Before the Black Throne (TCU 6 of 6) & Bonded Cards

[Duciris 1,347]

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2019/3/25/before-the-black-throne/

Quote

The Call of the Void

As you venture far into space, breaking away from the rest of humanity, other connections grow inexplicably stronger—some cards in this Mythos Pack feature the new bonded keyword, keeping them specifically linked to other player cards. These bonded cards do not have levels and they are not available as options when deckbuilding. Rather, the cards they are bonded to will summon them into play. For example, you can only execute a Blood-Rite (Before the Black Throne, 317) if you have the Occult Lexicon (Before the Black Throne, 316) that teaches you how to perform it. While the lexicon is an asset that you must choose to add to your investigator deck, the event that it summons is not a part of your investigator deck and does not count toward your deck size. In the case of Occult Lexicon, adding this single card to your deck could give you access to three copies of Blood-Rite without removing any other valued cards. Rather, these bonded cards will simply be set aside, ready for the moment you spring them into action!

Color me interested.

[Burgie1996 9]

Can anyone give me an idiots guide to how these bonded cards work?

Edited March 25, 2019 by Burgie1996

[Jobu 720]

Yeah interesting.  Not a Tome that Daisy will use, but still.

1 minute ago, Burgie1996 said:

Can anyone give me an idiots guide to how these bonded cards work?

You play the card.  Then you do something with the bonded cards which were previously out of play.  In this case one goes to your and and the other two get shuffled into your deck.  When the primary card leaves play in this case you loss all the  bonded cards no matter where they are.

[Duciris 1,347]

6 minutes ago, Burgie1996 said:

Can anyone give me an idiots guide to how these bonded cards work?

You can add 1 copy of Occult Lexicon to your deck when deck building.  During a game, on your turn when you have it in hand you may play Occult Lexicon (paying all costs).  It goes into play taking up one of your hand slots.  As part of the play action, you add 1 copy Blood-Rite to your hand & 2 copies to your deck.  Shuffle your deck.  Blood-Rite operates like any other event.  Should Occult Lexicon be discarded, returned to your hand, etc. you take all three copies of Blood-Rite (regardless of where they are) and place them into your set-aside Bonded deck (which is where they were before you played Occult Lexicon).

Edited March 25, 2019 by Duciris

[phillos 1,518]

When it says search your bonded cards what does that mean in the context of "removed from the game".  Specifically if Occult Lexicon leaves play then you have to removed all three copies of Blood-Rite from the game.  Can you get those copies of Blood-Rite back into play if you manage to play Occult Lexicon again or does removing them from the game remove them from your searchable bonded cards?

[SamWeiss 70]

27 minutes ago, Burgie1996 said:

Can anyone give me an idiots guide to how these bonded cards work?

They are like charges, but you have to draw them from your deck and play them from your hand, instead of having them available on the card and tracking them with tokens.

[Duciris 1,347]

4 minutes ago, phillos said:

When it says search your bonded cards what does that mean in the context of "removed from the game".  Specifically if Occult Lexicon leaves play then you have to removed all three copies of Blood-Rite from the game.  Can you get those copies of Blood-Rite back into play if you manage to play Occult Lexicon again or does removing them from the game remove them from your searchable bonded cards?

I believe you can.  As @SamWeiss says:

Just now, SamWeiss said:

They are like charges, but you have to draw them from your deck and play them from your hand, instead of having them available on the card and tracking them with tokens.

"Your bonded cards" looks to be a separate collection of cards that associate with your deck, and are determined by which cards you have that they are bonded to.  If they are removed from the game (or perhaps placed under Diana (if such a card were to exist)) when the trigger happens, they are placed back into the collection of "your bonded cards."

[Jobu 720]

I think the thing is that they work differently based on what it says on the card it is bonded to.

We do know they are a pool of cards that do not start in your deck but enter your hand, your deck, your discard pile or play depending on what the parent card says.

I can envision a card that has its bonded cards immediately attach to multiple enemies or locations.

35 minutes ago, phillos said:

When it says search your bonded cards what does that mean in the context of "removed from the game".  Specifically if Occult Lexicon leaves play then you have to removed all three copies of Blood-Rite from the game.  Can you get those copies of Blood-Rite back into play if you manage to play Occult Lexicon again or does removing them from the game remove them from your searchable bonded cards?

