A straightforward use for this is as a curse-heavy solo Rogue, at which point this simply turns half your curses into blesses. In theory, this averages the value of all curses to 0.

In practice, of course, you still have increased standard deviation, which is worse than not having the curses there at all... your worst-case scenario still means assuming all your curses come up cursey.

So perhaps the better way to look at it is as an automatic 50% saving-throw-vs-curses. Difficult to say if that's worth a 4xp one-of.

I have run this a couple of times with parallel Roland now, because one of his directives (Red Tape) makes Guidance fast! Now it may still not be the most optimal card, but now you don't lose an action playing it, which is good.

I think this card can be situational (for 1 data point, I had fairly little use for it in my recent Carcosa/2-player campaign), but it had strong synergy with Zoey Samaras for specific spectacular situations, mostly because of 2 things:

• it’s a nice counter (esp. updated version) to her fairly painful signature weakness
• because it’s situational, you can put it under Stick to the Plan (which she would usually want to run anyway) in place of an e.g. Emergency Cache (which she needs less of) in the usual “Ever Vigilant - Money - Prepared for the Worst” builds. This way it is never a dead draw, which it is bound to be sometimes if from your deck. (This is also part of the value of having Prepared for the Worst as part of the plan)

I’m mostly sad that it and it’s updated version can’t do anything about SPOILER, otherwise it would have scorpioned two potential birds with one stone.

Definitely a good card for Nathaniel to take, but I could see uses for the card in other investigators. The engage part means you can attack enemies on another investigator without accidentally hitting them, and you can drag Aloof enemies to you. Fast means you can play it on another investigator's turn, so you don't have to go first just to take care of a monster engaged with them. Moving the enemy means you don't have to spend your actions to get to the enemy's location. Plus, if your deck has cards like Evidence or Grete Wagner (or if you're Roland), you can reposition an enemy onto a location with an otherwise hard-to-get clue.

Not a must-have card for every character, but in larger player counts (where monsters are more likely to show up and there's more non-fighting allies you might want to protect), in campaigns with more Aloof enemies (hello, Whippoorwills), or if you have reasons to want enemies in specific locations, it's probably worth checking out.

The reveal of his signature weakness may completely destroy my point, but I think Monterey Jack might become one of the best investigators in the game. It will take him some time before he becomes truly unstoppable though.

Mandy can also be built into a Seeker+Rogue combo, but Jack has better resource generation due to his ability and access to Lone Wolf. He should be even richer in solo as most locations have only 1 to 2 clues, allowing Jack to clear them out and move on within the same turn. Jack's signature also allows him to fight with (though the weapon's weak damage output makes it a last resort), making his similarly low less of a problem.

Resource generation is the key here, as Jack can likely fund two copies of Ariadne's Twine without pressure. He can make Mr. "Rook" essentially last forever, or add 2 secrets to The Necronomicon every round. While there are ways for others to recharge these cards, the Twine is certainly more consistent if you've got the cash. Pendant of the Queen is quite a good fit for Jack because he can liberally search for (with Rook) or draw (with his ability) the fragments and benefits from the teleport. The resource generation also means Jack can buy his way out of tests via Higher Education (or just burn a few secrets off the Necronomicon), so his low might not hurt as much as one may have thought.

Still, most of the cards that I think are essential to a fully fledged Jack (for example, Mr. "Rook" for extreme card draw consistency and Pathfinder which should really be his second signature) are tabooed, so he's probably also one of the investigators most affected by the list. Even without the taboo list, he still needs quite a bit of XP to get started with the insane combos.

Overall, I'm really excited to see him in action, and even more interested to see whether his signature weakness will stop him from becoming a formidable investigator.