Blood on the Altar on CardgameDB

[987654321 232]

http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/arkhamhorror/arkham-horror-the-card-game/_/the-dunwich-legacy-cycle/blood-on-the-altar/

[VermillionDe 70]

Hahaha, I looooove defiance. Definitely a card for Jim, among others. Mostly the concept is fantastic though. 

[Buhallin 4,563]

The differences in the class permanent boosters is interesting.

Guardian: 2 for +1 (0.5)
Seeker: 1 for +2, hand requirement (2.0)
Mystic: Doom for +3 (3.0? Sorta?)
Survivor: 1 for 1 (1.0)
Rogue: 2 for +3 (1.5)

Guardians definitely seem to get the worst of it efficiency-wise.  All the classes seem to get their core attributes covered at least.

[awp832 447]

hm.  Defiance seems like the worst card in the pack by far to me.   Why do you like it so much? 

It's hard to compare stat boosters directly, guardian's Keen Eye affects the whole turn, so is more efficient if you plan on doing several of the same action on your turn.  They all have their quirks.

[Buhallin 4,563]

1 minute ago, awp832 said:

hm.  Defiance seems like the worst card in the pack by far to me.   Why do you like it so much? 

It's hard to compare stat boosters directly, guardian's Keen Eye affects the whole turn, so is more efficient if you plan on doing several of the same action on your turn.  They all have their quirks.

Ah, I'd missed that.  So it could potentially be 2 for +3, same as the Rogue, but more situational.

I really like the variety they put into them, that it's not just more clones like the base ones are.  I do wish Higher Education had a base effect that got better, rather than outright relying on the 5 cards to do anything at all... but I'm playing Rex at the moment, so should be fine

[soullos 147]

hmm... Not a fan of Keen Eye (and to a lesser extent, Scrapper) vs the other stat boosters. Seems weak. Sure it lasts longer, but I rather have a sizable bonus to better guarantee a success, then a smaller flatter bonus for multiple tests. For 3 XP, hmm... I don't know...

[Whipporwill 15]

Is the limit on lone wolf a limit of 1 use per investigator or is it limit 1 per deck per investigator?

[Buhallin 4,563]

4 minutes ago, Whipporwill said:

Is the limit on lone wolf a limit of 1 use per investigator or is it limit 1 per deck per investigator?

One in play.

[shosuko 2,174]

Lone Wolf's got what Skids craves.

[VermillionDe 70]

18 hours ago, awp832 said:

hm.  Defiance seems like the worst card in the pack by far to me.   Why do you like it so much? 

Well, two things. One, I think it's hysterical from a thematic standpoint.

Two, I think it's a great card for Jim Culver. With Jim you're playing the odds in the token bag. You already turn skulls to 0s but you can't wipe the special text on it. Ritual candles raise the modifiers for symbol tokens but again, you're at the mercy of the text. With a ritual candle, arcane training and hard knocks you can pass the vast majority of skill tests. But Defiance gives an extra level of protection.

The obvious choice is to just take the heaviest modifier and blank it. If you're doing your job right with Jim, you should auto pass if you draw that token. However there are times when failing is not the worst thing that could happen. (some spoilers ahead) Like in miskatonic museum where the wrong token draw can summon an enemy. The thing that scares me the most is when a token draw can ruin the whole scenario, like in devourer below where a cultist token puts a doom (or two) on an enemy, this is not an uncommon result either.

In addition to that, we've seen several occasions now where taking a wrong course of action can put an elder thing token in the bag. By the end of 7 cycles, how many do you think you'll have? 2? 3? Could it be more? At that point you're swinging the odds greatly in your favor by turning the most plentiful token in the bag from say -3, take a damage I'd you fail to 0. 

I agree that it's a situational card but for Jims strategy of playing the bag it can be a utility (or even a card you trade out for grotesque statue later). Depending on how the bag goes it can also be a control issue, similar to using a scrying on the encounter deck. With Jim's primary role being support/test grinding I would say it's a great pick for him. But that's just my opinion.

[Khudzlin 734]

And don't forget that the special effects get significantly worse when you play in hard or expert mode.

[Network57 561]

2 hours ago, VermillionDe said:

Well, two things. One, I think it's hysterical from a thematic standpoint.

Two, I think it's a great card for Jim Culver. With Jim you're playing the odds in the token bag. You already turn skulls to 0s but you can't wipe the special text on it. Ritual candles raise the modifiers for symbol tokens but again, you're at the mercy of the text. With a ritual candle, arcane training and hard knocks you can pass the vast majority of skill tests. But Defiance gives an extra level of protection.