They start out of the game until you play the Tome 1st time, so replaying it would re-summon them from out of the game.

[PJimo 41]

The Bonded wording is confusing. But I think it clears it up if you just think of it as, "You play a spellbook. You may now put 1 reading of the spell into your hand, and shuffle 2 more into your deck. If you ever take the spellbook out of play, also take out of play the reading/use of that spell."

[CSerpent 520]

It's a neat mechanic.  I kind of wish they'd opened it up more, so that one tome could be bonded to more than one spell.

[tsuruki 197]

Holy **** bonded cards are awesome. I wanna see more!

Gang leader: Shuffle enforcers in your deck.

Grenade belt: Shuffle grenades into deck!

Etc 

etc

etc

 

[Buhallin 4,563]

43 minutes ago, CSerpent said:

It's a neat mechanic.  I kind of wish they'd opened it up more, so that one tome could be bonded to more than one spell.

No reason there couldn't be, just don't see it on this one.

I wonder if we'll get three copies of Blood Rite in the pack?  I assume so, but it's odd.  With the Lexicon being 1 per deck I expect we'll get one Lexicon and 3 Blood Rite, making it equal to the normal 2 per.

I'm also not sure that "your bonded cards" means "all out of play cards".  It could potentially be a side deck sort of thing.  I don't expect it, but without seeing the full rules it may be more complicated than we expect.

[Sindriss 52]

54 minutes ago, CSerpent said:

It's a neat mechanic.  I kind of wish they'd opened it up more, so that one tome could be bonded to more than one spell.

I would love this. If it said to add any 3 bonded spells you could choose whatever was most useful in your current situation. It would act as sort of a customizable card.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Sindriss

[Duciris 1,347]

1 hour ago, Buhallin said:

No reason there couldn't be, just don't see it on this one.

I wonder if we'll get three copies of Blood Rite in the pack?  I assume so, but it's odd.  With the Lexicon being 1 per deck I expect we'll get one Lexicon and 3 Blood Rite, making it equal to the normal 2 per.

I'm also not sure that "your bonded cards" means "all out of play cards".  It could potentially be a side deck sort of thing.  I don't expect it, but without seeing the full rules it may be more complicated than we expect.

I'll wager we get 2 Occult Lexicon & 6 Blood-Rites.  We got 2 of Shrewd Analysis (which is also 1 per deck).  In Netrunner, I believe it was in the Mumbad Cycle, they had Limit 6 per deck of several cards, so there is a precedence for it.

[Burgie1996 9]

So what is the benefit of this? Just a stepping to stone to getting spells in your deck?

[Buhallin 4,563]

Just now, Burgie1996 said:

So what is the benefit of this? Just a stepping to stone to getting spells in your deck?

Pretty much.  Similarly to the various Seeker solve-it cards, it puts a bit of a higher bar on the initial play which will then allow stronger effects.  And Blood-Rite is rather strong for a Level 0 - card draw, filtering, resource gain, and direct damage all in one neat and incredibly flexible package.  That would be pretty crazy as a standard L0 card, but with the extra prerequisite of needing the single copy of the Lexicon first, it puts enough burden on it to balance it.

It's also a neat way to circumvent the standard two copy deckbuilding limit, again with the burden of the difficult initial setup.

[mwmcintyre 271]

1 hour ago, Burgie1996 said:

So what is the benefit of this? Just a stepping to stone to getting spells in your deck?

The effect is like having three copies of Blood-Rite in your deck but only taking up one card in your deck size(The Lexicon) and you have to play that one card to get access to them.

[Allonym 954]

Basically, it's three better-than-average, extremely flexible events, but you need to find a specific card and then spend an action and 2 resources and (semi-)permanently give up a hand slot before you can have access to them.

I don't think it's going to be particularly powerful for most actual Seekers - there's a range of really excellent hand slot cards for seekers and they don't need the card draw. They also don't have much way of getting the second and third copies of the Blood Rite into their hand short of just drawing lots of cards, and as the game progresses they'll actually clog up the deck and make it harder to find other cards - and Seekers already have so many incredible cards that the Blood Rites might end up being some of the worst cards in their deck, aside from the flexibility. I can certainly see a really huge swing with Blood Rite and Ancient Stone (Knowledge of the Elders) for loads of testless damage, but it's definitely Ancient Stone doing more of the heavy lifting there.

