Gotta love this card. It's use depends on the exact character you are playing, but the overall utility is the same:

Play a weapon with ammo and use it for one round cheaply.

• You can play Leo Anderson or Zoey Samaras and play a Lightning Gun for 1 resource, waste all the ammo, and still be ready to play it later again with full ammo.
• You can play "Skids" O'Toole, Jenny Barnes or Finn Edwards and play Lupara or Chicago Typewriter.
• You can play the vast majority of characters and a smattering of others and sneak out the Ornate Bow for an extra shot.

Obviously the card isn't bad when used to cheat out a less powerful weapon (.45 Automatic for example) cheaply and when you really need it.

The main downside to Sleight of Hand is that, if you have no worthy weapon in hand, or draw it too late and your weapons are already in play, then this card is totally useless. You really need to have a reasonable selection of weapons to choose from or ways to tutor them like Backpack or Prepared for the Worst.

The best case scenario for this card is super rewarding, but the worst case scenario (playing it for just the lone icon) really evens things out.

This quality card double, triple dips into as bunch of different card roles.

• The typical Hp/Sanity value you can expect from utility allies. Like other high-importance allies (Leo De Luca) though you really don't want to have Lola Santiago die, ever. Lola Santiago extends your hp and sanity bar by 1 each, and then if is a matter of life or death she can take one more of each. Nothing of particular note here.

• A static +1 for two different stats. This here is tremendous value for a 3-cost card. Buffing two(+) stats insofar has been the realm of conditional allies (Dario El-Amin and sensitive accessories (St. Hubert's Key, Key of Ys), Lola Santiago does occupy an ally slot but she is completely unconditional and always "on". The faction typically has middling and high and rely on one or both for clue gathering, Lola Santiago is already at this point the premier Clue-card for clue-minded characters, even without the extra card text. Note that Lockpicks taps into both of Lola Santiago's stats, that's a cool synergy there.

• The text ability, exchanging cash for clues, will become expensive ->FAST<-. if you've ever played cards like Scene of the Crime or Working a Hunch you will know that these mechanics can chunk down your resources dramatically. Obviously though Lola Santiago can keep doing her thing "infinitely", an action-less clue every turn! Running this ability with any sort of regularity means that you need a powerful economy engine to pay for repeat payments at 2/3 or 4 resources. One trick with Lola Santiago is that regular "investigate" actions suddenly become somewhat less effective than just triggering her ability, this means that rather then spending the odd-action to investigate you might actually be better served spending those actions to gain resources. If your engine is strong enough then your only actual investigate actions will be the ones you try while she is on cooldown (Barring superpowered Lockpicks triggers. Note that Flashlight can bring her cost down or nullify it completely, with Lola Santiago as a centrepiece (dual wielding Lockpicks and Flashlight) it is now possible to build a very strong clue-sniffing .

The biggest strength of Lola Santiago is not her incredible ability, it is her flexibility. Cards that on one hand help you gather clues and on the other help you deal with enemies are very rare, Lola Santiago's +1 can really help bridge the gap for when you can't quite (or don't want/need to) kill an enemy.

Lola Santiago's biggest weakness however is her high sustained cost, there is no way that you can play a dedicated monster killer, you just wont have the resources to fund weapons and combat utility cards like Machete+Physical Training. You can still deal with a few threats every scenario and if you hold off on using her special ability and lean on the raw +stats instead you can shift strategies to/from clue gathering and monster killing as needed.

One thing I had failed to notice with this card at first is that "the performing investigator draws 2 cards and gains 2 resources", which makes it a fantastic support card! If your friend Finn is facing rotting remains, a test he will probably fail, you can help him recover a bit. He will draw 2 cards and gain 2 resources which is a good compensation. The fact that you can take it back with true survivor and true survivor with resourceful (another innate card, see a pattern?) just makes the survivor a well oiled machine! Silas and Calvin will like it a lot. Now the survivor can alleviate others failures too, that's fantastic!

P.S: English is not my native language, so sorry if I make mistakes.

What a great card! Lucky! is a great card and this card will not change that, but it's so nice to have a card that fills a similar role to Lucky! while at the same time not being the same and still having its own space. I'm currently playing an Ashcan Desperate/Dark Horse/Yaotl deck and I'm taking out my Lucky!s because they cost one resource and have no icons in a deck that discourages having resources and encourages having cards with icons in the discard pile. They synergized badly with the deck. This card (while not necessarily getting along with Yaotl) is a great replacement in that deck.

In general, it's very well balanced with Lucky!. While Lucky! gives you a chance to pass a test when you would have failed after you've seen the token, Live and Learn lets you weasel out of an auto fail or other really bad draw. Lucky! costs a resource, while Live and Learn still resolves side effects of a bad test and does not guarantee success (or further side effects of another failed test). But it's free!

I'm happy to see the designers make a card like this, and I've enjoyed playing with it.

Sefina Rousseau, This, and Ornate Bow = potential 15 damage for 5 resources and 2 extra actions. Back her up with Backstab, and Sefina can now deliver that 3 damage burst pretty consistently (and cheaper than ever). I can't think of another investigator this would be better on.