Card Review: Union and Disillusion

No gimmicks this time, just more cards!

Warning Shot

This is just some great Guardian utility. 2 resources and 1 ammo gets every non-Elite enemy out of your square. Now, bear in mind, it only disengages the enemies, rather than exhausting them, so Hunters will just turn right back around and hit you again, but it's phenomenal in the proper circumstances.

So what are the proper circumstances? Obviously, this is basically a free win against non-Hunters who don't accumulate doom or otherwise require killing, particularly if you can chase them into a clue-free dead end. Even with Hunters, you can just leave the location (especially if your Seeker expects to clear it) and re-engage later on more favorable terms (whether that means escaping a location that buffs them, clearing a nasty treachery like Frozen in Fear, or taking the opportunity for a Moment of Respite). Ideally, you'll have other combo cards that can follow up on the mass retreat: Barricade (for Joe) to add an emphatic "And stay out!", Marksmanship to snipe a particularly troublesome enemy without worrying about hitting the friend it's engaged with, and of course Dynamite Blast to wipe them out when they're all grouped up.

One final note: Don't forget that not all ammo is created equal. You ideally want to use this with the BAR, .32, or Thompson, and not, say, the Lightning Gun (barring certain absurd Contraband builds). Fortunately, it's level 0, so it's easy to cut if you end up going with the low-ammo big guns.

Telescopic Sight

A fast upgrade that lets you target adjacent enemies once per round is pretty good. One that costs 3xp, 3r and, more importantly, disables your ability to target enemies engaged with you is... not so good. What's worse, it can only be added to two-handed firearms, so you can't even rely on a backup weapon (not without throwing on a Bandolier, at which point you're looking for four different cards to make the setup work). And, again, that's 3xp, so it's barred from Diana and Joe, meaning no spells or Ichor to use in melee.

So who does it work for? As of right now, it's mostly restricted to Leo. Cat Burglar, Decoy, and "You Handle This One!" can make him surprisingly slippery despite his abysmal agility. You could potentially make it work for other Guardians (except Zoey) paired with a solid evasion tank (or a regular tank if you're running some gimmicky all-blue party), but that seems like a lot of trouble if you're planning on killing everything anyway. Roland might potentially get some use out of it: His reaction doesn't care where the enemy is, so he might actually want to reposition himself before landing the killing blow.

Mostly I'm hoping this is a hint for an upcoming agility-focused Guardian, or some other high-agility character who can use it (a Daniela Reyes with Rogue 0-5 and Upgrade 0-3, maybe?). It's very much the integral piece of a combo that doesn't exist.

Knowledge Is Power

It's a fast, free use of any Tome or Spell, even the ones you haven't played. Do I really have to sell you on this? It's instantly one of the most versatile cards in the game. It can be an actionless attack, actionless economy, actionless anything as long as you have the right asset in your hand or play area. It gives extra life to assets that you otherwise wouldn't play, such as a late draw of Rite of Seeking or any Tome. If you're Marie, and you have Blood Pact, it effectively has three will icons that you can only commit to yourself. It's very good and will only get better as the card pool expands. If you're running lots of Tomes, take it. If you end up buying Pnakotic Manuscripts, spend the measly 1xp surcharge to take it. If you're Jim or Marie, strongly consider using your cross-class slots on it.

Esoteric Atlas

1xp , 3 resources, and a hand slot for what amounts to four free moves is a questionable exchange in the class that already has Pathfinder. The fact that you skip the intervening space is a niche benefit. The real sticking point is that you can only go to revealed locations, making this a very specialized card that only has value in scenarios with a lot of backtracking. Now, don't get me wrong, it's quite good in those scenarios (combine it with Pathfinder and you can get to any point in Curse of the Rougarou or Wages of Sin in a single action!), but campaign play can make its value vary wildly.

