"Casual" way of use I found that won't require knowledge of exactly what's in the encounter deck is when you are already engaging, and you want to use 1 of your 3 actions to get 2~3 more cards without taking any AoO in order to get some event or skill card solutions. Unless encounter deck has 0 enemy, I think it is likely you can pick a 1/1 enemy so you can draw 2 cards to help with the current, more difficult fight, then deal with that thing the next round. You can also look at discard pile too.

An example of in-box combos, cards like Robert Castaigne (4) require materials on hand to go ham with his and "Where's the party?" draws might be just the right thing. If you are with Dakota Garofalo instead, maybe you can get her stat boosts on along with using the draws. Drawing into Bum's Rush or Elusive isn't bad either if you are looking for a way out in the first place, because either you or the enemy is then displaced to balance out the fact that you just increased amount enemy on board.

It's a test on enemy's health therefore its niche is to get rid of 3~4 HP enemies in one action where otherwise it makes your action / ammo calculation worse to clear the board, or you really need to not cause friendly fire or skip Retaliate / Aloof by the Parley. You will often not want to whittle down enemy's HP from its max value to make the test easier, because then you can finish it without costing 3 resources on this card. On 3 HP enemy it competes with Backstab which uses and can hit friends.

But when I was trying to use this, it is more often that I can clear the board with the combat stats required to use this card in the first place, and rather save 3 resources than ammo or actions. Even Michael McGlen wants some commits to intimidate enemy with that HP to not waste 3 resources, while his gun provides some built-in boosts. It ended up too much of an investment.

The Elite clause is only for securing the kill with low difficulty test on the last hit against scenario boss because they often have high HP.

In 3~4 players encounter deck often loops so it going to deck instead of discard pile may not matter, or sometimes better or worse. Maybe you do want to draw this enemy again soon instead of other treacheries, just that the next time it comes alone and you can deal with it better.

So. If I understand the timing right (cf. rules#Skill_Test_Timing), at ST 3 you realise you're going to fail by one, so you use Book of Verse to get +1 (and later succeed by 0), you then resolve ST4 and ST5, and at ST6 you determine that you succeed by 0. You can then play Daring Maneuver to succeed by 2 instead (3 with Daring Maneuver level 2).

So Book of verse can transform one failure by 1 into a success by 2 or 3 per round, right ?

As it's not specified that you have to draw it from your deck, you can use Katja Eastbank to "store" the 3 copies of Quick Shot and then use her action to draw them during your turn. This way, for 1 action (her ability), you play Quick shot for free (the trigerred ability).

Of course, if you are engaged with the enemy you take an attack of opportunity, but it's in a Tommy Muldoon deck so you should be able to handle it and it works without AoO against Aloof enemies or enemies engaged with other investigators.

More costly than OrionAnderson's combo with Hunting Jacket (resource- and action-wise), but with the added benefit that you replace the - then useless - draw of Quick Shot by the draw of an other card.

It seems obvious but as no one has written a review yet ... Use the action on this card to discard Winging It: you gain 2 clues with Nautical Charts and then you can play Winging It from you discard to try to get 2 clues in a single action. If you play a solo deck, you can of course do this with the other Improvised events (Improvised Weapon and Impromptu Barrier).

And use Tool Belt to stack Nautical Charts, Hand Hook and Anchor Chain. Then you need a good card draw to get the events back.