Sledgehammer

Hank Samson testing combat at 8 Fight (in his resolute version)? Yes please! Sounds excellent for the hard and Expert chaos bags.

Even therein, testing at 5 for the singular action isn't bad either! We might just have found the investigator that wants to wave this thing into the mythos deck's face.

fiatluxia · 67
Just don't turn your teammates into goo. — MrGoldbee · 1477
I guarantee nothing. — fiatluxia · 67
Terrible Secret

Deny Existence was recently clarified to not work for this (much like Sister Mary's weakness no longer works with Deny Existence).

This has made this weakness the main difficulty in playing Diana, which is intended. She has a lower than normal horror value for a mystic, and depending on when this card comes out it can be absolute debilitating.

She doesn't have a good way to fish it out, and it is scenario failing to drop all of her willpower off especially if it comes out late. So the best strategy is to build her soak heavy and just hope you see this early. Brother Xavier is very attractive for this purpose, and also boosts her willpower.

After it's drawn you could play "Fool me once", but Diana will typically have low cycling power and it's unlikely you're going to run into this again. If you do find yourself somehow cycling rapidly with her you should consider Fool Me Once, as getting hit with this a second time will probably kill you.

Overall this is a swingy weakness, akin to Wendy's. Draw it early and it's probably just a foot note, Draw it late and you're going to have a bad time if you aren't prepared.

drjones87 · 195
Strong disagree. You are correct about not being as readily able to deny it, but unlike mary theres no reason to take horror much from this in the first place. The trick with this weakness is learning that Diana's ability isn't "+x will" its "draw a card and gain a resource once per phase". If you have enough cancels in her you usually use this to drop all the cards out from under her to make space for more. This isn't even close to wendy's. This "weakness" may as well read "draw 5 cards gain 5 resources" if your Diana has enough cancels — NarkasisBroon · 10
I normally wouldn't drop ALL the cards below Diana, but you can scale it accordingly to the situation. Also, it's not true, that DE "does not work" with TS, it just does not work AS GOOD as before. You can negate two horror with it. One by the cancel effect, and one by dropping another card below her, replacing it with DE, so you stay at the same willpower. That's still excellent value, at least for the level 0 version. The level 5 version is imho too expensive in XP to be wasted on TS, because it just gives you one additional horror spare compared to level 0. — Susumu · 372
Polar Mirage

The mystic in my group played Sixth Sense in that scenario and discovered a clue on an adjacent location while being at the Polar Mirage. Do they trigger Polar Mirage or not? Does the "at the attached location" refer to the clue obtained, or the location of the investigator?

In the same campaign we have Kindred Mist using the wording "while you are at the attached location", but we also have Snow Graves using the wording "clue from this location" Neither of them uses the wording "at". So which is it?

SadChara · 1
For Polar Mirage, the condition looks to pretty much be: Did you take a clue from the location that has the mirage? If so, it doesn't matter where YOU are when you got it- you fulfilled the condition on Polar Mirage, and activate its effect. — HanoverFist · 742
I do definitely see what you mean about how "at" could grammatically refer to either you or the clues, but it would seem very strange if the effect was intended to activate just because a person in that room acquired a clue, agnostic of where it came from. — HanoverFist · 742
1. This isn't really an intended place for rules questions, I recommend the mythos busters discord who have loads of lovely knowledgeable people who can go into more detail. 2. I don't know for sure about the wording on polar mirage but 3. It doesn't actually matter for sixth sense because sixth sense causes you to be investigating "as if" at that location. Per the faq other abilities resolved during the duration are resolved with the altered game state in mind, so for the purposes of polar mirage you are at that location while resolving sixth senses special investigate. — NarkasisBroon · 10
Thank you for your answer! I didn't realize the "as if" interaction would do that. Ilm didn't know about the mythos buster discord, I'll make sure to go there next time! — SadChara · 1
Lesson Learned

Not a review but trivia about art. If you type in Google "Walter Smith 1924" you will find a picture of man who looks exactly like the guy in art. Not a coincidence, no chance. Found about it accidentally going through insta stories.

bugiel_marek · 24
That's a very nice find! — Susumu · 372
Excellent catch. I love those 20s mugshots, and you're absolutely right, this is not a coincidence- just look at the stray strands of hair, and the shirt collar. — HanoverFist · 742
Lesson learned indeed. — MrGoldbee · 1477
It says on the newspaper article Walter Smith's picture is from that he broke into the house of Edward Mulligan! So the similarities grow — Sodeon · 1
The Beyond

Parallel Front Jim Culver is what is known as a Jim Culver that has ascended past a Jim Culver.

And Parallel BACK Jim Culver... is to go even FURTHER BEYOND!!


To imperfectly sum up: Parallel Back Jim gets a separate 10 card "spirit deck", full of allies. Every turn he draws one and it enters play, free of charge, requiring no slots. They can't soak (no HP/sanity), but can do just about everything else they could as a regular ally.

You get to put Allies of ANY COLOR into this deck, of L2 or less. This can mean things like a free Leo DeLuca on turn 1.

The downside is reliability- most of the text on The Beyond amounts to "When you put a 4th ghost in play, (probably) discard each ghost." It's based on a token pull for each one, but without chaos bag manipulation, odds are they're gone.

So if you just chuck a bunch of powerful allies into the deck, Jim will ride an erratic wave of powering-up-and-down. With a bit of planning, though, he can instead get a couple high-powered allies in play and keep them there.


Keeping Your Ghosts ... uh... Alive?

This control falls into 2 main categories:

1. Token manipulation

Self-explanatory; when you hit 4 ghosts, you can still use most of the standard tricks to influence what tokens you pull on them, thus protecting the ones you'd like to stick around and allowing the others to move on.

