Revisiting the Core Set Player Cards! (Arkham Horror Discussion)

The Core Set came out in 2016 -- and the Revised Core in 2021. Do we still include those cards in today's decks, or have they been outclassed?

[@alexlover1619]

Thanks for your videos. I've learnt a lot about the game from them.

[@carriekelly7606]

My biggest disagreement is with the neutral skills; Guts, Perception, Overpower and Manual Dexterity are all the top of top tier, among the strongest cards in the game and only got better when Down the Rabbit Hole got printed.

[@BadAtFireEmblem]

Please repeat this for each investigator expansion set as a series

[@DakonBlackblade2]

Cat Burglar should 100% be tabooed to cost 0 XP, rogues for whatever reason still do not have a LV 0 ally that gives you 1 foot and Cat Burglar has no home, so make the ally 0 XP.

[@flopus7]

Too much sense.

[@WayOfHaQodesh]

Yes, excellent review. Revised core review. Thank you for all these fantastic vids. Really rate your channel as probably the best in terms of high quality risks, deck building strategies, rules rundown, etc. Thank you.

[@rupert7565]

Cat burglar has gotten better in that it replenishes the rogue mask.

[@Quick_Learner]

Good call!

[@Tomasboca]

I can't think of a cluever deck that can use Deduction that doesn't use it. For me it'd be one of the best without a doubt. Mostly agree with all else. Good video!

[@Quick_Learner]

Don't get me wrong, I also include it in every yellow deck.

[@voxelrobot4473]

Working a Hunch - when you net deck and you need a replacement for Practice makes Perfect :) Blinding Light was my subsititute card for Spectral Razor until Lv2 came out in Hemlock Vale

[@thirteenthirtyseven4730]

Many of the unplayable lvl 0 cards have marginally gone up in value with EotE, where you could In the Thick of It -> Versatile -> Down the Rabbit Hole. They are certainly not enough to warrant taking the three cards above (which are mostly a trap anyway) on their own, but in cases where ItToI Versatile DtRH is something you might want consider legit, I could see playing (or rather ‘put in my starter deck’) e.g. Switchblade lvl. 0. If the stats align, you could even play it as Crypt Chill insurance…

[@astutedunsparce4036]

I am part of the church of Will to Survive after playing it in Hank with Riastrad and the Old Hunting Rifle. Think next I will try it with Chemistry Set and Fine Tuning!

[@astutedunsparce4036]

(also Close Call in Daniela trust !)

[@NapoleonSoares]

Deduction, vicious blow, beat cop, drawn to the flame, ward of protection, the skills that replace themselves and give two symbols, dynamite blast are all such ingrained staples that i think calling them anything other than one of the best is weird. One of my biggest problems with the card pool is that the skill cards from the core set are SO good that most skills that come after them that are skills are only good if they do a similar thing. The fact that practice makes perfect exists makes it even more egregious. Then drawn to the flame and dynamite blast are just the premiere testless cards in the game, ward of protection is probably the most flexible card in the game, and beat cop/leo de luca/peter sylvestre/dr milan/arcane initiate are all the allies that every new ally gets immediately compared to. I think if we arent considering the most obvious staples in the game, which have always been the staples, "one of the best" then it kinda skews the whole list. Also to be clear I think this type of content is awesome and generates good discussion, so thanks for posting these videos!

[@Quick_Learner]

Call me weird then! For one, I definitely wanted to differentiate between cards somewhat -- calling half the cards "really good" isn't particularly helpful or interesting. But also, I'm just not a fan of the core set skills. They're certainly good at what they do, but without other skill synergy (like Practice Makes Perfect), you can start getting a lot better with more XP since one-use only is not too great. I'm still starting with Perception with my seekers, but I can consistently get the +2 and the card draw from other cards every round with other cards with XP.

[@NapoleonSoares]

@@Quick_Learner I agree with everything you just said, but I think it is very telling when you compare the core set skills to other skills and you have to immediately go to skills that cost xp to find other skills on their level. That's how strong they are. And with stuff like down the rabbit hole, they even upgrade into versions of themselves for pretty cheap that do even more, making the base versions still extremely useful to have in your starter deck. Idk, to me if you are comparing 0 xp cards to almost everything at their level and saying "well once you spend 8-10 xp on your deck you can get a similar or slightly better setup going than with the core set skills" that in of itself kinda belies how strong and ubiquitous they are.

[@Quick_Learner]

Totally fair comments. My line of thinking on the skills for this video is that with a small cardpool, they pull their weight for much longer in the campaign, especially the ones that aren't the main stat(s) you're testing. It's less of a "you need XP to match their power" issue with the full cardpool and more of a "with a limited collection you'll have a hard time winning without almost all of these in your deck". In some sense this is an indictment of how difficult the early cardpool was to build decks that leaned into combos or archetypes. Early on, Guts was the only solution to willpower treacheries no matter who you were, nowadays you have a lot of other things that might synergize better with your particular investigator or deck.

[@NapoleonSoares]

@@Quick_Learner True! like I said in the first post, the discussion feels worthwhile. Thanks for all you do for the community!

[@Quick_Learner]

Thanks! This was a great discussion with you indeed!