Nightmare at Noon Review

A review of the just released Nightmare at Noon. Stolen completely from stim hack, the follow metric will be used:

5 – Great

One of the strongest cards in the game: it’s powerful and always useful. It’s surprising to see a deck that doesn’t play this card in-faction.

4 – Good

A good card that sees plenty of play. It’s not necessarily the best choice for every deck, but you can put it in your deck and know that it will do something for you.

3 – Playable

You can’t just throw this card in any deck and expect it to do something for you, but it can be good in the right context.

2 – Weak

This card isn’t good enough to be worth playing. The decks it fits tightly into are not well suited for competitive play. The stars might align such that it fits into a competitive deck, but even then it’s generally worse than a more straightforwardly good card.

1 – Bad

This card sucks.

doomtown db should eventually have the full spoilers up.

Junior

DG - 3
If only his ability triggered whenever he entered play he could be a great abomination to bring back.  Will likely still see play with Soul Jar decks, but is overall a very expensive package.

HO - 3
Horrifically overpriced, no innate influence, not a stud - Junior has a lot of things working against him. And yet, he's entirely playable on account of a powerful meta trait, tutor (Legendary Holster? Legendary Holster), and high bullets. Furthermore, his low value works extremely well with said holster. He won't fit in every deck, but the ones he will can make great use of him. The cost is prohibitive, though. Note that because it's a direct attach, my understanding is can be used to attach to booted dudes in locations you do not control.

The Fabulous Mister Miss

DG - 4
A less annoying version of influence control, especially as it requires a shoot out and your opponent to be able to refuse to trigger.  Sadly not an abomination.  I can see it used outside of clowns.

HO - 2

First transgender character in DTR? This is an odd "win more" card - the effect is actually very powerful, but low value hurts usage in spell based decks, and isn't powerful enough to really justify the upkeep in shooter abomination archetypes, in which case you would just play Dulf Zug if you wanted the same kind of body. You could probably build an archetype around this with a Valeria-Funtime Freddy starting posse and force your opponent to confront you quickly (11/1 starting posse with 3 influence counting the Oddities of Nature bonus), and try to control your opponent's board movement, but I'm not sure it'd be actually good. Note that the trait will trigger off any kind of call out. Probably stronger out of other, more aggressive factions.

Sister Mary Gideon

DG - 3
A blessed dude who is a stud, with influence and no upkeep?  The trait is somewhat relevant too.  There are two 4 ghost rock, 0 stud, 1 influence hucksters with abilities, so even with the trait she has she feels overcosted.

HO - 2

1 GR too expensive. Mary's actually fairly good as a splash, being able to solo large posses, but 9 value is already crowded with splashable dudes (Mario, Angelica, Wendy...).

Nathan Shane

DG - 5
Great starting dude with a really solid shootout ability.  The ability just gets better as his bullets increase too.  If you can set it up there is nothing like looking at your opponents entire hand and discarding the one cheating card they have in it.  Will see play in other factions too.

HO - 5

A good shootout ability with a non-overcosted body? Morgan desperately needed this dude. Fits perfectly into any sort of deck that buffs bullets - the ability to peek at the opponent's hand, much less discard, is extremely good. He

Warren Graves

DG - 4
While the ability is incredibly good for the meta(more react ways to prevent dudes from being shotgunned please) it comes on a incredibly expensive chassis.

Bonus points for an ability that allows a dude being sent home booted to be sent home booted instead.

HO - 3
Strong influence, strong meta ability, strong value, strong stud. 8/1 is just too much GR to be practical, but MCC doesn't have a lot of other options. Note that this is for shootout plays only (not  resolutions), and also note that it doesn't care whose card effect causes it - merely that the shootout play causes something to occur (e.g., asyncoil gun). Also, warren does not appear to be able to save quaterman.

Jack O'Hara

DG - 4
A cheap stud with influence and a relevant ability for Sloane?  High value this time to boot.  Will easily see play with Desolation Row Hucksters(equip all the Rapiers) and is cheap enough to be splashed elsewhere too.

HO - 3
Filler "kensai" stud. However,1 influence makes him significantly better than most of the filler studs.

John "Aces" Radcliffe

DG - 3
Cheap enough body, but I worry that it may be hard to engineer him being a stud consistently.

HO - 2
Bizarre but surprisingly good card for noon control decks. Highly resistant to debuffs due to high starting bullets and ability to become a stud. However, 4s aren't a strong value and he isn't a strong starter so his use is pretty limited.

Steele Archer

DG - 2
What the game really needed was a way to use a Paralysis Mark twice every turn.  Thankfully he is also incredibly expensive.

HO - 1
Decent card in a vacuum, albeit fragile, but there aren't enough ways to keep it alive. It's a big enough threat to be PK'd, expensive enough to lose you the game if killed,  and strong enough to tempt you to build your deck around him.

Old Man McDroste

DG - 4
A second playable dude at K really opens up that value.  Outside of that, it's a cheap body with two relevant traits and a strong, if difficult to use, ability.

HO - 3
Weird, interesting, probably useless card. Note that the influence loss continues even if Old Man McDroste dies (which he probably will after he boots to cause the effect). Tanky. Probably bad for the game because he punishes people playing deeds.

Flint's Amusements

DG - 4
Has good ratios for cost, influence and income.  Passive trait to earn more money and an ability to draw cards.  On a upcoming value too.

