Five Survivor Cards That You Should Give A Second Chance (Arkham Horror: The Card Game)

Intro hello everybody and welcome to another list video on the channel and the last in this second chance series we've done Guardian Seeker Rogue and Mystic and we're here on Survivor Survivor is a pretty weird one to find for five cards that you should give a second chance and this is actually probably the one that I have the most experience with some of these cards I was like I'm going to give a second chance as part of this series and test it out but these are actually five Survivor cards that I have recently had and I say recently I mean like in 2023 that I've recently had a change of opinion on after trying them again a second time so I I'm going to some of the cards on this list you're going to like probably turn your head out and be like what the hell that can't be right but I promise you the utility of these cards is actually higher than we probably give credit for so um this video is to maybe like next time you're looking for that last 30th card be like hey you know maybe my upgrade plan or My Level zero deck is going to work with one of these because I think these cards actually pop off more in the right situations for some of them especially when you have a better understanding of board state or board control which I'll get into those cards but first let's Card 1 dive into our card here which is improvised weapons so this is a one cost event from the Forgotten age it's a tactic and improvise that tactic is important for Mr Mark herrian which we'll get to you may play improvised weapon from your discard pile if you do Shuffle into your deck after resolving its effects fight the attacked enemy gets minus one fight for this attack if you played improvised weapon from your discard pile this attack deals plus one damage for the longest time when I looked at these cards I was like these cards can only exist in a Synergy package in which you are discarding cards and then taking advantage of these abilities and I believe that for a very long time Travis however has been a long proponent of these kinds of cards both um actually all of them winging it improvised weapon and also uh impromptu barrier he plays them kind of just um even when he doesn't have crazy discard Synergy or sometimes without any discard Synergy at all which I thought was pretty interesting and honestly the cards are pretty impressive um I first started putting um winging it into just any of my investigator Decks that could play this cuz I was like I like winging it it's a good card I'm happy to see it two three times in a scenario and worst Cas scenario I'm also happy to just play it and I just was doing winging it for normal without any sort of like high discard Synergy in my deck and then recently I started doing the same thing with improvised Weapon It's still just two damage it's a kill spell this is one of those things that is really nice it also works really well when you have for example shooting a gun say with Mr Mark herrian and you're dealing with three Health enemies it can suck to have to spend uh an ammo to deal that two damage uh when they already have like when they already have two damage marked on them to get that last point of Health off of them so you could just punch them normally or you could play an improvised weapon from your hand to just get it set up for the future in your graveyard and also essentially get a plus one fist for this attack it's gets better with discard Synergy I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't the card gets much better when you're actually doing graveyard Synergy as well like discard Synergy and all that kind of thing however I've been playing it recently in Decks that don't have any of that stuff and it works pretty well so try it out I think you should I think you would eventually upgrade out of it into better kill spells so like if I'm playing sweeping kick in my decks and I can run improvised weapon generally improvised weapon is like there at level zero to kind of fit a similar kill spell kind of hole um but if you have like any sort of um discard Synergy in your deck at all and you're not playing these cards I think you should try it out you should try it out you need to have like probably like four three three or four fist or ways to like commit cards to boost them more consistently but I think the card is really good uh curious to see if impromptu barrier follows a similar path because it was first winging it now improvised weapon I'm curious to see where this goes for me in the future next card on our list here is Card 2 hiding spot okay hear me out hear me out so this is a one cost event it's a tactic and a trick attach hiding spot to any location each na enemy at attached location gains aof forced at the end of the enemy phase if a ready enemy is at attached location discard hiding spot this card came out all the way back in path to carosa and I pulled it out of my binder most recently for the F like for the first time that I can recall with uh parallel Ash C Pete I'm not going to say that everyone can play this card the same way as parallel Ash P Pete but I think this card is actually more playable than I originally gave a credit for some of this is the evolution of um Dodge so Dodge recently is a card that has been growing in my um in in positivity for me I've been Dodge is a one cost card in the guardian class where you cancel an enemy's attack at your location it's really good actually I think Dodge is very versatile and anything that costs one resource I think is worthy of your slot in your deck for very little um consideration because it's just like really cheap and it's practically free it's not free but it's practically free and Dodges have become so kind of ubiquitous for me in terms of like how I approach and how it changes my play pattern in the game that deny existence now has kind of become just a Dodge to me there was a video we recorded recently where brenn joked when when I was talking about deny existence it was I was using it in the enemy phase and Bren