Tommy Muldoon

Tommy Muldoon can use to great effect The Red-Gloved Man: just wait until you get engaged by an enemy (or force it with First Watch, "Let me handle this!", On the Hunt), play at fast speed RGM for 2 resources, get 2 skills to 6 base, choosing whatever you need most for the turn, do 3 actions taking attacks of opportunity so RGM is defeated in the enemy phase, then use Tommy Muldoon's reaction to get 7-8 resources and shuffling back RGM.

You net 5-6 resources every time, get free turns while engaged, 6 skill base value for 2 skills of your choice and you never lose RGM because its shuffled back to be abused again.

William · 544
This is downright sadistic. Poor glovey. :) — ratnip · 67
Lockpicks

This question is related to the FAQ question above: If I use Lockpicks, can I commit an agility icon card to the test, even if includes no intellect icons?

Apparently, I need 200 characters. Did I reach it yet?

Phelpsb83 · 215
Step 2 of Skill Test Timing says you can only commit cards with icons matching the skill tested, so no. Lockpicks adds your agility to the INT test, but does not change the tested skill. This also means that cards with INT and AGI icons only add their INT icons. — Django · 5094
Thanks for the response Django. This card now gets added to long list of cards I've been playing wrong...! — acotgreave · 864
I was playing cards like Slip Away and Spectral Blade wrong too, then. Thanks! — Yenreb · 15
"Let God sort them out..."

I assume, since the experience here seems to be a delayed effect created by playing the card, rather than an effect "while this card is in the victory display", that this provides experience when copied by The Painted World or played again by Double, Double (unlike, in each case, Delve too Deep).

Yenreb · 15
I think you are right about the painted world. But this cant be double double'd. Note that it can only be played during your turn and playing it immediately ends your turn, so the timing point that double double responds to, (after you play this event) is not a valid time to play this event again — NarkasisBroon · 10
On review of Play, Play Action, and Play Restrictions in the rulebook, I think you're right. This suggests Double, Double cannot be used on many events with play restrictions or instructions (only the ones which haven't moved on from the original timing point would be valid). — Yenreb · 15
Versatile

Versatile offers every investigator the ability to buy any one level 0 card at the substantial cost of 2 experience and an increase in deck size. I actually think the +5 Deck Size is the greater cost associated with Versatile than the experience because its going to make it harder to find and draw your key assets - weapons to fight with, tools to gather clues with, etc. - not to mention also making it harder to find that special out of faction card you bought Versatile to play in the first place! I don't think its worth buying Versatile without an exceptionally good reason; the out of faction card you buy better offer you something especially powerful for your investigator. There are a hanful of investigators that get something really unique from Versatile or else who I believe are in the best position to take advantage of it:

Wendy Adams - Wendy gains access to Premonition, which combined with her amulet truly breaks Arkham Horror. The Forced ability on Wendy's Amulet is presently ruled to not apply to events that don't go immediately to the discard pile after being played. This means that, with Wendy's Amulet in play, you can play Premonition over and over again at the player window at the start of every skill test and always know exactly which token will be drawn. To dig to find this combo, Wendy has access to Rabbit's Foot, Drawing Thin, and Nothing Left to Lose, among other cards. You still won't reliably find your exact two cards in 35, and the experience cost of the best Survivor draw makes this combo likely a late campaign option at best. Personally, I think infinite Premonitions will spoil the major challenge of Arkham Horror - in having to guess which skill checks are worth your resources, and sometimes being screwed by bad luck you couldn't foresee.

Mandy Thompson - Mandy is a special case on this list. Her sheer power of deck searching means she cares far less about her deck being a bit on the large side. If you are playing Mandy with a base 30 Deck Size and all the generic deck searching cards that are so strong for her - Mr. "Rook", Eureka!, etc. - then you likely will find the card you bought Versatile for in most scenarios. The question remains as to what you should buy. Given Mandy's insane searching I don't think you need as powerful a combo as other investigators considering Versatile, but I'd suggest a powerful out of faction asset to make up for the fact she only gets events and skills in her "off-class".

William Yorick - being allowed to replay assets means that any you buy will get value for as many times as you can afford to play them. In addition to that though, Occult Lexicon offers Yorick a truly fantastic ability with Blood-Rite. Blood-Rite lets you discard assets you'd rather play actionlessly from your discard pile in exchange for the two things Yorick wants most of all: resources and damage. On top of that, Yorick's card pool contains a broad variety of powerful weapons all of which he's happy to play - Enchanted Blade, Baseball Bat, Meat Cleaver, etc. - so you can keep the desity of weapons in your deck high even if you add 5 more cards. In addition to the powerful Survivor draw available to Wendy, Yorick can use Yaotl to mill his own deck to dig for assets.

Calvin Wright - Calvin uniquely benefits from having his health and sanity pools extended because it means his stats cap out at higher values. The number of cards in the game that presently do that is exactly two: Five of Pentacles and Hawk-Eye Folding Camera. Five of Pentacles is already a Calvin staple. Is the camera worth it for 2xp and +5 Deck Size? The willpower and intellect boosts are also nice to double down on deepening his sanity pool. I'm not certain this is worth it, however. Both Five of Pentacles and the camera demand that you mulligan for them because they are far stronger when in your opening hand than when drawn later in the scenario, and all the card draw and deck searching in the world won't help you mulligan your thick 35 card deck. If you want to give Calvin a camera, you might be better gifting it to him by the use of Teamwork.

