I’ve played this class a few times and respectfully disagree with a lot of your card choices. This class is really meant to not finish scenarios. It has multiple abilities/cards that say “when you exhaust,” and getting negative conditions isn’t that difficult. I’m full condition build, and absolutely own with him. Allowing him to blast the first half of a scenario really can change the tone for the second half.

In the German version the puzzle is harder, because there is no 1 letter word to start with and there are more than one form of the. But I started with the first 4 letters you started with. And I used some German patterns like c is only in ch or sch. And so on.

One of my favourite games and loved seeing and hearing what high level play looks like. Found this channel thorough listening to the "Where are they now" episode of Friendly Ties and it's exactly the KZfaq content I've been trying to find (commentary and advice on high level play). Really appreciate all the work you're putting in to make this content Nick!

you could've placed your camera right over the commentator's camera, so we could see your tableau. also would mean that you didn't need to shift your camera around. apart from that, great commentary!

I'm pretty sure Michael's play to abundance at 3:14:04 is illegal as his special pawn is down on the evolution action. That means that he can only place his orange pawns below it on domination, or he has to recall.

I ALSO chose Ark Nova as my team game because I expect the field to be so big. Fight!

w8 u couldn't use Death Spiral and Slipping into Darkness on the same turn could you? Permanents need a turn inbetween to be used.

We were talking to Chris about how WBC handles some of the "similar" games, like the different GWT games. It sounds like it varies by game/GM. Do you know (as an all-powerful board member) how the different GWT versions are handled (Base, New Zealand, and Argentina), and how they handle Wingspan/Wyrmspan?

🎵 🎵 🎵 It's the most wonderful time of the year 🎵 🎵 🎵

What about the great get-stupefied-and-play-jackbox-games tournament that occurs every night at the big house?

can't wait to get to WBC! got my schedule all set up as well

Got my lunchtime viewing queued up, best week of the year not far away now! :)

Do a Frosthaven class rankings video

Thank you for sharing your strategy. I actually think they all very situational - there are so many cards that you need to be flexible in your decision making. I do always do the same first move - get the university with the 5 card hand limit. Usually second association move is a second uni for card upgrade options. I don't believe I flip in the same order ever. If I had to predefine an order I think it would be: 1. Association: get the 2/5 coin shields. So cheap for what they are and the second one unlocks next card upgrade or association worker on Con track. On m third round I can have 3 cards flipped (upgraded) or 2 and a second worker. 2. Cards: the extra draw is vital as you say - it's just not needed turn ASAP - it can wait a round. It is needed for hats track (eventually). I neglected to upgrade this card once and it hurt - so bad getting capped on that track. 3-4. (tough spot) This is where situation matters: Build - open up map spaces, extra builds, Avery or reptile house as may be needed, Animals - could have a level 2 worth playing or going down small animals route and want to put 2 out at a time from my third action (very handy to do) before the next break. Sponsors = maybe, only if i have a goal to play lots of sponsors, or need level 6 or off the top sponsors but this usually sits in last place for me now. It can be handy as a turn 1 upgrade and force lots of breaks for money - but that's a niche strategy prone to failing if poorly executed. Spot 3 and 4 should always remain flexible and dictated by the primary conservation project, your hand, your sponsors and your zoo goal and zoo map. If it stays fixed in your mind it can hurt what your trying to achieve. On a card flip (upgrade) rush early on it can be difficult to choose, so stay open to flipping the one you enjoy the most or think will give you the greatest benefit.

I like the breakout into these categories, as I think people often conflate many of these categories into the descriptor when talking about games. I know in particular, Connie tries to design games that require high expertise but low familiarity, which doesn't align with some people's definition or understanding of "strategy". Good luck at the tournaments, Nick! We just ran through a few practice games with Chris W over the weekend.

Loved playing this class. It felt weird, but this was the first class where if I didn’t like either level up option, I just didn’t take one. The level 1s were more valuable only costing 2hp!

I've come to think player count is quite significant for most games when considering variance. It's a bit similar to how games with more random elements require a longer series to feel confident that the more thoughtful and experienced player will come out ahead (for example, in chess I might feel confident that the result of a best of 3 series would usually reveal the more experienced player, while in heads-up poker I might feel the need to run a larger number of matches to have a similar level of confidence). With some euro games, I think the same is true of player count. I often feel fairly confident that a best of 9 match would reveal the more thoughtful and experienced player at 2-player count. But in 4-player matches I think I'd need to see the result of a best of a longer series of games to feel a similar level of confidence distinguishing between closely skill-matched players.

Your comment regarding “Heat”, that it is a game that you can table with gamers and non-gamers, what are some of your current favorite games that have that medium-medium/light ratio, but also have great depth/replayability?

