Except each investigator comes with two unique cards not one. Something good and a weakness.

What makes you guys think that the weakness will be random? You can choose all other cards in the deck...and the text says " your deck must include the cards Roland's .38 Special ( Core Set , 6) and Cover Up ( Core Set , 7), along with one basic weakness, such as Paranoia ( Core Set , 97) or Amnesia ( Core Set , 96). These character-specific cards, then, are part of who Roland ..."

So my guess is that you can pick any weakness with the basic trait? Maybe some Character (not Roland) says you must have a specific one, or forbids some basic one due to lore, ... but in general any basic could be ok.

Specially since you could say "I am going to make a deck", build it put a random weakness. If it is not the one desired say "no, I will start again", then rebuild, etc until you get the desired weakness.

Because it says one random basic weakness right on the card.

What makes you guys think that the weakness will be random? You can choose all other cards in the deck...and the text says " your deck must include the cards Roland's .38 Special ( Core Set , 6) and Cover Up ( Core Set , 7), along with one basic weakness, such as Paranoia ( Core Set , 97) or Amnesia ( Core Set , 96). These character-specific cards, then, are part of who Roland ..."

So my guess is that you can pick any weakness with the basic trait? Maybe some Character (not Roland) says you must have a specific one, or forbids some basic one due to lore, ... but in general any basic could be ok.

Specially since you could say "I am going to make a deck", build it put a random weakness. If it is not the one desired say "no, I will start again", then rebuild, etc until you get the desired weakness.

Because it says one random basic weakness right on the card.

This is a very interesting concept. So my question would be when do you select the random weakness? Would it be before you built the rest of your deck or after? If you select it before this will allow you to build your deck accordingly. I haven't decided which I would prefer.

As far as rebuilding your deck to get a better weakness, this is a coop game if you really want to "cheat in" the weakness you want you can, it's not that big of deal. But you're probably taking away from the experience in doing so.

Because it says one random basic weakness right on the card.

This is a very interesting concept. So my question would be when do you select the random weakness? Would it be before you built the rest of your deck or after? If you select it before this will allow you to build your deck accordingly. I haven't decided which I would prefer.

As far as rebuilding your deck to get a better weakness, this is a coop game if you really want to "cheat in" the weakness you want you can, it's not that big of deal. But you're probably taking away from the experience in doing so.

You're definitely taking away from the experience.

Because it says one random basic weakness right on the card.

This is a very interesting concept. So my question would be when do you select the random weakness? Would it be before you built the rest of your deck or after? If you select it before this will allow you to build your deck accordingly. I haven't decided which I would prefer.

As far as rebuilding your deck to get a better weakness, this is a coop game if you really want to "cheat in" the weakness you want you can, it's not that big of deal. But you're probably taking away from the experience in doing so.

You're definitely taking away from the experience.

What we don't know that's new is how common the upgrade cards will be and what percentage of a card upgrades should "count for" in terms of deck building variety.

I don't want to further this discussion, it's already been stablished that you and I see things differently regarding deckbuilding (and hypotethical card distribution too), but I would like to point out that we sorta know the answers to those two questions. Many and none.

From the GTM article:

" Many of the player cards in Arkham Horror: The Card Game require that you spend experience to add them to your deck. At the beginning of a campain, you have zero experience, so you have to build your deck without these cards."

We could argue that upgraded cards are also part of the deckbuilding process, but since you can't know for sure how many experience you will get each scenario, it's hard to build a deck with those cards in mind.

That's something, but only in a fairly vague sense. What we'd like to be able to do is be able to crunch numbers to compare how many deck combinations this game has relative to other LCGs (most likely in a core-only configuration in order to make it apples-to-apples).

"Many cards" isn't precise enough for me to draw any conclusions. And even if upgrade cards exist for a card, that doesn't mean those upgrades are in the core, they could come out in a later expansion, which make this even less accurate.

" At the beginning of a campaign, you have zero experience, so you have to build your deck without these cards."

Yes, this we already knew from earlier. And I think we're actually somewhat in agreement based on your statement " We could argue that upgraded cards are also part of the deckbuilding process, but since you can't know for sure how many experience you will get each scenario, it's hard to build a deck with those cards in mind." We may just be using different terminology.

