I am dying to make a cursed deck for my custom gator Astrid Lee. She's downloadable in a few places, but this synergy made me very happy. Using Manipulate Destiny from Devil Reef, if she seals the elder sign and there's no bless tokens in the bag, it is a guaranteed 2 damage. So fitting for her backstory as a town gossip whose rumors become reality. The more cards that come out, the more that fit with her deck build (Insights 0-5, Rogue cards 0-3, Neutral 0-5, and 5 lvl 0 mystic and/or survivor) and theme. I cannot wait for the rest of the cycle's player cards.

So far, thematically we have gotten: Manipulate Destiny, The Truth Beckons, Stirring Up Trouble, Breaking and Entering, Skeptic, False Covenant, Faustian Bargain, in addition to things like Eavesdrop from prior sets.

Some interesting cards in the preview for The Lair of Dagon - along with some "we're filling out a certain cycle" cards.

• The 4XP equivalents to Physical Training and Arcane Studies for Rogue, Seeker and Survivor, putting the classes back in balance again. I quite like these, as they can repay the resource cost on the turn they're used, but it can be a challenge finding a spot for them in a deck.
• Nephthys, a 4XP Guardian Ally who interacts with drawn Bless tokens
• Favor of the Sun, a Neutral Pact Asset that also interacts with Bless tokens
• Favor of the Moon, the dark opposite of Favor of the Moon - as you'd expect, really.
• The Stygian Moon, which I imagine could be a key card for a Seeker Curse deck
• Flute of the Outer Gods, an Exceptional Mystic Relic that needs Curse tokens and a Hand slot to mess with non-Elite enemies, without causing AoO.

I do see two bits of terminology on cards from this pack that I just want to double-check my interpretation of - there are references to "releasing" sealed Bless/Curse tokens, and returning such tokens to the Chaos bag. As the release wording makes no reference of the bag, am I safe to assume that such tokens go back to the pools of 10 of each you have available, rather than going back into the bag itself? Haven't made use of the B/C mechanic yet myself, so just want to get these things straight.

1 hour ago, dysartes said:

I do see two bits of terminology on cards from this pack that I just want to double-check my interpretation of - there are references to "releasing" sealed Bless/Curse tokens, and returning such tokens to the Chaos bag. As the release wording makes no reference of the bag, am I safe to assume that such tokens go back to the pools of 10 of each you have available, rather than going back into the bag itself? Haven't made use of the B/C mechanic yet myself, so just want to get these things straight.

Release (Flute of the Outer Gods, Nephthys second ability first option) is defined under the rules for Seal:

“When a chaos token is "released," it is returned to the chaos bag and is no longer considered sealed. If a card with one or more chaos tokens sealed on it leaves play for any reason, any chaos tokens sealed on it are immediately released.”

We also have cards that instruct you to resolve the token sealed (Favour of the Sun/Moon), in which case it is exactly as if you had drawn it from the bag. For B/C during a skill test this is: +2 or -2, draw another token, return B/C to the token pool rather than the chaos bag at the end of the test.

Finally we have “return X tokens to the token pool” (Nephthys second ability second option) which means they go back into the pool of available tokens which can be added to the bag.

I hope I understood your question correctly and that my answer is helpful.

10 hours ago, dysartes said:

I do see two bits of terminology on cards from this pack that I just want to double-check my interpretation of - there are references to "releasing" sealed Bless/Curse tokens, and returning such tokens to the Chaos bag. As the release wording makes no reference of the bag, am I safe to assume that such tokens go back to the pools of 10 of each you have available, rather than going back into the bag itself? Haven't made use of the B/C mechanic yet myself, so just want to get these things straight.

I think the reason you see "release" on some cards and "return [those tokens] to the chaos bag," is that "release" only shows up on cards that actually seal tokens (they have the seal keyword). If the card doesn't seal, it can't release, so it has to just say what releasing is.

21 hours ago, SGPrometheus said:

I think the reason you see "release" on some cards and "return [those tokens] to the chaos bag," is that "release" only shows up on cards that actually seal tokens (they have the seal keyword). If the card doesn't seal, it can't release, so it has to just say what releasing is.

Look at the wording on Nephthys - I know we can't quite see everything, but she seals tokens to her and features both bits of wording.

Nephthys’ text box looks like it reads:

Quote

You get +1 [willpower].

