So I was looking at this card and it seems that his ability is pointless, or at least an ability that was meant to be a detriment that isn't.

His text reads: "Opponents play with the top card of their deck revealed. // Response: After an opponent places a success token at a story, that player draws one card."

You don't have to trigger this ability when your opponent wins a success token, and imo there are very very few times when you would want your opponent to actually have a free card. Am I correct here?

I also find such "your opponent draws a card" strange… Who wants to give his opponent card advantage? I think you're correct, in a regular game, I will not want to use that response.
I can only imagine that in combination with a milling deck, it can be advantageous to let your opponent draw cards (e.g. with Book of Eibon limiting his hand to 5 but Clover Club Card Room letting him draw to 6; or you would be able to know if a card on top of opponent's deck is a good card via Clover Club Regular and then discard it via milling - or if it is bad, let him draw that card via the Regular). Perhaps if someone builds a Yog/Syndicate deck around it and also uses cards like Forced Foreclosure + Petty Thief it could be ok. But this seems more difficult than a Things in the Ground + Curse of the Stone milling deck, at least to me.

There are crappy cards in the pool, never know if someone can use them for some good combo.

A Sight for Sore Eyes is an example of a card that might benefit from this kind of effect, still too weak, but maybe future Syndycate expansion will have adequate strength effects for knowing whats in opponents hand, like cards "name a character card in opponents hand, it enters play fot 1 phase controlled by you" or something.

In milling deck milling 1 for each sucess is not that small, card advantage seems absurdly costly, and cost of 3 should do more, but maybe…

With hand discard you might want opponent to draw a scary card when you can discard it.

With prophecies taking prophecy back to hand might be worth it.

But yeah, it seems really weak response. Seeing opponents draw is quite nice, maybe cost of 3 is a bit too much, but maybe someone will find him usefull.

Speaking of Syndicate and whacky cards, if anyone can please explain the use of Premature Detonation to me. Please ( haha ). I can see the uses for this 3 cost loyal card being so narrow and specific I wonder if anyone has ever even used the card.

HilariousPete said:

Basically you need to combine it with cards that cause the opponent to also have to discard from hand, but none of the existing effects can keep up with the number of cards drawn. The only one that came to my mind is 'Implant Fear', which in combination with 'Snow Graves' discards the complete hand. And if you're using the Hastur faction anyway, another good addition would be 'Cold Spring Glen'.

Regarding 'Premature Detonation', however, I have to agree. It's such a weird card, I cannot think of any situation where I would want to play it. I mean, okay, I suppose there are a few characters with abilities requiring the character to be exhausted that you might want to prevent your opponent from using during the story phase, but cost 3 loyal? For cost 0, maybe, and even then it would be simply too situational, unless you know exactly what deck your opponent is playing.

jhaelen said:

I agree. This is probably an example of a card that was playtested to death. Or maybe it was a typo, and it should have included the critical word "opponent's," as in "Play during your opponent's story phase after all players have committed characters."

What are some other cards that have worthless effects? Should we start a petition for an erratum in a separate post?

The designer probably intended that the Clover Club Regular's "response" be a forced response.