I'm a bit surprised by the Brass variance discussion. My experience is that because of how the levels of the buildings work, you kind of have to commit your strategy early on, and what ends up being good really depends on what the other players are doing. There are a lot of tactics and stuff, but for example if 3 people are really trying to dog the beers/rails than someone going Cotton will run away with it. However, cotton can only support one person, so if someone decides they want to undercut you, they can basically throw your game (at the cost of them probably not winning either). I haven't gotten to a very high level though because it's hard to get my group to dig deep into a game, so maybe I'm missing something

Sad no Twilght struggle.

Just started playing this game recently and it is so fun! Now I've been devouring Ark Nova vids ... good stuff and I'm learning a lot =) As a beginner, I do find it odd that biodiverse North America and very biodiverse South America are represented together, yet Europe gets its own partner zoo despite having low biodiversity. If anything, it makes it difficult to scrape together animals when expansions come out, perhaps? Europe's going to have to default to farm animals and dog breeds at some point the the Americas still have some crazy sh*t to include. I'm joking of course, but I do find it funny. This game is brilliant and I see why it's so popular.

Definitely use Death Spiral (Level 5) and Hasten The End (Level 7). Using the top action of Death Spiral and bottom action of Hasten The End is the most broken thing I've ever seen in the Gloomhaven/Frosthaven world. Stunning and Baning everybody around you while also throwing basically the whole deck of curses into the monster deck is extremely overpowered. There is also an item that lets you negate the ten damage you would take making this combo even more broken. Definitely try this combination out!

Veil of Protection is much better with the sword summon build, because it more than doubles the sword's HP.

New house in the house! Congrats on that, and nice TM winsights.

Thanks for your insights!

This bloody thing... I think the only big flaw of this class is that my teammates might get bored and stop playing with me. The invisibility build is just way too powerful at high levels. Thanks for the guide, that's great analysis and after playing a bit with my Kelp (lvl 8 invisibility build now), I agree on like 95% of what you said. I especially appreciate your comments on the Sucumb to Fear top being super conditional and Dark generation being pretty big problem, it really helped me focusing on saving my money to buy Dark enhancement rather than some conditions and I must say, it's worth every penny and it made my build click a lot better. Thanks again :-) That being said, I made some level-up choices you've discouraged a bit and it paid off big time for me, so I'm going to elaborate on 2 of those (wall of text incoming, sorry for that). Lvl 3 card, Crippling Terror, is amazing in the hands of stab crab. It gives the whole team solid option to deal with shields, which is sort of a big deal for this class. Doing most of my damage through multiple low attacks, I hate those shield, and giving my whole team pierce 3 at initiative 15 pretty much solves the whole problem. It's not hard to add a condition through some item (btw. Kelp solo item has an incredible synergy with this action, there are exactly 0 muddle-immune enemies with shields in the entire game), so pairing it with some heavy attack is much better option to kill shielded enemies than Hollow Aura. But the importance of the initiative 15 teleport just can't be understated. With bottoms of Lie in Wait, Sucumb to Fear and Skewer the Flesh (initiatives 98, 20 and 86), I can completely control my initiative weaving with the teleporting cards, and I don't have to care for initiative on the cards past lvl 3. And it also has the enhancement slot for the Dark infusion, which (while pretty costly) makes this just a very versatile bottom I want to bring every time (simply because of the initiative, teleport and dark generation). I tried to generate Dark with the bottom of Soul Hunger, but that left me with 3 very slow teleports and I didn't like it. I tried to experiment with Lacerating Stabs teleport, but the Wound is just not fitting well with this build - I'm aiming to kill everything pretty fast, so the wound will more than likely do just 1 dmg. If I'm going to spread some conditions, I think muddle is the best just to help my teammate survive a bit more (cause I'm not helping tanking while invisible) - so, since I enhanced my Crippling Terror with Dark infusion, I've always brought along with Lie in Wait, Sucumb to Fear and Skewer the Flesh as my teleporting cards and it works like charm. Lvl 8 card, Unseen Horror - let's talk about the second type of enemies that the stab crab hates to face - Retaliates. Those are probably ever worse than shielded enemies, retaliate hurts me even when I'm invisible and trying to kill something like elite frost demon through a lot of small attacks is just not going to work - it hurts way too much. Enter Unseen Horror - spend Dark, hit that enemy once and Brittle it at initiative 19. Then, one of my teammates comes in with a big hit and kills it right away. I just eat 1 retaliate which I can heal next turn with Lie in Wait or something and the problem is gone. Or I can go late, brittle and then go fast and finish the enemy off with something like the top of Extra Decorations. At this point, I kind of divided my attacks into 2 categories - finishers (things you want to play to kill an enemy, Extra Decorations, Dire Frenzy...) and openers (things you want to attack with to weaken the tough enemy, preparing for the finisher next round) - and by scenario lvl 4 (which you are going to hit most likely by lvl 8), things like Ink Cloud or Black Scythe won't cut it as the openers. Claw of Doom is an amazing thanks to that Stun, but I wanted 1 more effective opener and Unseen Horror top action fills that spot really well, far better than Haunting Brutality. The best part is that it actually works well in tandem with the above mentioned Crippling Terror - if we're facing elite Steel automatons or something like that, I can go at initiative 15, teleport in with Crippling Terror, do chip damage and Brittle with Unseen Horror, giving my teammate pierce 3 (it has the brittle now), and my teammate than goes for the strongest attack possible, doing easily something like 18 damage if boosted a bit with items, and killing the automaton right away. And when I don't need that opener anymore, I can use the bottom persistent to boost the Dire Frenzy + Grim Trophies shenanigans to clear the final room or 2 - it's not terribly difficult for the stab crab to do about 11-14 attacks if you consume a bunch of items in 1 brutal round (or 7-8 without those items), so having +1 to all attacks is definitelly worth the loss card and 1 trophy if you're going for that. I understand that the bottom of Rip from the Bone is amazing, but as I said earlier, I have my bottom teleports already solved with lvl 2 and 3 cards, and Unseen Horror just brings another super versatile weapon into my arsenal that fits so well I simply couldn't pass that up. At this point, I'm just curious how much damage I can pump out with that 1 brutal round when I reach lvl 9 (which brings an amazing card as well as extra small item capacity). The threshold I'm aiming for is 120, though I think with a bit of luck it could go even higher. But we're playing 2p game and I don't think there will ever be that much hit points worth of monsters on the map with me, so it becomes just a big red nuclear button that can kill everything in range. It's hell of a fun though.