Say a normal card in an LCG counts as one card for deck building variety because you can put in any deck you want to. Now, how can we compare an upgradable card in Arkham Horror to that? It depends on a lot of factors, most of which we do not yet know or understand well.

Now let's say that a particular upgrade card you want costs 1xp, it's cheap. If a campaign is 6 quests long, I'd be able to put this into 5/6th of my decks. Not in the deck for the first quest of a new campaign, but I know I'll earn enough xp to include it in the remaining 5. A more expensive upgrade card might cost enough xp that it takes more time to save up for it. Maybe it takes two quests to get enough, so I can theoretically put it into only 4/6ths of my decks.

But, there is also opportunity cost. Much like out-of-faction cards in Netrunner, you cannot afford an unlimited number of these cards. So it's not just a matter of having enough xp, I must also not have already used that xp on OTHER upgrade cards I want. So the real availability of any given upgrade card is actually less than the 5/6 or 4/6 from above. How much less? We don't know, because we don't know enough about how much contention there will be for upgrade slots, or how much xp you earn per quest, or how many upgrade cards will be competing for our xp and what level cards we'll be interested in.

So basically what I was saying is that there are enough unknown and fuzzy factors involved that it's difficult to judge how much variety a new upgrade card adds to the game compared to a new level 0 card. Hopefully that makes sense.

As far as "it's hard to build a deck with those cards in mind"... Another thing we don't know is whether you can change your deck outside of 1:1 upgrades between quests. If we can, then you don't have to build with anything in mind. If we can't, some people will anyway because hey, it's co-op and nobody's there to stop you. But let's say we can't and you don't want to bend the rules. Even in that case, an experienced player will have a good idea of how much xp you typically earn per quest so I think you actually would be able to plan ahead fairly well. You'd be thinking "OK, what I really want in this deck is a level X version of this card. So I'm going to put in the level 0 now and I know based on the usual earn rates that I'll be able to swap in my preferred version for quest 2". You might even have more detailed plans. "If I earn only 3 xp I'm going to upgrade my Shotgun to a double barrel next, but if I earn 4 or more then first I'll replace my level 0 spell with the better one and do the Shotgun after the second quest". Or if you're playing that campaign for the first time you might want to have backup plans: "I have three upgradable cards in my deck right now, the Shotgun for combat, this book for investigation, or my cloak of shadows for evading. Depending on what the first quest seems to emphasize, I'll upgrade whichever one first I feel is the best fit for this campaign". Think of it as a type of mini-sideboard.

You don't upgrade like for like.

You could upgrade a single barrel shotgun to a double barrel.... or you could upgrade a lucky rabbit's foot to a hand grenade.

Picking the weakness randomly seems weird, but can make for interesting gameplay choices.

How else would we pick weaknesses? If they're supposed to be bad for you, picking them randomly is the only way to go. Otherwise, you're either picking the weakness that you think will not really impact you, or trying to figure out how to turn a weakness into a strength - neither of which is likely to be what they are going for thematically.

You have weakness specifically for your investigator correct? You wouldn't get a choice in that. Also, i got the impression that the game may force you to add weakness to your deck based on how you did in the scenario, can anyone confirm this ?

And on earlier posts, How do you know 30 card deck limit? Is that a minimum deck size or maximum deck size?

And finally, how do we know some of the class building restrictions?

And on earlier posts, How do you know 30 card deck limit? Is that a minimum deck size or maximum deck size?

It's on the character sheets, and yes.

You have weakness specifically for your investigator correct? You wouldn't get a choice in that. Also, i got the impression that the game may force you to add weakness to your deck based on how you did in the scenario, can anyone confirm this ?

You have one investigator-specific weakness and one random weakness. Currently, the only confirmed persistent penalty is trauma (which reduces max health or sanity), which you suffer for letting an investigator be defeated. Scenarios will almost certainly have their own rules for lasting consequences (as with the Boons and Burdens of LotR), which may include adding more weaknesses to your deck.

That's something, but only in a fairly vague sense. What we'd like to be able to do is be able to crunch numbers to compare how many deck combinations this game has relative to other LCGs (most likely in a core-only configuration in order to make it apples-to-apples).

