Alyssa Graham is a great card in any kind of deck that can play cards. For 4 resources, which is not that hefty in the game and playable on turn 1, you get a action giving you all the intelligence you need for your next turn.

Without even considering that you can bury that card at the bottom of the encounter deck for a tiny Doom token, it's already good.

But what's more, you actually can bury that encounter card if you don't like it.

Her static boost is of +1 is nothing to sneeze at. Intellect boosts are always good. You want to grab clues in this game, right?

Finally, I think Alyssa really shines in a Marie Lambeau deck. Marie's ability requires that you have a doom token on one of the player cards you control. Alyssa gives you a reliable way to get that token running, from the get go. She gets Marie to a very high 5 , on par with Daisy Walker, thus solo-enabling Marie. Here is a sample (solo) deck: arkhamdb.com

Agnes Baker is one of the most powerful investigators out there and here's why:

• First of all, with her 5 , she can withstand most of the treacheries requiring skill tests the encounter deck throws at her.
• Her other stats are quite low, but the class has so many ways to hande that, that it is not really relevant in the end.

With the solved, she just needs way to mitigate her 3 other low stats. And ways there are in the class card pool, most of them Spells that can be triggered using her strongest stat .

• Her 3 is already quite acceptable, considering you won't be using it much, except to sometimes, in an emergency, evade an enemy if you can't currently kill it or blind it.
• Her 2 may be the most difficult stat to balance, if you're playing solo. If you're playing multiplayer, you probably want to focus Agnes on killing the damn enemies. Back to solo then. Again, cards have so many ways to mitigate that: Drawn to the Flame, Rite of Seeking, maybe use that "Look what I found!", and the neutral cards Flashlight and Perception.
• Her 2 may be the easiest stat to balance, right off the bat with Shrivelling and later on with Shrivelling (3), Shrivelling (5) and Song of the Dead (2). What's more, all those Spells have a strong synergy with Agnes' ability, dealing even more damage to the enemies you're attacking.

Finally:

• The ability of Agnes is very reliable, as lot of things can deal damage to Agnes: treacheries, enemy attacks, even her own Spells. She also has access to ways of mitigating the sanity hits: Fearless and Peter Sylvestre.
• Her modifier is quite good too, for the same exact reason.

With the mulligan rule in this game, grabbing a Spell in your starting hand is not that difficult, and you still have the Arcane Initiate to help you out.

Here is a (solo) sample deck: arkhamdb.com

I play with 4 investigator. Our team love Double or Nothing. Our team love stacking bonuses. When you're doing a test (was done in a real game) with : Defiance + Double or Nothing + 2 Quick Thinking + Deduction (XP) (+ some other buffs) on Rex Murphy You really want to have defiance to decrease the chance of failing to only 1 chaos token. That's not necessarily clever to put all our ressource on one test, but that's fun to discover 8 clues and gain 4 actions in one action.

Moreover, in a 4 investigator team, it may be difficult to finish your deck, since other people migth be interested in the good card of your faction. This card is never a bad pick, since in the worst case, it is a little more than a +1 to any test.

So not the best card ever, but a decent 0XP card. However, it may be difficult in 1 or 2 extension to find a place in our decks for this card, since better cards will probably be published.

A solid investigator. Strong in killing and clue-gathering, the core of the game. Guardian and Seeker are among the stronger of the classes, so you have access to excellent upgrades. On the other hand, the lack of sanity is very hard to manage. Elder Sign Amulet is obviously an important first upgrade, which undermines the access to the better class upgrades.

Not much beats this weapon for dominating as a combat character. The steady +2 damage and a modifier that all but guarantees successes makes this expensive killing tool unusually flexible.

Here's a comparison: You're Roland, with your .45 Automatic you aim to kill a Ravenous Ghoul, you're 2 above the required skill check, you lay down a Vicious Blow to net you a clean kill and spend 1 on Physical Training to hit that sweet spot of +4 over the skill check, and even then on higher difficulties you might throw on another just in case you get that -5. And boom, the Ghoul is gone. That there cost you: 4 for the gun, 2 for Physical Training, 2 and an action to play Physical Training in the first place, and a Vicious Blow as well, end cost: 3 cards, 8 resources and the extra action. You will be able to fire the gun 3 more times, but you wont kill any 3 hp enemies in one shot.

Now the lightning gun. One shot, aaaaand DONE. That set you back 6 resources but you're geared to do this two more times without having to pay for any boosts or playing extra cards!

Of course it wont be that simple, with a gun that big in your deck you will want to bring Prepared for the Worst to search for it and Extra Ammunition to keep it firing. You still want to draw into Vicious Blow to deal with those 4 HP enemies and the initial cost will inevitably slow you down in the earlygame.

This card does exactly what it should do and has all the drawbacks that it looks like it's got, it's a big unwieldy boomstick that will never disappoint you, but setting this up mean's you wont be doing much else.

Other cards that aren't immediately obviously good with this card: In class: 1) Dodge and Prepared for the Worst are a big help against bosses, they essentially let you set a trap for a hunting enemy where you get a full round of emptying this gun at the foe, useful in some specific missions. 2) Stand Together, this is effectively a second set of Emergency Cache, the key benefit here is that you usually only go for Lightning Gun when you have someone else doing the clue gathering, in which case you can give them a big buff while you set yourself up. A perfect first turn would be playing this into the lightning gun and immediately playing it. 3) Beat Cop, Lightning Gun is wasted on 1 and 2 HP enemies, Beat Cop helps you mitigate these enemies.

Out of class: 1) Quick Thinking is often all but a guaranteed action. Good if you need to wade into a big fight or need to accomplish something after it. 2) Drawn to the Flame and Scrying. You don't do much when you're totally focused on fighting and there are no enemies to zap, these cards let you guide encounters onto yourself. 3) Pathfinder and Shortcut. Entering a fight quickly can be key, perhaps you need to spend an action engaging a foe or perhaps you need to fire all three shots to down a foe in one round.