It’s been a few months since the release of The Drowned City & I wanted to do a quick overview of a few of the new cards that I have found to be very good for old investigators. This is of course by no means exhaustive, and if this article idea proves popular, I may have to do Old Dogs, New Tricks 2. Let me know if you want that! Anyway, I’m going to be focusing on ten level 0 cards here, so keep that in mind as well. I’m also going to be looking for things that aren’t necessarily super obvious, so hopefully you’ll encounter a surprise or two here.

1.Anchor Chain & Rita Young

At first glance, you might look at Anchor Chain and think, well Rita definitely doesn’t need a hand slot item to evade. She can just do that with no assets at all. But, aside from the part where you get a skill bonus to something you want to do anyway, the big thing here is it gives Rita a discard enabler when she is evading. Unlike many other Survivor investigators (Wendy, Pete, George, Patrice, and so on), Rita does not have an inherent discard ability. Anchor Chain gives it to her and it happens on something she wants to do frequently anyway. Anchor Chain then makes Rita much more capable of using discard fodder cards, such as Winging It or Moonstone.

In addition, being able to exhaust an enemy for an extra turn can potentially be highly synergistic for certain teams, such as when paired with a Trish.

2. Crowbar & Nathaniel Cho

Crowbar Nathaniel, which I lovingly call Cho-bar, is especially good in solo but I can definitely see it being good in multiplayer if you wanted your Nathaniel to be more generalist. The clear benefit of using Crowbar in Nathaniel is it lets you investigate at a 5, making him much more capable of getting clues. Pair this with existing Guardian clue tech and you have a much more reliable direction for gathering clues. But the reason I think Nathaniel is very well-suited for Crowbar is because he was often not using his hand slots to fight anyway. While many fighting investigators would hate to give up a hand slot on a low damaging weapon, Nathaniel doesn’t especially care because he was primarily fighting with Events anyway. This means his damage output is not hampered as badly by giving up a hand slot to a Crowbar as others might be.

Now if you are using Crowbar instead of Boxing Gloves then yes you are losing some firepower for sure. Boxing Gloves enables an Event based combat build far more than Crowbar. However, you can potentially run both with Bandolier. Boxing Gloves, Bandolier, and Flashlight was already a popular 3 asset spread for Nathaniel, so substituting a Crowbar for the Flashlight is definitely a fine option.

I would also highly recommend taking Grete as an ally for this deck because she provides a +1 Combat which can go to support your events. She also can help you get more clues since that’s probably what you wanted if you are taking Crowbar in the first place.

Two last things to point out – Randall Cho can help you find the Crowbar out of your deck & Crowbar is okay fighting against Tommy Malloy because you only do 1 damage at a time to him anyway.

3. Eyes of the Dreamer & Akachi Onyele

This card could also have been Breath of the Sleeper, but I think Eyes is just a lot stronger as 1 clue is usually worth more than 1 damage. Anyway, there are only two words I need to say to make you know that this card is nuts on Akachi and it’s ten charges. TEN. CHARGES.

This plays so well with her signature asset and her signature weakness, and it also enables cards that eat up charges like Torrent of Power. Not only that, don’t forget that you don’t even need to spend a charge to use Eyes in the first place. So you can just freely dump all the charges off of this and still have a usable asset. In that sense, this is similar to Sixth Sense but it’s a Sixth Sense with charges on it which makes Akachi suddenly care about using it.

If you did want to use the charges but you don’t care for the matching token lottery, you can just use 1 charge at a time to guard against drawing an auto fail. When played this way, Eyes of the Dreamer is a Sixth Sense with 10 charges on it, where you can’t autofail the test, and on occasion, you may randomly get a bonus clue. This thing is crazy, and I highly recommend using it.

4. Artistic Inspiration and Rex Murphy

Rex Murphy is probably the last investigator to need any help at all, but this card is here to help him anyway. Artistic Inspiration can help Rex succeed by at least 2 to trigger his investigator ability by helping him get there even when he would succeed by only 1. Once you get this going, you can also use other effects which require you to succeed by certain values, such as Lucky Cigerrate Case, for even more value. With succeed by X Seeker cards being more common in recent cycles, Rex is definitely well positioned to get lots of interactions going at once.

This also gives Rex a good discard outlet, meaning you can do things like bring Winging It and discard it to Artistic Inspiration. A play like this helps make your Artistic Inspiration way more valuable.

5. Unconventional Method & Marie Lambeau

Marie is an investigator who likes to play with doom, but as we all know, this can be a hugely risky venture. That’s why investigators who play with doom need strategies to get rid of their doom cards as safely as possible. Well, what if you were able to get clues while doing exactly that?