Well, since the decks are tied to the number of investigators, I would say only 5 decks can be made out of the core set; but if it's numbers you need to make the comparition, from the spoiled stuff, a core set comes with 10 level 0 cards and 4 upgraded ones for each class, and 2 copies of 10 different neutrals (although only 8 has been actually confirmed, but I'm praying that the missing 2 spots between neutrals and basic weakness are actually neutral cards and not the later, which could be located in the 5 card gap after the 2 spoiled ones).

So how does that compare to other LCG?

A bit surprisingly, the new preview still hasn't really cleared up the question of how much you can alter your deck between scenarios in a campaign.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/9/7/uncovering-the-truth/

It references upgrading your deck, but also notes that some cards have no zero level version. So you obviously can do more than just swap for higher level versions, or those cards would never be available.

So we still don't know if you can swap out cards for level 0 cards of different titles between scenarios, or if it's upgrade only. Or even if you can swap higher level cards back to lower level cards so you can upgrade something else instead.

Maybe upgrading a card with one with higher level costs you some amount of experience points, and swapping a card with other with different title costs you a different amount.

According to this, swapping 0 level cards between scenarios costs 1 experience each.

https://theshadowarchive.net/an-introduction-to-arkham-horror/

So you really want to avoid changing cards between games because it use your experience that you could use to buy better versions, instead of chancing zero level to another zero level card...

So the changes in the deck are indeed rare and cranual!

According to this, swapping 0 level cards between scenarios costs 1 experience each.

https://theshadowarchive.net/an-introduction-to-arkham-horror/

Is there a source for that? I'm assuming they were at GenCon (hence all those pictures I haven't seen elsewhere), but some of the text suggests they haven't read the full rules (eg, "Based on some of the cards that have been spoiled, it seems likely that doom will be placed on other cards, and when those cards leave play or are destroyed, the doom will be transferred to the current agenda"). Is the 1 xp cost to change cards more speculation, or was it actually confirmed?

(I hope it's confirmed, because it gives the decks more continuity and implies that each scenario will only require minor adjustments to your deck, but I want to be sure.)

According to this, swapping 0 level cards between scenarios costs 1 experience each.

https://theshadowarchive.net/an-introduction-to-arkham-horror/

Is there a source for that? I'm assuming they were at GenCon (hence all those pictures I haven't seen elsewhere), but some of the text suggests they haven't read the full rules (eg, "Based on some of the cards that have been spoiled, it seems likely that doom will be placed on other cards, and when those cards leave play or are destroyed, the doom will be transferred to the current agenda"). Is the 1 xp cost to change cards more speculation, or was it actually confirmed?

(I hope it's confirmed, because it gives the decks more continuity and implies that each scenario will only require minor adjustments to your deck, but I want to be sure.)

I don't really know much about the source of that post. I just saw it on an Arkham Horror Facebook group, and thought the bit about paying xp to swap 0-level cards was interesting. The author does say he attended multiple demos at GenCon and had a change to flip through the Rules Reference, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he's correct unless I see something that contradicts it.

Basically because I won't be changing my deck completelly between quests/tournaments do to the nature of them requiring complete different approaches each time. It looks like some minor tweaks will be all that's needed (and most of them would probably come from upgrading cards, which are auto replacements on most of the cases), hence lighter deckbuilding. That's enfazised by the fact the campain is the main mode. It would make no sense to dedicate so much attention into it by designing a whole upgrading and XP system if the intention is to force people to change their decks completelly between acts.

The mechanics of the game also seems to point into that direction. This is not an LCG where you solve the majority of the puzzles during deckbuilding, here you solve them by the choices/actions you make while playing (do I evade now or attack? Do I move to X or Y? Do I investigate now or gather more resources? etc). Totally different approaches IMHO, and makes this LCG closer to a boardgame than any other LCG released so far.

TBH i kind of wish there was a better middle ground.