The obvious choice is to just take the heaviest modifier and blank it. If you're doing your job right with Jim, you should auto pass if you draw that token. However there are times when failing is not the worst thing that could happen. (some spoilers ahead) Like in miskatonic museum where the wrong token draw can summon an enemy. The thing that scares me the most is when a token draw can ruin the whole scenario, like in devourer below where a cultist token puts a doom (or two) on an enemy, this is not an uncommon result either.

In addition to that, we've seen several occasions now where taking a wrong course of action can put an elder thing token in the bag. By the end of 7 cycles, how many do you think you'll have? 2? 3? Could it be more? At that point you're swinging the odds greatly in your favor by turning the most plentiful token in the bag from say -3, take a damage I'd you fail to 0. 

I agree that it's a situational card but for Jims strategy of playing the bag it can be a utility (or even a card you trade out for grotesque statue later). Depending on how the bag goes it can also be a control issue, similar to using a scrying on the encounter deck. With Jim's primary role being support/test grinding I would say it's a great pick for him. But that's just my opinion.

I think this card kind of makes Jim. I need to update my stats sheets, but having Skulls as 0 plus optionally ignoring a 2nd token means your odds of succeeding at just +1 over difficulty are significantly greater than other investigators.

[awp832 447]

I guess I really just can't agree.  I think it's a very poor card, honestly.

For starters, it's not any better for Jim than it is for anyone else.   You're not re-drawing the token, so there isn't an extra chance to get a skull and trigger Jim's ability.  It only mitigates the effects of the token that you do draw.   

More importantly though, is basic probability.  The token distribution in the bag varies slightly,   but at the start of  Night of the Zealot there are 16 chaos tokens, and at the start of Dunwich Legacy there are 15.   In each scenario there are 2 skulls, and 1 cultist.  Neither scenario starts with an Elder Thing, and Night of the Zealot starts with a Tablet where Dunwich does not.  

So suppose I'm playing Night of the Zealot and here I am going into a check and I can play Defiance, and I have to name in advance  the thing that I don't want, then draw.  So I name say, the Cultist.  I have a 1/16 chance of this card saving me from the effects of the Cultist, and a 15/16 chance that it doesn't do anything aside from provide its 1 Wild icon.  Allright, well sure, I could name the Skull token instead, because there are two of those (we're not helping Jim's case much here, but ok), my odds have improved to 1/8 chance of avoiding the skull effect and 7/8 chance to do nothing.   I'm still not convinced.  I'd rather have an Unexpected Courage.

Edited April 11, 2017 by awp832

[VermillionDe 70]

You're entitled to your opinion, and I don't disagree. I think if you're not playing Jim then Defiance is a fairly specific card, if I was playing Jenny Id probably only stock it if there were like 4 elder thing tokens in the bag (what was I DOING?!). 

My argument rests on two points in particular. One, you're playing Jim. Specifically you're playing an "against the odds" Jim deck where you're already pretty focussed on tipping skill checks in your favor. Two, you're not using it for the obvious numerical adjustment, but rather to risk proof a draw from the bag. 

Take Essex county express for example (minor spoiler), if you draw a tablet you get -4 and add a doom token to each cultist in play. If youre playing jim vs the token bag, you can pass -4 no problem. However, you place doom tokens regardless of if you pass or not. Set up correctly, Jim should never be shy about putting his hand in the token bag. Defiance removes the risk, because in cases like this I'd rather fail then screw up the scenario. Unexpected courage can't insulate from that. My view on this is that it's not about numerical adjustments that most skill cards do. It's mitigating risk, even at 1/16th, that risk can still be game ending.

Edited April 11, 2017 by VermillionDe
Grammar

[Buhallin 4,563]

4 minutes ago, VermillionDe said:

Take Essex county express for example (minor spoiler), if you draw a tablet you get -4 and add a doom token to each cultist in play. If youre playing jim vs the token bag, you can pass -4 no problem.

What am I missing about Jim?  How does he pass a -4 "no problem"?

 

[VermillionDe 70]

I'm talking about using a deck construction with Jim to rig the bag in your favor: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/6493

I run it a lot in my group as support.

Edited April 11, 2017 by VermillionDe
Spelling

[Buhallin 4,563]

1 hour ago, VermillionDe said:

I'm talking about using a deck construction with Jim to rig the bag in your favor: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/6493

I run it a lot in my group as support.

