So about the CM modules

Does anyone have any advice for the fourth battle of the second module and the second battle of the third module?

It took me a bunch of tries to beat the former and after many attempts at the latter I'm still stuck. Spirits and Frozen Skeletons are manageable on their own, Werewolves and Zombie Priests are too, but adding Shades into the mix throws a giant wrench in so many strategies.

It was doable enough to just play it defensively for the Zombie Priest battle since it takes a lot of turns before you get overwhelmed and you can pick off enemies one by one, but the Frozen Skeletons battle totally eludes me. The whole party starts off separated, Spirits can Teleport around at will, Acid Pools can ruin your mobility and remove your anti-attachment armor, Frozenn Blade and Grasping Arms don't help either and Wail and Afflictor make me want to toss my PC out the window. And to make matters worse the Shade loves to run out of whoever has heals' LoS and constantly heal itself with Traveling Curses.

Am I missing some sort of strategy here or are you just meant to be lucky and tough it out? Are you supposed to take 3 Dwarf Priests (that's how I beat the second module)?

 

I win these 3 modules with luck and it takes me a lot of time. I think Shades should be taked down as soon as possible, they are so annoying. When I prepare to do something, suddenly they give you a Wail

 

I played with two human priests and a dwarf wizard.

Fourth battle on second module: Lots of healing to kill the shade. Some armor removal for the werewolf. Some telekinesis and teleportation. Kill the shade first. Then keep move around away from the werewolf, slowly killing the rest while healing yourself up.

Second battle on third module:

For the priests: Lots of healing to kill the shade. Some high damage attacks. Some purges in case you get doomed, though it is useful for other things. Some teleportation.

For the wizard: It might seem like a good idea to have fire damage to deal with the sceletons. But most of the best fire damage cards don't work so well against the ghosts. Instead have lots of armor removal against the sceletons. Also teleportation. Evasive Disruptor has both Boiling Armor and Teleport Self. I also used cold magic.

Kill the shade first. Then the ghosts, probably.

 

Not the easiest thing to do, but if you can teleport two or three characters into one room, and then stand in both the squares next to the door, it blocks the path of the Skeletons to Muscle Through into the room (free move doesn't allow going through enemy characters). This then allows you to deal with the Spirits and the Shade without having to engage the Skeletons until the others are taken care of. In case it's not obvious this strategy requires (1) being willing to stand on acid from time to time, (2) keeping the door alive - I've even healed a door with a spare heal to ensure this.

 

Whoo, I finally beat the expansion! Here's my thoughts and advice:

The Spreading Blight
I really like the set-up in the first and second battle fighting against the Inquisition! Having some enemies who punish forms with Silver is nice and the inclusion of Vengeance, Lucky Block and Investigate open up for interesting strategies. It's definitely a good idea to focus down enemies one by one to avoid dealing with Investigate, and Ready to Strike is very valuable against Vengeance while War Cry or Unnerving Strike is very good against Lucky Blocks.

It's also a good idea to try and stall out on the victory square in the first battle and try to take down the Inquisitor ASAP in the second. I never bothered with the crossbowmen given they seem to have Lucky Blocks and Uncanny Dodge and you don't need to kill every enemy to win in either of the stages. Which is another thing I like, it gives the player some room to determine who they want to defeat!

The third battle with the werewolves calls for reliable Melee Blocks, Silver and armor removal. Blocks are crucial against the stacking of All-out-Attack Vicious Thrusts and Massive Jaws while Silver and Armor Removal deal handily with all of their Monstrous Hides. I didn't find the AI to be that smart with its Mighty Charges, thankfully, so just being aware of it is often enough to avert it was a little movement.

Overall I found Dwarf Warriors/Priests the most useful here, there's little need for mobility since most mobs come to you anyway and the extra HP can be very useful. Nimbus spam was also useful, though the Inquisitor having Destructive Purge was a genius counter to that, the enemies here really punish attachment spamming, which is something that's not been used much so far and I like seeing since it invites different playstyles and punishes traitspamming.

Svitlana's Inquisition
The first battle is pretty hilarious, just a shame the Townsfolk don't use the Servant/Guest voice clips. It's a pretty typical brawl, the Townsfolk can randomly run around which can mess up plans, but for the most part it gives you some free turns to unload some serious damage. The enemies don't have much defense outside of Jump Back Forest Spiders, so it's mostly a matter of unloading attacks on them. The Howling Townsfolk can be tricky if they get Lycanthropy or Monstrous Hide so packing Silver just in case seems like a good idea.