I think these examples show well enough when Versatile is likely to be good. It's not really worth it if all you are doing is buying some generic value card from out of faction; it really has to be a card with a unique effect that is particularly powerful with your investigator that you wouldn't be able to substitute with in-faction cards, and even better if you have access to plenty of card draw to dig through your bloated deck to find your cards.

Trinity_ · 203
I quite like the idea of giving Calvin Dynamite Blast and turning him into a suicide bomber. It may not really be worth it for all the reasons you already set out about the drawbacks of having a larger deck, but it would be hella fun and if you do manage to draw it early it's an instant +3 boost to fight and evade. s — Sassenach · 179
Notably, Roland or Zoey with Stick to the Plan + 1x Astounding Revelation will thin your deck by 4 cards during set-up, almost entirely offsetting the deck size increase from Versatile. — Herumen · 1751
I've found this useful for buying Leo De Luca for people who don't have access to him. Especially in longer scenarios. — khoshekh · 5
Notice that when Mandy takes two copies of versatile, then she gets one additional copy of occult evidence, do it can Be used as late ultra upgrade, when your deck is fully upgraded half the road of the campaign. — Drostt · 116
This card adds some protection against the Doomed weakness. If you draw that weakness during deck creation, you might want to think about adding some Versatile and reducing card draw in your build. All characters can adjust. — dlikos · 159
RE: Calvin & Five of Pentacles: He cannot take this card, as it is a Lvl 1 card, and Versatile only allows you to pick up Lvl 0 out-of-character options. — Valokiloren · 22
@Valokiloren The point was that Calvin will likely already have the survivor card Five of Pentacles; Versatile allows him to take the one other card (the Camera) that can increase his sanity. — coldtoes · 28
Spectral Razor

Workhorse event. Pretty good in a large variety of decks.

First off, a singular 3 damage attack with high hit chance is perfectly presentable by itself. People play Backstab fairly regularly and Spectral Razor sure as hell blows that old thing out of the water in terms of price and hit chance. Most characters can mount a +7 or +8 bonus without any support from other cards, which is enough to net hits on medium and hard with relative ease, Backstab in comparison requires some skill card committal or other forms of boosting to land a secure hit.

The ability to blow away a 3-health foe completely free of any support from other cards is perfectly worth a card. It's frankly super impressive at 2 cost and 0 xp.

You can build a deck with 2 Shrivellings and 2 Spectral Razors and use the Razor to cover yourself while you wait to find or play a Shrivelling, alternatively you can play it with Wither and finish off a foe you've started working on. If you have all 3 cards in a deck you've got yourself a very powerful, and dependable, combat focused battle-mystic!

The free engagement is the cherry on top, pull an enemy off of a friend before striking (removing the friendly fire risk) or engage an aloof enemy who'dd otherwise cost you an extra action! Luke Robinson has confusing rules but this probably lets him teleport enemies around!

Obviously the card is uniquely useful in campaigns where 3-health foes are more common, Forgotten age and Circle Undone have these in abundance.

It's good to see more events that are good without heavy support or combo mechanics.

Tsuruki23 · 2551
I don’t think this lets Luke teleport an enemy because (per his ability) he is already treated as ‘engaged with each enemy’ while resolving the effect. Spectral Razor allowing him to engage the enemy doesn’t necessarily cause a change in game state. Even if It did engage, it isn’t clear it would teleport since (per the rules reference) moves with an investigator when they ‘move’ - which Luke isn’t when he resumes being where he was. This does also bring up the question: what happens when Luke uses his ability while engaged where he was - does he provoke from engaged enemies (probably?) and what location are they treated as being at during his event? — Death by Chocolate · 1473
I think this card is rock solid, too. That +2 damage to non-elites is key. This is probably a card you'll need to cut to make way for XP cards eventually, but I think it's a respectable early-to-mid campaign option. — CaiusDrewart · 3170
This + Dayana + Luke is pretty good — Django · 5094
Are you sure you can engage an aloof enemy ? IMO you can't attack it in the first place so you can't play this card on an aloof, not engaged enemy. — Fulanor · 1
You engage it immediately before the attack. It works. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
I’m inclined to agree Fulanor, aloof enemies that aren’t engaged are not legal targets of the Fight action. — FractalMind · 44
I would think that this cannot work against Aloofs, because you don't have a legal target to Fight, regardless what the text of the card says. However Marksmanship seems to set an uncomfortable precedent for this, and since that card obviously brakes the RAW, then this one might be doing it too. — ratnip · 67
Marksmanship clearly states it works on aloof enemies, this card sadly can't Target aloof enemies in the first place so it's no good. — Vultureneck · 74
'An investigator may use the engage action or a card ability to engage an aloof enemy." People have some truly odd interpretations of cards in this game. — jergood · 1
For Like specifically it seems to be moot as his ability itself engages. Still unclear to my brain if this works by itself on an aloof enemy because even though it says "engage before", fight does seem like an illegal target initially...and we didn't get an errata for this in 1.7 — BeCurieUs · 17