Of the current campaigns, it seems most useful in Carcosa and TCU. I'd consider it in those campaigns (especially as Daisy) and for standalones (but purchase Pathfinder first). TFA's exploration makes the Atlas tricky to value; it might be worth it if you aren't the one doing the exploring, but you're mostly at the mercy of whatever order the locations show up in. Dunwich has roughly two scenarios where it might be handy and quite a few where it's all but useless; Pathfinder is all you need in that campaign.

Investments

Okay, let's do the math on this one. By the time you withdraw your Investment, you've spend 1 resource and 2 actions on it. If you get 3 supplies off it, you should've just used the resource actions. If you get 5 supplies, it's basically an Emergency Cache. If you get 10 supplies, it's Emergency Cache + Hot Streak (4), and you save a card.

Then we have to factor in the cost of waiting, which is a bit trickier. That said, every economist will tell you that money today is worth more than money tomorrow. Also, bear in mind that the average agenda deck gives you ~18 turns in the game (barring doom acceleration). Thus, you will, at best, get the full 10 resources when you're over halfway done with the scenario, and you'll often have to wait even longer than that (since this card is hardly worth a mulligan).

In other words: Smart savers invest. Smart investigators know that Yog-Sothoth is about to become one with Wall Street, so investments are meaningless anyway.

Note that there may be a few exceptions to the rule. Wendy and Sefina can be go heavy on expensive events and use the money even in the late game (and Wendy can't get Hot Streak (4)). Preston is another event-lover, and this is one of the few economy cards that bypass his Inheritance mechanic. Lastly, if your basic weakness is Paranoia, even an immature Investment will get you on your feet faster than Hot Streak.

Decoy

It's a 2-resource auto-evasion that targets anyone at your location. Even if you're already the evade tank, it saves you a resource having to engage the enemy. 2 resources for 1 action is pretty much the going rate for Rogues, and an evasion tank will usually end up taking the engage action sooner or later, so it's mostly a question of whether you need this on top of Quick Reflexes. Of course, it's even better for investigators with low agility, or if you know to expect high-evade, Alert enemies in a given scenario.

It's a 4-resource ranged auto-evade. Pricey and situational, but it's pretty much unique in its niche there. There aren't many Hunters that are worth 4 resources to keep at bay (barring Elites, which are sadly immune), but if you or your friends get cornered by an Abyssal Revenant or Eater of the Depths, it's worth it. You can also use it to let your Seekers play a little more boldly, knowing that you can bail them out from two connections away if they pull an enemy.

It's a 4-resource double-evade. That's actually pretty efficient if you keep your party together, at least as far as evade-tanking goes. Of course, normally you want to start killing enemies at that point, so it's normally something that comes up with lots of tanky enemies (like The Secret Name and its limitless hordes of 5-health rats) or Vengeance.

It's a 6-resource ranged double-evade. That's ludicrously expensive. There are maybe a handful of scenarios where that comes up (mostly when all those Boas and Basilisks you aren't allowed to kill end up merging together into a single Bloodborne-esque snakeball of death). When it does come up, Decoy's the only card that does it, so it's got that going for it.

It's all of the above at once. Do four different functions ranging from "okay-ish" to "situational" merge together to make a single good card? To be honest, no. The response-triggered functions are so pricey and situational you can't really plan around using them (unlike Intel Report, where the double-clue is pretty much always useful). For the most part, you'll take it if you need the basic 2-resource version, and treat the kickers as an occasional bonus. The exception is absurdly wealthy investigators (like Preston and Hot Streak Sefina), who might actually want to pay the premiums.

De Vermis Mysteriis

Talk about your devil's bargains. You spend 2 resources to get this level 2 Tome into play, and then you can play Spells and Insights from the discard pile... at the cost of doom. Now, it can target any Insight or Spell event with two exceptions: First, it takes an action, so you can't use it with Fast events that have specific triggers. Second, it removes the card "after that event resolves," so events that attach or go someplace other than the discard are rendered useless (Yes, that means you can't recur Bind Monster. I'll give you a moment to compose yourselves).