Deck isn't shared, can you publish it?  Or copy it here?  I'm curious to see how it works.

[VermillionDe 70]

Whoops, sorry, that was to a revision. Here you go: https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/661/jim-culver-luckiest-cat-in-town-1.0

 

 

[Buhallin 4,563]

OK, thanks - I see the confusion.  It sounded like you were saying you could clear -4s with ease just through control of the token bag, and I was very confused how that was working.  It sounds like you're looking at that as the starting value, and combining boosts from things like Hard Knocks.  In my brain since we were talking about the token bag, I was looking at that as the final after-modifiers deficit, and had no idea how you were consistently getting +4s out of the bag

 

[Network57 561]

In The House Always Wins, if you're break-even on a test, you have a 26.67% chance of succeeding. Unless you're Jim and you play Defiance, calling Cultist: then you have a 66.67% chance of succeeding. That is not insignificant at all.

[BD Flory 695]

5 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

And don't forget that the special effects get significantly worse when you play in hard or expert mode.

Indeed. I won't take it much in standard, but there are many circumstances in hard/expert where it can turn off a 1 in 16, or 1 in 8, or even worse, chance of outright game loss/elimination because you drew the wrong icon, or even if you pass thr skill test with the wrong icon. Well worth the card slot.

[Doma0997 72]

He's very much a luck mitigation character, so this suits him rather well. However, it being a one time use skill, it feels rather awkward. What I do really like it for is anything with a -X in the game, because they can do pretty much anything with X. I wish it was a higher level asset that let you pick before each draw, or a one time pick permanent shut down as you play it

[Buhallin 4,563]

4 minutes ago, Network57 said:

In The House Always Wins, if you're break-even on a test, you have a 26.67% chance of succeeding. Unless you're Jim and you play Defiance, calling Cultist: then you have a 66.67% chance of succeeding. That is not insignificant at all.

But how much of that improvement is Jim, and how much is Defiance?  The actual benefit you get from Defiance is going to be the same no matter who it is.  Honestly, for a lot of scenarios Jim's the WORST one to use it, because he already ignores skulls which are typically the most common token in the bag.

[VermillionDe 70]

15 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

OK, thanks - I see the confusion.  It sounded like you were saying you could clear -4s with ease just through control of the token bag, and I was very confused how that was working.  It sounds like you're looking at that as the starting value, and combining boosts from things like Hard Knocks.  In my brain since we were talking about the token bag, I was looking at that as the final after-modifiers deficit, and had no idea how you were consistently getting +4s out of the bag

 

Ahhh, yeah I totally see the confusion. I should have been more clear about where I was pulling the numbers from. Yeah the idea is to stack the bonuses in Jim's already modified favor. Pretty easy to do with his skills and deck setup. I like it a lot.

 

11 minutes ago, Network57 said:

In The House Always Wins, if you're break-even on a test, you have a 26.67% chance of succeeding. Unless you're Jim and you play Defiance, calling Cultist: then you have a 66.67% chance of succeeding. That is not insignificant at all.

That shouldn't make me as excited as it does, should it? Because that actually made me laugh out loud when I looked at the numbers. There's definitely something wrong with me.

3 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

But how much of that improvement is Jim, and how much is Defiance?  The actual benefit you get from Defiance is going to be the same no matter who it is.  Honestly, for a lot of scenarios Jim's the WORST one to use it, because he already ignores skulls which are typically the most common token in the bag.

Some of it is definitely Jim, but remember he doesn't ignore the skull result. He only sets the numeric to zero, so there may actually be times when Jim would want to use defiance on a skull to mitigate secondary risk, especially since he may want to turn an elder sign token to a skull if it didn't make things worse.

Edited April 11, 2017 by VermillionDe
Typos

[Network57 561]

Just now, Buhallin said:

But how much of that improvement is Jim, and how much is Defiance?  The actual benefit you get from Defiance is going to be the same no matter who it is.  Honestly, for a lot of scenarios Jim's the WORST one to use it, because he already ignores skulls which are typically the most common token in the bag.

The strategy for Jim is to commit to only 1 over a test. Committing Jim 2 over a test, you're generally in the same boat as any other Investigator. But at 1 over, or even break even, you're in better shape. You have to be willing to play a little fast and loose with Jim to actually use his ability. Defiance just makes that even better. You stand even better odds of succeeding at 1 over, which with Jim you should be doing anyways.

To answer your question: with anyone else at 1 over, Defiance gives you ~53% chance of success. So yes, it's better with Jim in that regard.