5 Hot Takes for ARKHAM HORROR: THE CARD GAME

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Күн бұрын

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@MrTinman712 4 ай бұрын

Hot take: investigator's unique cards should be rebalanced around being permanents. I find with quite a few investigators their investigator unique card may never come up throughout an entire campaign. And for some (like agnes baker's heirloom) i find the card being useless next the other cards you typically build a deck around them. Not to mention things like stella's 3 I win cards. A permanent that gives a bonus i feel would give more identity to the investigators rather than: I'm playing a seeker investigator, and I'm not playing one of the best ones A good example of this in practice is joe diamond's hunch deck, or aschan pete's duke. I find myself wanting to play him not because of any gameplay benefit, but having that constant benefit that is themed around the character is just plain fun

@yogibbear 4 ай бұрын

I like trying busted cards once, and then basically ignore that that thing exists in every other playthrough.

@lazulin 4 ай бұрын

I didn't think this would be such a hot take until I read the comments but... guardians are actually good. I feel the need to defend my favorite class. You know who doesn't constantly struggle to do the 3 damage they need to do to kill the enemy? Guardians. You know who sees that elite monster with 14 health and says 'bring it on'? Guardians. You know who can use killing as a way to gain resources, cards, and clues? Guardians. You knows whose deckbuilding isn't half-finished before you even start playing because so many cards are 'must haves' for everyone? Guardians. Because there are so many different types of guardians and they all have their own, fully functional card pools. Besides vicious blow, there's pretty much nothing that's for all of them, and I love that. Some of the things I've done with guardians has been so degenerate, so ridiculous, that other players have had to actually check that I played the game right. Because how did you have that boss take damage for walking in and seeing your investigator, only to then immediately have that followed up with an absolutely lethal combo of an overpowered weapon, with enchant weapon making it to do even more damage, with vicious blow stacking on top of all of that. The number of times I've managed to kill the boss within a single round... guardians are great. They're not broken, but they're strong and fun to play.

@curtismengsk 4 ай бұрын

I think it's less draw that has made consistency and some power creep occur - it's the increasing amount of effective redundancy in the card pool. Maybe nearer to the beginning of the game, you'd have only one card in your whole deck that did a particular thing (do extra damage, get an extra clue, strong weapon, cantrip, draw a bunch, etc), where now there may be 3-6 different cards that can do that thing, so the result is that you can much more reliably and consistently get a certain card effect. Take for example vicious blow, which now has just added effectively 2 other versions of itself in Strong-Armed and Long Shot. I think most of us, if we could take as many copies of any card as we could, would probably have most fighter decks with 10 or so vicious blows, and a cluever would have all deduction 2, perception 2, and practice makes perfect. As the card pool expands, we get closer to this reality. Before a particular effect might have been a "once a scenario" type effect, which was it's own kind of limiter, now you have 6-10 cards in your deck doing that same effect.

@Brynney 4 ай бұрын

Might as well add a hot take : Down the rabbit hole and Arcane research shouldn't exist. They bring no in-game effect and just discourage branching out. Same could be said to In the thick of it to an extent.

@hammerdall 4 ай бұрын

I love taking bonus xp things like what you mentioned, but agree that at the least, DtRH & AR shouldn’t exist. Currently using both with ||Agnes and while I’m loving it, it is kinda stupid. I will fight you on ItToI though. Starting with 3 xp opens up some cool niche build options. It lets EotE investigators start with just a little more from the class they’re transitioning into, it lets a deck that is planning around multiple accessories or allies to start with a copy of Relic Hunter or Charisma, and it lets you pull off silly shenanigans when combined with versatile and things like Forced Learning

@kitsunin4690 4 ай бұрын

A closely related hot take: They really biffed the Mystic identity from the beginning and have only recently found ways for Mystic cards to function that aren't boring, generic, or terrible. Hemlock Vale is the first good set of Mystic cards in the game's entire history. The badness of Down the Rabbit Hole and Arcane Research is just a symptom of how horrible the Mystic identity was thanks to the terrible design of those damn Spell Asset cards.