was like do I got a card to tell you about and that's Dodge and it's very true enemy fa enemy management is kind of like the next level of winning Arkham right so like killing enemies is great but sometimes you can't kill all the enemies so then how can I take advantage of these enemies or alternatively instead of killing these enemies this turn how can I better set up for the future to win next turn when these enemies are um you know in a different position or a more advantageous position and cards like hiding spot and the next card on our list are ways that we can do that so um this card is basically a Dodge for Survivor right you need to be able to it's it's it works a little bit differently where it works better on like Hunter enemies um which is something that you just need to be aware of uh however what this card can also do is it can just also like free up a location say for example there's a location that has an enemy on it and some people need to move through it you can just throw hiding spot on that location move through that location and then that enem is not a problem and if it doesn't have hunter that enemy is unlikely to be a problem um some odd things about this one is that it's it's a little bit awkward to play like you have to play it during the investigator phase you need to play it during your turn like all those kind of things that normal fast events kind of just live if this was play during any lightning Bowl window holy this card would sing um but I think it already does hum pretty well uh and it's it's one of those things where you can you don't I don't think you need to run two of these I think like we are on close I know um this is something that some other content creators say and I generally agree with the sentiment we are close to the Tipping Point where one ofs are become become much more of a thing we're on like the age where um maybe like 12 cards of your deck are two ofs and then the rest are could be like one ofs and your deck would still function I think just as well as a deck full of two ofs I think we are close to that Tipping Point and I think with moments like that hiding spot is going to go up in even more value I like this card a lot uh and I've been playing it outside of parallel Ash Camp Pete but trust me this is the best card in parallel Ash Camp Pete this card is insane in him I still think parallel Ash Camp Pete is an S tier investigator and I think this makes him like S Plus tier it's really good it's very good in him again it really all comes down to enemy management and this is kind of just like the some of the cheapest enemy management that you can get next card is also enemy management but a little bit more expensive this is one that actually surprised me and I'm starting to bring it into a lot of decks Card 3 that can run it and that card is lur so lur Lev level two there is a level one version but I'm looking at the level two version for a very important reason this is a two a one cost two experience event in the survivor class from the circle undone attach to your location or connecting location during the enemy phase each enemy that moves does so along the shortest path toward the attached location instead of where it would normally move forced while attached at the end of the round discard lure so this card is like a Dodge right if we can just like do it like that it's like the simplest thing you're basically canceling quote unquote canceling an enemy's attack in the the phase if like you have Hunter enemies and a lot of enemies have hunter in this day and age but this card goes if we if we go into deeper what the card actually does you're controlling the enemy's movement it's enemy management again the thing that I've been talking about a lot recently because as I said to me personally this is like the next level of my Arkham discoveries right what this card does is if you for example put it on a location connecting to yours that is also connect to your location that means that all the hunter enemies are going to move to that location even if um like it's like they have to go to the shortest path towards it so like if the shortest path to that location is through your location maybe just don't be an idiot and don't put it on that location right like that's that's the kind of thing like with lure um there is a lot of um stuff like that like there can be situations where it doesn't work because of those reasons but a lot of those times those reasons come down to just like poor management or you know scenarios that it doesn't work on that's that's going to happen for sure in these things um but I do think that this card is actually quietly very impressive I played this card very recently again in parallel Ash Camp Pete where it goes to the moon um because you get to return it to your hand right however I do think that this card is actually playable as probably a one of in some cases a two of in a lot of investigators Decks that can run it and the reason for that is because again enemy management I think is a very powerful tool killing enemies is obviously the number one thing that you should be doing in this game when an enemy shows up if you you can kill it that turn go for it however if it doesn't if if you can't kill it or alternatively you need to get set up for the future being able to use those actions instead of like killing it or like tanking the attacks cuz a hunter enemy moving to your location being able to turn that on its head and just like open up the turn completely and in turn also open up your next turn completely because the enemy now has to move towards you you basically just got a free turn away from that enemy is a very powerful effect if you have ways to return this like I don't know say like resourceful that could be something to do as well if you're not playing Brute Force because brute force is still the number one card to return with resourceful in my opinion or lucky 3 of course but I do think that lur is actually it pop offs it pops off more than I expected it to and uh I think the card is actually kind of crazy uh and I'm