The second battle against Teadora is an interesting one, I notice that usually she takes a while to reach the party, so there's ample time to deal with the Vampire Guards first. Since they have Swarm of Bats, it's usually better to just wait until they use it before attacking. Their attacks are mostly lifesteals and range-2 stabs, and they often try to stay at 2 distance which makes bringing your own stabs pretty useful too. Impaling Stabs especially are good for getting past Heavy Armor and Reliable Mail.

Teadora herself is tricky since she gets both Inquisiton-themed stuff like Silver but also gets Blighty stuff due to her form changing. She gets a free Shifting Block every turn, so if she enters a form she'll draw a lot of form cards of that type next turn. Making her a zombie is ideal, but watch out for Brains! She can also use an All-out-Attack 17-damage attack, which is lethal, so always try to have Parries when she draws close. I generally dealt with most vamps before she can reach me, so it's a 3v1 at that point.

The third battle is where the cracks start to show, it's two mostly irrelevant Zombies, two slightly threatening Muscular Zombies and two Shades in individual mobs. You only need to kill the Shades to win Shades are incredibly dangerous and devious enemies, they draw Negative Energy Being almost constantly which switches damage and healing around and they can use Unholy Energy and Traveling Curses to heal themselves. They also have Absorbing Blocks which you can exploit to damage them, but it's got a 33% to not work so it's not entirely reliable.

The real threat with Shades is what they can do. They can use Wail, which discard every ally's attack cards and has infinite range and doesn't need line of sight. Yes, you read that right. It can also use Afflictor which affects every ally and gives them all dastardly Curse, which discards a card whenever they take any damage. They supplement this with Binding Shadows, which can Halt and does 7 damage alongside Fragile and Unholy Curses to make you take more damage. They also use Roulette, which can work in your favour or screw you over, since it randomly hits any target on the board for 10 damage, including itself which often means it can heal 10 HP.

Shades are a massive pain to deal with and IMO the best way to go in this fight is to nuke them with Greater Hals, Healing Rays, Daylight and Inspirational Presence before the Zombies can deal with you. The more Priests the better, I personally took three Dwarf Priests here and I can't imagine using a Warrior or Wizards would help much.

The fourth battle is where things get really difficult, easily the hardest battle so far. There's two Muscular Zombies, a Werewolf, two Zombie Priests and a Shade. The Shade starts out far away from you and is easily able to pelt you with its Wails and Dastardly Curses and Roulettes. The Zombie Priests draw a lot of cards and often get Too Horrible, a 2+ Block that Stuns whoever triggers it for 1 turn and they can also use Mighty Bludgeons and Nimbus so they can be very difficult to damage and can quickly rack up a ton of damage.

There's no joking about it, this battle is pure agony. Between the Wails, Afflictor, Too Horrible, Nimbus, Negative Energy Being and Monstrous Hide it can be a massive pain to get any damage in! It usually takes some turns for the Shade and Werewolf to get close to your stating location, but this is pretty random depending on their AI and their draws so it can take longer or shorter each time. You really want to use Beacon Shield here since Shield Block is useful against both Wail but also the big melee hits. I also used Duck a lot in the off chance it gives me a Wail or Afflictor, so that might be worth trying too.

My general strategy was to lay back as long as I could and stock up on Arrogant Armor against Too Horrible, Binding Shadows and Dastardly Curse and also get everyone to have an Investigate and just wait for the mobs to come to me and duke it out. I used Healing Hand Mace a lot for Team Heals and Sundering+
Mighty Bludgeons paired with big-hitting tokenless Divine Weapons and a lot of heals/lifesteals on my Arcane Items to try and outlast the enemy and slowly wither them down. Taking down the Shade if possible should be a priority, as is dealing with the Werewolf, while the Zombie Priests are best only dealt with if no other target is available. The Muscular Zombies tend to only come once I've dealt with either the Shade, Werewolf or the Priests, but they can hit hard too so you better hope you get enough blocks and heals to deal with them.

For real, this battle always takes at least 10 rounds before I either win or lose. It's a total slogfest and there's no fun to be found here. It's mostly praying to the RNG that one mob presents itself to you to easily be killed because dealing with Zombies, Priests, the Werewolf and Shade all at once it a losing battle.