@carcosa_tyrant9444 4 ай бұрын

@@kitsunin4690 Dream-eaters introducing a trio of spell events helped make mystics feel better as well. prior to TDE, mystics were basically 'buff brain, play spell asset, use brain, run out of charges, womp womp.' there was no reason NOT to play flex because you make a single stat do everything, and then either you get your spells early and steam roll the scenario or you don't get your spells and you pray to cthulhu that you can at least find a WoP so that you can be useful to your team in some way.

@BeesAndSunshine 4 ай бұрын

I agree and don't play with any of these cards anymore. I think the two mystic cards have an additional issue, that affects you even if you choose not to play with them, that some cards are probably balanced around their existence.

@thetimebinder 4 ай бұрын

That's not a hot take. That's ice cold. Everyone knows those are a mistake.

@NoGoodHeart 4 ай бұрын

The game isn’t ruined by a stronger card pool. Cooperative nature means veteran players should be able to edit themselves when it comes to perceived overpowered/overplayed cards, and newer players can play on a limited collection and experience some success and avoid the misery that was often playing this game in the first two or so years of release. This actually works to address there being so many expansions as a barrier to entry: powerful player boxes enable newer folks to jump in (I haven’t actually seen this in action: this is conjecture)

@Jazza889 4 ай бұрын

Completely agree with this take

@kayosiiii 4 ай бұрын

Yeah I don't agree with this, but I am highly biased because I came to this game as a fan of Lovecraft's fiction and I am looking for a game that simulates that and not being a hero.

@thirteenthirtyseven4730 4 ай бұрын

Hot takes: -Return to boxes were one of the best products. -There needs to be another be another cycle of starter decks. -We need products that offer short campaigns like NotZ.

@flopus7 4 ай бұрын

Hot take: more people should play Father Mateo Warm take: Jenny Barnes is a good investigator Scorching hot take: we need an aardvark ally to help sniff out clues

@brianschmoyer4915 4 ай бұрын

6. We need more investigators like Lola, Patrice and/or Suzi that dramatically change how we construct and interact with our decks.

@fivifivia1146 4 ай бұрын

My hot takes: -Guardians are by far the worst class in the game, because every class has gotten things that were supposed to be what guardians are all about, and when you compare what Seekers for example got to deal with their weak spot (dealing with enemies) and you compare it to what guardians got to pick up several clues in a shot, or use fist to pick up clues from lvl 0 like Mystics or Rogues or how Seekers deal with enemies with INT, or good draw for example, you realise how insanely weak they are. They are only carried a bit by Stick to the Plan + Ever vigilant, but that's it. Even when you take fighting, Yorick, Tony and other folks are far better than them, and this game isn't really all about fighting all the time... -They can't balance Seekers and i wish they took the ban hammer on all the shitty things in that class which is in every damn deck, Mag Glass, dr. Milan, etc.... -Mystics should have never been "use brain for all" and should have been an interesting class resembling warlocks or blood mages from similar games, this way they are right now is the most boring thing ever. Imagine if every class was the same way, you use your main stat for every asset and that's it lmao, it would be the most boring game ever

@cykeok3525 4 ай бұрын

On your first point, yeah, Guardians don't really do anything unique except for when the group needs 15+ damage dumped into an enemy per turn (the high-XP Guardian weapons), but that basically only happens once or maybe twice in an entire CAMPAIGN.

@davidko9289 4 ай бұрын

Prepared for the Worst still has a place for big guns or other high XP weapons where you're looking for specific ones. Basic draw is not good. It's just not bad. Drawing is better than not having playable cards, but worse than most things with playable cards. The trick to manage AHLCG's complexity is to play with someone who will handle all the complexity for you =D Father Mateo is, at best, mid-tier. Other people benefit from the expanded Blessed options more than he does. Too much consistency makes games too same-y, but I don't think it's there yet.

