Atlas is really good card; however, for better performance, you need to tune your deck with some criteria.

Whenever non-icon non-skill card is attached, there is no way to get that card in your hand; you cannot commit the card without matching icon. The only way is discarding Atlas, and that card is also discarded. Therefore, it's good to avoid non-icon card in your deck. Here is the examples.

• Emergency Cache: Voice of Ra is good alternative. Cryptic Writings maybe not good, since its reaction ability is not triggered when you get Cryptic Writing from Atlas.
• Tarot Asset: All tarot asset has no icon. Moon Pendant does not help this.
• EoE 1xp skill serises, especially Occult Theory. Occult Theory has icon only if it's commited or in your hand. When OT is in Atlas, no icon exists so that you cannot commit.
• Here are other non-icon cards. Most make you draw cards or boost stats.
  • /netural cards: Delve Too Deep, Living Ink, Time Warp, Word of Command, Lucid Dreaming
  • Off-class cards (xp<2): Lucky, Fight or Flight, improvised serises, Dilemma serises, Moonstone, Fortutious Discovery, Scroung for Supplies, Calculated Risk, Pay Day, Geas, Black Market, Well Prepared
  • Others: Cryptic Research, Sure Gamble, Ace in the Hole, True Survivor, Unscrupulous Loan
  • and... Amina's signature cards: Word of Woe & Word of Weal

Absolutely a power card in a parallel Roland Banks deck - feels tailor made to the Red Tape and Seek the Truth directives.

Red Tape makes the entire thing fast, giving you a whole turn's worth of actions for a resource. If an enemy spawns somewhere and needs to be answered, you can be there without taking an action, hoovering up two clues on the way - and Seek the Truth will earn you a card draw and unlocks your skill cards at your final destination, provided the target enemy has a clue at their feet.

Then you've got three actions left to actually deal with the enemy, and really, few other fighters can get that much done in the course of just getting set up to shoot something.

The 3XP is a much easier sell for parallel Roland, too, with 5 bonus experience at deckbuilding - 8 if you're In the Thick of It, which you absolutely should be if you're running the other popular directive, Leave No Doubt, alongside a Delve or two.

This is a good buy for the last scenario of a campaign, even outside of a Déjà Vu deck. Survivors tend to have a lot XP by the end of campaigns, because their upgraded cards usually cost 1-3 XP. You should have no problem to play this card at maximum value and discard >= 2XP second copy of a card from your hand to also remove doom from agenda, which is very valuable expecially in final scenarios with Ancient Evils or similar effects. I would not run this card for scenarios 1 - 6 without Déjà Vu, but in a penultimate and ultimate scenario this is a strong card. Compare to Hallow or Fortune or Fate. I ran Burn After Reading in Yorick in Into the Maelstrom and got some value form it, because this scenario puts some pressure on doom clock through several cards.

This card is an obvious combo with anyone who can take Chuck the O’Bannion. But it’s come into vogue for an investigator who takes more Tricks than gin rummy.

Pilfer isn’t just “get clues with agility”, it’s “get a lot clues with agility.” And while Rita could take it before, she didn’t have the economy to make it happen…until Crafty came along. With Crafty, and some combination of drawing thin, easy mark, or even another Crafty, you can play this* every turn. The flexibility of going from boss evader and map explorer to second seeker is wild.

Things like live and learn, “hit me!”, heavy furs and lucky(3) can make sure you meet the success by +2 threshold. Survivor blessed tech will also help a lot. It's a new day for multiplayer Rita. A day filled with pilfering.

*Level 3

As existing reviews point out, it's relatively difficult to get value from Bruiser, because few investigators that repeatedly play Armor, Firearm, or Melee cards, relegating the main use case of this to act as a pseudo-static boost on fight checks. It works fine for that purpose, though it's a little overpriced for it.

But there are quite a few investigators who would go quite far with the discount. Allow me to highlight some of them:

• Silas Marsh can now return the Sea Change Harpoon to hand every round if he wants to, returning a whole bunch of skills to hand each round
• Tony Morgan can cycling through his Tony's .38 Long Colts, Luparas, and .41 Derringers, and would love to be more reliable oversucceeding on his Switchblade.
• Tommy Muldoon could repeatedly play Protective Gear in a hazardous campaign
• Yorick could repeatly play the new Fire Extinguisher (3) from the discard to easily automatically evade large groups, or just juggle the Chainsaw. Even repeatedly replaying the Gravedigger's Shovel feels much better if said shovel were free. Ice Picks are Melee too! There's quite a few good options here.