In the original Agnes, there are better cards for this slot, so you should probably play the Unadvanced version of the signature asset and weakness.

In parallel Agnes, this card is excellent, especially when paired with Scavenging (2) (using Parallel Front for Agnes, and Original Back / Deckbuilding for Agnes). This card can take the damage used with you ability to play spell events for cheap and with recursion. It can also take the occasional horror from Shrivelling, Clairvoyance, and every mystic's favourite Ward of Protection. Once it's use up, recur it back with Scavenging and go again, playing an endless supply of cheap events.

It's not clear whether the horror taken by Agnes' weakness can be placed here. When I played this, I assumed I could tank the 2 horror onto the Heirloom because the weakness has a player card back, not an encounter card back, and thus is a player card?

This is definitely a signature card worth building your deck around. There are of course other ways to manage the excess damage taken from using your ability, but this card providing a great soak-to-cost ratio, and allowing you to draw a card every time you play a spell (usually going to be an event), really does cement Parallel Agnes as a solid investigator option for your next game.

In the original Agnes, this card should be considered nothing more than a skill card. A skill card that you can potentially recur with Scavenging.

In parallel Agnes, things are a bit different. The upgraded version of this card is much better for parallel Agnes, but this original version of the Heirloom still has it's uses.

But overall, as identified by reviewers 7 years before me, this remains one of the worst signature cards. Which is particularly brutal when you consider that Agnes also has one of the worst weaknesses in the game too!

A terrible card that is actually somewhat useful in Hemlock Vale.

Enemies in HV have Elusive, meaning they disengage and move away after getting smacked once. Some of them have 5hp. Grievous Wound solves that problem.

As another review said, perfect for alternate Pete because it can be recurred every round, and also situationally nice for alternate Zoey, if you can stick it on a beefy enemy and let it bleed blesses into the bag for several rounds.

Unbelievably bad for anyone but maybe, maybe patrice. How did this even get printed?

If I'm going to spend 3 resource and devote a slot to a pure soak asset I expect it to come with 3+ total durability. To make this better than that you'd have to throw away a ruinous number of cards.

The only advantage this has over conventional soak assets is that it takes up only one deck slot and can stick around absborbing potentially unlimited amounts of damage over a long scenario if you have enough draw to feed it. But because it's capped at 3 and can only trigger once per round, it's not even great potection from big burst damage.

Why you'd ever look twice at this if you could Perseverance or Talisman of Protection or Cherished Keepsake is beyond me.

Zamacona is another enemy weakness, and like most, he is a much bigger problem in solo than multiplayer. There's a lot of supercheap technology that deals with him: handcuffs and spectral razor come to mind. Or stir the pot targeting another enemy. With mind wipe, a friendly mystic can make him extremely vulnerable to the countess’s trickery.

Elusive and "Spawn - Nearest empty location" can be a great aid (in case you want him to fall off a train) but if you’re only dealing one damage per attack, he’s going to stick around forever. The pitchfork, a beat cop(2), or drain essence (from someone else in the party) can deal with the Z-lister without having to chase him down even more.