@gregmahler9506 3 ай бұрын

#1: I agree that prepared for the worst is not a great card, but if you mulligan all 5 cards and still don’t get a weapon, 1 copy of this might save the day in the deck. I wish it were 0 cost though since it can miss. #2 - sometimes you run out of cards and it saves you to take a turn to draw 2-3 cards with the basic action to get your engine going. I love the way the game is balanced with these types of decisions. #5: Even with the cards you want the draw bag can always ruin your day and so consistency is nice but not an auto win.

@user-mx6sp3ij5e 4 ай бұрын

Hot Take: Short Supply should be played in basically any deck that can take it. Discard recursion is basically the strongest searching in the game. The knowledge it gives you is underestimated (especially if it hits a weakness). The only justification to not play it is if your deck plays HIGHLY searchable "build around" cards (like astronomical). And even in that instance, shrine and scavenging should be considered.

@MyAlex528 4 ай бұрын

Hot take 3. I’m still very new to the game. Started Dunwich two weeks ago until Miskatonic Museum. Already had the experience which I pulled 3 consecutive auto fails one point facing the boss in the Museum. My partner stared at me with disbeliefs and I couldn’t believe my bad luck as well. In TTS, however, I would blame the RNG right away as if it was not my fault. I’m sure I’ll talk about this until the day I die. Lol

@MrNephthys17 4 ай бұрын

Prepared for the Worst is still strong imo. Fighter card draw is vital because a Cluever can generally get clues without needing an item but with a few exceptions a Fighter without a weapon isn't a Fighter. So having a way to check a third of your deck for one can be very helpful for your decks consistency. Of all of the options, Prepared for the Worst is still one of the most efficient imo. I admit that I would be interested in seeing a good Father Mateo deck played, its possible he's had the support to be good now. My Hot Take is that Calvin is actually top tier now.

@cykeok3525 4 ай бұрын

Agreed, a clue-finder has a macro scale time limit (usually the Doom count for one or more Agendas), where they need to work at a fast pace, and keep up that pace, but over a longer period of time. A goon has a micro scale time limit (often a single Investigator Phase), where he needs to do work in short bursts, usually knocking out the enemy(s) before the Enemy Phase immediately afterward.. and this need may arise at any time, possibly even Round 1 itself. There's a several ways to get action consistency (combat skill bonus) and action compression (damage per action), but getting a weapon asset into play is the most reliable way to get both.

@loganmcvey3339 4 ай бұрын

I really encourage anyone to try out Mateo with the Twilight Diadem (as Justin mentions briefly in the video). It absolutely convinced me that he is a high tier investigator now, and is a far cry from what he used to be before the recent Hemlock Vale cards. I was consistently hitting two or three elder sign effects per turn with the Diadem alongside other setup tools like Blessing of Isis, Olive McBride, and Pact of Sun and Moon (massive bonus points if you have a team full of bless / curse decks to make Mateo go nuclear). It was absolutely crazy how good the deck was, and it was extremely XP efficient with Mateo's 5 starting XP being used to grab everything I need (save the Diadem) upfront so that I could get Down the Rabbit Hole value. I know weird combo decks seem really bad on paper since you need so many tools out in play, but I encourage people to try it out. I was able to hit everything astonishingly well even without several key pieces, and due to Mateo's elder sign being able to be a +1 draw and +1 resource, the deck supports itself once you get the mininum setup.

@janikbuser2604 4 ай бұрын

I want to ad that the power of the draw action (and this ads to the last hot take) depends a lot on the power of your deck, the stronger your cards are compared to basic actions, the more you want use it. Therefore it comes down a lot to play-/deckbuilding style: If you have access to a full collection, play optimized decks, min/max out XP and play standalone where you have more XP available it gets better. If you like to try more thematic decks, play cards to simply try them out and not always play the most powerful stuff, have not access to a full card pool it is worse.

@scotts1912 4 ай бұрын

I agree with the take on Prepared for the Worst. I rarely play it in Guardian decks. I now only run it if I've built a deck that is centered around one specific weapon. But a Guardian deck that is running enough weapons and doesn't care which weapon you draw does NOT need Prepared for the Worst.

