Hi Everyone,

Unfortunately, my ability to find time to play Arkham Horror has fallen this past year and I have not been able to keep up with game content. I am currently trying to build a solo Joe Diamond deck and I noticed that Higher Education and Christopher Milan have been changed with Higher Ed costing more XP (I think it is 8 xp now) and Milan's ability is once per turn unless you can find a way to ready him. Could someone explain why these changes were made? Were they shewing the game in some unintended way?

First: The "Taboo" changes in the most recent FAQ are explicitly optional. The cards have not been errata'd per se, but instead they are included in a list of optional changes.

As for why: We can only speculate on the specifics. The designers have stated that the Taboo list is intended to modify the metagame and encourage greater diversity in deckbuilding; i.e. they are not so much "nerfing" strong cards for balance, as encouraging a wider variety of approaches to deckbuilding.

However, it's plain to see that Higher Education, Dr Milan Christopher, Streetwise etc. are very much well above the curve in terms of efficiency vs. costs. Dr Milan Christopher's ability provided an absurd amount of resources for simply doing one's job as well as providing a stat boost, and crowded out other seeker allies; the fact that his ability did not exhaust almost comes across as a simple mistake given that more recent effects in a similar vein (e.g. Alice Luxley) require exhausting. Higher Education allowed you to convert resources into boosts to the two most important stats for (most) seekers, at a very efficient ratio, and both made other stat boosters obselete and meant that Seekers had an easy way to effectively use any amount of resources without having to make additional decisions about the cards in their decks. For Joe Diamond in particular, the ability to drop some resources into Willpower tests meant that his 2 WP, which otherwise would be a big vulnerability to certain Encounter cards, is almost a non-issue since those will come up infrequently and when they do he can cheaply pump himself up to levels equalling the most resilient Survivor or Mystic. The Permanent cards in particular are so strong because they give a potent effect with little opportunity cost (no card in hand, resource cost or action to play) and are always available from turn 1 and, by giving you a means of using any additional resources you might have, mean that much less thought needs to go into cost curves and so on.

I think you only need to consider taboos if playing on standard. Playing on higher difficulties, those cards, while still strong, do not warp the game. I mean, if you want to drop more than 2 Delve Too Deeps in Hard mode, you must love abuse. 🤣

It's optional, but as stated above play with those cards a bit and you'll see they clearly become staples of all your Seeker decks. The Taboo list is about promoting deck diversity, and helping under looked cards get played. Milan was dwarfing most other Seeker ally options, which I'm sure is frustrating for the designer. Put him and Higher Learning in the deck and Higher Learning becomes unreasonable in power level. Put both those in Rex and you've found the "solved" Seeker deck. Some people are fine motivating themselves to try out of the box deck builds while others want to create as efficient an engine within a set framework. For the ladder this taboo list was definitely needed. For the former they were probably already trying the more fringe cards anyway and would rather have the freedom to play the cards as written in potentially sub optimal or thematic ways. That I'm sure is why they made it optional.

I honestly didn't think the game was broken in anyway with those cards as written. In fact as C2K points out you kinda need that level of play card power for hard mode.

1 hour ago, C2K said:

I think you only need to consider taboos if playing on standard. Playing on higher difficulties, those cards, while still strong, do not warp the game. I mean, if you want to drop more than 2 Delve Too Deeps in Hard mode, you must love abuse. 🤣

They still very much warp the game on Hard and above; Milan still produces an inordinate amount of resources and still outperforms other ally options, and the permanent booster assets are still far more powerful than equivalent options. In fact, I would say that Higher Education and Streetwise are stronger on higher difficulties, as efficient temporary boosts become much more valuable when you can't reliably achieve static numbers high enough to pass with every token in the bag other than tentacles.

I mean, everyone should play whatever way feels most fun for them, but it's entirely untrue that the taboos are unnecessary or inapplicable at higher difficulties.

Higher Education and Streetwise are still good in Hard and above but they start costing you more and become harder to keep feeding. And then there is always the chance you will just draw the worst number in the bag and fail.. which doesn't happen in standard because the worst number is not that high. You start spending 2-3 resources and only get 1 back in return. Not to mention Higher Education can't save you from monsters most of the time. Streetwise is a bit different because it gives you the agility to survive a monster you can't fight, but the one investigator that would completely rely on it absolutely needs it(Preston Fairmont).

If there is a mechanic that can break hard difficulty, it would be the Seal mechanic. Sealing tokens can definitely be the most game warping thing available, and hopefully it isn't a mechanic that gets overused. A Jim Culver Seal deck is really strong in harder difficulties. In fact, I would say Jim Culver is one of the strongest investigators you can take in Hard difficulties, because he ignores Skull Modifiers(unless its a penalty that triggers regardless of pass or fail).

If someone wants to play Hard mode with the Taboo List then I commend their fortitude. That's sound too punishing for me.