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Fieldwork Hyperawareness Also untested, but you are almost always using Fieldwork on or tests anyway. Now you can do it without moving, you can split the boost over 2 actions and if needed pay real money into it. You could also keep Fieldwork in if you want both though i am not sure what else i would cut.
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Deciphered Reality Rarely not a strong option in seeker. But if you are leaving odd clues here and there, or moving them around with Gené Beauregard, while running around revealing the map aggressively, why not hoover them all up in one go later!
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START ME UP! (Mulligan)
KEEP:
- Any + asset, ie. (Milan, Mag Glass, Death, Gené )
- Eureka! This may as well have been a choice of any 3 cards instead of one from mulliganing it.
- Lucky Cigarette Case You will get a lot of draw from this.
- Depending on the map - maybe Lone Wolf An early wolf is good money over the game.
Muligan the rest in the hope of finding these, yes even the Ariadne's Twine/Eon Chart combo. We thinned the deck to make the buffs (most of which take lvl0 slots) appear early, once those are in place, those extra actions will land reliably and there is enough draw here to see the combo pieces quickly after that.
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RUN TO THE HILLS! (Clues & Positional Play)
At the core of the deck we are trying to stack high then take a lot of basic investigate actions via Eon Chart, though other clue options are available.
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PRIORITISE See mulligan section, but this is critical as you will be using this a lot. You can use Perception/Eureka!/other skills, or things like Fieldwork/Hyperawareness/Breaking and Entering to tide you over, but you are aiming to not be reliant on these. Once is high enough you will keep triggering Lucky Cigarette Cases whenever you draw a low token on medium or low shrouds.
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GET CASH IN HARD Between Lone Wolf, Milan, Upkeep and Jacks , you can generate 4 pennies a turn. We also have burst economy from Faustian Bargain/Sneak By/"Watch this!" if needed. Or Crafty can save a tone of cash over the long term. you will need this to set up, and for encounter protection, but you want at least 1 bonus penny a turn to pay for Ariadne's Twine longer term.
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Investigate with the Chart, Get Milan penny, buy a secret with Twine, repeat. Now you have 5 actions a turn. You can also use a move from the chart to end at a connecting location to get Jacks penny instead of or as well as milan. Note that these actions can be used to trigger investigate, move, or evade actions on other cards like Pilfer, Pocket Telescope, Sneak By, Scout Ahead. Basically any time you see the words "Investigate.", "Move." or "Evade." in bold at the start of an action.
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Save up for Multiclue actions Pilfer costs a lot, but can often clear out a location for 1 action. Bonus pips are all over the place to land it with doubles on Manual Dexterity, Sneak By, Scout Ahead. You can also pay to boost skill on it with Crafty to force it to land ( permitting). With xp you will also be cycling Deduction (2) with each deck flip.
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RUNNING FREE! Those extra cards and pennies add up. However if you are just moving to get the penny/card, remember you could just take an action to get them. This means you really want to be using bonus triggers to get free or big moves. Some tricks!: Hiking Boots can be triggered off clearing an adjacent location with Pocket Telescope. Moving lets you trigger Fieldwork, which lets you use the Pocket Telescope on the location you just left if you need the boost. you will then get a card/penny to compensate you for the action used to move recovering the value. If you Scout Ahead can let you run past a clue to trigger Fieldwork, then run back if the location you moved to didnt have one.
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BACK STABBETH! (Enemy Handling)
No Surprised here really. Your no killer but you can evade like the best of them.
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High + Eon Chart = Cheap evades With Hiking Boots thats a base of 6. There are so many pips to throw if needed that you shouldnt struggle with basic action evades and you get those for free with Eon Chart. Throw in Nimbles or Quick Thinkings to get bonus moves/actions. If youre on Hyperawareness (4) thats another +2 available if needed.
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Trusty Bullwhip Does what it says on the tin but looks cool doing it. Basically use the same trick as above to boost. Kill small stuff or evade big stuff if needed. Your no hard hitter but you can get out of scrapes. save Backstab for important kills.
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Breaking and Entering Can evade This will overshoot almost any bag when you are at 6 and 6, and get a clue in the process.. And a penny back from Milan...
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Sneak By is a trick you can boost the test with Crafty Letting you bank the 2 pennies from the card itself.
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FEAR OF THE DARK! (Encounter Checks)
Where theres no will theres a way.
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Money Talks Early campaign before you swap it for combo pieces, sitting at 10+ resources is common. This is fine. Keep it high and use Money Talks on wil checks. Later on Higher Education will let you basically pay 2 or 3 to go to 5 or 7 respectively. But then you`ll be wanting to keep your hand full more than your cash. Thankfully jacks ability gives you the choice.
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Forewarned Ward of Protection in yellow with no horror or cost. Dropping a clue will cost you time to recover, but you have many bonus investigate actions to play with. Notice that dropping the clue on an empty location lets you pick it up again to trigger Hiking Boots. Or you can leave it for later and pick it up via a Pocket Telescope/Deciphered Reality.
