Scrying vs. Old Book of Lore

So on opening night I overheard a person discussing how his deck didn't want Scrying because he was running Old Book of Lore and the book was so much better. But I vehemently disagreed with that, and so here is my article on why scrying and old book of lore are not comparable.

Let me start with scrying. It is a one cost arcane slot using spell with three charges that, at the cost of an action, allows you to look at the top 3 cards of a player deck, or the encounter deck, and put them back in a particular order.

Let me examine the top 3 cards of a player deck first. Simply put, that mode is not very good. How not good you ask? Let's examine using the spell to look for what you need versus simply drawing cards. For the purposes of this we will ignore the fact that I have to draw scrying and that I have to use a resource to play scrying, or that scrying has limited uses. Scrying takes an action to play, an action that could have drawn a card. Scrying also uses an action, an action that also could have drawn a card. Then, if you see the card you want, the scryer has to use an action to draw a card, which the non-scryer could have used (you guessed it) to draw a card. So far the scryer has used an the same number of actions to be able to pick up one of the top 3 cards in his deck but the non-scryer has picked up all the top 3 cards of his deck, so he has access to the same card the scryer does, and 2 more besides.

Now you are probably thinking that is fine, but since I included the action cost of playing scrying, scrying will redeem itself by the second or third turn. Right? Sadly wrong. Let's go into the next turn. Both players draw a card (card 4 for non-scryer, card 2 for the scryer) because of the forced draw. The scryer then uses scry to see cards 3, 4, and 5. The card drawer instead simply draws card 5. They have seen the same number of cards, but the card drawer has drawn 3 more cards than the scryer and the scryer paid a card and a resource for that privilege.

That isn't to say scrying your deck is always a bad move. What if one of the card drawer's cards is her (only females can play scrying, currently) weakness? Scrying lets them avoid drawing said card. Of course, it is a temporary fix, but sometimes that is good enough. Alternatively, you can scry another player's deck to help them out, the action in-economy remains the same (if you consider all investigator's actions to be roughly equal) but sometimes when Roland is desperate for a weapon or Wendy is desperate for a backstab, that is all that matters.

And yet, in those cases scrying is, ridiculously inferior to old book of lore. Old book of lore removes the action in-economy of using an action and not advancing by a card, Furthermore, if they do not find what they are looking for, instead of putting dead cards back on top of their deck their deck gets shuffled. It is everything one could ask for in card selection and draw. Even better for Daisy, it is a tome and so her ability allows her to use it as an extra action, something that currently cannot happen with scry. If this were a football game, it would totally be touch down and extra point for the old book of lore.

And yet there is one small phrase on scrying that changes the whole ball game, three magic words that can make an investigator fall in love (and to think it took Kvothe 7 words): "or encounter deck". *sighs and bats my eye lashes* Say those words with me, "or encounter deck."

Those 3 words change everything. The encounter deck is one of the things trying to make you lose the game. And it tries hard. And currently, there is only one thing in the game that manipulates it (IIRC) and that is Scrying. Having power over the thing trying to make you lose the game, well, that's good, real good. Not only does it enable you to arrange it so the encounter deck matches up its weakest points versus your team's strongest points, you can bypass some dangerous encounters entirely by a mixture of scrying and act advancing or room clearing at the proper time. That is game winning right there.

So the next time you look at Scrying, don't think it is a worse version of the Old Book of Lore, instead realize that it is the only weapon you have that allows you to control one of the things that is trying to make you lose the game and as such, it is incomparable to any other card.