Can't believe it took me this long to notice and correct me if I'm wrong, but this card seems fully Diana Stanley jank-enabled similar to Delay the Inevitable and "Fool me once...". With the Twilight Blade out, she can play this card from underneath her every round and then cancel damage or horror and place it back underneath her to recur the resource while drawing a card. Even better, Diana can take some of the Guardian allies that deal themselves damage or horror like Beat Cop or Field Agent to create a nice self sufficient card draw engine while testlessly getting clues and/or damage pings. On top of that, as these are all actions, they can very easily be done outside of the phases where you have played your other cancel cards since Diana's ability is a limit once per phase . Of course you'll need a charge battery that can help you keep enough charges in play to do this every turn but there are some useful options for that like the Runic Axe or the new Drowned City card Lost Arcana.

edit I think since these allies take damage/horror as a cost, the combo can't use them for their actions and would only end up generating card draw, which while nice is probably not worth heavily building around.

I've been thinking for a while that this card may be "the sleeper hit" of The Drowned City Expansion, so I gave it a try this weekend. I started a new campaign with Daisy (and not a high power-level Daisy: no Guiding Stones, no Empirical Hypothesis, etc.) playing with 1x Spectral Shield, 1x Eyes of the Dreamer, and eventually 2x Enraptured (which has other uses than putting chargers on Eyes of the Dreamer).

Based on my initial test in an off-class investigator, I'm overall really impressed with Spectral Shield. It's a combo card (although you could play it for a 1-cost fast on its own to prevent one damage/horror, I guess?), so if you're not using charges as your main engine then you'll need to find both Spectral Shield and something to fuel it.

Right out of the gate on Scenario 1, I started with 2 horror (In the Thick of It), failed an early treachery for 2 horror, and then drew my The Necronomicon weakness which is another 3 horror if I want to clear that. That's 7/9 horror right there. Yikes! My Guardian just randomly discarded Hallowed Mirror! Panic! I have a Logical Reasoning in my deck, but I need to find that... And then instead I found Eyes of the Dreamer + Spectral Shield, and... I'm pretty much fine? Now I don't have to worry about:

• Ward of Protection horror
• Horror from cycling my deck
• Swarming attacks, mostly (most Swarming is 1 damage or 1 horror each)
• "For each... choose..." effects where one of the options is 1 damage or 1 horror (because the "for each/every" rules for decisions is that each is its own effect)
• A 2 horror effect defeating me (now it takes two such effects)

There are so many effects that are trivialized when you get to prevent 9 damage/horror (maybe less, as I did use Eyes of the Dreamer now and then to not autofail a critical investigate with Deduction). (EDIT: Using is forced, not optional, so cannot combo with Deduction and the like. Thank you for the correction; the rest of the review still holds true for me.)

The main downsides of Spectral Shield are:

• You have to find 2 cards (normal combo tax)
• 4 resources is pricey early game for some decks
• You must spend the charge if you can, which can be annoying if (for example) your only charges are on tabooed Pendant of the Queen and you're at risk of removing it from the game
• This combo helps you "not lose" more than it helps you to win, if that makes sense

I'm very curious to play it in a Mystic with high-charge assets (Brand of Cthugha, Eyes of the Dreamer, etc.) rather than low-charge assets (Shrivelling, Rite of Seeking, etc.). I think that Spectral Shield could really open up a number of cards. Don't want to get damaged because of Alchemical Transmutation? Just spend one of its charges! Don't want to take horror from Shrivelling (3)? Just spend a charge from somewhere else! And so on. And with Eldritch Brand, you can start with a 9-charge spell from the outset, so the combo tax is further reduced.

I'm going to continue testing this card out to explore whether this card trivializes the encounter deck with all of the ways investigators can now replenish chargers: Uncage the Soul (3), Ghastly Possession, Enraptured (2), etc. Let me know what your experiences are!

Pretty cool with Guardian Angel.

You can assign the damage to the Angel to add a bless to the bag, but then cancel it before actually taking the damage. This ups your ability to take 1 hits a lot and the trick becomes figuring out how to get enough charges to absorb all the hits. Breath of the Sleeper and Eyes of the Dreamer can help with that.

Unfortunutaly you are now building your deck around a specific card combo that is hard to draw into, but details details.

I get it, it's also for Calvin Wright. An investigator card is also a "player card with health and/or sanity at your location", so Calvin can use this (it's has the Spirit trait) as extra insurance. Not super crazy a combo, but the card itself is not bad (1 resource - fast - for 1 damage/horror in the worst case) and it fits his playstyle. I'd say for him it's even better than Talisman of Protection - doesn't eat a slot, costs 1 resource less and the Talisman can get triggered only for 1 damage/horror, which always feels like a waste.

"But mistah, where charges?!", I hear you say.

Answer: Like I explained, the card is already good-ish in the worst case (having no charges), but Calvin also has access to Winds of Power, Earthly Serenity aaaaand... drumroll Bangle of Jinxes, a card that replenishes charges! Yeah, the slot is not great, but with the card in play you can mitigate downsides of an an attack and get the payment for the mitigation at once.

Again, not crazy, but I like it :)