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There are counts of the cards played in the header of the section heh. You don't need to count manually.

Grats on the house!

A question on “UNMI is best in a four player game”: Fewer players usually means more generations to take advantage of the 3MC for a TR action. Is there a perspective I’m missing?

Put a poison enhanancement on launch pad, start in machine gun bolter mode, attack 3 target 2 with poison on turn 1, summon arcing generator, pair grant attack +1 with initiative 12 on turn 2, things die, switch into arcing gerator with bottom move 2, transfer, move 2 to save it, stamina potion and reasemble some time during first card cycle for longevity

Just wanted to say every time I want to learn a new game on BGA, your page always has something super helpful on it. I've used your videos soooo much across so many different games. Appreciate it so much and keep it up!

I still don’t understand when the round ends

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Awesome. Just what I was looking for!

Statistics are I really need that 6 and by god I'm going to roll it.

Definitely what I was looking for

7:28 might be more efficient to return a level 3 than 2, but cost isn't the same, since a level 1 is 2 health a level 3 should be 3, while level 2 should still be 2. Level 2 more efficient than level 1, 3 might be more efficient than 2, but 4 is for sure more efficient than 3 since it's the same cost

Riot Games class?

I just found out that you are the guy on the friendly Ties podcast. Mind blown! 😮

Great video, really helps to visualize what you're talking about here. I really like the point about limitations on the use of expected value in a single play of a boardgame. In poker, when you make a bet that has good EV you know that, over the course of multiple poker hands, you will come out a winner on enough of those hands that you *should* make a profit on a long enough time horizon. The calculation would have different weight if you knew that this one hand right now was all or nothing. EV would still be informative, but maybe not the only driver of the decision.

I think that easier way to calculate in any game when you are looking for, will I draw at least 1 of X is to calculate the odds that you won't draw any and then just know that all other evens mean you drew at least one. So in case of 2 draws from a 2/5 sucess deck you will calculate 3/5*2/4=6/20=30% 100%-30%=70% This way it's very easy to do memory math in the middle of the game. However a big downside to this method is that it's much harder to calculate odds for drawing at least 2 cards.

@10:33 - You really think it isn't intuitive? I would have imagined that in the universe of people who enjoy economic/euro board games the portion who'd find branching paths fairly apparent would be high?

Woohooo! As a statistician, I approve of the video, just wish it translated into me being better at Gloomhaven.

In regards to your Arnak example, would the evaluation of futute turns always lead to the conclusion that you have to draw cards as long as you have at least 1 card with higher value than the base cards? Usually deck builers have the draw card cost integrated (if they don't, they become "broken" like old school MTG draw cards), so we should have the expectation that the extra benefit of having the high value card in the deck would be balanced by the game's cost of drawing a cqrd

Now for the religious question...frequentist or bayesian?😂