Assault on Castle Mitternacht
Tired of Dwarf Priests yet? I sure was, but it seems like the only way to go yet again.

The first battle is kinda unique since it's a mix of an obstacle course and a fight with Spirits. The Doors and Rockfall Traps can be mostly ignored though, you'll want to take Boots of Safety for that Telepod Jaunt and Teleport Self to circumvent the whole trek to the stairs and just go there directly.

The Spirits are interesting foes, they can use Acid Pools to deal with your armor and hinder mobility, Acid Hex to pair with pools and also remove armor, Boo! to disallow attacking but also giving you a Dash card and Ancient Grudge for their main offense, which gains 1 damage point for every card in their discard pile (the first four cards in the pile don't count though). The Spirits have a Barrier of Hate in there as a block with a draw vs melee, they have Cowardly and Creature of the Night to cycle their deck at some cost as well as Ethereality which gives them a passive immunity to non-direct damage. They also use Doom, so Purges and Arrogant Armor are very good picks. (Wyrmhide would be good too but I'm not bringing a wizard anywhere near this module). They also have Greater Spell Skill to cycle more cards, but I don't think it works since the AI never used it despite being Amethyst quality.

I found Spirits best dealt with by passing until they come to you and then just bashing their faces in with basic attacks. They tend to come to you naturally and their HP pools aren't that huge, two Mighty Bludgeons deals with one Spirit and there's only four of them anyway. It's best not to let the battle drag to avoid the wrath of Ancient Grudge, and if you can it's a good idea to Teleport multiple Priests over to the victory square to deal with the Spirits there. Eventually you need to go to the middle of the room to win the level since it's the only way to win, but there is no rush involved either.

Seriously, make sure to bring teleportation.

The second battle is the reintroduction of pure agony as the party is split up in 4 different rooms with Reinforced Doors to halt their progress, three Spirits who can Teleport around to pelt them with Ancient Grudges and Acid Pools, two Frozen Skeletons who have a lot of mobility and deadly Chops plus Freezing Blade to do 12 damage and encumber you a lot for multiple turns and have nigh-immunity to all but Fire with their 2+ 6 armor cards and a Shade in the middle of the level to make you give up on your will to continue even playing CH.

Honestly my advice is to just get lucky. I used the same setup as in battle 3 of the second module except with teleportation. You just need luck to draw the teleports needed to bumrush the Shade and kill it ASAP and then you need to defeat the Spirits and finally the Skeletons.

I only did it by getting the exact cards I needed and it took me about 35 turns to actually mop up all the enemies. This battle is just as tedious as the other Shade battle and I hope to never have to do it again.

The third battle is a giant breather after the previous battle despite being the boss, but it's a welcome relief and easily my favourite battle of the expansion. There's three Afflicted Townsfolk and two Spirits, but the main threats are Jovana and Yurik. Jovana mostly fights from a distance with Psychic Barrage but also has some short range lifesteals, but her main trick is to spam Walpurgis Night while being equipped with Arrogant Armor to give everyone but her random form attachments and making them draw a card. Yurik is a typical Vampire, having lots of lifesteal paired with some Shield Blocks for defense, Arrogant Armors to prevent random form changes and Nimble strikes for mobility. Both Yurik and Jovana draw a racial Swarm of Bats like the Afflicted Guards, so keep in mind how to deal with it.

You can either storm through the random form onslaught and use the free turns Jovana's Mandatory Actions give you to your advantage, or you can be clever and use Arrogant Armor of your own to keep your regular deck and draw tons of free cards with Jovana's help. Do that and pair it with armor removal and anti-form cards and you can make it so Jovana and Yurik do get affected by random forms and become weak to Silver.

Overall this battle is easy enough if you don't get unlucky with Walpurgis, I beat it in one try with the deck from the previous match, it's generally doable to outheal the enemy and it's best to stack up on armor and pass a lot until the enemy used up their Swarms of Bats and Psychic Barrages and then retaliate with big damage. I prefer to first take care of the Townsfolk and then the Spirits even if they don't give victory stars, once you do so Yurik and Jovana are much easier to deal with and it's mostly a won battle anyway. Just try to be careful with Sneaky Bloodsuck and Psychic Barrage and it should be fine.

