Very strong card...in very specific decks. You are only going to want to include this in your deck if you have either A.) A really strong ally that you want to get as early as possible AKA Leo De Luca or B.) You have disposable allies that you play for a one time effect such as Research Librarian. The strongest disposable ally is The Red-Gloved Man , which you could play to either grab two clues, or fight an enemy twice, and then play Calling in Favors to pick him back up to play again later while replacing him with another ally from your deck.

The problem with this card is that you are really going to want to play at least 5-6 allies in your deck, as you need to have one out first to play it, and then enough left in your deck to have good odds of finding one in the top 9 cards. Some investigators just aren't going to want to play 6 allies in their deck due to which ones are available to them, and the resource costs of those allies. Plus, you'll have to get at least one copy of Charisma to avoid being stuck with allies you can't play in your hand.

On top of that, you are going to run into situations where Calling in Favors is a dead draw, such as when you haven't got an ally out yet, or when you already have your best allies out and don't want to replace them. I'd probably only play a single copy of Calling in Favors most of the time, unless you are trying to abuse The Red-Gloved Man.

It's a bit hard to write a review on a card that's not printed yet. Bittersweet exercice : it does not settle my desire to test it, and what's more, I can be victim of my own hype of the card.

This card has two effects, which consumes charges (or not). Let's start with the 1st one. You add your agility to your willpower for an escape. If you don't succeed by at least 2, you remove one charge from that spell. It's a sort of boost for escaping. The second effect triggers when you are attacked : you remove 1 charge from the spell and cancel the attack. If you only consume charges that way, it means it can cancel up to 3 attacks.

I am a only playing Mystics and Rogues so far, and I can see a truly amazing potential for Akachi Onyele (see my quick review/thinking on Akachi) and Sefina Rousseau (full review of Sefina). For both of them, Suggestion gives a basic 8 in escape. It works the same as lockpicks and thus I expect to not use too many charges on suggestion, so I can use its 2nd effect to the fullest. Both of them have troubles when it comes to staying power. Akachi can only rely on a few spells like Shrivelling and will have to fight (while being bad at escaping) and Sefina will mostly use event like Backstab to burst or run from mobs. Sooner or later, all spells or events will be fully used, but Suggestion, which is more or less everlasting, offers an alternative that can be useful to prevent wasting precious charges / events, at a low cost.

This review won't really be a state-of-the-art of current Akachi Onyele, but more some speculation of Akachi Decks by the end of Carcosa. I have to admit I play Agnes Baker as Mystic and not the Shaman... but that may change by the end of Carcosa as the card pool grow, and I'll try to explain why.

Where should I start ? Building efficient and polyvalent Mystics decks was really troublesome for me. They lacked staying power. Okay, you can use a Blinding Light or other one-shot spells to deal with monsters... but they are often very resource-intensive (around 3) and not reusable. My mystics decks ended relying a heck lot on Rite of Seeking (lvl4) to gather clues and Shrivelling (lvl3 ; lvl5) to kill ennmies. That wasn't enough so I get in Flashlight, Drawn to the Flame for consistency. In the case of Agnes, I tried to be less reliant on spells and more on her own power (just take those f*cking pills to ease your headache).

I didn't even give a shot on Akachi. 1 more use on spells ? Good, that delay their obsolescence. But that doesn't tackle the issue you need to get the spell. Having only 2 copies aren't enough. And you cannot even rely on your innate ability to do something without it. (Contrary to Agnes who will take drugs in that case.)

When it came to card pool, Akachi Onyele seemed waaaaaaay behind. No access to lvl0-2, no access to 5 splash cards. So, Akachi was definitely a no go for me. Until I saw the recent spoilers... Some new cards that Akachi can use since they are Spells ("use : charges") or Occult.

1/ Suggestion is a new way to make her untouchable. (8 escape unboosted, 6 if you won't use any charge). Plus, you can cancel up to 4 attacks that are dealt to her. Wow. Untouchable. What's more, it works well with Shrivelling : sometimes, you don't want to use charges to deal with a non-hunter monster. Getting out, quite for sure, without consuming any charge ? More please ! And if it is a Hunter ? The way suggestion works, it will give you plenty of time before you really need to take care of it.

2/ Arcane Insight is an upgraded version of Flashlight. For 1 more resource, you have 4 uses. And the -2 stays the whole turn, without costing any action ! You can even use it for teammates ! Too great to be true. It's not really a card for Seekers, that have insane ways for gathering clues... but it's a perfect fit for Akachi ! Use it once on a 2 or lower shroud, and you can gather up to 3 clues in that place this turn !

3/ If archaic Glyphs works the same as Strange Solution, we can expect something as powerful as Strange Solution later in the game. It might be a bit tricky to translate them, but once it's done... Let's gamble we will have some really good staying power... with charges !

So, okay, 3 new cards for Akachi that will make consistency. More cards to deal with monsters effectively, and more cards to gather clues. Good ! All spells with charges, that synergy with Akachi, even better. But... 4 different spells ? For 4 arcane slots ? Should we use that old and dusty Book of Shadows ? It seems a bit too expensive. So, we now have a different trouble : we are too rich when it comes to good staying-power spells ! I guess Akachi will see more plays in a near futur....

The thing about this gun is this:

Machette exists.

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The reason you get this rather then Machete is because you're not always just fighting a single foe and a rare few foes reward ranged weapons over melee.

The annoying thing is that the opportunity cost of playing this over machete is scarcely worth it. The +1 to hit is a dealbreaker.

Maybe if there had been an alternate fire mode, something like:
-> Spend 1 ammo: FIGHT. You gain +1 (Strength) for this attack. This gun would be flexible enough to compete with the best non-xp weapon in the game.

The saddest part is that co-operative games don't get balance updates, which means that this card is condemned to uselessness until some blanket-effects (a character and/or investigator card) are introduced.

Revision: Now that "Eat Lead" is going to be a thing, this gun just got it's "Blanket-effect" buff.

Cool fellow but tricky to use though. Ideally you play him when you lots of time left before a timer advance OR when it's right about to advance. Remember that if doom appears in the same round that the timer advances anyway, that doom goes away too without issue. This means that you can trigger David in the round's the agenda advances as a "freebie". If you can do this just once you've just spent 1 resource to get a +1 Willpower proc' for a round, 2 health and 1 sanity. Every extra time you can pull this off is pure grade-A, gravy.

The trick is to know when to kill David off, despite his powerful ability you must keep in mind that like other cheap Allies (Art Student, Dr. William.) he is first and foremost a throwaway character. If you manage to squeeze 2-3 resources, one or two uses of the +Willpower and then soak a 1/1 attack with him you've gotten tonne's bang out of this one card!

The big risk in using David is falling into the trap of stacking doom on him frivolously, the way to do this safely is to, as already mentioned, make sure he dies a timely death. In a scenario where you've got 4-5 rounds between advances you can stack 2-3 Doom on him for a gain of 6 credits, in this case you've got to get in some deliberate trouble so that he gets punched before the big payday turns into a premature nightmare.

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Pros: -Consistent benefit when used safely.

-High yield benefit in the right circumstance.

-Moderate benefit in the wrong circumstance.

-At worst a 2-point damage soak or 1-point horror soak.

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Cons:

-Game-loosing if used wrong.

-Dead-draw in the lategame of each scenario unless you can find a use for raw hitpoints.

-Inherent risk, even the safest bets can fail every now and then.