@emergency.jergens 4 ай бұрын

Lola should be the final boss of every scenario

@TheCrimsonscorpio 4 ай бұрын

I think you guys actually sussed out in your cycle drafts what is eating at this game; the ability to create hyper-optimized decks by using the full card pool. The increasingly overlapping card design means it's very easy to create potent, focused decks. Whereas earlier in the game's lifecycle, the game was much more about scrapping by and figuring out how to get out of jams.

@philip8093 4 ай бұрын

I find flex investigators to be unfun, this might be a personal deckbuilding flaw, but I absolutely prefer having two focused investigators rather than two mid investigators (I only play two handed, which might factor into my opinion.)

@cykeok3525 4 ай бұрын

You're right, and even with two people playing, flex doesn't work as well as two role-focused Investigators. The deck has to be split between cards for the two roles, and even with some search/draw boosts, there's going to be times when an Investigator needs the ability to fulfil a role (like right now!), but they're coming up with cards for the other role's purpose. In a scenario where you're really racing against Doom, or has an Enemy-heavy Encounter deck composition, just a bit of bad luck can mean you'll find yourselves coming up short when it counts. Imo it only comes into itself with at least 3+ players, where you can have at least 1 dedicated fighter and 1 dedicated cluefinder, and the third can be flex+support.

@jamesstanley4691 4 ай бұрын

Agree! I play solo so have to play flex - it’s more challenging because more focused gators are exponentially more powerful and well balanced teams can easily handle challenges that can stymie a solo gator - such as a low stat you need for a Parley or a low Int gator being hit with a False Lead a Cluver seeker can handle easily. Conversely, a few gators that seem weak in teams are much better in solo because of their adaptability.

@PlayingBoardGames 4 ай бұрын

I agree that flex investigators are weaker generally, but I think the right pilot can make a flex deck really sing. Funnily enough, my most successful two-handed campaigns have been when I played two flex investigators. I did a blind run of a custom campaign with a flex Ashcan Pete and Joe Diamond and the creator said it was one of the best runs he's seen of that campaign. But, with all that said, flex is my favourite way to play and it requires a lot of precise use of your resources in the right times. So blanket statement, I agree with this take.

@thetimebinder 4 ай бұрын

My group always play with four players. Flex investigators are better in higher player counts.

@joezabrowski803 4 ай бұрын

I fucking love hot takes. Teamwork lets you break the rules of the game which means it's incredible. Same with You Owe Me One - *if* you can resist the siren call of fucking your friends over and instead coordinate like a well-functioning team.

@BeesAndSunshine 4 ай бұрын

1: Prepared for the Worst has a few problems. It encourages you to have more weapons in your deck so it hits, conversely the more weapons you have the less you need it. It can also only ever get you a weapon, and it can sometimes get you nothing. If I could put a card in my deck that is sometimes my best weapon (presumably why you want this card) and sometimes blank, or a card in my deck that is always a serviceable weapon, I want the second. If I don't need a weapon neither card will do me any good, but if I need a weapon then a weapon card will always help me, and not take an additional action and resource to do so. I actually think card selection is great, but when it comes to weapons they all pretty much do the same thing, just some better than others, so the benefit of selection with prepared for the worst is marginal. If you are building around an interesting weapon like Boxing Gloves or Butterfly Swords that costs a lot of experience I think this aspect becomes less marginal though. 2: Your Spectral Razor example is a great one of when to take the resource action. Say you are the goon and you don't have a weapon in play and the weapon in your hand costs one more resource than you have. Often it can be better to take the resource to play the card than take some marginally "generally better" action like moving or attempting to clue with not amazing odds or as you say draw a card. If someone draws an enemy during the mythos phase you'll have one more action to fight with, if you draw the enemy you'll take one less attack of opportunity as well. If you are unable to deal with an enemy because you don't currently have a weapon in play it could cost a full round of tempo for an investigator and more. 3: The biggest thing I'd get out of a video game version is the automatic handling of the encounter deck and similar scenario specific decks. Some of these can be a pain to set up and take down and some require modification mid scenario, sometimes multiple times. 4: I think the best investigators and the worst investigators are just closer together because the card pool has gotten stronger and so will be a bigger piece of your player power. Characters with better deckbuilding requirements do get a slightly bigger boost, and level 5 of a color and level 3 of a trait that Fantasy Flight has really pushed is pretty good. I think the level 5 main color with level 2 offcolor deckbuilding that core set investigators have is generally really strong as well. 5: I actually fully agree with the hot take that draw and especially tutoring is the main problem and not really strong really expensive cards. I tend to blame the enablers and tutors are a great example of an enabler, they cheat at one of the core parts of a card game, that being that you are at the mercy of what is on top of your deck. A tutor that costs 0xp and lets you look at your entire deck such as Research Librarian severely limits design space, because now you can essentially have two extra copies of any tome in your deck that you don't have to pay experience for.