 

Overall thoughts
My thoughts on the expansion are clearly mixed, I liked all the battles that didn't involve the Shades, I think the double Shades battle is fine but is way too limited in practical ways to approach it and think the Shade+Elite Mobs battles are just the complete antithesis of fun.

Dealing with the Inquisition, the Vampires, Werewolves, Spirits and the Vampire overlords was a ton of fun, they each have their own peculiar behaviors and counters and I could see a variety of tactics working against them. The Zombie Priests are kinda lame since being stunned is just a really boring mechanic, people play games to do stuff, not sit around and not be able to use any of their cool cards.

Shades are just the worst though. Seriously, I was already so sick of Death Elementals appearing in CoC and MMs they have no business being in and already thought they were too narrow as a gimmick for a single module, why in Cardhuntria's name would anyone bring them back in an infinitely more obnoxious form?! The counterplay to them is very narrow, it's either purges or heals and you really want to use anti-attachment stuff too, so you're very strongly pigeonholed into used as many priests as possible. Not very nice when I also like to use Wizards and Warriors, but Warping Run's unreliable and spamming attachments costs a lot of cards and doesn't work well when Shades draw a NEB like every other turn.

Giving them Wail, Afflictor and Binding Shadows to boot is just downright awful. Wail is just a giant middle finger and means that turn is effectively over damage-wise (Howls and Button/Trigger are way too unreliable) and also eats away at your blocks. Afflictor is absurd, you better have anti-attachment armor or you can kiss all of your cards goodbye. Halt is just like Stun in that it's just not fun since it shuts down the most crucial aspect of the game, positioning. All in all you better have a boatload of priests or be in for a very bad time.

But what makes it even worse is the enemies they are paired with. Werewolves, Zombie Priests, Frost Skeletons and Spirits are all formidable enough on their own and each have peculiarities that require specific counters to work around. It's simply too much for me to deal with Shades alongside Too Horrible, Monstrous Hide and AoA-stacked attacks or Shades alongside Acid Pools, Frozen Blades, Frozen Armor and Ancient Grudges. It feels like the game's throwing way too many mechanics at me for just one battle so the result winds up being really messy and the battles just drag on because of all the discards, armors, blocks and NEB limiting damage output so much.

I genuinely think these modules would be brilliant if the Shades were just cut out altogether. I had a blast with any battle they weren't in and it feels like hitting a brick wall that says "NO FUN ALLOWED" whenever they do appear. If they're not removed altogether, I strongly hope they're just totally reworked. NEB was already an eh mechanic for one module, putting it in two more is obnoxious, I think it should be gone altogether and the enemy should have more HP or defenses to compensate, that way it doesn't pretty much just force the player to bring Priests.

Wail is simply unforgivable, either limiting the range, making it require line of sight, making it discard just one card or making it only target one character would go a whole way to making it less tedious. Afflictor worked for the Lich as part of its gimmicky battle strategy but it's too powerful for a serious enemy IMO. I don't mind if it spreads some other curse instead, just not one that's so powerful. Like what if it gave everyone Unlucky? The game's not used luck manipulation much for enemies after all. Binding Shadows I suppose is fine, it's mostly just annoying because it's yet another mechanic to keep in mind in an ocean of things to keep in mind in Shade battles.

I really do hope that I will replay these battles as I replay the EttSC battles, but in their current form I'll only replay the first module. I like half the second module and I like most of the third module, but the Shade battles just kill my interest in them. I personally think any module that I look forward to playing when the LF is there is a good module and ones that make me just skip the LF for the day are bad modules, and it's little guess where my tastes fall in this case. I don't mind these modules being hard, it's nice to have a reason to really use all that yellow-token equipment, but is there anyone who finds fun in tedium?

Also, there's a pretty large number of mobs I hope don't appear in CoC: Shades, Frozen Skeletons (2+ 6 armor), Spirits (Doom and Ancient Grudge in CoC are awful since battles tend to drag on), Werewolves (so much armor!!)

EDIT: How come Frozen Skeletons don't have Combustible?

 

FWIW just due to the high threat of these mobs if they *do* appear in CoC it'll be as 1-ofs in the final battle, I think. I know how much folks hate the Death Elementals

I'll also say one quick thing on 2-4: there's a pretty cool way to approach this battle that allows you to regulate how many enemies you face at once. I hope it's mildly nonobvious but also that someone figures it out at some point because I think it'll ease a lot of suffering.

