Dark Quagmire

A stalling tactic, not much more. Fortunately it's in a faction that actually wants to stall the game out, so worse things could happen.

 

also, the "can't be chosen as the only target" effect is... weird. How many effects target at least two things, one of which is a support card?

Kassogtha, Dimensional Rift to name but 2...

Really I see this card buying you a turn at 1 story, at a cost of one of your deploy actions. I'm not convinced that's enough. And it hits you too. It could be a good dormant enabler - if it weren't for the fact it slows you down on actually winning the story...

I really like this card, it was a good card and has only gotten better with age. Play this on a story then as long as you defend your opponent can't win the story, if they have investigation icons then you still need to commit more skill. It works both ways but the aim is to take the story out of the equation. It's non-unique so you can put more than one on a story, then you may not need to defend at all. What makes this good is that if you run an investigation heavy deck you can make it into a story that only you can win, if you combine with Will of azathoth you can reduce the game to a single story and use ravager to win the game. If you make a story unwinable you can repeatedly abuse it with hastur characters that trigger story effects for great benefit. There are lots of good conspiracies that you want to keep in play and this card allows you to do that, it's very difficult to score 10 successes on negotium when they are being drained away.

The 'can't be chosen as the only target of a triggered effect' is to protect it from Support removal that would target it, is it not? i.e. protection from Thunder in the East and the likes.

 

The triggered effect does not have to be targeting two or more things.

Does anyone know if this card can be tutored by Flooded Vault?  Can it be fetched out by Marine Salvager?  The limitation on the targeting has me baffled.  Does that only apply when the Quagmire is in play?

Generally support/character text is not active when not in play, and this card says nothing to change that, so its hard-to-target passive effect does not apply while in the draw pile or graveyard.

 

So, the Flooded Vault and Marine Salvager can both fetch this.

 

But you might worry about something like this "it's in play by the end of this effect, does that mean the text is active then so the effect wasn't legal?". But no, Call of Cthulhu only checks targeting requirements at very specific times (ie during the check restriction step of declaring and effect). They are not re-checked later. If you are legally targeted by an effect, then that effect will resolve on you, even if you somehow subsequently stop qualifying as a target.