The first two modes are by far the strongest ones, but you'll accept the healing if you're on the brink of death.

I was skeptical about this card until I played with it. I felt like it was too slow. But at lower player counts, one action for one clue is acceptable even in your dedicated cluever, and free testless discovery is delightful in your fighter.

Marion in particular rejoices. A big hurdle for her is ahead of her card draw engine, making sure you always have a second playable event. Too many events have conditional windows like reactions to encounter cards, or fights that need enemies. True Awakening is a perfect "just throw it out there" card.

This card is unreal in a Lucius deck with Ancestral Knowledge. If you keep your skill card count down to exactly 10, you will end up drawing at least one of them over 3/4 of the time, and you will draw both of them nearly 1/4 of the time!

Taken at face value this guy is playable but almost unbelievably weak for a 5 XP card. He's got good soak, +1 to a stat, and an ability that pays back his own play cost, if you have expensive insight events to play. But every color but green now has level 0 allies with +1 book, and some of them even generate resources. Compared to a Dr. Milan Christopher or Lawrence Carlisle, he gives a little more soak and a faster pay-back but little else for 5 XP.

But maybe we can make him worthwhile by really leaning in to that burst economy function. This guy is a good candidate for Calling in Favors, since you can spend all his money and then bounce him to hand to get another ally out and then bring him back in with a fresh set of secrets.

Speaking of secrets, the new Enraptured can generate crazy numbers of secrets as a free action, and this guy can turn that into resources.

I won't be surprised if there turns out to be some kind of weird infinite that involves cycling your deck to replay insights over and over that you pay for by enrapturing Archibald here repeatedly.

Still don't like him much if I'm playing fair, though.

Note that Handcuffs can potentially make this ally really effective by attaching to an enemy that also has the Humanoid trait.

This is very common in the Innsmouth Conspiracy campaign, and also weaknesses like Yorick’s Graveyard Ghouls can even put one in your player deck.

Fast, testless damage is really good. But is it so good that it's worth paying this much for? The resource, card slot, and XP costs here are individually reasonable, but collectively steep.

Assuming they were going to attack anyway, guardians can already get extra damage without spending additional actions or taking additional tests with tools like Vicious Blow, and the new Hunter's Mark. Dynamite Blast and Counterpunch offer testless fast damage without even attacking, though they may require taking some damage first. If you're willing to keep swinging away with a melee weapon, cards like Galvanize and Flurry of Blows can pump out a lot of damage.

The resource discount here relies on drawing cards while enemies are around, which implies that you either need fast or opportunity-attack-ignoring draw options, or that you're not the one actually engaged with the foe. That suggests this kind shines best for those rare characters with level 3 guardian access who aren't likely to be built as main fighters, or who need help passing tests. Especially if their off class or ability provides lots of resource generation or draw power.

So maybe this is a card that Carson Sinclair, Sister Mary, Carolyn Fern, and Marion Tavares want to look at. It's going to be especially strong against enemies who reduce all damage to 1 anyway, or 1 point pings have special value for other reasons (such as revealing concealed decoys).

Sadly, although Boxing Gloves can find these for you, it doesn't "draw" them, so you'd need to be rich to make it work. I guess you can pay for them with Prophetic if you really want.

The cutest combo: Be Tommy Muldoon. Stuff three Quick Shot in your Hunting Jacket. Go Toe to Toe with the boss. Profit.