I have assumed that you cannot start a new deck with any permanent cards, even if they are the 0XP ones, i.e. you have to buy them with experience... is this correct (the rules ref entry on permanent cards does actually seem to say that)??

Level 0 permanent cards can be included in a starting deck, at no EXP cost, as long as they satisfy your deckbuilding requirements. There is no reason to think otherwise, and I can see no part of the rules reference or clarifications regarding Permanent that would imply that they cannot be purchased at the beginning of the campaign or that they require experience points despite being level 0.

5 hours ago, Allonym said:

Level 0 permanent cards can be included in a starting deck, at no EXP cost, as long as they satisfy your deckbuilding  requirements. There is no reason to think otherwise, and I can see no part of the rules reference  or clarifications regarding Permanent that would imply that they cannot be purchased at the beginning of the campaign or that they require experience points despite being level 0.        

This is right, the developer clarified it way back when.

So far there are three level 0 permanent cards: Indebted is a treachery weakness. Arcane Research inflicts a mental trauma when added to a deck (presumably in initial build as well as XP-based purchase). But Shrewd Analysis has no downside, and should apparently be standard equipment for every Seeker.

15 hours ago, Carthoris said:

But Shrewd Analysis has no downside, and should apparently be standard equipment for every Seeker.

Yep, and it is now going in the my Daisy deck that I am building for the kick off of our Dunwich campaign.... now if I could only translate those accursed archaic glyphs....

On 11/3/2018 at 6:53 AM, Carthoris said:

But Shrewd Analysis has no down  side

Apart from no choosing the upgrade you wants.

Strange solution has three different upgrade, and you generally deckbuild around taking two copy of the same one.

34 minutes ago, vindoq said:

Apart from no choosing the upgrade you wants.

Strange solution has three different upgrade, and you generally deckbuild around taking two copy of the same one.

Shrewd Analysis' effect is optional when you upgrade a card, so at the moment you may as well put it in your deck at the start then not use it if you don't want to. However, I'm sure at some point we'll see an effect which punishes you for the number of Permanent cards you have!

33 minutes ago, vindoq said:

Apart from no choosing the upgrade you wants.

Strange solution has three different upgrade, and you generally deckbuild around taking two copy of the same one.

What Carthoris means (I assume) is that there's no downside to including Shrewd Analysis in your deck. There is a real downside to using it, as you correctly point out, but the Shrewd Analysis effect is "...you may ..." so you can include it and not use it if you don't want to.

There are still some edge cases where it's a disadvantage to add it - those being where you have a limited number of cards in your deck (for instance, if Carolyn Fern wants to add it, it will take up one of her 15 level 0-1 seeker and/or mystic cards). So you're using up your limited card allowance on cards that aren't actually in your deck during scenarios.

There's also edge cases where it's an advantage to add it even without ever using it, as well - notably Lola Hayes, who needs to include "at least 7 cards each from 3 different classes" - if she includes 2 copies of Shrewd Analysis, she only needs to add 5 Seeker cards to her actual deck to fulfil that requirement for Seeker.

Oh, my.

Never read it right, I always thought it was mandatory.

So one other question from me on this.... if you take arcane research twice, do you get 2 xp off the first spell, can you spread it across 2 spells, or can you only have 1 (I don’t think it’s unique, but that might be so that 2 or more mystics can have it??!!)

thanks!!

@Allonym Shrewd Analysis says "Limit 1 per deck", so you can't include 2.

@gazzagames You can have 2 copies of Arcane Research (because it doesn't have a limit like Shrewd Analysis), but both will reduce the cost of the same Spell upgrade (it says "the first", so you choose which one).