Well, 50 cards Amanda still finds whatever she wants and rotates the deck every scenario (and probably rotates your allies’ decks as well), so I can't say I relate. Imo she is S tier easy, even tabooed, put whatever in her deck, she finds it, she draws two extra cards every turn (or gives an allie two cards per turn) and those do not come from a simple draw, they are selected from a sample, and she finds clues with no effort. Un tabooed Mandy is broken, it would be up there with Amanda and Gloria, she needed the taboo.
It’s funny, I never got to play Mandy before all of her taboo changes, and every time I’ve played her at 50 cards I still have felt like I’m cheating the whole game. She’s still so good.
good ol Jund Em Out Mandy. One of my go-to investigators. Drawing two cards a turn is just fundamentally good and card quality is good enough that you can just stuff 50 cards worth of value into a deck, and Survivor especially gives you a few more tools to churn your deck (PmP hits Unrelenting!) Is she worse than pre-taboo? Yes. Does it impact her feeling good to play? Not in my experience.
Love these videos. Would be great of you opened up the packs required area, so i have an understanding of how much of the deck i have, while watching the video.
You always seem to release videos as I start thinking about building these investigators. Mandy Untabooed was like 3 days before a standalone where I played her, now I was debating trying tabooed Mandy in a campaign although now I think its either rex or wendy
I hate what was done to Mandy. Some change was necessary, but this turns her biggest strength (consistency) into a weakness. It devalues XP cards by a lot, it makes her starting hand completely unreliable.
I value being able to destroy all my allies in one go quite highly. I don't want to to do that, but I might need to. Sometimes you just end up drawing soak late and being able to toss the whole batch to an autofail Rotting Remains has value. IMO, more than 2 exp of value. Edit: Miskatonic is definitely better here than in a lot of investigators since most of your soak is on a non-Miskatonic ally. I still want double charisma, but it's less obviously good than in many other comparisons where you find yourself with 3x Miskatonic Allies.
Honestly, I don't have the math or the experience with high card Mandy decks to know how I think dropping the taboo from 50 to 40 would play out. I don't think she's problematic at all in her current state, and I suspect she'd continue to be a non-issue if she were only taboo'd to 40 cards. I'd like to see it, because I like taboo buffs (or nerf repeals, in this case).
This may be a question that shows a fundamental misconception for me in the game, but you're 3 and 3 in your mythos stats and you're clearly not intending to interact with enemies. You'll very rarely take 2 or more horror and damage at once. Why spend 6 experience on two Charisma instead of using 4 on a Miskatonic Archaeology Funding?
Kind of a weird assessment. You talk about how Mandy has been taboo'd significantly, but then you show a pre-taboo deck that has a bunch of pre-taboo card interactions. What's the real nerf here, the cards or the investigator? I think you'd argue it's more the latter than the former, but that would be better shown by the lack of consistency, which is frankly a math problem that didn't really get solved here. Probably would have been interesting to review how seekers can help support the team, vs just going around doing typical seeker things like picking up all the clues as fast as possible. The ability of Mandy to enhance the search of a fighter's Prepared for the Worst or Backpack on turn 1 is really helpful in order to help them find what they need. Also, is Forced Learning a good call for Mandy, leaning into the deck size and prioritizing permanent upgrades instead of deck slot cards? Feels like there's some threshold once you hit 50 cards that another 15 isn't a big deal, especially considering how great the seeker card pool is in general.
@@LittleBlueJug My issue with forced learning is there are legitimately few enough hits for good, reusable scry effects that I worry about missing them for several extra turns with Forced Learning. The taboo guts that entire deck, so it's both. The important thing to Mandy specifically is that it guts any deck like that. It doesn't have to be Necronomicon. Even just fast cycling deductions gets gutted. Any deck with high draw and a powerful combo is gutted. I didn't go into the numbers because frankly I don't have them. I have an understanding that 66% more cards is a massive amount that cripples my deck's consistency. And yeah, it slipped my mind, but Mandy using her ability in teammates to help them instead is value and it's worth mentioning.
Mandy took the bullet so Amanda could be overlooked.
Well, 50 cards Amanda still finds whatever she wants and rotates the deck every scenario (and probably rotates your allies’ decks as well), so I can't say I relate. Imo she is S tier easy, even tabooed, put whatever in her deck, she finds it, she draws two extra cards every turn (or gives an allie two cards per turn) and those do not come from a simple draw, they are selected from a sample, and she finds clues with no effort. Un tabooed Mandy is broken, it would be up there with Amanda and Gloria, she needed the taboo.