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"You handle this one!" Yeah. You know how to use this. Just dont let the scowling dissuade you.
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Ancestral Knowledge Adds a lot of Pip access See upgrades section, but a lot of those cards are big skill cards, and many of these start accessable as a little sideboard. The Eye of Truth in particular is a well known powerhouse and even removes a nasty will check from the encounter deck itself if needed. Note that a lot of late campaign scenarios have big hard hitting one off encounter cards which make good targets for this.
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Or just tank the harm and heal back/Soak You have Logical Reasoning and a Leather Jacket for a reason. Though some of that reason is to heal the horror from deck cycling so be careful.
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WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE SNAKES? (Custom Parody Scenario!)
Forgive the self indulgence but by chance alone I recently had this posted on Arkham Central:
SNAKES ON A TRAIN!
(Also available at this google drive)
This is an endless parody variant of Essex County Express (ECE) using TFA encounter sets that I made before the pandemic (i took a long time to send it to arkham central!). It is intended as a similar experience to Endless Depths of Yoth Challenges sometimes held at conventions, but a lot sillier. It requires one copy of ECE, one core, and the TFA deluxe box to play, but all the custom cards are safe to print on paper for ease of use. It contains minor spoilers and jokes relating to the experience of playing ECE and The Doom of Eztli, so you should really have played them first. Nevertheless for reasons I wont spoil, Jack looks like a particularly interesting challenge for this with his ability having some interesting interactions with the mechanics.
| 31 comments |
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Sep 27, 2021 |
Sep 27, 2021Aaaaaaand I just realised my mistake there. |
Sep 27, 2021Thats the Bob deck |
Sep 27, 2021Love love love snakes on a train. I do also really like the twine and eons chart interaction. I can't wait to try amanda sharpe with eons chart giving her 5 uses of vicious blow or deduction |
Sep 28, 2021I don't get the reference, but I'm excited to try the deck. I kinda don't super see what to put his economy engine into. Half of the time if feels like I'm working towards turning on his ability, and then I'm like... "now what is my objective?" just to have more resources and draw... but all the cards in my deck are just helping me draw more and gain resources and there's nothing to spend the resources on outside of like Hyperawareness. If only he had some kind of econ sink like Lola Santiago, that would be great. I guess he feels much less special in reality because he is just a very specific sort of double upkeep sorta investigator which cards that enable his double upkeep, but don't play off his double upkeep... I hope you get what i mean. |
Sep 28, 2021Hi Any excess is basically spent on backstab and Pilfer, or if youve got the xp, Higher Education/Hyperawareness. The burst cash (Faustian Bargain/Sneak By) is needed to allow you to get set up fast (Dr. Milan Christopher, Death • XIII and a handful of 2 cost assets add up), but can be spent on big ticket events later (Backstab, Pilfer and Logical Reasoning in particular). Sneak By is also a double pip later on, or indeed Faustian Bargain can be used on other players if needed. Crafty is particularly nice as it can be used to boost skill as well as pay for cards if they have the right trait (tool/trick/insight), this includes the evade on Sneak By. So you can even play sneak by to evade then boost it with crafty rather than committing it for the +2 if you did not plan to use crafty later. First map, the deck also uses Money Talks on will checks until it has Ariadne's Twine. Of course, once you have enough cash, you can take the draw from your instead to find something to spend it on. Getting 2 locations away isnt reliable but 1 is easy enough usually (I have no idea how this will pan out in Edge of the Earth which Maxine has hinted at as being movement heavy, maybe it will be more common). Either way the 3 reliably draw a turn is a big deal when trying to flip the thinner deck and recur events/skills. Hope that helps clarify. |
Sep 28, 2021Cheers Yeah the combo works with a lot of IDs. Ariadne's Twine in general looks underplayed just now. The combo originally had my attention using Ariadne's Twine and Cryptographic Cipher (and Old Book of Lore(2) among a few other toys). its just that Eon Chart was teased while i was testing my daisy deck so i naturally upgraded into that. It even solved my handslot problem I was having with all Daisy`s tomes. I hope to find time to publish that write up sometime but ive been distracted by the new toys! #notevenfirstworldproblems. In related news: Otherworld Codex MVP in RTCU with twine daisy for reasons that are probably obvious and a few that are less so - It can remove various forms of cultists/enemies with 3 copies in a deck from play quite reliably. |
Sep 29, 2021
This deck seems to be all about using Ariadne's Twine as the resource sink and getting specific pieces in a one-copy-each deck as the point of extra draw. Now why |
Sep 29, 2021Hehe. Don’t think I didn’t have my eye on all the other juicy secrets tech |
Sep 30, 2021Hey there! I noticed the deck is only running 23 cards. Which ones are missing? |
Sep 30, 2021Hi |
Oct 30, 2021You're a naughty one, Saucy Jack.. you're a haughty one, Saucy Jack! |
