Hey all!

I'm creating my first Mystic deck (with Agnes Baker). I decided I needed at least one card (two copies) to deal with getting engaged by a really dangerous enemy. This could be to evade altogether, OR to survive a couple of turns of steadily attacking away to deplete their health. The thing is I can't decide between Blinding Light and Hypnotic Gaze . Does anyone whose played extensively using a Mystic investigator have any advice? I loathe the idea of wasting XP swapping out level zero cards because I chose poorly at the get go.

Are you playing multiplayer? Hypnotic Gaze can help your friends, and has a roughly 33% of hurting the enemy.

Are you playing alone, or will your Agnes be on at least partial enemy-killing duties in a party? Hypnotic Gaze isn't an auto-evade, but it causes damage plus a chance for more damage if you draw an icon.

They're both fine cards. Pick the one you like. There's really no bad cards in this game; some just fit one style of deck better than another.

I much prefer Blinding Light. Hypnotic Gaze is more expensive, and will only save you from one attack. Blinding Light gives you a chance to escape.

6 hours ago, Gaffa said:

There's really no bad cards in this game; some just fit one style of deck better than another.

I think Blackjack is worse than each other Guardian weapon, even considering it's cheaper.

Hypnotic gaze because of art.

Haha, well, it is great art, but in all seriousness I still prefer Hypnotic Gaze, but it depends on what you are planning to use the card for exactly.

Blinding light is better if you actually need to escape since Hypnotic Gaze only guards you against one attack. If your plan is to go do a different location, you need to use Blinding light because evade/move will leave the enemy at the original location allowing you to escape. Move+Hypnotic gaze will allow you to avoid the AoO, but the monster will follow you to your new location, still be ready, and still attack during the monster phase. Blinding light also can be useful if you just need to deal 1 damage and don't want to burn a charge on Shriveling. Expensive way to deal 1 damage, but it can be useful.

Hypnotic Gaze isn't for escaping. Hypnotic Gaze is for standing your ground. It's particularly useful against the harder monsters in the game, forcing them to skip their attack during the monster phase, much like a higher costed version of Dodge. Even at the higher cost, it's still a small price to pay for the effect you get, and if you get lucky you can reflect a tough monster's big attack back on itself and get some extra damage in. One of the things I like about Hypnotic Gaze is that the monster will miss it's attack regardless of what you draw from the Chaos bag. Your safety does not have a chance to go horribly wrong, like it does with Blinding Light if you pull the wrong token. You might not get the damage in if you don't pull a special token, but you won't fail to block the attack.

How does the timing on Hypnotic Gaze work with massive enemies? Would it cancel the damage of one investigator, or all investigators? That might make it the better choice for some of the big baddies.

1 hour ago, HolySorcerer said:

How does the timing on Hypnotic Gaze work with massive enemies? Would it cancel the damage of one investigator, or all investigators? That might make it the better choice for some of the big baddies.

The massive enemy attacks each investigator one at at time per rules reference p. 15:

22 hours ago, ricedwlit said:

The massive enemy attacks each investigator one at at time per rules reference p. 15:

So Hypnotic gaze would only cancel one of those attacks.

I figured that's how it would work, thanks for saving my lazy ass from having to look it up.