Basically, you need a hand asset that generates doom such as Dowsing Rod or Hallowed Chalice. Get as much use out of them as you can, enjoying your extra actions for Spells as much as possible, and then you can use Unconventional Method to discard them for great benefit. If you were to toss a Dowsing Rod for example, you would get to Investigate with 8 skill for 2 clues. And that’s pretty good! Of course, I’m not saying your Moonlight Rituals can safely go in the binder now, but more options are always welcome.

6. Crack Shot & Dexter Drake

Ok, now this one is a little bit out there but stay with me! Crack Shot on Dexter takes advantage of the fact that Crack Shot has 3 wilds, which means these icons can be Willpower icons.

That means these cards can be committed to Enchanted Bow or Hyperphysical Shotcaster. Of course, these cards require some XP to get going, so until then, they can help Dexter use actual guns. And with his 3 Combat, Crack Shot can easily be the difference between Dexter hitting with a regular gun or not.

7. “Where’s the party?” & Kymani Jones

I realize I have not highlighted any actual Rogue investigators yet, so here’s a new card that fits an old investigator just perfectly. Essentially, what Kymani can do here is fish out a non-Elite enemy from the deck and spawn it exhausted and engaged with them, which is the exact condition needed for their investigator ability to work. You get some card draw out of the deal, and you can potentially discard the enemy with a good evasion right after. You can also choose to leave the downed enemy alone, and trigger any synergies your deck may have around enemies being present, such as healing horror from investigating with Forensic Kit (a second new card for them!). Overall, the card draw is already great and it potentially sets up huge combos for your team in multiplayer if you have team members in search of an easy kill or a docile enemy laying around.

8. Mortar and Pestle & Daisy Walker

Mortar and Pestle is admittedly a bit tricky to get working, and if you draw it too late to stack up the resources, you are better off committing it. However, if you do get this out early enough, Daisy’s Mystic access gives her really good cards for Mortar and Pestle to pay for. These include but are not limited to Ward of Protection, Explosive Ward, Drain Essence and Read the Signs. Within Seeker, there’s also Occult Invocation, which is a very strong combat Spell.

Again, for any of this to be worthwhile, you really want Mortar and Pestle to be down within the first few rounds of the game. This is because the card also exhausts as it stacks, so it would take 2 rounds just to break even. However, if you did get it down early and then stack it every round, you could definitely get a healthy pile of resources going for a Spell based Daisy build.

9. Lawrence Carlisle & “Ashcan” Pete

Pete was already pretty good at using discard fodder because of his investigator ability. However, Lawrence takes that and gives Pete even more value. Not only does Lawrence play well with Duke because the Intellect bonus can stack on Duke’s investigation, Pete can now gain a resource when he discards a card to ready Duke, something he wants to do anyway.

Of course, a lot of folks may be quick to point out Lawrence has to do this 3 times to break even. That’s true but don’t overlook the value of the Intellect bonus or even the soak. (This is a different situation than the previous section on Mortar and Pestle, as Mortar and Pestle has no other value.) Sadly, Lawrence is vulnerable to being pinged out of existence by a random treachery card, but he is still well worth having.

Another fun idea is that Lawrence can make discard fodder like Winging It or Fortuitous Discovery better for Pete by giving him a higher Intellect for those investigate actions. Perhaps a build where Pete takes investigations on his own while supported by Lawrence could be in the works!

10. Confidence & Jacqueline Fine

One last thing to bring us up to a nice even 10 entries, and it’s a really good one, if perhaps a bit unsurprising. Confidence is so good on Jacqueline that I would consider it staple tier for her. That’s because Confidence is easily 3 to 4 Wild icons when she commits it. All she has to do is use her investigator ability on that test or Olive McBride, an ally she frequently takes, or Dark Prophecy, another card she does well with, or… okay, I think my point has been made by now. Basically, Jacqueline can max out the value of this card with little effort and with the high skill bonus plus the token manipulation, you are all but guaranteed to pass the test — that’s probably why it’s named Confidence! Is it overkill? Maybe, but this is Arkham Horror. Sometimes having access to overkill for a test is really important.

Conclusion

Alright, that’s ten entries so plenty to think about for now. Hopefully, I gave you at least one or two new ideas to think about or perhaps even a shell to start building a new deck off. I’m actually currently running Anchor Chain Rita and Eyes of the Dreamer Akachi through different Drowned City campaigns and having a lot of fun with it. Anyway, if you want me to do more of these, such as with the XP cards, or maybe another round of entries (maybe New Dogs, Old Tricks were I talk about the new investigators with old cards!), let me know! That’s enough from me, thanks for reading and happy investigating.