Firstly: Curses in general. Curse tokens keep a ghost alive, and Parallel Front Jim further benefits from Curses, so really you're heavily incentivized to run a curse deck. Consequently...

2. Manual Ghost Removal

Discarding ghosts from play on your own time lets you to avoid the 4-ghost threshold to begin with. Now, there's not a whole lot of tech available to do this externally...

(UPDATE: An official ruling has invalidated the first two options here, see bottom of post.)

  • Sacrifice is great if you choose to run a few purple ghosts
  • Summoned Servitor transforms its usual drawback of discarding an asset on play into a blessing here, becoming the single most versatile "bump off a ghost" tool available to Jim. Just keep it as a normal ally so you control when it's played.
  • Promise Of Power indirectly helps here- one of the ghosts in the ghost deck is a nasty creature weakness that DOES count towards the 4 ghost limit. Connecting a single fight or evade removes it; Promise Of Power gives Jim strong odds of landing that punch.

... but the best manual removal comes from what's in the Ghost Deck to begin with, thanks to self-discarding allies. Stacking it with allies who's abilities cause them to discard themselves lets Jim aim for a few high-powered ghosts he wants to keep around, and a variety of little guys who give small boosts and then get out of the way.


Ghosts Of Interest To Jim

Self-Discarding Ghosts:

Add these, and use their ability when drawn to stay under the 4-ghost threshold, keeping your Superghosts in play longer.

Superghosts!

Allies with great powers that you can build your deck around, and want to remain in play as long as possible.

Delivery Ghosts

Another angle for building the ghost deck; these are Allies who give you something on arrival and/or over a few turns, and whom you don't mind losing upon hitting the 4 ghost limit.


I'm sure there's others who have potential value to Jim- this ability and his statline are amazingly versatile; it's not hard at all to picture a STR or INT based Jim given all the static boosts available, and base stat replacers from Hound & Servitor.

No matter what you do though, you'll have fun with your personally customized audience that gives even Charlie a run for the money.


(Appendix: At time of writing, there's apparently some debate as to whether the text on The Beyond removes the "Asset" quality from ghosts. If so, some of the methods listed above- such as sacrificing a ghost to bring a Servitor into play- would not work. My interpretation of the card is that this isn't the case, and it only affects italicized text traits, but if an official call comes out to the contrary, I'll modify this review.)


UPDATE: As of Mar 13 2024, @HatfulBob posted on Discord an official response to several questions asked about this card. The full list of questions, and their answers, follows:

For spirits attached to Jim Culver's "The Beyond":

  1. Are they still considered assets or some other card type entirely?
  2. Are they still considered under Jim's control?
  3. If 2 is yes, If Jim fails a test on "Crypt Chill" and must choose and discard an asset he controls, can he choose to discard a Spirit attached to the Beyond?
  4. Can he play a card like Summoned Servitor, which requires him to discard a card he controls, to discard a spirit from play?
  5. If the geist weakness in his spirit deck is engaged with him, then defeated, is it placed in Jim's discard pile or at the bottom of the spirit deck?

RESPONSE:

Yes, the spirits are still considered assets, but they are not Ally assets, and cannot be removed from play except by the abilities on The Beyond or abilities on the spirits themselves (e.g. Stray Cat). Jim could not discard a spirit from Crypt Chill or Summoned Servitor. And because the Spirit deck “owns” Vengeful Shade, if it entered play and was later defeated, it gets discarded to the bottom of the Spirit deck (per the rules for discarded spirits).

HanoverFist · 742
Love this deep dive! — MrGoldbee · 1477
A 3rd way to keep your ghosts alive: pair up with Suzi (Subject 5U-21) and have her devour all but 3 of your ghosts. At the begining of your turn, since there's no more card in the deck, none will be attached, and thus you will never hit the 4 ghost threshold. A fun note: if Suzy Regurgitate your ghosts, they become alive somehow! (Regurgitation put those devoured ghosts into your hand, rather then the spirit deck) — ethereal64 · 556
@MrGoldbee: Thank you! Really hope it helps make him more approachable. @ethereal64: DEVIOUS! So long as Jim has a way of dealing with the Vengeful Shade he'll have to draw every round for the rest of the game, but there's probably a few answers to that. — HanoverFist · 742
Binder's Jar solves the Vengeful Shade in this situation. Vengeful Shade is a non-elite enemy and Binder's Jar seals defeated enemies, so you can (ab)use Binder's Jar to permanently seal the Vengeful Shade the first time it appears. — Telosa · 55
["Devil"](/card/10119) says move a damage Does move damage to it also count as place damage on it ? — Lumina637 · 5
Miss Doyle seems fairly legitimate as a geist too? Similar to how Patrice's weakness works, you can use the mini-cat to get rid of Vengeful Shade when it shows up. — slyguavas · 49
Top top review. How does Miss Doyle work in the Spirit deck? — duke_loves_biscuits · 1271
@Lumina637: Yes, it would unfortunately. You can think of the ghosts as damage/horror mugs with a hole in the bottom- anything you put in them, no matter how it gets there, is gonna fall thru and get all over you. — HanoverFist · 742
@duke_loves_biscuits: Thank you! And also to @slyguavas, I can't believe I forgot Miss Doyle- yes, so far as I can tell, and seems like a very solid pick... she'd work perfectly well as a ghost-cat, giving you a 2/3 chance on her arrival of providing a henchkitten who can guarantee a KO on the vengeful shade. — HanoverFist · 742
@Telosa: Very clever solution with the Binder's Jar! That reminds me that Rod Of Carnemagos(2) could also permanently lock-up the Shade if you (perhaps intentionally) whiff the first punch and spawn it. — HanoverFist · 742