A Catholic priest seems like an unusual character for this time period. This is set in the mid-late Twenties, right? The persecution and de facto outlawing of the Catholic Church in Mexico that started in 1917 reached a fever pitch by this point and would not subside until 1940. If Father Mateo were to walk outside his church (which would probably have been looted already) wearing a clerical collar he would most likely have been arrested and shot.

7 hours ago, Requete said:

A Catholic priest seems like an unusual character for this time period. This is set in the mid-late Twenties, right? The persecution and de facto outlawing of the Catholic Church in Mexico that started in 1917 reached a fever pitch by this point and would not subside until 1940. If Father Mateo were to walk outside his church (which would probably have been looted already) wearing a clerical collar he would most likely have been arrested and shot.

Or it can make perfect sense as to why Mateo finds himself thrust into conflict with an Ancient One. Also, its probably not practical to be walking around in priestly garb in the middle of the jungle, so I would assume he dresses down.

Edit: To FFG's credit, the volatility in Mexico is noted in Mateo's bio.

On 4/27/2018 at 1:57 PM, CSerpent said:

He's not just a tie breaker. Prey with "only" means the enemy ignores everyone else completely. The only way for them to attack anyone else is for that someone to engage them.

I must have overlooked the word "only"

Doubling down on Calvin Wright? Look FFG, if you won't issue a long-overdue April Fools retraction of Calvin, then we're going to need an apology. Calvin is built to fail tests and die. Seriously, where's the REAL Survivor already? It's not funny anymore.

Calvin Wright is the most interesting character in the set. Besides, survivor gameplay is turning a failure into an advantage.

Calvin is coming. He's a lot of fun to play. He's here, he's *****, get used to it.

Edit: Censored? Come on, it's in his bio.

On 4/28/2018 at 8:55 AM, Soakman said:

Mateo's elder sign passive alone trumps Jim's abilities. Free actions and draws are invaluable. Will it happen often? With Olive, it has at least as much a chance of occurring as drawing a skull

What do you mean? There's only one elder sign in the bag. By my math, in a 17-token bag, Olive has a 17.6% chance of drawing an Elder Sign, a 33.1% chance of drawing a raw Skull for Jim to zero out, and a whopping 46.5% chance to draw either for Song of the Dead and other shenanigans.

I'm really liking how different this set's Seeker, Survivor and Mystic feel from their previous classmates. Even the Guardian and the Rogue feel different.

Kudos to Matt Newman, and the team for making each class have multiple styles of play and making each character feel distinct. In Arkham Horror: the Board Game, the characters felt like they had a different hairdo and a different starting item (by type). In the LCG, they are tremendously different.

3 hours ago, rsdockery said:

What do you mean? There's only one elder sign in the bag. By my math, in a 17-token bag, Olive has a 17.6% chance of drawing an Elder Sign, a 33.1% chance of drawing a raw Skull for Jim to zero out, and a whopping 46.5% chance to draw either for Song of the Dead and other shenanigans.

I'm comparing it to a Jim without Olive.

I get that you can run the same combos on Jim and they are more likely to occur, but Mateo has the added benefit of additional actions. I wouldn't expect them to have the same chances of occurring. Additional actions are a huge boon in my opinion. And if you have nothing of value to do with that action, you can gain a card and a resource (which would otherwise be two actions).

All of this is speculation as I haven't played either deck as Olive isn't even out yet. 5 xp is a lot.

1 hour ago, Soakman said:

I'm comparing it to a Jim without Olive.

Comparing Mateo with Olive against Jim Culver without Olive is not really a fair comparison since both investigators can take Olive at the beginning. If Olive was a card to be gotten with the 5 xp, then sure you can immediately say Mateo has a clear advantage.

2 hours ago, C2K said:

Comparing Mateo with Olive against Jim Culver without Olive is not really a fair comparison since both investigators can take Olive at the beginning. If Olive was a card to be gotten with the 5 xp, then sure you can immediately say Mateo has a clear advantage.

I mean, Olive is not a particularly great ally out of available allies for mystic with the exception of Jim and Mateo. Jim can take out-of-class allies like Leo, which gives him more options for deck-building.

My point is that 5 bonus xp is pretty terrific no matter how you slice it. Mateo does have a clear advantage with 5 xp in my opinion as Jim can slot only lvl o out-of-faction cards. Mateo is going to be an entire scenario (or about that) ahead of Jim in terms of available mystic upgrades and Mystics (in my opinion) are some of the most experience reliant deck-types for their campaign growth. Survivors, seekers, and even guardians to some extent can get away with many lvl 0 cards from their faction to carry their performance in a scenario. Not so much Mystics.

There's no right or wrong answer here. I simply don't think that Mateo is so weak comparatively that he needs bonus xp to compensate. I don't think he's weaker at all personally, he just has a very narrow focus if you want to take advantage of his perks. Arguably, Jim is the same. Both require outside cards to make their abilities function optimally. Jim just has a slightly better chance at triggering, but does not receive the potential extra action. Mateo plays more like a rouge-ish mystic (again in my opinion) whereas Jim plays more of a spellslinger with a bit of versatility. Both are suited to filling gaps instead of pouring everything into offense or investigating.