Every investigator can try to pet The Cat. Who does not appreciate a 3/3 soak, especially by the end of a tough campaign? But the XP cost is too high for just a soak and some, rather random, help on the road. If only you could mess with the chaos bag enough to take advantage of the upgraded modifiers The Cat brings?

Enter Jacqueline Fine. Even without Olive McBride and Charisma, even without Grotesque Statue she has much bigger chance to draw one of the tokens The Black Cat cares about.

A psychic should run a Sixth Sense, trying to fish symbol tokens (fish for a squid?) - but by the end of the campaign, these happen to be quite ugly and sometimes force you to make unpleasant decisions - The Cat fixes the problem! Even when Shrivelling someone, it's better to take a horror while passing a test rather than wasting a charge, failing a test, being punched back AND taking a horror.

Jacqueline's is something you like to ignore if you can, but if you need to use it, at least it can do something charitable - like healing The Cat!

Furthermore with The Cat by her side (on her shoulder?), Dark Future is much less of a problem, significantly decreasing the risk of Jacqueline's ending in fails with terrible consequences.

A cool "function" of this gun is that when shooting an enemy engaging with other to swiftly free up that investigator and you are boosting for 2 damages, or trying to finish off 1 HP enemy with high accuracy, if the bag hands you high minus or , the +1 became automatically inactive on the friendly-fire damage. A Rogue looking to play to the strength of this gun should just shoot it instead of Engage first like a Guardian with extra damage weapon.

This could be a very useful (though easily overlooked) card for Amina Zidane. It's likely that she will start with at least 2 trauma from In The Thick of It or Arcane Research.

Her ability to put discounted assets into play overcomes the worst thing about this card - its 4 resource cost. Since it's a support card she can likely wait until the midnight hour to play it (or whenever, if she has Elle around to hold her minestrone).

For large group, Nature of the Beast is good card. This card is compared to Drawn to the Flame in that it make the investigator a encounter card. Only 1 clue is discovered, but at any location by any investigator. This card provides remote discover tool. This card gives the fighter a clue to avoid clue spending encounter like Hunting Shadow. In addition, 3 encounter cards are given and 1 is resolved and the others are discarded. It means that discarded encounters are not drawn in this encounter cycle. In addition, chosen card is drawn by any investigator. For 3 or 4 player game, commonly 1 of 3 is easy to handle by one of the player.

When I used, I confront two annoying situations. The first is when the number of the encounter deck is less than 3. I had to choose two of one, or choose one of one. The other is when no clue exists at any revealed location. Then, I had to draw encounter card without advantage.

For small (1/2) group, this card is good with another meaning. Many users comments in this review, so check those if you're interested :)

0xp: Empirical Hypothesis is almost similar as Lucky Cigarette Case. Let's assume we always choose the criteria "You succeed at a test by 3 or more," since this criteria is more robust to trigger than the other. Then, Empirical Hypothesis is just non-slot LCC(0). Of course, we need 1 additional succeed and cannot trigger during just played round (since we choose the criteria at the start of the round). However, we can choose the timming of the draw. It's useful if we want to shuffle the thin deck just before resolving the weakness or shuffle empty deck before searching the deck. For easy/standard difficulty, 0xp version is still good and even hard difficulty I think good^a.

0xp is enough good, so we may not upgrade this card. The below part is related to the upgrade and just as reference.

3xp: I suggest the 3xp upgrade as Field Research + Peer Review. It's a note that the criteria is chosen at the start of the round, before the encounter cards are drawn during the mytho phase. In this reason, it's hard to guess which criteria is suitable. I think, Field Research + Peer Review is easy to trigger. With Field Research + Peer Review, Empirical Hypothesis is triggered if we're in the location with 3+ shroud and another investigator is in our location^b.

Another upgrade candidates:

• Alternative Hypothesis(4xp): For multiplayer, we have two great criteria: Field Research, 3+ succeed. One problem is that we check which one is first and choose one.
• Research Grant(2xp): If you have not enough money source, this upgrade gives backup plan. This upgrade converts 2 cards into 3 resources, which is common trade ratio in AHLCG. Considering 2xp upgrade, it's not efficient trade but fair trade (or backup plan).
• One criteria considering your group: If we upgrade all above, Empirical Hypothesis is now 9xp and we have Peer Review. For easlier triggering of Alternative Hypothesis, one additional criteria is good, IMO. For instance, Trial and Error with Mark. Independent Variable is also considerable as second criteria with Alternative Hypothesis.

I do not recommand Irrefutable Proof. Commonly, drawing 3 cards is valuable than discovering 1 clue^a.

a) I has not play expert difficulty. This may not true for expert difficulty.

b) Since the text states "when the chosen criteria is met", this ruling may be wrong. IMO, when is not meaning as triggering timing considering the movement of the unrevealed location.