Okay, so I'm looking at *Key of Ys new card on the announcement.

Text is Forced - when any amount of horror would be placed on you, place one of that horror on Key of Ys

Now two points 1) obviously this does apply to Direct Horror, being one of the few circumstances where direct horror can be redirected since it's not your choice .... and 2) Am I correct in thinking that if you assign all Horror from a source to a different asset, then Key of Ys is not triggered in this way?

The Key acts on placed horror. Direct damage/horror limits where you can assign it. So the Key does work against direct horror, but not because it's forced. It just triggers at a later step in the process.

"You" refers to the investigator, so if you assign it all to assets the Key won't trigger.

That's what I thought, just nice to hear someone else confirm it.

it's a forced ability, but

1st is step 1, and the 2nd is step 2.. damage is "placed" after being assigned.. which means that this card is absolute stupid backwards broken. another homerun from the balance team at ffg. This and ST. Hubert's just make me cringe . . i guess no one is forcing us to play them tho.

1 hour ago, iGniGhted said:

1st is step 1, and the 2nd is step 2.. damage is "placed" after being assigned.. which means that this card is absolute stupid backwards broken. another homerun from the balance team at ffg. This and ST. Hubert's just make me cringe . . i guess no one is forcing us to play them tho.

It's a Level 5 card. They skew into crazy powerful.

The experience curve isn't entirely linear. Multiple L1s will increase your odds of seeing them compared to a single L5, so they bring reliability. That means higher level cards need to be more powerful to offset that and make them worth it.

It's certainly a powerful card, but I'm honestly not sure it's worth the 5 or 10 XP you'd put into it.

It only has 4 sanity, so it will go away after 4 has been taken. This means it, at most, gives you +3, and will likely cause you to take one of the horror it prevented when it discards and you are forced to shuffle your deck.

I'm not convinced it is 'crazy powerful' but it can certainly be good if you have an ally or two to soak horror for you. It also depends on the scenario and whether or not there is another way it may be forcibly discarded from play. Do we have any cards that heal horror from assets you control? I don't think we do... but I play mostly rogue.

14 minutes ago, Soakman said:

Do we have any cards that heal horror from assets you control? I don't think we do... but I play mostly rogue.

Guardians can heal from allies, but not general assets.

IMHO the bigger question for the Key is whether it actually works in a deck. In isolation, any card that gives you +3 to all your stats is insane (pun intended). But how much does that actually benefit you?

It's one (or two) cards, so you can't really build your entire deck around it. So you're still going to need to get your main stats up through the usual ways - you're not going to remove every stat modifier you've got to rely only on the Key. So once you get it powered up it'll be a nice boost to your off stats, but is that worth 5 XP? Getting it powered up is also an issue. Outside of Mystics, not many classes can just inflict horror on themselves at will. How many turns will it sit there doing nothing? How much damage will you take letting a 1/1 monster attack you just so you have a source of horror?

I think in practical application, it's not going to be quite as awe-inspiring as the simplistic "You get +3 to all stats!!!!" would make it sound. Still a solid card, but I don't see it being game-breaking.

It'll likely be amazing in a Lola deck at the very least, as it's a passive buff that she'll always be able to play and use. Which is fitting, seeing how she's an actress in the King in Yellow play

22 minutes ago, retrodaniel said:

It'll likely be amazing in a Lola deck at the very least, as it's a passive buff that she'll always be able to play and use. Which is fitting, seeing how she's an actress in the King in Yellow play

And she has a larger deck than others. Definitely a thought. I've been thinking about playing Lola in the future but I'm a bit intimidated for the deck designing. I don't normally play CCG's or LCG's. AH is the exception.

1 hour ago, retrodaniel said:

It'll likely be amazing in a Lola deck at the very least, as it's a passive buff that she'll always be able to play and use. Which is fitting, seeing how she's an actress in the King in Yellow play

i actually really like this idea and have been avoiding Lola because of how complicated she can be. This, however, seems to giver her a bit of an edge that might be fun to see her reach for.

5 hours ago, Buhallin said:

It's a Level 5 card. They skew into crazy powerful.

The experience curve isn't entirely linear. Multiple L1s will increase your odds of seeing them compared to a single L5, so they bring reliability. That means higher level cards need to be more powerful to offset that and make them worth it.

It's certainly a powerful card, but I'm honestly not sure it's worth the 5 or 10 XP you'd put into it.

this is a permanent red-gloved man in a way, that boosts not only 2 but all 4 of your skills. in a Jenny Barnes Deck, she's a permanent 6/6/6/6, because let's face it, it isn't hard to get 3 horror on yourself during a game, and after there's 3 on here, you just soak it with your other assets. that's a 6/6/6/6 BEFORE all of the allies, assets, and other boosts the character is getting. is Mark going to want to run this? well, **** why tf not? it's absorbing 3 sanity he would've otherwise lost, which he never wants to.. he doesn't really need the accessory slot... and now he's got 8 fight.. 8. he doesn't even need a weapon in standard! in fact, why spend 3 on elder sign if this exists?? because of the discard 10? might as well spend the extra 2 xp for the insane boost. this effectively makes elder sign pretty pointless to play.

and if it ever does leave play, with the exception of pulled into the beyond murdering you.. it's basically a dud...