 

Many thanks for the thorough writeup @Maniafig - seems like these adventures are not what I would call fun. I was hoping for something enjoyable like the EttSC modules, but it feels that with the AI and CM expansions heading into less-fun-than-root-canal-surgery territory those days are long gone. I bought the AI adventures, but have only played the 'easy' ones once and didn't think much of the experience. The free CM adventure is exactly the same - I gave up part way through the second battle in disgust.

Sorry BM, but I think I'll be spending my money elsewhere from now on.

 

Hey guys the corridor is three squares wide, same as flash flood ...

Dwarf war with 2 x Nova Axe and arrogant, dwarf priest with arrogant and lots of healing and purges, dwarf wiz with Heartripper, flash flood, hard to block electro and some anti-armour. Flood out a corridor, make the mobs circle around, meantime the shade flies in for a look-see, you kill the shade (so it can't resurrect the mobs), the zombie priests pretty much take themselves out with travelling curse, you take down the musculars, then strip the wolfie and dice him up. Not simple, but not that hard either.

 

Wait until Loot Fairy shifts to the CM modules, world chat will be saltier than Utah.

Actually I like AI for LF co-op - it requires teamwork and some planning. EttSC is absolutely routine for co-op now, something has to seriously go wrong to lose a level, or you team up with a new player who doesn't know how it all works yet. Artifacts throws up more challenges than EttSC, even after being ruined by doom.

So I'm the opposite sort of player, who likes modules to be tough. And unfortunately, human players' advantages over AI means that levels have to be unfair to be tough. I'm having a blast with CM.

 

Curious how people will approach the 1 hp challenges, even the first module seems hard due to the inquisitor packing a daylight, werewolves just surrender to nimbus at least.

 

Nah, that's not the issue, the absolute killer to the 1hp quests is the final battle. Walpurgis kills all 1hp strategies, it greatly hinders you drawing your cards, and gives a chance to draw Loner and/or Traveling Curse in any round.

 

Nonsense I'm afraid. This is why I'm walking away from this game - you've just validated my view in far less words than I could have managed.

 

I hate this expansion. I'm on round 4 of Svitlana's Inquisition and have spent 75 gold so far.

I believe that every encounter should be winnable by any combination of characters. Granted, some are harder than others based on your configuration but it shouldn't be outright impossible. I'm using 3 Dwarf Fighters and pretty much have any equipment I desire available. I've tried every strategy I can think of... targeting certain ones first, hanging back, aggressive, defensive. I even had one battle where 2 of my guys had Teleport Self and I went in and out of the room for positional advantage and still got destroyed by board effects.

The level would be hard enough without the Shade. I sure love waiting half an hour for my opponent to play all their crap and then having all my cards stripped before I get to turn 2... of course, once I have no cards, I have to just pass as I get attacked 8-10 times by armor piercing attacks... running away doesn't work because everyone step-attacks as well. This battle is completely devoid of fun. Every enemy I kill only brings on more dread at what the hell kind of god-draw I need to kill the next guy.

I'm going to spend 15 more gold and if I don't get a win, I'll change up the party, go through the almost as frustrating 3rd battle with the double Shades then quit this game forever.

 

It does seem strange though that some random Shade would be more troublesome and Yurik and Yovana combined. Doesn't seem narratively cohesive.

Were the CM story blogs written now, I imagine they'd look more like this:

As you traverse the last stretch leading up to Castle Mitternacht, you come across a ruined temple to Joleph. It does not take long to find a werewolf and its zombiefied priest compatriots. They are stronger than previous foes, and manage to back you into a corner. Luckily you share this corner with the pedestal upon which Joleph’s lance rests, and you grab it in a brief moment of heresy and survival instinct. But then a shade wails and everyone drops their weapons and they look really silly and it's just kinda sad altogether. The putrid priests look confused and the werewolf lets out a groan, not sure if beating the heroes is worth it if it means sharing its newly claimed house with a shade.

You spend only a brief moment fighting the Spirits as you quickly just teleport into the castle, bypassing its whole defense system. What even is the point of moats these days? It's not long before you fall into a prison, and you spend the next hour violently cursing at a singular shade as you keep tossing sacks of 15 gold at it until it finally goes away. Finally, you stand at the threshold to the throne room and see Jovana seated within. Count Yurik stands by her side, rapier in hand.