excited to explore more like I could like look at this in a year and be like I was silly for thinking that lur 2 was actually good but um here Ashan Pete he plays these cards better than everyone else right but it opened up a new perspective for me in terms of how do I manage my turns in Arkham Horror the card game and this is kind of like the ripple effect of that Discovery and maybe not all these thesises are going to be correct but right now I actually do believe the words that are coming out of my mouth this is not clickbait this is not me trying to farm engagement from people in the comments but I actually do think that um just like the the reason why this one's better than lur one is that you can do it on a connecting location um keep in mind also that survivors XP Works differently for survivors um so it's one of those things where I think this card also is worth more value because of that because for example 2 XP in the survivor class is worth a lot less than 2 XP in the Rogue class or the guardian class or the Mystic class because they have other things that are more important to spend their experience on because they have higher exper levels because Survivor mostly caps out a three apart from a few exceptions so these are all things of why I think this card is better than I previously gave a credit for and I mean like even like in this so this came out in before the Black Throne there's a very scary enemy in that set in that scenario called mindless dancers and this is ways to just beat it for a bit um very interesting card I think you should try it out I'm going to be trying it out more and more and I really enjoy it Card 4 next up on our list is I think I've talked about this card previously as a card that surprised me and that is Lantern so this is a two cost zero experience asset from Pat carosa takes up a hand slaught it's an item and a tool and as an action you investigate your location gets minus one Tri for this investigation as an action you can also discard Lantern deal one damage to an enemy or location this action does not provoke ATT tax opportunity there's an upgraded version and return to path orosa a lot of what I'm going to say here also applies to that one um this card surprised me uh I played this in Wilson Richards because he essentially gets plus two he gets minus one shroud and then plus one from ability so he's kind of getting a plus two but not really and I also played this as one of my Splash cards in a recent Jim Culver deck that I brought to the table and that was just basically like Jim Clover like my job was just to get Clues um but this card is kind of like a fair magnifying glass which is good because magnifying glass is kind of broken if you don't know magnifying glass is a Seeker card it's a zero cost fast no it's one cost at level zero it's a one cost fast takes up a hand slaught you get plus one book while investigating and Seekers will play that card happily because it is very good um it's not exciting but it is just very efficient for its cost Lantern I think is a fair version of that card you're essentially getting plus one book while you are investigating and that is nice for a multitude of reasons one lowered shroud is better than increased skill score generally generally right it's especially true in the survivor class because of cards like look what I found this can turn a three shred location into a two shroud location meaning that if you autof fail you can use your liquid iph found to grab Clues alternatively you can Al turn a four Shad location into a three Shad location which suddenly means that your five book is that much more doable to like to like beat the hump to get that minus two that you want to be up in standard you want to be up in up to in standard the majority of the time that you're like not majority because you can't do it all the time I know majority is the right word not all the time but like most of the time you want to be at least up to when you are at the very least investigating in um in standard difficulty um this is all just little things that make Lantern actually again it's very fair but a fair magnifying glass is still a powerful card it the reason why Lantern uh has lost a lot of steam and I think it's very fair for why this has happened it's because of cards like old key ring old key ring is a Nutter Butters card uh and Scavenging is another reason for for that you don't like if you had to choose between Scavenging out a lantern or Scavenging out an old keyring I know what I would choose probably 90% of the time in the answer to that is of course old keyring however I don't think that diminishes Lantern and if you're not playing a Scavenging deck I think long term Lantern is going to do more for you than an old key ring the old key ring has two uses at level zero I believe it costs one gives you minus two shroud and you only Su you only get the you only spend the key if you pass that's pretty good Lantern however is going to give you minus one forever when you play it and it also has the deal one damage to en location which is quietly actually a pretty powerful ability on the card this really jumped out for me when I was playing Wilson Richards I killed two bosses with a lantern but can also kill things that are aloof it can kill things that you know like your fighter put two damage on and you could be like hey I'll just finish this thing off um and there's recursion in Survivor that makes it really doable this was comboed with Gravedigger shovel but don't get it twisted Gravedigger shovel is pretty bad the Clue version of gravedigger action on Gravedigger shovel is pretty all right but the damage is just not the same it's not the same of just generally an investigate action is better than a fight action especially when that is just for a one to one one damage versus One Clue um because like a clue is worth two damage generally um and uh this is like just that right you're getting minus one shroud and it works very well getting the job done uh so I I play the lantern actually quite a bit now it it it it it takes up my Hand