@PlayingBoardGames 4 ай бұрын

I agree with what you're saying about point 5 completely. Research Librarian is a very powerful search effect, but where my contentious point came with this person's hot take was that they implied it was the card draw and search now has ruined things, but a lot of the examples I've found for the really good card draw or search (Research Librarian in your example) are in the early sets of the game. Which is why I don't necessarily disagree with the hot take, but I think it's a perfect storm of redudancy with search and draw effects AND cards getting better. Because there's a big difference between Research Librarian grabbing an Old Book of Lore like the early days vs him grabbing a Necronomicon or the Key of Solomon.

@gulthor 24 күн бұрын

Hot Take 1: Prepared for the Worst is an actively bad card. Hot Take 5: Search and draw cards are too strong. Imagine being able to search and draw your 10 XP Runic Axe.

@TheRancord 2 ай бұрын

Can't mention Prepared without Stick. Without it I will never play Prepared

@Bjottis 4 ай бұрын

While it may not feel good to play prepared for the worse and find nothing at least the next nine cards won't be guaranteed to not be a weapon...

@cykeok3525 4 ай бұрын

Huh, that's a solid point. If all your weapons turned out to have settled at the bottom of the deck during the pregame shuffle, that means that Prepared for the Worst was worth it just for the reshuffle!

@halforange1 4 ай бұрын

In the Thick of It should be unique, there was only one copy in the box, like many exceptional cards. Give only one player a head start in XP. The parallel investigators are costing FFG more money than they think. Once you have a few investigator boxes you have enough cards. Free versions of investigators mean there’s less incentive to buy investigator boxes.

@LittleBlueJug 4 ай бұрын

In this world, there's going to be arguments at every table for who gets to play ItToI, like if everyone was playing rogue and wanted Charon's Obol. IMO - it's a finely balanced card that let's you do fun deckbuilding things. Later in the campaign, if I could spent 3 XP to get +1 max health and sanity, I'd take it, so I think there are cases where it's actually wrong to take during deckbuilding.

@kitsunin4690 4 ай бұрын

@@LittleBlueJug Yeah I fully agree. In the Thick of It isn't really that powerful. Maybe in early campaigns it was a bit more, because they tended to focus more on difficulty from tight doom clocks than difficult encounter decks. But in most campaigns, a couple of trauma is no joke. It's a ubiquitous card because it's just fun to get a few more XP.

@shawnc292 4 ай бұрын

I feel like if you are engrossed enough to print a gator, then you are probably engrossed enough to spend 40 dollars a year on a game. especially since most of the print investigator want unique cards out of multiple boxes to really sing.

@MrNephthys17 4 ай бұрын

@@kitsunin4690 I agree, I only take In the Thick of It when theres a real need for it because the trauma train can really ramp up. I've watched it happen on this channel enough to know how bad it can bite you!

