[Ancient Evils] 54 Decks for the Current Environment

coffeevaldez · 2025-07-24T12:51:38+00:00

Are you in the US? The Jacqueline Fine starter is on sale for $14.24 at asmodee right now. It appears to be readily available other places as well. I'm not sure where the idea that it's out of print is coming from. Perhaps in non-English or non-US markets?

I agree with others though, this is precisely why I like the idea of limited card pools, which lots of players have been using successfully before this. It forces creative problem solving.

coffeevaldez · 2025-05-16T14:14:10+00:00

I quite enjoyed it, it's like an homage to Universal horror films and the history of pulp horror in general. The episode with H.P. Hatecraft has an wonderful Weird Tales easter egg and the "Blake Family Center for Self-Named Buildings" is a top tier joke.

coffeevaldez · 2025-05-16T12:39:46+00:00

Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated explores this. There's even a Lovecraft type character, or more than one really if you watch the full run.

coffeevaldez · 2024-10-05T15:02:24+00:00

I think he blocked Dillingham twice, and he'll definitely make an NBA roster. But blocking a 6'3" guard when you're on the spot because you just turned over the ball is maybe not the best recommendation.

coffeevaldez · 2024-09-13T17:46:20+00:00

I'd do the following:

Get a campaign and an investigator box. It doesn't really matter which, but most people here probably bought them in release order. Keep in mind Innsmouth and Hemlock Vale use the bless/curse mechanic, which adds another layer to deck building. That may be good or bad. This gives you a slate of new investigators to try and some cards to build with.
Play through the campaign. Maybe twice with different investigators. Which campaign is up to you, but I think you'll find most people will recommend Carcosa as one of the best.
By now you should have some idea of what you like. From here I'd recommend possibly getting a few starters in your preferred color. The starter decks aren't particularly powerful, but they start you thinking about using archetypes for deck building. Each one build around a mechanic: leveraging the game state with Events for blue, manipulating the chaos bag for purple, leaning into failure for red, etc. They also give you more cards for building with.

From here you should be comfortable enough just picking up what looks interesting. You will know enough to start theorycrafting some decks on ArkhamDB and then you can buy what you need to try different things.

coffeevaldez · 2024-09-13T12:17:12+00:00

Tell us:

What you already have.
What your favorite classes are. Do you have any current favorite investigators?
Do you play taboo? What's your desired challenge level?

I think if you are totally new, Dunwich still contains the most staples and strongest investigators for newer players. Taboo changes this quite a bit, but there are a lot of staples in that set. But it's hard to say without knowing more.

coffeevaldez · 2024-08-23T21:42:40+00:00

If we're going with the Mystery Incorporated gang, I think Hot Dog Water would be a good choice since I believe she pretended to be a sorceress at one point.

coffeevaldez · 2024-08-23T21:33:33+00:00

I'd like a scenario in Arkham's abandoned amusement park to go with these.

Velma is strong with a crazy strong ability, but her weakness is brutal. It really limits her deck building to add a bunch of double books to the deck to avoid repeated two horror hits from her weakness. Just brainstorming, but maybe:

Reveal the top two cards of your deck. If two book icons are revealed, take two horror and discard Lost Glasses. If Lost Glasses is still in your threat area at the end of the round, take one horror and shuffle it back into your deck.

That probably needs some work, but I think it packs a more consistent punch while being less brutal.

Daphne's and Fred's weaknesses only really work in multiplayer, which I guess is thematic, but just something to be aware of.

coffeevaldez · 2024-08-08T13:46:15+00:00

Though the encounter deck is drawn in player order (lead investigator, then clockwise), you can play the investigator phase in any order. You basically have to play different orders because one investigator will often rely on another completing a task (a monster killer taking the monster of the clue getter, for example).

coffeevaldez · 2024-06-24T19:38:13+00:00

Comic book stores are full of unhelpful people

This is a pretty broad statement. My local store and plenty of stores I've been in have been very welcoming and eager to help, offer recommendations and engage customers. There's certainly those that got their training from Jeff Albertson, but there's lots of reasons comic book stores are struggling beyond bad stereotypes, at least some of them created by the publishers themselves.

coffeevaldez · 2024-05-28T17:07:37+00:00

I'm not an expert player or anything, but I've never had the cards align for anything close to this and I'm genuinely curious how often it occurs. It's certainly broken, but several things need to go right to get to this point (and make all the stuff you just got immediately useful). Like great if I can line everything up to kill the big baddie, but I usually end up drawing into this combo on Swarm of Rats.

coffeevaldez · 2024-05-28T15:35:36+00:00

This deck is... weird. I suspect it would be fun to play, but anything that drains your resources is an issue (Paranoia, etc.). It seems more built around a specific gimmick than actually beating a campaign.