I do think LoTR LCG was a little too heavy on the deck building. My perfect scenario is to make a deck I like and maybe have to tweak 3 or 4 of the cards in the deck to succeed in an encounter if i find it too difficult. Maybe like a side deck of options to sub in a la MtG. LoTR went the extreme and forced entire new decks to be built specifically catered to the mission on hand which i dont like. It feels cheep to me for some reason lol.

This game however seems like it went the other route where you build your deck and just use some experience to level up the stuff you have in it without really making too many alterations. Maybe im wrong.. but i HOPE its like my ideal scenario... where you make a deck and then you have about 5 cards in your deck that are sub outs with about 5 other cards (or more). and you switch them in and out depending on the situation. A system very similar to hearthstone when you make say for example, a shaman deck of 18 different cards, but 4-5 of them are slots you can swap other things in an out based on the meta.

With the idea that you can swap out cards completely with experience rather than just leveling them up all the time, it does give that feel that you'll only need those minor alterations. Actually, that gives a bit more of a strategic element for those going through that campaign. Do I level up this card, or do I replace this card that will probably be useless now? I can imagine with the higher difficulties, every choice like that is going to be that much more important, because every card will count.

For those worrying about new cards mid cycle. My bet would be that the deluxe set comes with primarily level 0's and 1's (and maybe a few 2's) and each mythos comes with higher level versions. Meaning the cards you want to swap in will be those you'll want to level up. Just a guess.

Basically because I won't be changing my deck completelly between quests/tournaments do to the nature of them requiring complete different approaches each time. It looks like some minor tweaks will be all that's needed (and most of them would probably come from upgrading cards, which are auto replacements on most of the cases), hence lighter deckbuilding. That's enfazised by the fact the campain is the main mode. It would make no sense to dedicate so much attention into it by designing a whole upgrading and XP system if the intention is to force people to change their decks completelly between acts.

The mechanics of the game also seems to point into that direction. This is not an LCG where you solve the majority of the puzzles during deckbuilding, here you solve them by the choices/actions you make while playing (do I evade now or attack? Do I move to X or Y? Do I investigate now or gather more resources? etc). Totally different approaches IMHO, and makes this LCG closer to a boardgame than any other LCG released so far.

TBH i kind of wish there was a better middle ground.

I do think LoTR LCG was a little too heavy on the deck building. My perfect scenario is to make a deck I like and maybe have to tweak 3 or 4 of the cards in the deck to succeed in an encounter if i find it too difficult. Maybe like a side deck of options to sub in a la MtG. LoTR went the extreme and forced entire new decks to be built specifically catered to the mission on hand which i dont like. It feels cheep to me for some reason lol.

This game however seems like it went the other route where you build your deck and just use some experience to level up the stuff you have in it without really making too many alterations. Maybe im wrong.. but i HOPE its like my ideal scenario... where you make a deck and then you have about 5 cards in your deck that are sub outs with about 5 other cards (or more). and you switch them in and out depending on the situation. A system very similar to hearthstone when you make say for example, a shaman deck of 18 different cards, but 4-5 of them are slots you can swap other things in an out based on the meta.

I do agree with you on lotr getting to deck building heavy at times. Some of the AP were frustrating for me because I would have to sit down and build a deck to beat a specific scenario mechanic, shadow effects comes to mind. Were as I liked to build 2 decks for a cycle and play 2-handed to the end of the cycle. Like the cycle was a book and each ap is a chapter.

Unlike Arkham Horror lcg, it appears you build your investigator's deck for the cycle, then make changes to your deck (level up) in between missions. I like this method a lot for as it fits my general play style. I look forward to trying this out in October. Hopefully they release an article on deck building soon.

It's a difficult balance isn't it. I've played LOTR LCG for a few years, but I was never a committed deck builder, but I enjoyed the system a lot. I'm hoping that AKH TCG wil hit the sweet spot between WQ (which I also enjoy) and LOTR. I hope there is enough deckbuilding to slowly develope a character, but for it not to be overwhelming. However if the adventure packs consist mainly of upgrades of existing cards, then there won't be be much to talk about each time we get a new pack!

Swapping out cards costs XP? That's lame. If a deluxe box or mythos pack comes out and it has cards that would be perfect for my current deck, I don't care if I'm mid-campaign, I will swap out cards for the new ones, XP be damned.