[Reaction] When 1 or more Bless tokens would be removed from the chaos bag during a skill test: Seal them on Nephthys instead.

[Free triggered ability] Exhaust Nephthys: Either release 3 Bless tokens sealed on her, or return 3 Bless tokens to the token pool (and?) deal 2 damage to an enemy at your location.

So if you take the first option of her free triggered ability the Bless tokens are released and go back into the chaos bag. If you take the second option the Bless tokens are returned to the token pool - they do not go back into the chaos bag.

So, Mateo + Favor of the Sun + Ancient Covenant + Nepthys means he gets promoted from priest to God.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2021/1/15/into-the-maelstrom/

The FINAL pack for Innsmouth has been announced!

I can barely describe how incredible some of those cards are.

I am also, again, excited for more cursed rogue cards... "Justify the Means" will go nicely into my cursed Astrid deck.

So, weird question. Can you use Justify the Means with a skill test that has higher difficulty than the remaining number of curse tokens? I'm thinking for example of lighting the Braziers in Union and Disillusion (difficulty 20).

Justify the Means is another reason to dust off your Lola Hayes with her insanely flexible leverage over curse tokens.
I really wish the anti-Lola tide would ebb.

4 minutes ago, Eldan985 said:

So, weird question. Can you use Justify the Means with a skill test that has higher difficulty than the remaining number of curse tokens? I'm thinking for example of lighting the Braziers in Union and Disillusion (difficulty 20).

Adding 20 curse tokens would be a cost that can't be paid. So, no.

I am struck by how many level 3 cards in a pack 6.

3 hours ago, Allonym said:

I can barely describe how incredible some of those cards are.

Indeed. Ariadne's Twine seems like it almost completely breaks the limited use nature of (some) Seeker cards, and if this was in the pipeline I'm astonished Rook didn't join Double or Nothing on the banned list. There aren't many cards that I look at and say "Yeah, that's gonna get taboo'ed" at first glance, but that one...

I really like how some of these show the growth of the devs understanding of the rules and systems. Ancestral Knowledge could easily be looked at as just a Seeker version of Stick to the Plan, but there are several things - the increased deck size (which breaks even overall, so just removes SttP's thinning), the random draw, the minimum skill count to keep it from being perfect for fishing one ofs, avoiding the auto trigger of Astonishing Revelation (or any other number of Seeker research cards)... Design wise I'm far more impressed by what it DOESN'T do than what it does.

Justify the Means, on the other hand, is my early vote for overrated card. Low difficulty tests won't need it, and high difficulty tests will put in enough curses that you end up trading one auto success for 2-3 failures. As mentioned, the cost means you could easily hit the ceiling on curses so that it becomes unusable. Probably has good value on higher difficulties, but I expect one will fizzle and not live up to the initial hype.

Justify the means is definitely not amazing but it’s a great way to contribute curses while getting something useful done. I can see it working very well on a rogue that is teaming up with someone like Stella that wants to fail every now and then anyway and with seekers or mystics that want to pull curses for damage from the newer cards. Power wise it is nowhere near the seeker cards. And that guardian card kinda looks like a bust to me outside of a Mary deck if I’m honest.

Justify the Means is pretty great if that and False Covenant are your only Cursed cards. You auto-pass the test, and then you've got a pretty decent chance of negating the drawback. There's also the chance of combining it with Tides of Fate, then using Guardian cards and/or Favor of the Sun to get those tokens out of the bag before the tide recedes.

Also, don't forget that the FAQ specifies that you don't draw a chaos token if the test would already auto-succeed. Thus, Justify the Means is more than an automatic success; it's an automatic success by whatever your skill value is (including boosts from skill cards). If you're Finn and you pull a Rotting Remains, you can commit Justify the Means and Watch This to negate a massive horror hit (plus any nasty chaos token effects) and gain three resources, all for a mere three curses.

As for Hallow, I'm remaining cautious. It's a doom remover with no per-game limits. That's the sort of thing that can easily get broken. My immediate feeling is that anyone who can generate that many blessings is set up to use those blessings to great effect, making it extremely expensive. On the other hand, you might end up with some sort of mega-curse team where Parallel Agnes runs Hallow, Robes of Endless Night, and a Tides of Fate attached to Dayana to just constantly knock doom off the agenda while simultaneously purging all the curses for a mere 1 damage per casting.