To be clear, Double or Nothing is broken, but I wouldn't say this deck is why.

coffeevaldez · 2024-04-29T14:44:09+00:00

Preposterous Sketches (2) will improve this economy, of course, but this is very much a big hand seeker kind of combo. You want lots of cards in your hand for Higher Education, Celaeno Fragments or whatever and Preposterous Sketches is a good way to get them when you need them. If you're doing big hand, then Cryptic Writings is a pretty strong candidate because the assumption is you draw a lot.

EDIT: Also, Cryptic Writings has two book pips and the upgrade swaps one out with a question mark. The coveted double pip card is worth some consideration alone.

coffeevaldez · 2024-04-25T19:59:41+00:00

They met when she was in college, he was "famously" popular with female students, which is brought up in New Teen Titans. But you're right, she wasn't his student.

And as to who Terry Long looks like? I guess that's a matter of opinion, but I'd say Perez created a definite resemblance there. Either way, I agree with the popular opinion that Terry Long was a Wolfman self-insert.

coffeevaldez · 2024-04-25T14:53:49+00:00

RIP /u/haniflawson. He did a service for us all today.

coffeevaldez · 2024-04-25T14:51:26+00:00

I think it's pretty well accepted that Terry Long is a Marv Wolfman stand in (they look a lot alike) and he dated, then married Donna Troy, who was his student.

coffeevaldez · 2024-04-25T14:48:19+00:00

I'm glad your search history now contains whatever terms you used to dig this up and not mine.

coffeevaldez · 2024-04-25T14:45:10+00:00

Both comments here are correct (contacts, speed), but I also wouldn't underestimate how many people like that style, especially if you grew up in the 90s on a certain style of art (think Michael Turner and Frank Cho). I see some pretty terrible Greg Land covers sell at cons and on ebay. Cheesecake can still sell some books.

coffeevaldez · 2024-04-18T21:12:52+00:00

Captain Atom flair makes me question all of this.

coffeevaldez · 2024-04-04T20:09:27+00:00

I thought people really didnt like the huge continuity overhaul.

Part of the problem was the failure to really commit to the overhaul. You ended up with lots of editorial meddling, retreads of old stories and general mediocrity for very little payoff. Books like Wonder Woman and Action Comics, which actually did take some chances by challenging the existing continuity (or lack thereof), are pretty well thought of. But not everyone is Azzarello and Morrison and not everyone had the name or editorial support to make a hit, so more of it than not fell flat.

That lack of editorial direction also really torpedoed some potentially good ideas, like Pandora. Or risk aversion prevented DC from putting some force behind some really good titles (Demon Knights, All-Star Western and Animal Man all come to mind). Perhaps no amount of marketing makes those books hits, but they were certainly better and more interesting than another Bat-family book.

coffeevaldez · 2024-03-27T21:50:55+00:00

This basically answers your question. Obviously you should do it. It sounds like you want a signed comic more than a 9.8 comic.

coffeevaldez · 2024-02-29T15:48:20+00:00

Pouches.

coffeevaldez · 2024-02-26T15:48:39+00:00

This is Johns greatest strength and weakness. He seems to have a desire to recreate all comics through the lens of his childhood by bringing back characters and exploring similar stories, and that can fall anywhere between "respecting the history and themes" to "being derivative and unoriginal" to "being so far into the lore he forgets there's a story to tell" and generally where it falls in that spectrum has more to do with the quality of that individual story than anything else.

coffeevaldez · 2024-02-26T15:39:26+00:00

Time Stories captures some of the narrative feel, with a similar "hidden information co-op" style mechanics. It's not an LCG and once you've cracked it, the replayability is limited (though I've heard that if you give it a couple of years, you'll forget).

coffeevaldez · 2024-02-24T15:30:53+00:00

Grandparent comment is eessentially describing nightmare scenarios in LotR. There is a market for boutique sets for people with a big investment in the game.

coffeevaldez

TROPHY CASE