“Enough of this nonsense,” you spit. “We end this now.”
“Indeed,” she giggles. “Indeed.”
You charge, and then you TOTALLY WHOOP HER BUTT. Seriously, you totally just trounced her. The Blight was totally averted. You remark that it's odd that the queen of the night was that much weaker than one of her various underlings, but then realize you'd rather not dwell on the memories and put it all behind you.

Speaking of narrative, I do like that Karen was the GM for these modules, it was nice seeing her again after a few expansions without her.

Also, the blogs mentioned witches! We didn't get any witches though, that's a shame. I'd totally want to see witches some day. Witches are cool.

 

With a straightjacket handy

Why take three hammers when you need a hammer, a shifter spanner and a screwdriver? I've posted a build that works further up the page, in fact it's nearly worked twice, because the first time I used it, I got sloppy and let the mage die. There will be other, better builds than this. I disagree that every build should be able to win every level - in fact I'm glad that the game chewed up and spit out my regular 2 x vamp 1 x fire wiz shenanigans, and actually made me think about what I needed to bring to the table.

I don't know, I think 3 x death elementals with level 12 tokens is more work than 2 x shades with level 21 tokens, especially given that the shades come to you while the deathies run away, and the endless barrage of roulettes. Love your flavour text.

 

You need heals instead of attacks when facing shades. I used wiz/pri/pri (all dwarf) so I can load up with Flash Flood and Greater Heal. And each priest has an Evil Hourglass to deal with the werewolf and undead priests.

 

Okay, finished the third one this morning. Went 1/1/1 all dwarf all-stars.

Battle 2 of the Spreading Blight is tricky because of the inquisitor's heals - it's easy to get sidetracked into damaging multiple targets and then watching as they're all healed to max HP. Don't take any sort of form or nightling at all. Took a couple of restarts, but I was able to bushwhack the inquisitor in round 1 (double healing hand mace gave me 21 damage from the priest, then a punishing from the mage and a nimble and a strong hack from the war). Then I buttoned up against the wall with a lava moat, plenty of heals and beacons from the priest, and left a 1 square gap for the next contestant to get whacked by the war and priest. You could do the same with the inquisitor alive, and concentrate fire on one of the mob each turn. Couple of restarts to work this out.

Battle 4 of Svitlana's Inquisition has been dealt with extensively above. Flash flood gives you space to breathe. Trigger the shade's absorbing blocks before you purge it and finish off with regular attacks. The musculars are vanilla enemies, and honestly by the time the priests had waddled around the perimeter a couple of times, they had just about killed themselves with travelling curses. My mage had one heartripper and one staff of dissolution to deal with the wolfie's armour - its war cry is a pain, but it doesn't get it every turn, and your war with parrying buckler + lucky toughness, plus the priest having 2 x defender's, means you should draw a block when it's needed.

Annoyingly for you, I got through Assault on Castle Mitternacht without dying, even with a non-optimised build based on plenty of teleport for battle 1. Like someone said, in battle 2 kill the shade, the ghosts and the skellies in that order. I was very very lucky that the shade didn't draw NEB and then drew 2 x travelling curse at the start of the second round, because I had no purges. If I did it again, I'd test for an absorbing block, then purge the shade, then whack it with punishing bolts.

Battle 3 is a bit of a luck fest with walpurgis, but the AI's habit of using swarm of bats to move behind the attacking character gives you a head start. I started charging across the room to the bosses, but a better strategy would be to button up against a wall and use the ghost's pools of acid as a defensive moat.

Had a lot of fun, was a bit frustrated, had to think hard a lot of the time - devs should be congratulated on this expansion.

 

Difficulty level should vary with each build but it shouldn't be impossible. I eventually won it (and still only barely) because:

1. The Shade got unlucky and didn't get Negative Energy until it near blew itself up with Travelling Curses and Roulette.
2. All I drew was gas.

I thought long and hard about how to equip my guys to have the best chance. Sundering and Purging Strikes, Anti-Magic Skin, Arrogant Armor, Force Fields, penetrating attacks etc.

The fight wasn't fun, not merely because it was really hard, but because all it does is bury you under card disadvantage and dick-move lockdowns. When you spend more time clicking "Pass" than actually looking at your hand and playing the game, there's something wrong. I especially like waiting 2 minutes at the start of each round for all the traits to get played.

 

You can increase the speed in options. Should not take 2 minutes.