Reviews
18
This card largely sucks on its own. +3 will can be a butt saver against the encounter deck or critical for pulling off a difficult spell in expert, +3 fight tends to be pretty pointless on Mystics but can help them deal the odd 1 damage (2 with fireaxe or something) but it's definitely not worth losing an equivalent of a whole turn (which is what doom is) for a mediocre boost on either of these stats.
Now the first use case where BP can begin to pull its weight is at the end of an agenda. The additional doom doesn't trigger an agenda-advancement check, and when agendas cycle they remove all doom in play, so if you overload the game board with doom on these turns (with Alyssa Graham and arcane initiate also wanting to use these windows for their doom triggers) it doesn't have any negative effect on the game state. (Watch out for this possibly changing in future scenarios). For scenarios with a lot of agendas this can be really crucial to abuse. Still, it's not the most powerful and its situational that the timing will work out that you need to do these tests before the agenda cycles.
Enter moonlight ritual. Lordy, this is an epic combo. With moonlight you can load up on the doom early in an agenda and clear it before it triggers during the mythos phase. The wonders this works are not to be understated, it is not at all hard to put 6 or 7 doom on Blood Pact early in a long agenda and simply clear it later for a swing of +21 or so in tests for one action and 3exp total. It's bonkers powerful, and fairly consistent since with BP's permanent code word you only need one of your two rituals in hand to have the combo ready.
Now here's the big catch, you need to be hyper aware of what threats are available when doing this. A stray doom or two from the encounter deck, or an unexpected discard effect can have you throwing away 6 turns because of co*cky overconfidence. Stay alert for what threats exist and always assume the worst, if you do you too can tap the strength of blood magic without fear of repercussion.
Difrakt · 1278
Note the 1/test limit. I mean, I guess you could get 6 or 7 doom on it in separate tests, but it sounded like you meant in one test.—rlpowell · 1
Oh, you meant over several turns. I get it, nevermind.—rlpowell · 1
8
This card is a no-brainer for Marie Lambeau. Totally worth the 3 xp.
Need to boost your Willpower 3 times during the same round? Done. Then because you have doom on a card you control (Blood Pact), you have a free action to cast the Moonlight Ritual spell and clear all these gloomy tokens. Don't have Moonlight Ritual? Then maybe you have her Mystifying Song to delay the agenda to advance, giving you another round of crazy Willpower.
Because it's a permanent card, you can practically make sure to trigger Marie's special ability on round 1 of a scenario instead of waiting for an Arcane Initiate or David Renfield to show up.
That said, not much use of the Fight bonus unless you build her with a few Survivor cards like Fire Axe and Fight or Flight.
Ezhaeu · 48
The $combat boost is helpful as finisher, to save charges on your combat spells for enemies left with 1 HP. No longer wasting 2 shriveling charges on 3 HP enemies.—Django · 4975
5
- If you have two of these, you can use both on the same test
- However Counter Ritual can only clear one of these
- Permanent cards cannot leave play, so you can't ged rid of the doom by discarding the Bloodletting
- Use Hollow eyes or coffee to spy the mythos deck, to avoid advancing the agenda too early
- Counter spell also works against Ancient Evils
- If the player leaves (defeat or resign), the doom is removed
Django · 4975
3
The Doom tokens on this card are removed when the Agenda advances, so it can be safely used on all of your Will and Fight tests, the turn that the Agenda is going to advance anyways (unless there is an Agenda that gets worse the more Doom it has on it when it advances. Can't think of one off the top of my head, but I wouldn't put it past them...)
Dev Null · 4
3
I took this card with Mateo's opening experience for a forgotten age campaign (standard difficulty, we're not fancy), two moonlight rituals, and have not looked back.
As other commenters have pointed out, the cost to this card is completely prohibitive. It never makes sense to trade an entire turn just to get +3 to a test.
Except sometimes the cost is actually just nothing. Either because you have (a sufficient) amount of doom left on the agenda, a ritual in hand, or you definitely know that the agenda is going to advance this turn. In those cases this card has actually just saved my bacon (-5 you say? pfah, nothing).
I'm not here to claim it's higher education good, but I'm not sure I would play a Mateo deck without one...
Mugwump · 14
Remember it’s 1/Test Limit. But you can play 2 of them. But Moonlight clears only 1 of them.—Django · 4975
It costs you no turns if you use it the turn right before the agenda advances anyway—Chitinid · 14
2
I think this card is definitely worth a second look with the new Sin-Eater card. You can now use this once per turn, get the doom on Sin Eater and then clear it in a couple of turns before doom advances.
I think even then it's not super necessary on most Mystics and spending 9XP on the combo is a lot but I can see the argument on hard or expert where you want a reliable 3+ will power on tests.
tactis · 17
A lot of players under-value skill test bonus combos, but its critical to remember they often are an important component to more robust combo based strategies, because the more dense you make an action's value the more critical it is to get it to autofail only. Being able to convert one action minimum to +3 to a future test at any time is absolutely no joke and is easily worth 9 XP, even on normal, and mystic historically has lacked good access to repeatable 'force to pass' effects.—dezzmont · 204