I think this card is pretty useful. Now, in multiplayer, taking away the Elder Sign from the group to give Father Mateo +1 Willpower is not the best idea. If Father Mateo is taking a lot of Will tests, it actually isn't that bad of an exchange in a 2-player game; but at higher player counts it does start to hurt the group. More importantly, removing the Elder Sign takes away fun from other investigators and will quickly make you the least popular player on the table. I don't recommend it!

But this card is still fine as a kind of janky Seal of the Elder Sign. Just wait until you need to Shrivelling V a high-fight enemy or Rite of Seeking IV a high-shroud location, or attempt some other similarly high-reward, high-difficulty test, plop down The Codex of Ages, and use it right away. The 1-action, 1-card, 2-resource cost of the The Codex of Ages is easily justified by the guaranteed success on a critical test, and of course Father Mateo's Elder Sign effect will make back some of that anyway. It's a strong play, and I wouldn't use The Codex of Ages for its icons unless I was desperate.

Obviously nice with a teammate's Double or Nothing for e.g. six clues from Rite of Seeking IV. That's a power move.

In solo I would think +1 Willpower would ordinarily be superior to having the Elder Sign in the bag, even considering how useful Father Mateo's Elder Sign is. So you probably want to just play the Codex in advance there, if you have time. This will also make it easier to use the Codex against enemies, something that would otherwise be tricky in solo (but less so in multiplayer).

This is a great card in the core campaign, especially for "The Midnight Masks", but its even better in "Return to the Night of the Zealot", as its still amazing in "Return to The Midnight Masks", but now pretty good for "Return to The Devourer Below" also, as the update has refreshed the need for intellect-based-investigation.

It's particularly great for Pete (as it works with Duke) and Minh, both of whom want to be searching anyway. Wendy's probably down with it too.

This card scales extremely favorably in 4-player games. If you've glossed over the Skull in 2-player (the most common format), but are invited to a 4-player, then do give it another look.

It sadly does clash with the Rosary for Akachi and Sefina, but Ursula, Leo, Wendy, or any of the other Rogues can make good use of it it in a 4-player game. I'm not sure I'd go as far as spending a splash-card for Pete, Rex, etc though.

This card is really very good. Even ignoring the 2x Agility icons, it has lots of play. It's difficult to describe exactly what you would use it for, as its such a tactical card, with its use depending on the situation, but here are a few scenarios where I have found it useful.

• Dropping a weapon or ally from hand, then using the weapon straight away with a bonus.
• Similar to the above, but powering up with a Hot Streak, Emergency Cache, or other card
• Using it as a pseudo-Overpower, by drawing a card, pulling a resource, (or anything else), fizzling the attack and then unloading your weapon
• Using it to drag an enemy to a location, so somebody else can deal with it, similar to Shortcut, except you also get to do something at the end. (Evade the enemy perhaps)?
• Using it as an Unexpected Courage for game-winning checks, possibly even by Engaging a monster you didn't need to
• Using it for a local Dynamite Blast, followed by an attack

Basically, it is often Unexpected Courage + Dodge, all for 0 XP, 0 Resources, and even when it isn't, it can function as a double-Agility.

It's in all my rogue decks, and I rarely want to take it out. It's up there with Elusive, Leo and Lone Wolf as one of the best 0 XP Rogue cards, in my opinion. It doesn't have as much impact, but it's got so much value.

Oh, and the picture is cool too.

Ideally you want to always play this from your discard, at which point it is like a 1-shot revolver, (that also generated whatever value put it in the discard in the first place). Playing it from your hand is generally bad. So the card looks like goes pretty well with Wendy and Pete, both of whom have strong discard-for-value abilities. Except... Wendy and Pete don't want to be fighting with their base stats. (You can't use it with Duke).

So that leaves Yorrick, Calvin, Silas, Mark, Mihn, Agnes and the 5-splashers. Many of whom would quite interested in playing it from the discard, but don't have a reliable and valuable way of getting it there .

So at the moment, it's a bit of a "no mans card". If another card for Survivor comes out that provides a discard-for-value ability, then I can see this suddenly being very playable. (Or if more cards arrive to support combat options in Wendy/Pete, but this is less likely).