Skizza + Flensing Jelly + Alchemist's Kit

[stevenjackson121]

Question: Is the following cycle legal?

I begin the turn with no Alchemical cards in my discard pile.

Step 1.) I can display Alchemist's kit (Adv 1 card) when I begin my turn. While displayed, there are next-to-no effects that can ever prevent me from losing this card.

Alchemist's Kit wrote:

Display this card. While displayed, when you would banish a card that has the Alchemical trait for its power, discard it instead

Step 2.) During my turn I explore using Flensing Jelly (Adv 2 card). It is discarded, not banished, because of either my innate power or Alchemist's kit's power.

Flensing Jelly wrote:

Banish [=discard] this card to explore your location. During this exploration, add 1d4 and the Acid or Poison trait to your combat checks.

Step 3) As soon as I've finished the exploration granted by Flensing Jelly, I use Alchemist's kit second power

Alchemist's Kit wrote:

While displayed, bury[=discard] this card to draw 1d4+1 random cards that have the Alchemical trait from your discard pile. Then you may [...]

Step 3 (cont)This is a discard instead of a bury because of Skizza's power:

Skizza wrote:

When you play a card that has the Alchemical or Firearm trait, [...] If you would bury or banish it, you may discard it instead

Step 3 (cont)As far as timing goes, anything before the "to" should happen before anything after the two, so I put Alchemical Kit in my discard pile *before* drawing 1d4+1 (minimum 2) cards with the Alchemical trait back into my hand.

Mummy Mask rulebook wrote:

Always perform the first action required by a power before performing any other action. For example, if a card says “Recharge this card to recharge a card from your discard pile,” recharge the card you’re playing before recharging the card from your discard pile.

Step 4: Go back to step 2 and repeat until you encounter the henchman.

At no point during the encounter sequence are either of these cards in your hand, so for early adventures next to nothing can stop the chain. Also in early adventures banes who cause you to bury (or banish) cards instead of dealing normal damage are relatively rare, so it's fairly safe (or guaranteed safe if you've viewed the location deck even up to adventure 6) to keep doing this even with 0 cards in hand and failing against every bane.

Is there a rule or errata that blocks this cycle? (Sorry for being brief, in game now and the question came up)

[stevenjackson121]

I'm concerned because while it's technically not an infinite cycle, it can be very close to one for all practical intents and purposes.

If you aren't worried about losing to the banes in a deck, you can repeat explore until you've exhausted all of the boons, since after each exploration Alchemist's Kit will be guaranteed to redraw both Flensing Jelly and Alchemist's Kit into your hand for the next iteration.

Doing this at a location like the Temple (which has 0 monsters and 0 barriers) when you know in advance the villian or the henchmen allows you to take it from 10 cards down to 1 (the henchman/villian) in a single turn. You'll even have weapons left at the end to beat the Henchman/Villian.

I'm leaning towards this being too powerful of an interaction (likely going to houserule it even if RAW allows it) since I'm not aware of any other combination of cards that allow a character to encounter every single card in a deck in one turn, with no (or very minor) drawbacks.

Even in the case where the banes are worrisome enough that you can't continue exploring with 0 cards, you can still combo over and over until you exhaust your other resources, then restart the cycle next turn. This allows you to quickly weed out all the boons in the deck, since you get all of those encounters "for free".

Note that taking damage on your initial free explore does not prevent the cycle, you simply use Alchemist's kit's power to redraw both, then play Alchemist kit, then use Flensing Jelly over and over.

This combo is available at Adventure deck 2, and both of the cards are very good on Skizza at this point anyways, he doesn't sacrifice any of his deck's power to set this combo up

[Hawkmoon269]

I don't see anything wrong with what you've laid out. Personally, I am surprised these kinds of things don't happen more often when cards from different sources are mixed.

I would house rule it to limit the Alchemist Kit. Possible options:

1. Remove the alchemical trait from it.
2. Make it once per turn.
3. Make it only work on a specific part of your turn, such as "While displayed, at the start of your turn, bury this card..."

[stevenjackson121]

Thanks for the input Hawkmoon! We are going with the houserule that changes the order for Alchemist's kit so that it reads:

4.) "While displayed, [...] shuffle 1d4+1 cards [...]. Then banish [=discard] this card"

Personally I think re-grabbing alchemist's kit guaranteed after you play it is too powerful even once per turn (as in option 2), and this seems consistent with how many other (non-banish) healing spells work like Cure. As I'm the playing playing Skizza, there's no one else at the table who would object to the nerf being too heavy.

I don't like option 1 because I picked Skizza largely for the synergy with the Alchemist class deck (which my friend is playing Damiel from), and I've also kept several healing potions around specifically because I can use Alchemist's kit to bring them back (and then maybe use healing potion to get Alchemist's kit back). I've sacrificed all my potential ammunition slots for the ability to play a healer/gunslinger, and option 1 kills that off a little bit too hard.

Option 3 could work, but we discussed option 4 as the way we'd play it unless we learned RAW disallowed the cycle, at which point we'd follow RAW.

[Frencois]

I would IMHO recommend to do two things at the same time:

A) as a general rule, avoid having a cards that heals itself (hence the reveal then discard of the "Cure" spell... but since you cannot reveal a displayed card, lets be creative), so I would replace:

While displayed, bury this card to draw 1d4+1 random cards that have the Alchemical trait from your discard pile. Then you may [...]

By something like:

While displayed, you may draw 1d4+1 random cards that have the Alchemical trait from your discard pile. Then bury this card. Then you may [...]

B) as a general rule I would (as suggested by Hawk who has infinite wisdom) avoid being able to use a card like the kit twice in the same turn, so I would indeed replace:

Display this card. While displayed...

By something like:

Display this card at the start of your turn. While displayed...

Seems to me the Kit is still very good if twice-FAQed this way and the result is no more broken.

Anyway, nice catch!