Daisy might be another story, I can see a fun Daisy build with Research Librarian to get the Lexicon and Tote Bag to potentially alleviate the hand slot pressure, and Arcane Initiate along with lots of other useful spells (Ward of Protection, Deny Existence, etc.) to pull them out; she could build for heavy support and flexibility alongside her exceptional clue gathering. Akachi can take the Lexicon but doesn't have access to the Librarian to tutor it; Marie, on the other hand, will love it, since she can get Librarians and her special ability gives her extra actions that can only be used for spells, so these are nice flexible tools for those turns when she can't easily use that extra action for a more straightforward action like Shrivelling or Rite of Seeking or whatever.

[Soakman 987]

30 minutes ago, mwmcintyre said:

The effect is like having three copies of Blood-Rite in your deck but only taking up one card in your deck size(The Lexicon) and you have to play that one card to get access to them.

I think the real take-away and downside here for me is that you have to first GET lexicon, then play it (taking an action) and then play the spell (taking another action).

I think the idea is great, but this particular card set is not really that spectacular in my opinion unless you are able to get a 2nd or 3rd play of Blood-Rite during the game. If you don't draw those cards, it's just kinda meh.

[SamWeiss 70]

5 hours ago, Soakman said:

I think the real take-away and downside here for me is that you have to first GET lexicon, then play it (taking an action) and then play the spell (taking another action).

I think the idea is great, but this particular card set is not really that spectacular in my opinion unless you are able to get a 2nd or 3rd play of Blood-Rite during the game. If you don't draw those cards, it's just kinda meh.

That's why I equate the mechanic to charges.

Like first getting a Shriveling, then play it (taking an action) and then using the spell (taking another action).
Except the spells are cards in your deck and not in your hand.

And yeah. This is a 2 resource card that takes a hand slot and 1 "charge", and maybe you get 2 more during the game, maybe not.
Are those 2 resources, hand slot, and 2 actions worth a 2 card draw, and maybe 2 more actions for 4 more card draw, and maybe 1-6 cards discarded and 1-6 resources for 1-6 testless damage?

[Duciris 1,347]

I think there could be another an added benefit.  If you've gone through most of your deck but haven't seen one of your scary weaknesses, you can play Occult Lexicon to add 2 additional cards to your thinned deck.  This (I'm just guessing) will more-or-less hold true for all Bonded cards.  Early in the game, you'd be making your draw odds worse by adding cards you aren't looking for.  Later in the game, however, you can filter your odds through additional non-weakness cards.

This is amplified when dealing with cards like Beyond the Veil which will most likely kill you if your deck runs out.

[Annette Soleil 89]

It's a cool mechanic, but oof. Between these and the multi-class cards, this cycle seems to just love complicating my storage solutions.

[Jobu 720]

1 hour ago, Annette Soleil said:

It's a cool mechanic, but oof. Between these and the multi-class cards, this cycle seems to just love complicating my storage solutions. 

Its not so bad.  I store one copy of the multi class cards under each role its associated with.

For these I will just put the bonded cards in with the card it is bonded to. 

When someone adds the Occult Lexicon to their deck, I see no reason for them not to pull out the copies of Blood-Rite and place them near their deck.

My question is what happens with characters with limited slots in Seeker?  Or to ask another way, does this ability wave deck building requirements or is that still enforced?  Its already waving the card count for your deck so I figure it will also wave any other restrictions.

[Soakman 987]

4 minutes ago, Jobu said:

Its not so bad.  I store one copy of the multi class cards under each role its associated with.

For these I will just put the bonded cards in with the card it is bonded to. 

When someone adds the Occult Lexicon to their deck, I see no reason for them not to pull out the copies of Blood-Rite and place them near their deck.

My question is what happens with characters with limited slots in Seeker?  Or to ask another way, does this ability wave deck building requirements or is that still enforced?  Its already waving the card count for your deck so I figure it will also wave any other restrictions.

I would assume that only the lexicon would take up a slot. The requirements are for deck construction and bonded cards are not part of your deck until Lexicon (or whatever parent card) is put into play.

That's just an assumption though.

[Buhallin 4,563]

1 hour ago, Soakman said:

I would assume that only the lexicon would take up a slot. The requirements are for deck construction and bonded cards are not part of your deck until Lexicon (or whatever parent card) is put into play.

This feels right to me.