There’s an exciting new preview with an accompanying article from the design team. 
It’s a very versatile card so it’s helpful to have someone outline some of the possibilities.
Cracking art too, with Stone striking a classic Western pose.
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Looks like significantly better Accidental Reunion effect, which will make Accidental Reunion obsolete as a card. The fact that you can play it on your own dude with no downside makes it amazingly strong imho.
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On the Accidental Reunion overlap (which I agree exists), the new card only lasts one round and can’t return to your hand, but you can still cheat and don’t get punished are the differences that leap out to me. Barton Everest just needs to cool his heels for one round before starting his cheatin’ ways - will your opponent be bold enough to stick around for the second round? And if so, does that suggest he has further cheatin’ punishment?
Plus this is a headline (sometimes helpful, sometimes unhelpful!) and it’s on a different value, creating some space between the two cards beyond the issues above and noted in the report.
While I don’t think it will make Accidental Reunion obsolete, it is a huge upgrade. I would like to point out that you can play multiple GSoD to stack up on cheatin’ punishments, but your opponent could limit this card’s play-ability by simply not keeping dudes at home.
If your opponent keeps his dudes outside of home (like, say, the Whateley Estate) then this card is completely shut down as an offensive tool unless you can start moving his dudes around. As a defensive tool… well then it becomes crazy powerful. Either move a dude into combat (perhaps a harrowed dude who just covered a casualty) or one of your dudes becomes a high power stud that murders cheaters.
I don’t disagree that it is an upgraded accidental reunion. But, there’s two important points here. First: accidental reunion wasn’t exactly a hugely popular card – although it saw some play. Second: It’s on a different value.
The second one is HUGE. There is a lot of room for similar, but distinct, affects applied across different values to open up more deck builds. I doubt it’s happening, but I’ve been an advocate of just straight up remaking existing card, with the only change being the value. So kidnapping on 9’s and 7’s. etc.
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I don’t got all the way to @bithlord’s interesting idea of exactly reprinting cards on different values, but do agree that Doomtown’s value driven deckbuilding creates spaces for similar (but different!) cards on different values.
The cheatin’ punishment not persisting may or may not matter, depending on how often shootout runs for more than one round in any given meta.
I’ll admit, this card has me worried about the upcoming Kickstarter. It steps on Accidental Reunion’s toes, has a series of extremely powerful effects and is stackable (not a headline like Accidental Reunion). I understand the need to make it a powerful card to compete with the other actions on 7s, but perhaps give it a value that doesn’t have to compete with Kidnappin’ and Pinned Down and then tone down the effect?
I’ve played just about every LCG on the market for as long as they’ve been around, and the one thing I’ve learned is that power creep is anathema to the fixed card game format. Hopefully this card goes back to the design team for review.
This card definatly is a lot to take in. It falls in a catagory of cards that I really love. Cards that are multifacited in use, and far more than they appear. At first I saw a card that gives huge buffs if your opponent refuses to make dudes like Jake or Randall join. But, if your the mark or defender you can choose your dude at home, than you choose for them to join (helpful against ‘whipped’ affects, or dudes who couldn’t join), or you can take the buffs. There’s more though, since you can use this if your own job is marking your own card, like jobs you pull targeting your home or your deeds.
What I’m getting at is this works way harder than simply punishing players that hide dudes at home.
As to Accidental Reunion, this card is better and worse in certain ways. Wheither it is worth playing both to stack there abilities, it is nice that they can. Accidental Reunion has a place in decks that plan on multiple shootouts in one day, counters other headlines if you win lowball, and is easier to play on the offensive. This card is a multi tool with different conditions of use.
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Why do you think this single card constitutes power creep? This has more uses overall than Accidental Reunion, but that card has the benefit of being able to recur and to block any other Headline action (but also be blocked in the same way).
Offensively, it’s bad against decks that don’t leave people at home. It’s good against decks that turtle up at home and it’s also good defensively. It costs a ghost rock vs being free.
Overall, it has a higher barrier to entry than Accidental Reunion and it may be easier for the other player to play around.
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Doomtown is perhaps more structurally resistant to power creep. For example, to be specific, on 7’s you have to choose between forcing a shootout (Kidnappin’) and winning a shootout (Grim Servant o’ Death) - can’t both have and eat the cake here.
And besides, 1 ghost rock is actually a lot of money. I for one am glad there is now another way to internally generate stud bonus - goodness knows it’s pretty easy to remove.
My beef with the card is it’s kind of a wall of text - not even room for an ominous quote from Stone hisself - can we call that Word Creep?
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I really want to offer some clever insight, but most everything has been said: it’s highly versatile, with many restrictions, on value with other very competitive cards. If it was a A, 2, 9 or K, it’d see lots of play. As it stands, it’ll be tried and tested (by myself for sure!), but may also be edged out by Kidnappin’, Comin’ Up Roses and even Pinned Down in a lot of decks.
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