slots in all my non-s Scavenging decks and I don't really scavenge anymore because it's kind of boring I've done it a million times and now that it costs two and four experience I feel less inclined to because I think there's better things to spend my Survivor experience on like apparently lur last Card 5 card here on the list is um another quiet Survivor card Survivor uh generally with its pool we know what cards are good and we know what cards are bad like um it's it's one of those things that it's just like we we just know that we've known that for a long long time uh this card however I think everyone kind of agrees is of very good card but it doesn't actually see the light of day that much and that card is guiding spirit this is a one cost one experience Ally in the survivor class from Circle undone it's an ally and a Guist soaks for three horror and damage you get plus one book we're going to stop there for a second we're going to stop there for a second okay plus one book for one resource in the Ally slot is insane like that is one of those things that a lot of people end up playing Al that just end up being a stat boost right um like for example Jeremiah Kirby people draw two cards of them and they then he's just a stat boost and that's really good if you're building your deck around Jeremiah Kirby you're consistently drawing five cards that's a different story but a lot of people are going to just be putting these cards in because they want the stat boost some people will play granny or she's very good she costs a lot of money and a lot of experience right and they're getting it for that book boost in the survivor class right and they sometimes use her ability but unless you're building around it is your experience really well spent there and I think that when we talk about guidan spirit this mfer with his hand on your shoulder and his finger pointing over your other shoulder is really really efficient for his cost it's very good like just one cost one experience one book and then you get two horror soak now I might be thinking Justin you get three horror soak slow down we don't get three horror soak we only get two horror soak with this ability and I'm going to go into why in a second n direct horror must be assigned to guiding spirit before it be assigned to your investigator card and after guiding spirit is defeated by horror Exile it so generally the play pattern for this guy is by the way take a shot every time I say generally I've been saying it a lot this video haven't I it's just it's it's my apparently my word of the day but when um the play pattern for this guy generally is to have him soak to horror and then play another guiding Spirit or play another one of your allies this guy's One cost means that he is a super disposable Ally and he works really well in allies SP based decks like maybe for example Daryl Simmons or minty fan in like a allies matter style of deck featuring things like laboratory assistant and arts student right if you just put guiding Spirit into that thing that can work really well for just like fitting into that package however this guy also can just protect you for three horror for one experience within the survivor class isn't actually again as high as it is because Survivor experience bottoms out pretty quickly because things are just lower costed and survivors generally need less to get things going and you know actually like you know have their decks be functional at um High XP cost they don't have the same kind of levels as say for example Rogues or Mystics right and if if this ghost this little guiding Spirit gave you three horror soak while also providing you a large amount of turns like how many turns do you need this guy to give you plus one book how many investigates does this guy need to trigger for you to pass for you to get your value out of them if he also for example takes three horror and you have to buy them again or alternatively what if you just don't buy them again what if you buy something else right um I think the problem is with Exile cards is that we get attached to them right we want to be attached to them and have them in Our Deck forever so if we lose one we want it back but I don't think that's generally necessarily the case you could buy other things instead or you know you could just buy it again if you wanted to but how many uses does this this guy need to get if he gets exiled and the answer to that for one cost one experience if this guy gets you like four to five turns probably of investigate actions like not like not 12 actions but like if he gets you like five or six Clues I I think that's pretty good for one cost and one experience just like passively giving you that book boost because you he's also going to be soaking three horror for you however realistically it's not that hard to not die like to have this guy not die to horror there's other things you can do to soak you can pick him up you can like you know play another Ally to get rid of him again in that Ally matters deck I think guiding spirit is actually a pretty powerful card that has never played one because other allies are stronger I'm not going to beat around the bush say that guiding spirit is a very strong Ally I Think guiding spirit is a strong Ally but I don't think like competes with like the higher tier allies that Survivor has right however I do think that it is worthy of that consideration of just a cheap book boost that gets the job done because that is a pretty good effect to have especially if you are doing any sort of Ally Shenanigans I think guiding Spirit would fit right in so those are five five Survivor cards that I think you should give a second chance because I gave them Second Chances and I love them now I think the cards are all really sick um that's the end of this series uh thanks for everyone who watched all five of these videos I appreciate your support on the channel if you want to go A step above you can join our patreons down our patrons from the patreon page down below thank you so much for watching have a good one and as always a GG's