"A player controls the cards located in his or her out-of-play game areas (such as the hand, deck, discard pile)." Core rule book page 16

So this card is not actually difficult to activate at all, but insanely easy. You need one copy of a multi-class card that does not remove itself from the game. Or take an extra couple of seconds to think about deck construction with the Dunwhich investigators' 5 lvl 0 cards of any class deckbuilding option. Or play an investigator who gets to build cards for his deck based off traits.

Fully activated this card is one of the best in the game, measured in action economy, effect per card draw/resource, or value for experience, in all metrics this card is among the best.

After having realized this I doubt I'll end up playing many decks that don't feature the synergy cards ever again.

So I have to step in here and try and prevent another senseless loss of ...okay its not that critical but honestly I am seeing grave diggers shovel all over the place and wondering to myself "why?"

Let's look at what it does piece by piece:

What it is: 2 cost, item, tool, melee, weapon. hand slot. A lot of cool tags to help it get into play, you can discount it, hold it in a bandolier, its also not too expensive so you don't really need to do much to get it into play.

What it gives you: +2 to combat for 1 damage fights, action and discard to get 1 clue these seem alright on paper, but remember this is tied to a hand slot, a hand slot that could have been a flashlight if core was all you had, and flashlight while providing no combat powers provides much more clue gathering ability at lower shrouds. If you are at the point where all that are left are high shroud locations and the only tool left is the shovel you are in for a world of hurt to win anyway.

The main issue I have is, even if this card is free to play, came into play fast it still isn't worth your time to use it, because the effects that brought it into play could have gotten anything else with the similarly wide net of traits. So really what this turns into is 2 resources, 2 actions, get 1 clue, maybe fight slightly higher between the two actions against odd health enemies. almost any other investigation card you can think of will outperform the shovel and now days we have Ice Pick, Mysterious Raven, Grete Wagner, faster effects that are just as guaranteed to work or remain as the shovel.

And for William Yorick the king of recursion, while the big Gravedigger's Shovel is a little fancy, Ancient Covenant+Favor of the Sun buries this card and breaks it down to salvage. If you really want to get clues at 0xp and your collection is limited: Lucky!, "Look what I found!" and Evidence! are all core set cards, if your team needs more than that there's Flashlight.

I can see it and its upgrades sleeker version being somewhat playable in a one handed melee weapon bruiser deck that had high enough combat to be using bruiser just for free money but what I have seen is decks running things like chainsaw and gravediggers shovel wondering to myself "how do they plan to use it?" "when do you get a chance to play it?" "where is the missing bandolier?" and "why?"

This card makes the most sense with Cyclopean Hammer since its unlimited uses means you'll be flattening things like Rats with the Hammer so can get 2 bucks as a bonus. You also end up overkilling beefier enemies after softening them up with the first blow. Not saying it's a must-have but worth considering if your investigator is resource hungry or as a placeholder until you level up to better cards.

[EDIT: A few errors have been removed, hope you enjoy the refresh regardless]. The other review in this section is already great, but as there hasn't been a new review in a while I wanted to spotlight a few more interactions with Police Badge. A few commonly known current interactions are:

• William Yorick is the investigator which gets most mentions when it comes to Police Badge, as his ability allows him to play it from his discard pile after defeating an enemy. Scavenging can be used similarly to recur it on investigators who can take it.
• At the time of the other review there were no tutor cards which could draw this out. Now there is Backpack and upgraded Backpack as your primary options. Tetsuo Mori can be used on any investigator that can take Police Badge as well (and for anyone with access to Seeker cards, there's of course Mr. "Rook" and No Stone Unturned - and its upgrade for Joe - though I wouldn't recommend these options).
• Well-Maintained allows Police Badge to be recurred immediately once it's discarded. What's more, Well-Maintained plays fast and for 0 resources - so whenever you play Police Badge again you can immediately set it to recur. [Note it's each other upgrade and the item that gets recurred, so you can't repeat this forever].

An interaction I've not seen anyone talk about is:

• Sleight of Hand (only Leo Anderson, "Skids" O'Toole and Zoey Samaras as of pre-Scarlet Keys). As long as you intend to discard Police Badge that turn, this is two free actions at the cost of one resource. This is also compatible with the Sleight of Hand taboo (i.e. that it can only be used on items level 0-3). On the whole though, this interaction is outshone The Red Clock which gives additional turns more consistently.

I asked FFG how to properly parse this card's Swarming X instruction (since the rules could be read as suggesting there is no "active investigator" outside of the investigation phase, creating ambiguity), and they responded as follows:

• The “active investigator” listed on Cats from Saturn is referring to the investigator that drew the card, assuming an investigator did. It would Swarm X based on that investigator’s alarm level.

• It would be possible for Cats from Saturn to enter play when it wasn’t drawn, so that is the case where it would Swarm X based on the highest alarm level among all investigators.