It’s funny, I never got to play Mandy before all of her taboo changes, and every time I’ve played her at 50 cards I still have felt like I’m cheating the whole game. She’s still so good.
good ol Jund Em Out Mandy. One of my go-to investigators. Drawing two cards a turn is just fundamentally good and card quality is good enough that you can just stuff 50 cards worth of value into a deck, and Survivor especially gives you a few more tools to churn your deck (PmP hits Unrelenting!) Is she worse than pre-taboo? Yes. Does it impact her feeling good to play? Not in my experience.
Oh man giving me the THoughtsieze into Goyf into K-Command flashbacks with that Jund 'em Out.
Love these videos. Would be great of you opened up the packs required area, so i have an understanding of how much of the deck i have, while watching the video.
You always seem to release videos as I start thinking about building these investigators. Mandy Untabooed was like 3 days before a standalone where I played her, now I was debating trying tabooed Mandy in a campaign although now I think its either rex or wendy
I hate what was done to Mandy. Some change was necessary, but this turns her biggest strength (consistency) into a weakness. It devalues XP cards by a lot, it makes her starting hand completely unreliable.
Wonder it will bring her to be op again if the min deck size is set to be 40.
Is there a reason you're taking the 2exp tax to take 2x Charisma over Miskatonic Archeology Funding? Reacearch Librarian and Dr Milan are Miskatonic.
I value being able to destroy all my allies in one go quite highly. I don't want to to do that, but I might need to. Sometimes you just end up drawing soak late and being able to toss the whole batch to an autofail Rotting Remains has value. IMO, more than 2 exp of value.
Edit: Miskatonic is definitely better here than in a lot of investigators since most of your soak is on a non-Miskatonic ally. I still want double charisma, but it's less obviously good than in many other comparisons where you find yourself with 3x Miskatonic Allies.
@RatherIncoherent Great, thanks for the insight!
Played Mandy and she was lame and medicore.
So you're saying she has lost her tenure.
Do you think tabooing her for 40 or 50 cards decks would help making her interesting again?
Honestly, I don't have the math or the experience with high card Mandy decks to know how I think dropping the taboo from 50 to 40 would play out. I don't think she's problematic at all in her current state, and I suspect she'd continue to be a non-issue if she were only taboo'd to 40 cards. I'd like to see it, because I like taboo buffs (or nerf repeals, in this case).
Still love Lola Hayes, so much fun.
This may be a question that shows a fundamental misconception for me in the game, but you're 3 and 3 in your mythos stats and you're clearly not intending to interact with enemies. You'll very rarely take 2 or more horror and damage at once. Why spend 6 experience on two Charisma instead of using 4 on a Miskatonic Archaeology Funding?
Ah, feel free to ignore this, you answered the question a little bit further down in the comments.
Kind of a weird assessment. You talk about how Mandy has been taboo'd significantly, but then you show a pre-taboo deck that has a bunch of pre-taboo card interactions. What's the real nerf here, the cards or the investigator? I think you'd argue it's more the latter than the former, but that would be better shown by the lack of consistency, which is frankly a math problem that didn't really get solved here.
Probably would have been interesting to review how seekers can help support the team, vs just going around doing typical seeker things like picking up all the clues as fast as possible. The ability of Mandy to enhance the search of a fighter's Prepared for the Worst or Backpack on turn 1 is really helpful in order to help them find what they need.
Also, is Forced Learning a good call for Mandy, leaning into the deck size and prioritizing permanent upgrades instead of deck slot cards? Feels like there's some threshold once you hit 50 cards that another 15 isn't a big deal, especially considering how great the seeker card pool is in general.
@@LittleBlueJug My issue with forced learning is there are legitimately few enough hits for good, reusable scry effects that I worry about missing them for several extra turns with Forced Learning.
The taboo guts that entire deck, so it's both. The important thing to Mandy specifically is that it guts any deck like that. It doesn't have to be Necronomicon. Even just fast cycling deductions gets gutted. Any deck with high draw and a powerful combo is gutted. I didn't go into the numbers because frankly I don't have them. I have an understanding that 66% more cards is a massive amount that cripples my deck's consistency.
And yeah, it slipped my mind, but Mandy using her ability in teammates to help them instead is value and it's worth mentioning.