HO - 3
Does the "controller" refer to the controller of Flint's Amusements? An unusual 6 value deed that fulfills an important role of being a 6 value deed. This is the fourth 6 value deed.  The abilities are strong in a vacuum, but the deed will probably be taken over for the card draw since cheatin' cards are common in some metas.


Lula's Exploit

DG - 5
Ignoring the trait it has on it, its a 4 for 2 out of town deed.  That much will have it see play in plenty of decks.  The trait just makes it extra incredible for Mad Science if you play gadgets that make use of ghost rock.

HO - 4
An 8 value out of town deed which has efficient production is entirely playable. Even if you aren't playing gadgets, this is still a very good deed.

Testing Range

DG - 1
This should have been a deed that can start the game in play.  It would have pushed clubless significantly more towards playable.  Sadly this was not to be.  It also doesn't provide income and it's other ability requires ghost rock.

HO - 2
This would have been fine if it were a start in play deed, but being forced to draw into it is a huge hindrance. Furthermore you have to choose between the two effects per turn since they boot the deed. No value for non-mad science decks. This is the fourth Q value deed.

Dog's Duster

DG - 2
When you really want to pay more for a hat and hate playing shotguns.  It can help you challenge wanted people in their home but they need to booted to force it.  Maybe against DR but I'm still not seeing it.

HO - 2
Only really usable out of Law Dogs. It has a lot of effects but none of them are that interesting - it effectively just lets your dude call a wanted person out at home. Not a bad effect, but expensive for the price.

I should note that the "do not become wanted for joining a posse at a private location" is really weirdly worded. According to the strict reading of that, a dude will not go from 0 to 1 bounty, but can gain bounty after he is already wanted. Furthermore it won't affect the bounty gain from a job where the job is being contested at a private location, because the dude is already in the posse by the time the contestation begins.

Stoker's Sabre

DG - 2
Expensive for the bullet bonus, especially melee bullet bonus.  Extra value is always nice.  With its own value I'm not sure which spell casting faction is going to want to use this.

HO - 1
3 GR for another copy of a shootout/resolution spell at an awkwardly low value (7) seems like it'll hurt more than it will help. And it's unique. Gives a little bit more value to Mongwau or other low value starters to avoid getting shotgun/asyncoil gun'd, and overall gives +5 grit for one weapon.

Fate Dispenser

DG - 2
I like the idea of card draw, but I'm not super happy with attaching it to a deed my opponent can gain control of.  Has a rather high difficulty.

HO - 1
This is a good idea against decks that shoot weaker, and a terrible idea against decks that shoot stronger. You can probably guess where mad science usually ends up.

Soul Cage

DG - 5
Not too expensive with an incredible effect.  Only held back because it requires cheating to happen and can only target Abominations.  Will really bring lose to win decks up a few notches.

HO - 5
The ranking is for the decks that will use it. As a shootout cheatin  punishment this is a very weak card, but for lowball cheatin punishment it is tremendously valuable, being able to recur from either discard or boot hill. Being tutorable off Junior or (narrowly) Richard Slavin just gives it more value.


For Such a Time as This

DG - 1
Ugh.  I need to both succeed at a miracle pull, then succeed at a job and then can only find a guy based on the skill check.  I do get a minor discount here.  If you can engineer it to summon Whatley as a victory condition it would be alright but that is really difficult.

HO - 1
This is a win more card that slows down the game due to the influence boost. The max grit you can pull is (13+2 (morgan research institute)+1 (St Anthony's Chapel)-1 for spell) 15.

Sword of the Spirit

DG - 1
I need a blessed, this miracle and a melee weapon in play to be able to use this.  While I appreciate the spell meta playing horse decks makes me leary of the requirements to use this card.

HO - 2
This is a perfectly playable card until you realize it has to target someone with a melee weapon already attached, and they can't trade or otherwise lose it. Otherwise the effects are fine, and there's plenty of reasons to run Ks.

 A Fight They'll Never Forget

DG - 2
A +1 bullet bonus for your posse doesn't seem worth the potential to hand your opponent a game winning amount of control points.  You can also be locked out of using it as a headline.  When determining your hand bonus posse wide bullet buffs don't really help that much as only the primary shooter uses their bullet value.

HO - 3
Combos with Swinford Finds Trouble. Use with hand rank debuffs on the opponent for more CP. I don't think this card is as good as it seems, but if you have bullet based effects (legendary holster! shotgun! Shane!) it's pretty broadly useful.

Buried Treasure

DG - 3
Effectively gains you a ghost rock for free as it replaces itself.  Dominion has made me appreciate deck thinners but I'm not sure how easy it would be to pull this off in DT, or what I would try to thin my deck towards.

HO - 3
Cantrip reserves, with upside via general's store or pettigrew's pawnshop. Doesn't do much, but still more playable in most decks running 10s than Doyle's Hoyle.

Nightmare at Noon

DG - 4
Again, making Kings far more playable is nice.  Two potent shoot out effects here, one of which splashes back to your own posse.  Use will determine how often it being a headline is a problem(is this going to be like Union/Confed and never seen again or are more headlines coming?)

HO - 4
Note that can affect your dudes too! My understanding is the second line is a one-time effect (i.e., if dudes lose bullets afterwards they won't become draws). Combos with Swinford Finds Trouble. It gets shut down entirely by peacemaker, but being able to turn the backup studs into draws is very strong.

Bad Company

DG - 1
It's really important to reprint cards with rules mistakes that never see play.