This permanent was really fun with Mandy Thompson (30 cards). Every line on the permanent worked to her advantage.

+15 deck size? Great, I can fit in three sets of Myriad cards, Segment of Onyx, A Glimmer of Hope and Astounding Revelation while not feeling like I have a bloated deck. 6 spots leftover for me to fill in with Seeker allies (tons of great options).

Draw 2 cards per upkeep? Great. Procs my Ancient Stones twice as fast with no action required.

Discard 1 of them? Great. Lets me discard allies, survivor cards, item cards.

What to take with Survivor subclass as Mandy? Winging It, Impromptu Barrier, A Glimmer of Hope, A Chance Encounter. Three of these are playable from the Discard Pile, while A Chance Encounter lets you play discarded allies.

Don't forget to take Calling in Favors to be able to put 2 allies into play using Mandy's ability. You can even use it on the "A Chance Encounter" target.

For upgrades, take Charisma/Miskatonic Archaeology Funding to facilitate more allies. Ancient Stone to utilise the Draw 2 effect. Versatile + Scavenging to recur any items used up or discarded during upkeep. Protecting the Anirniq works wonders with Ancient Stone/A Chance Encounter.

Conclusion: Don't take this if you were hoping to be flexible during upkeep and "choose" which cards to keep based on the situation. Don't take this if you care about your opening hand either.

Instead, take it if you're like me and actively WANT half your deck discarded and to proc Ancient Stone. The only things I didn't want to discard were Talents, Skill Cards and the cards that let me do ally shenanigans. Everything else was fair game.

Oh, and who cares if you drew Shocking Discovery during your upkeep phase? You lose the other card which you can probably get back and it's considered a dead draw which doesn't matter for a Big Hand Mandy deck. As Mandy, I almost never draw Shocking Discovery because she has plenty of ways to proc it on her own terms via Search.

As someone immersed in academia, I find the restriction on damaging your Miskatonic allies a hilariously realistic representation of your need to stay in your founder's good graces and demonstrate responsible stewardship of grant resources.

I mean, everyone takes some wear and tear on an expedition, but you are not going to get your grant renewed if your annual report shows you recklessly shoved the funded professors into the front lines of fighting with unholy abominations.

That OTHER intern you have with you, though--they came along on private funding. You can totally send them to investigate that noise.

I'm sure this is obvious to experienced players, but as a pretty new player, I've benefitted from reviews that explain synergies and changes from newer cards, so I thought I'd add a little one here:

The Ally slot math is different since the release of Miskatonic Archaeology Funding, at least for Seekers. The 4xp permanent which lets you slot 2 additional allies with the Miskatonic trait.

That's two XP less than taking double Charisma, and usually doable after the first scenario. Go ahead, put three different level zero allies in your deck. They will only be dead draws during the easiest scenario in your game. Now you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Well, you can eat most of your cake, anyway. Slowly. The Funding restricts you to dealing one damage or horror to a Miskatonic ally per blow you are taking. This reduces his effective soak potential to 3, over three separate hits. Still a bargain! But bring along someone not funded by Miskatonic, or another soak, so that you have somewhere else to spread out the heavy damage hits.

Most players are not going to think too much about their investigator's Elder Sign (), which comes up so rarely and doesn't really do anything. Seriously, how many effects are just +X or only trigger on particular types of tests? Anyways, if your name is Father Mateo, your whole shtick is about the Elder Sign and getting it as often as possible... but Silas Marsh players should also take note, because this is the strongest one in the game.

First off, the effect -- you get to commit YOUR CHOICE of skill cards from the discard pile, (1) getting its icons, (2) getting its skill card benefits, and (3) keeping it around for another test. Any of the three parts would be good-to-great effects, but all three? Amazing. Let's talk about each: (1) the doesn't give you any skill boost by itself, so in the event you aren't going to pass the test (a test in Mythos, probably), this is almost like a Lucky!. Keeping some icons, like an Unexpected Courage, in the discard pile is key. (2) Oh boy -- we don't just play skill cards for their icons, we mostly play them for their action-less effects. Here, there's NO RISK in committing the card, since you know if you'll pass and trigger the effect. And the big prize here is Resourceful, as long as you're taking a , , or test, and you get to grab ANOTHER from the discard pile. It could be another skill, or a powerful event. But maybe if you're going to pass by 1 (and now 2) anyways, why not give yourself another action with Quick Thinking? Your discard pile is your oyster. (3) If that wasn't enough, you'll get a chance to do the effect AGAIN on a future test. Silas can run low on cards on hand because he commits so many skills, so this solves that problem very quickly.

Putting all three effects together and you get a huge tempo swing. The not so unusual case with Resourceful and Lucky! (3) goes like this: compared to just drawing a 0 or +1 token, you'll pick up two more cards in hand from your discard pile (the aforementioned Resourceful and Lucky!). On a future test that you might fail, you'll commit Resourceful, play Lucky! and get it back, and then draw another card from Lucky!'s effect. You'll never fail a skill test again, and you'll keep replenishing your hand. That's the way to stay ahead of the game.

OK, so how do you make sure this keeps happening? In , it's Eucatastrophe, and Silas / Resourceful is probably why the Taboo list makes you remove the card from the game after you play it. Still, doing it twice per game is plenty powerful. Against All Odds, the only card that potentially reveals multiple tokens, is worth a passing thought, but nothing more than that. For maximum multiplayer fun, though, pair with an investigator who will give you some help. One option is someone who can take Blessing of Isis and will follow you around. Silas Marsh is excellent with tokens as well, so you can really put that Favor of the Sun to good use here. The other option is to get help from a Mystic who will toss you a Seal of the Elder Sign or seal other tokens like with The Chthonian Stone, to make drawing the more likely. Or just play with Jacqueline Fine, who can use her ability on you!

Lastly, the only time that the effect fizzles is when there is nothing in the discard pile you can commit. This is because your discard pile is empty because the game just started -- a strong endorsement for Short Supply -- or you don't have skill cards with matching icons in the discard, like a few icons or Guts in the Mythos phase. That's why it's a good idea to have a variety of skills in Silas and commit when you can. Or maybe you've already pulled everything back from your discard pile with True Survivor or something, in which case you're probably already trouncing the scenario.

Important notes for understanding the value of this card:

The action on the card can be used outside of your turn during any window shown in pg.23 of the rules reference, including after a hunter moves but before it attacks.

The action combined with Daniela's ability can allow you to automatically evade an enemy engaged with a squishy teammate without spending the action to engage it. This can be useful on hunters with preferred prey.

When the enemy attacks you due to the action on this card, that enemy does NOT exhaust.

The Fight action can still be used when the wrench is exhausted.

Overall, it's not an incredibly good item, but it does let Daniela make significantly more out of her ability. The more soak you have and more you like being attacked, the more appealing this item gets, but it's not nearly on the level of many unique items like Monterey Jack's absolutely insane whip. In some situations, it's safer to get that enemy off someone with 100% certainty at the cost of taking one hit from it. However, for the majority of enemies (especially those that deal horror), your ideal course of action is still to kill them before they hurt anyone.