Return to The Circle Undone - Hopes for Player/Encounter Cards?

By Assussanni, in Arkham Horror: The Card Game

With the final mythos pack in The Innsmouth Conspiracy now officially announced, the next release I’m expecting to see on the horizon is Return to The Circle Undone (assuming Asmodee don’t tell FFG that they are a card game company and not a storage solution company /sarcasm).

Are there any player cards you are hoping to see in this release? Higher level Tarot cards and a lower level Anna Kaslow? A suit of multi-class cards and associated upgrades? Some other cards that you’d like higher (or lower) level versions of?

How about encounter sets? Any that you particularly want to see replaced? Do you think we will get alternatives for any of the Core Set cards used? Which scenarios would you like to see most heavily changed and which should be left largely unchanged?

Put your thoughts here, in the time we have left before Azathoth awakens and devours the forum!

Yeah, coming soon I guess.. personally I hate Tarot cards, although I've grown to be ok with them only in Circle Undone. Still don't use them, and hope we've seen the last of them. Not very Lovecraftian and some (but not all) folks I know used to use them for min/maxing their investigator without regard to theme.

I'd like to see more player cards that interact with/effect Humanoid enemies. Handcuffs and Persuasion, were in TFA and with TCU having so many Humanoids to deal with, would be nice for some options to cards that you can use to your advantage in that regard.

For Mystic, I'd like to see 2XP versions of Sixth Sense and Wither, though I'm not sure how you split the difference between their 0XP and 4XP forms to do that.

TCU is odd for Seeker, in that I don't think they got a "solve this to unlock cards" set for the block, otherwise I'd've predicted another card for that branch.

I wouldn't be opposed to more Tarot or multi-class cards, though I'm not sure what you'd do with the Tarot cards. I suspect we might see another cycle of multi-class cards in a different cycle, though, instead - otherwise, they'll take up all the slots for the Return to..., given we normally only get two cards per class.

Honestly I'd be fine with five new gold cards and their upgrades. Higher level versions of the upgrades we already have would be neat too.

Campaign-wise, I feel like TCU needs a lot of work. The change to the explore mechanics in TFA indicates that they're interested in improving campaign play, not just making it harder, but I can't think of a single overarching mechanic that was as problematic as original explore.

One scenario that feels like it should be easier is Wages of Sin, the one where you have to banish the four heretics. As it plays the scenario is basically impossible; I think my record is 2, and that was basically perfect.

TCU was when they introduced multi class cards. In the chat with Matt and co. last Spring, someone asked if there would be more of them, and I think they said yes, so that would be where it would happen. Although generally they only upgrade or make adjustments on previously released cards.

They could add multi class Tarot Cards, to kill two birds with one stone.

Alice Luxley could get an upgrade

Hallowed Mirror could get an upgrade.

Connect the Dots is a card that just plain costs too much to play. It could get an upgrade so seekers may actually use it!

Occult Lexicon could get an upgrade.

Deny Existence could get a mid grade version

Sign Magick could get an upgrade which allows for 2 additional Arcane slots.

Sixth Sense could get a 2XP version

Track Shows could get an upgrade. Make it fast or eliminate the test

Eucatastrophe could get a 0 level version, like A Test of Will in Stella’s deck.

The trio of Rogue cards; Intel Report, Decoy, and Small Favor could get an upgrade.

Edited by Mimi61

Both Prometheus and Mimi raise excellent points. I too think Wages of Sin needs a bit of an overhaul. Even if they added new versions of locations that made movement easier. The randomness of where the heretics start greatly affect how difficult it is.

Sign Magick needs something to make it more competitive with Familiar Spirit, but that could be a personal preference. The 3 cost sign magick is pretty prohibitive when you're already planning on playin another arcane asset.

Connect the Dots is another one that hardly sees play because of the situational trigger and high cost. Eliminating one or the other would probably do wonders to the cards usefulness.

I personally want to see more multiclass cards. Tarot have never been something I disliked. I think they're fine. You mostly won't want them as the resource to bonus is actually not that great unless you draw them in your opening hand, and I think having the option for something strong to mulligan for can help newer players understand how valuable a mulligan is.

And if they're going to do anything with Tarot, I'd rather they 'fix' Anna Kaslow. Again, another card that is very situational and prohibitive. It's a huge risk even trying to use her because you need so many other cards in your deck for her to be any use.

Edited by Soakman

Basically all the thoughts I've had are already here. A few things I'd add:

If they do upgraded Tarot cards, one simple solution would be for level 2 versions that have useful icons (so they're not a dead draw with the second copy), and with Pentacles having double matching Wild it would be a little better.

I don't think it's likely that we'll see another set of multiclass cards and upgrades, but I would love to be proven wrong. If that were the case, it's worth considering that each class has 2 unused combinations left (taking into account the existing multiclass cards). So assuming they were to go for having every combination represented rather than doubling up anywhere, it would work out as: Guardian / Seeker , Guardian / Survivor , Seeker / Rogue , Mystic / Rogue , Mystic / Survivor . Which is pretty fertile ground for speculation, I suppose!

2 hours ago, Allonym said:

So assuming they were to go for having every combination represented rather than doubling up anywhere, it would work out as: Guardian / Seeker , Guardian / Survivor , Seeker / Rogue , Mystic / Rogue , Mystic / Survivor .

This reminds me so much of original Ravnica from MtG, which is probably why the multiclass cards are some of my favorites. The cycle was one of the most popular in Magic's history, so it feels like kind of an easy win for Matt and Jeremy to pursue that route.

I'm just really excited for gold cards, wherever they appear :D.

The problem with doing a cycle of multi-class cards is that it'd require 15 cards (base multi-card, plus two XP cards per combination) to deliver, and a "Return to..." set has, to date, only featured 10.