@backupJLHJArseKicker 4 ай бұрын

I generally agree that some 10exp payoffs are very strong: runic axe red clock 5 are good examples. That being said, I actually think the game is in a great place, possibly the best its been: a lot of investigators who were previously just kind of unplayable (Father Mateo, Skids, etc.) are at least functional now if you delve into their specific strengths and build differently. In a game like Arkham, where you can just crank the difficultly to expert if you want it, I think the goal should be that there are a bunch of different strategies that are viable, which is truer now then ever. Prepared for the worst is actually a great example of this IMO: it used to be you have to play it because you have like 2 weapons (machete and 45) that are good at lvl 0 and no card draw. Now its a niche card for decks built around a specific weapon (like 10 exp runic axe decks).

@batmansmk 4 ай бұрын

Loosing is fun if I can learn something to do better next time. If what I experience is simply my deck not coming the right way with no tools to avoid this, and having to include 10 copies of similarly working cards just in case I don’t get my weapon on time is not fun. Im all for search and draw and consistency. Spirit Island, Marvel Champions or Ashes Reborn are even more consistent by essence AND even provide even more search and draw. Marvel Champions makes me draw so much, search so much, that I have a very open deck building possibilities with only 25 cards to pick from. “One of” can actually work in Marvel. This makes deck building a more fun and less mechanical process.

@martintomov7576 4 ай бұрын

I think so huge of a playerbase has an innate hate towards higher difficulty levels in this game that they feel the need to bash on cards becoming good and min-maxing decks feeling like cheating easy and standard difficulties.

@gregmahler9506 3 ай бұрын

I saw a hot take on this video. You said “It’s fun to win Arkham…. But it’s also fun to lose Arkham.” I never have fun losing because it seems to always be merely because of the draw bag on tests (if they make you fail 3-4 times in a row, hard to recover).

@PlayingBoardGames 3 ай бұрын

Maybe ask yourself why you're feeling 3 to 4 times in a row? Bad luck can certainly happen, but there may be a reason why you feel it is happening more to you.

@gregmahler9506 3 ай бұрын

@@PlayingBoardGames - well gambling on a not pulling the -3 because I’m going in at +2 but getting it a couple times in a row on big swing turns sure I could’ve gone +3, but man sometimes you just don’t have the resource to go +3, and of course Mixa red auto fill drawn there and man sometimes it just feels like he can’t recover from that specially if it you can kind of just feel when the game put you back so many actions that you’re not gonna be able to overcome it. But I do like the fact that you can resign, that’s super cool.

@PlayingBoardGames 3 ай бұрын

@@gregmahler9506 Again I have to respond to this with a question, and it's not to pile on or anything, but rather to provide people reading this with some context of levelling up their game. Why do you run out resources to be consistently up +3 when you need to be? These are small questions that if we ask will allow us to start troubleshooting our deckbuilding or style of play. This will allow us to win more and, in turn, have more fun losing because then we're losing due to the challenges the game provides as opposed to the feeling of losing to chance.

@gregmahler9506 3 ай бұрын

@@PlayingBoardGames - just curious, when you lose, what are the reasons? Does luck play no factor in the loss? In my games, it’s most of the reason for the loss because I play the absolute best available and weigh the probabilities. But I also play on easy and still find the draw bag hurts. But I also am not too worried about it because the luck swings both ways and there are usually as many fist bumps as there are face palms in a typical game.

@potawto 4 ай бұрын

Regarding the video game take: I **loved** the way The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth did it. (Made by the same people as Arkham Horror right?) The companion app handling so many of the rules for you makes learning and playing the game so smooth.

@Cartkun 4 ай бұрын

For the last point if I want to loose more I play on Hard. I don't mind the payoffs to be really good.

@PlayingBoardGames 4 ай бұрын

Oh yeah, I think there are a lot of ways to circumvent point 5 if you really want to, so I don't think it's actually a problem unless you make it a problem for yourself. It's why we do weird stipulations to our campaigns all the time.

@gulthor 4 ай бұрын

As a Canadian, are you even *allowed* to disagree? Lol. Thanks, this was a fun one.

@cykeok3525 4 ай бұрын

On the flip side, slightest bit of disagreement probably means that it's not a good idea lol