Red-Gloved man is a 5 xp card, and i think.. hey you know what, it's actually pretty balanced considering.. but look at this card for what it is. it's unique at least, so... won't be 4 to a table.

Just played the final scenario with this in Yorrick.
Yorrick had Sylvester and basically soloed against Him. Allowed easy skill tests, evasion, etc.

I think it's going to heavily depend on what enemies and encounters are in the mythos deck for a given scenario. And it's still 1 card of 30(+). I have frequently changed around a deck for a scenario only to never have the card I put in show up. I'll have to spend time actually playing with it before I can decide how good it is. But since I often play in easy/normal, I don't think my thoughts will account for much for other players. Basic bonuses to stats are much more valuable in games that throw multiple -3 tokens at you.

It's not better than Red Gloved Man if you're Skids and need high Willpower, or Daisy or Norman and need a high Agility or Fight. Daisy does like it for clearing the Necronomicon, but who does that? If Agnes runs it, she's surrendering her ability and her signature item. Some investigators have better synergy with this, some have it with RGM.

Believing you can immediately dump 3 horror onto it and then no more...call me skeptical. I sure wouldn't rely on that (I've played a St Hubert Desperate Pete deck. I assure you, it's no fun when that card you've built around never shows up). And until you do get it that high, it looks something like a 3XP version of Dark Horse.

I'm thinking this will combo very nicely with cards like forbidden knowledge

On 3/23/2018 at 8:45 AM, Soakman said:

I think it's going to heavily depend on what enemies and encounters are in the mythos deck for a given scenario. And it's still 1 card of 30(+). I have frequently changed around a deck for a scenario only to never have the card I put in show up. I'll have to spend time actually playing with it before I can decide how good it is. But since I often play in easy/normal, I don't think my thoughts will account for much for other players. Basic bonuses to stats are much more valuable in games that throw multiple -3 tokens at you.

Don't sell yourself short on easy/normal, its actually the most germain metric. According to these polls linked below:

72% of players play multiplayer at normal and 13% play at easy. That's 85% of people.

71% of solo players play solo at normal and 19% play at easy. That's 90% of people.

Based on the polls, how a card performs at normal is the best general way to talk about a card. Now that makes things harder on people that play hard and expert, but those people like things harder so I am sure they don't mind so much.

19 hours ago, iGniGhted said:

this is a permanent red-gloved man in a way, that boosts not only 2 but all 4 of your skills. in a Jenny Barnes Deck, she's a permanent 6/6/6/6, because let's face it, it isn't hard to get 3 horror on yourself during a game, and after there's 3 on here, you just soak it with your other assets. that's a 6/6/6/6 BEFORE all of the allies, assets, and other boosts the character is getting. is Mark going to want to run this? well, **** why tf not? it's absorbing 3 sanity he would've otherwise lost, which he never wants to.. he doesn't really need the accessory slot... and now he's got 8 fight.. 8. he doesn't even need a weapon in standard! in fact, why spend 3 on elder sign if this exists?? because of the discard 10? might as well spend the extra 2 xp for the insane boost. this effectively makes elder sign pretty pointless to play.

This does earn a lot of points for hyperventilating hyperbole, but I think it's a very optimistic assessment of how things will go.

It's far from a permanent +3. You have to draw it, then play it, then arrange 3 horror, and make sure that you've got plenty of assets to absorb anything else that comes your way before doing so, and ensure you never overload them or catch another direct horror that will wipe the key. So not only are you looking at a 2-3 card combo, you're also throwing horror on good allies (like Leo, if we stick with Jenny) in order to keep the Key around. Allies are where most of your horror soak comes from, so now you're probably going to be throwing Charisma into the mix.

Why would Mark need a weapon? That's a pretty boggling question - the primary use of weapons (at least for Guardians) is not boosting stats, it's getting extra damage to generate action efficiency. Not even sure how to take that seriously. If you're using it for Mark, where are you going to throw the rest of the horror to keep the Key around? Guardians don't have many allies to choose from, and all of them have better uses than making sure you never take a point of horror. And if you don't draw one? If you're passing on weapons you're now putting all your eggs in those two cards. That's begging for disaster.

Why would you use Elder Sign Amulet? Because it costs about half the XP before you start considering the other cards you buy to make it work, it costs fewer resources to play, and it doesn't constrain the rest of your playstyle.

Again, the Key is a really good card - for 5 XP it certainly should be. But your scenarios to demonstrate how broken it is are idealized to the point of silliness.

At least in the Carcosa campaign you can easily trigger the +3 boost as soon as you have the Key simply by spelling "Hastur" three times, cool right?

2 hours ago, player1631906 said:

At least in the Carcosa campaign you can easily trigger the +3 boost as soon as you have the Key simply by spelling "Hastur" three times, cool right?

I think you should tag this as a spoiler.

Aside from that, it is quite possible you will not end up with that clause/ability in a playthrough. Also, since the Key of Ys is the Key of Ys, it makes sense that it is especially relevant in The Path to Carcosa campaign.

On 23/03/2018 at 10:27 PM, Buhallin said:

Why would Mark need a weapon? That's a pretty boggling question - the primary use of weapons (at least for Guardians) is not boosting stats, it's getting extra damage to generate action efficiency. Not even sure how to take that seriously.

This, a thousand times. Extra damage beats skill bonuses hands down, and even more so for Mark, who starts with 5 and a way to go even higher.