Oct 30, 2021Played solo Midnight Masks, 5 of 6 The only problem I have, is that I need some idea, how to kill some enemies, backstab is good, but it is only 2 here :D |
Oct 30, 2021LMAO How the hell did i miss that reference! you made my day Yeah, |
Oct 31, 2021I liked Underworld Support Idea a lot, especially that I get consistently what I want. But I got a lot of problems because of corrosion :D I also like EotE cards, that they gave 1 exp options, sometimes I am not managing a lot of experience for instantly lvl 4 Seeker cards. Bullwhip is not a problem, I usually get a weapon before someone come at me. The only problem I got is with many enemies, or with tough ones. Otherwise, I am running around, doing EXP-farming quite easily. |
Nov 01, 2021
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Nov 26, 2021Just finished EotE with a slightly modified version of this deck and it was absolutley nuts! Cut some of the resource generating cards for some skill support, but between his ability and Lone Wolf I never missed the money. |
Nov 29, 2021Interesting I also find I want for the cash early game to get the rig down without making compromises, then it stacks up and spams Pilfer each deck flip. Late game i tend to sit on about 3-5 resources that way. Which is a little high, but by that time youve had the value in quick set up. I also have a feeling how much you keep will depend a lot on what you xp into. Our group try not to use Deciphered Reality these days as it can trivialise the game a bit too much for us, but I can imagine someone xping into 2 or 3 big bursty events like those and cycling them through with the cash. You could also go the other way with combat events and be more rounded, few of which in jack are cheap. as a side note - I love how flexible all the new IDs seem to be. they all seem to have similar options. |
Jan 04, 2022Hi |
Jan 04, 2022Hi |
Jan 28, 2022So are cards like Shortcut and Pathfinder just unnecessary redundancies? Was surprised to see them omitted. Super fun list! |
Feb 08, 2022fair point Pathfinder i found i dont need when i have Eon Charts and at the taboo 4xp version its a lot more of an investment. I actually did it in an innsmouth run and only played it twice. It was a dead card far too often for the xp, and those are some big maps. But its hard to say if that was due to things like vehicles and one or two story assets I wont spoil. So it could be a nuance of innsmouth. Shortcut I vaguely recall cutting in favour of Scout Ahead because Scout Ahead has great pips and makes a nice flex suite alongside some of the econ cards taken for the same reason (cash early when rigging up, pips later). But certainly theres no reason you cant have both... Ultimately i guess ive stopped trying to make "perfect" lists as much as showcase a concept to let others make their own. Theres certainly room for personal preference. |
Feb 09, 2022Hi |
Feb 09, 2022Hi That I believe is an unresolved question that badly needs an FAQ. There are two areas of ambiguity, the first is the absence of the word "different" on the card which means it has 2 grammatical interpretations, one where you can pick the same one twice, and the other where you cant. The second area of ambiguity is around the actions being basic or any action. The FAQ in the Edge of the earth investigators booklet relating to Close the Circle describes non bold actions as being basic actions. But this would change how Ursula Downs is played too as her ability is not in bold. Anyway, to cut a long story short this makes a wide variety of permutations of how the card could be interpreted so we just pick one that seemed least broken when we play while we wait for a ruling. We used basic actions only but you could use the same one twice. Or we used any action type but they must be different. Both are crazy strong though in any deck that can reload or recur the charts, to the point where it felt like it might need a soft tabooing. Ultimately it was still fun as opposed to being so strong it undermined the challenge of the game so perhaps its fine. At the end of the day, just bring your own game balance for now I recon. As long as its fun :) Sorry cant help more. I usually fall back on the Mythos busters discord for rules queries rather than being a guru myself per se. |
Feb 09, 2022Thank you for the insight! I had not done much considering about basic versus bold actions and that could lead to some interesting branching builds Since my Edge of the earth just came in of course i am gonna do a run of return to the forgotten age with Monterey Jack. Adding another example, I just finished a campaign where I used Riot Whistle and there seems to be enough similarity that assuming eon chart is basic actions only, since it doesn't have bold text, makes since. |
Feb 09, 2022Ill be honest I suppose my point is more about bringing your own fun. While ambiguity exists at least just do what seems sensible and keeps things fun. Tis but a game :) |
Feb 21, 2022I'm curious - how did you spread the trauma from In The Thick Of It? I'm trying to decide what would be the least painful, give that the deck will be cycled through multiple times... |
Feb 21, 2022Hi |
May 30, 2022what a fantastic deck and guide! just played through EotE and had a ball with Monterey - easily the most fun i've had with an investigator. strong work! |
Sep 09, 2022Could you maybe suggest a replacement for Milan? My friend is using him for this seeker deck and we can't have 2 afaik. |
Sep 13, 2022Hi |
Nice one!
Have you kicked around another nice Exceptional card, Geas, useful for providing another intellect boost? This deck might be able to get away with promising to not commit cards during Monty's turns.