This card is underrated by both newbies and veteran players alike.

For a 0xp card and 1 resource, your first failed test each turn gets converted into a draw action. Over the course of a typical scenario this will net you 6+ cards. More importantly, it means most failed tests are not wasted. They instead give you more ammunition for passing tests!

And there's also the Wayne Gretzky effect: you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. With this item out, you don't have to go into every test with a high chance of success. If you're out accumulating clues just give it a try, maybe you'll succeed! You'll end up passing quite of a few of those tests and save yourself cards and actions. Conserve the skill commits for the second try. This is alluded to in the old review by Tsuruki23, and is borne out through experience.

Lastly, you don't need to have a massive portion of your deck devoted to a failure suite ("Look What I found!", Oops!, Dumb Luck, etc). Those are fine to pile on if you're playing Stella Clark and relying on a failure each turn. But their existence doesn't make this card any less worthwhile.

PS: if your deck concept has resources to spare (often when playing Bob Jenkins), consider pairing this with Track Shoes to generate a low-stakes test you can afford to fail most turns.

McJames' review covered my thoughts about this card pretty well. Just to add on to the list of other things Bide Your Time can help with:

-Waiting at a location for other investigators to apply their support cards

-Waiting at a location to support other investigators with commits / enemies

-Building up moves to avoid locations with end-of-turn effects

-If you're one of those weirdos (like me) who plays Suzi, you can wait one turn to build up your stats

Essentially, it's a one-use 0 XP Borrowed time. I think it's good deck filler and can help strip out inefficient turns, but can get sided out as you get more impressive cards that make the turns you do have more impactful.

Ok, I know that this is a bit stupid but, technically, you could play The Raven Quill, attach it to Astronomical Atlas... and later be able to commit que Quill to an skill test through the Atlas's ability ¿right? same with any card you attach to the Atlas by any means?

It is stupid because it is super-inefficient but, is it valid? additionally, there's no customizable ability in TRQ other than spectral binding applicable to the Atlas. Maybe supernatural record to fetch for another Atlas? If you use that one, you could fetch for a first Atlas and play it with TRQ attached to it, then commit TRQ to a test to have it back to your hand, then play it again to fetch for a second Atlas, commit it again (12 resources by now xDD) and play it to fetch for a second tome/spell you have writeen down in Endless Inkwell.

Just put 3 Astounding revelation to trigger for 6 resources during those fetchs... so the total cost would be 6+3+(third tome/spell cost).

Even better, what if you come across TRQ when using the Atlas's ability? it attaches to the Atlas and applies all its properties right away.. without playing it and paying its cost, costless and actionless

Keywords that this ignores, by my interpretation: Peril (!), Alert, Retaliate, Elusive, Haunted

Keywords that this does not ignore: Aloof (cannot even trigger the fight/evade to initiate the test), Exile (cannot be ignored per new Errata), Surge (triggers before the skill test), Swarming (triggers when the enemy spawns)

Keywords that probably aren’t ignored: Victory/Vengeance (adding to the victory display could be a "keyword effect that would trigger during the test" depending on interpretation)

As far as I know, this is the only card in the game that can ignore (your own) peril effect. This is interesting and allows the other investigators to help your decision and commit cards to your peril, but not necessarily that strong. Of the other keywords, ignoring Elusive seems the strongest, and ignoring Alert/Retaliate/Haunted seem like very minor bonuses because you're trying not to fail the skill test anyway.

As for location effects that would trigger during a skill test: Other than Obscuring Fog in the Core set, this seems pretty rare, since a large number of location effects happen before the skill test anyway. And Read the Signs is just a much better solution in most cases.

I think the rarity of actually activating the effect makes it hard to justify including over other options such as Unexpected Courage. On the other hand, if it were 0 exp like Unexpected Courage it would be an auto-include in almost any Willpower character, so I think the power level is in the right spot.

In Diana, this is slightly better, but per my interpretation Retaliate/Alert only trigger her ability if she fails the test because this does not ignore keyword effects that would not trigger. This makes it sort of awkward in that situation.

Yes it's a weak card, but new ||Father Mateo with a help of advanced The Codex of Ages and Favor of the Sun can make it into two or three extra actions, and if you are playing parallel front you can even score 4 wishes, but then the payback isn't so great. Downside of this is the fact that parallel back doesn't get you 5xp which is I think much better. I would see it in a blessed team where Sis Mary takes Miracle Wish and Favor of the Sun and regular Father Mateo has advanced Codex of Ages which can get her an extra and then she can provide him the . Ultra niche but at least seems fun.