BUMP!
Early November: Hearts’ Game Expansion 4
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This is the fourth of five planned expansions to the game, each expanding the activity with new cards and new mechanics.
Be sure to get a win, the nice wounds item and the dialogues from this season. Those may not be season locked, but why risk it? And why not hoard Distinction of Hearts, Bronze, Distinction of Hearts, Silver and Distinction of Hearts, Gold every season? 
The Season of Irreverences begins now in Hearts’ Game!
The Season of Devotions passes on the wind, and the rules of Hearts’ Game shift once more. Eccentricity is the watchword; mutation and experimentation. The game attracts new players – those whose methods were once considered beyond the pale.
They await you in the Gamekeeper’s Cottage. The tentacled Page of Inversions. The towering Knight of Disintegrities. The unknowable King of Ambivalences. The Fool of Audacities, in a deep, familiar robe.
Finally, a note about balance changes. Today’s release is not accompanied by any tweaks to existing cards. We’re waiting to see how things settle; we expect to complete a balance pass on new and existing cards within the next few weeks.
FOOL OF AUDACITIES
You mean Mr. Cheese! 
That fate-locked rat story they teased better feature Mr Cheese as the main character.
A new reward: Mortification of a Great Power for 18 exploits.
As far as I know, this is currently the best way to grind Mortifications outside of spending an obscenely long time at the Khanate. If anyone has their eye on things utilizing cover identities, this is your chance!
I don’t have raw numbers, but I think I favour the newly released Magistracy Court Case. It costs 6 actions and 20 Preserved Surface Blooms, but those can be sourced by selling skeletons to the Bohemian Sculptress.
Fool is pretty similar to Knights, maybe a bit better interaction with priests. Will be interesting to try Fool + two priests.
New SA Knight is not for me, even with +1 from boon I cannot reach 100%.
What are your impression on new poisoners?
Actually 18 actions is exactly the same as Mortifications from the Sunken Embassy, though Heart’s Game might be more fun.
In a nutshell: Stable, but reliable. They seem to be very carefully balanced in such a way you’re incentivised to take them together; Fool’s Ace does nothing for example, but the devil King is empowered by Aces in general. None of them do anything particularly gamechanging, but all of them offer reliable progress with a decent mix of Shapeling Arts/Persuasive
They’re not exciting, but they’re serviceable.
The Fool can always give Progress, so he’s got a role on King-based teams. His baseline attack doesn’t seem very strong but maybe with Priests there’s more to it.
Ambivalences can swing for 10 with two Aces, which is a lot for 5 prep. For comparison, Spines needs 6 prep to swing for 9. If you can manage 3 aces, he’s simply outrageous. He seems difficult to build around, but if you do manage to luck into a good team for him it’s really good. If nothing else, it tilts in favor of using your first pick on support like Cod and Fool even if you don’t know who they’ll be supporting.
I get why they don’t do it, but I still wish there was a ‘scrap team’ button before setting off (unless they’ve fixed that thing where cancelling rounds doesn’t let you drop your companions). It’s a little frustrating to be locked into a dozen actions with a team that obviously don’t synergise just because of a bad draw.
Is there any information about whether the total number of trophies gathered across seasons will matter for anything but personal satisfaction? I count vanity qualities as worthy of pursuit.
Also, I am sitting on above 3300 exploits. Do you suspect that it would be better to cash out:
A. Now, because who knows which of the current rewards will still be available in the final season.
B. During the final season
C. At the final season’s “end”? (Save it all up and hope it doesn’t go to waste when/if Hearts shuts this down)
I know FBG said there would be only one more expansion and reading the introduction to the season of Irreverences it seems like Hearts got what it wanted. I am not that well acquainted with Mr. Hearts but I suspect that if he no longer finds use for tales of my toxicological exploits he won’t give me stuff for them out of ahem the kindness of his heart.
No answer to your first question, but I would cash out during the final season. We’ve never had a reward leave the rotation, so there is no reason to think it would happen next season. However, there will probably be a new reward, which might be something you want or need.
The announcement referred to this update as the “the fourth of five planned expansions to the game,” (emphasis mine) not that it was ending. Unless you meant something different by calling it the “final season.”
idyl,
You are right, nobody from FBG said that it would end as an activity after the fifth expansion launches. It is an assumption of mine and I explained the in-world reasoning for it in the previous post. Sorry for causing any unnecessary anxiety about the time window available to participate.
From Discord:
This isn’t a proper announcement it’s just Mr Cheese
Have a good weekend everyone
Mmmm…!
EDIT: Meant to reply to this post and I can’t figure out how to edit it.
I believe Hearts’ Game will be a permanent activity for a long time, they will just stop adding and balancing things after next season.
Cashing out depends on your goals. Waiting for last expansion might be proper unless you need resources in other form right now.