That makes it incredibly flexible, but playing all those events (even with a 1-resource discount) will get expensive, and you won't have Renfield to help pay for them--At least I certainly hope you won't, you utter maniac. Speaking of everyone's favorite eschatologist, while he and Alyssa both have functions that don't add doom (though Renfield needs at least one doom to work), DVM requires that you keep increasing doom every time. That quickly becomes unsustainable.

On the upside, if you can afford playing multiple events with it, you've got multiple options for clearing its doom. In particular, you can recur Moonlight Ritual with it, thereby negating its own cost and clearing multiple doom for one action. That can eke out a few more uses from it, particularly if you've also got Knowledge Is Power.

The biggest downside is that Mystics have so many hand assets that are safer and easier to use. You have to recur a lot of events before holding this thing becomes better than holding an Athame, and that means a lot of resources spent (with no Renfield!) and a lot of doom clearing. You might be able to manage it in something like Essex County Express where the witching hours are common occurrences, but in most scenarios, it's a dangerous risk.

Guiding Spirit

Everyone give a big round of applause to our returning guest: The Exile mechanic! Despite only showing up in a handful of Mythos packs, the Exile mechanic is central to the Survivor identity: Since they lack higher-level cards, Survivors can instead spend xp on powerful one-off effects. It also gives them a unique sort of adaptability: By replacing level 0 cards with exile cards, they can swap out their cards (albeit slowly) and still gain benefit from the experience.

So, are these new Exile cards worth the cost? Guiding Spirit certainly seems to be! It's a 1 resource ally with a constant +1 intellect. Again, that's a constant stat bonus at only 1 resource. True, you don't get anything else besides the soak, but that's still an absurd amount of value given that a constant stat boost at level 0 usually costs a whopping 4 resources. Better yet, you don't actually exile it until it's defeated.

Now, it does have the pretty big downside in that you have to assign horror to it before tanking it yourself (presumably "Guiding" really means "Possessing" and you're only half-aware of all the horrible things you're witnessing). That's not as big a deal for the class with Cherished Keepsake and (post-Charisma) Peter Sylvestre, but it's not nothing. Still, even if it only sticks around for a few rounds, you're getting a lot of value from that 1 resource. Plus, if you are forced to exile it, that means it soaked 3 horror that would have otherwise gone on you. You're out 1 xp, but you're in a much better position than you would've been otherwise, one you can often leverage to get at least an extra VP and break even.

Fortune or Fate

Another exile card, and this one's a doozy: It cancels doom on any card. That includes the agenda. That lets you delay any agenda's advancement by one round. Now, note that this doesn't extend the witching hour (you still check the agenda for advancement regardless of whether you place doom on it), but it can push it to a more useful turn.

Even without Mystic doom shenanigans, there should be no need to sell anyone on the benefits of an extra round. Even if you don't find yourself constantly down to the wire, or you're more scared of damage/horror than doom, plenty of agendas are nasty enough without losing the game for you. An extra round on the agenda means an extra round before the Harbinger spawns. It means an extra round of criminals being Aloof in The House Always Wins. It means an extra round to interview a cast member in The Last King before you have to gamble on them flipping (and an extra round to prepare for their reappearance later on).

Now, a powerful effect requires a powerful cost, and 2xp exiled is not nothing. If you're facing a scenario with Ancient Evils, then A Test of Will can do the same thing at half the cost. You're mostly going to want this when there is a specific agenda you want to delay and the main doom threat isn't treacheries. As I alluded to above, that mostly applies to TFA and certain Carcosa scenarios, though TCU has a few scenarios so far that fit the bill. It also has the small advantage of being playable at the start of the Mythos phase, rather than in response to a card being drawn, which is sometimes important (eg when the doom accelerator has Peril, or when you draw Dissonant Voices right before someone else draws Ancient Evils).