A really important feature of this card, as opposed to its cycle mates, is that it is often practical to play it at the very end of the game when its high cost is not as important. Early on, this card is somewhat specialized, there are situations where it can be very useful but it is very expensive. But a lot of characters tend to build up some extra money near the end of the game when they don't have time to play assets anymore, and this is extra true of rogues who are rich anyway. There are a lot of situations where you can wait till the very end of the game, then suddenly use this card to pick up the clues you need to win, or to earn some extra XP, and ignore the fact that the clues are on difficult to investigate late game locations that you simply don't have time to deal with. This makes this card far more useful than its mates Decoy and Small Favor, because they tend to only be useful in reaction to bad events happening, and are far less likely to be useful in the end game, and this makes it far more difficult to get away from their extremely high cost.

This is the classic standard 0 XP 2-handed weapon. If you don't need the other hand for anything, and want to fight lots of times, this is the weapon to get. It is more powerful and more efficient than pistols like the .45 automatic. Compared to the enchanted blade, it isn't as efficient, but a hard core fighter might well prefer a single expensive card they can rely on for a long time, rather than playing an enchanted blade, quickly using up the charges, then hoping to draw something else and play that. Rogues are even more enthusiastic about the weapon since they have an even more limited pool of good 0 XP weapons. Sometimes I give this weapon to characters who really do have a use for the other hand, just because I need more weapons in the deck and sometimes it's nice to have access to a really good weapon even if there is some sacrifice involved; then I replace it with a good one handed weapon when I get the XP. The only real disadvantage with this weapon is the high up front cost, so it can be a pain to get the resources together to play this card in the first place, and it isn't so great if you only plan to fight occasionally.

If you’re willing to use up an arcane slot, this can be a tremendously fun weapon for a guardian to Enchant for Agnes. Between two and four damage for an alpha attack, depending on your starting horror and whether you want to take one and/or heal. Using a holy meat cleaver has a huge impact on your sanity!

I'm not sure why the designers are so dedicated to making it difficult to get an extra arcane slot. An extra ally slot is more powerful, yet Charisma is way cheaper and more efficient than this card. It is true that a lot of characters would really like to have an extra arcane slot, but that is because the arcane slot limit is kind of an annoying inconvenience that would be cool to circumvent, not because it is some vital part of game balance that would be super powerful to overcome. Yes, it would often be worthwhile and convenient to play a third spell, but not at the cost of nearly doubling the cost of a spell (is that third spell you are playing really worthwhile when it costs an extra three resources and a card?). And on top of that this card still has a significant downside that it sits in your hand useless until you actually need to play a third spell. Again, Relic Hunter lets allows you to break the accessory limit as a permanent (!) for no cost other than 3 XP, so why does this card have to be so expensive? I’d think it was still a bit pricey, but more reasonable, if it had a resource cost of 2. A resource cost of 3 just seems mean for a card that does nothing but permit you to then pay for another card which is probably not even one of your best two spells (since those are in your first two slots).

This is not just a good card when played in a specialized way to maximize its benefits. I want to make it clear that this weapon is also very useful as just a general purpose weapon in the Survivor weapon pool. At the time of this writing, survivors without access to weapon-oriented classes have a very limited selection of weapons, and this can be the most reliable available weapon if you don't want to deal with the weird limitations of the other survivor weapons. The Fire Axe is a great weapon, but it forces you to give up all your money when you use it, which is really annoying if you don't want to play that type of character. And the Baseball Bat is also a great weapon, but aside from requiring two hands, it can suddenly disappear at any time and leave you without a weapon. The Meat Cleaver may look like a weird weapon because the way it manipulates sanity, but it really isn't that difficult for a normal character to use. You do not actually need to reduce your sanity to three to use the weapon as a + 1 bonus is still just as good as a machete, and while your sanity does tend to go down when using the weapon, it is not absolutely essential to play with Peter Sylvestre; it is pretty common that it gives you back the sanity you lose, so your overall sanity loss is usually pretty slow, and survivors have lots of other ways to soak some horror if necessary. In any case, the reality is that if you want to be serious about fighting you normally need more than one weapon in your deck so you can actually draw one when you need it, so even if Meat Cleaver is not your very favorite weapon, it is still available as a perfectly functional weapon to round out your deck.