This card is an absolute beast for Daisy Walker, due to her free Tome action. Give yourself +2 Lore and laugh at those 4/5 shroud locations. Give your guardian +2 Strength and watch them destroy even 4/5 strength monsters with absolute ease. Give your survivor and rogue buddies a +2 Agility boost for that pinch situation where you need to evade lock a big nasty that you can't quite kill this turn or your mystics +2 will to do whatever they need to do.

The one downside? Her ability isn't fast, so using this to try to kill or evade the big nasty currently chewing on your face will trigger an attack of opportunity.

And if you need to pass an absurdly high check (eg Spoiler)... both copies can stack. Keep her Tote Bag nearby!

This card got a big upgrade in the Path to Carcosa campaign. As it currently stands, you can play through to Echoes of the Past with the chaos bag only having one of , or along with . Since is usually an okay pull, you can use Defiance during The Path to Carcosa to ensure you avoid the only other ‘symbol’ token in the bag (except ) and know that you will almost certainly pass a particular skill test. This is especially good for Jim as he can ignore the negative modifier of as well - leaving only the token to prevent him from passing any test. If the rest of the scenarios in The Path to Carcosa continue the same theme of having only one type of ‘symbol’ token in the bag, this card will only get better as the campaign continues as the negative modifiers and penalties on those tokens will increase and avoiding them will become much better - especially on higher difficulties where the negative effects are worse and changing multiple tokens to 0s will help to reduce the average negative impact of the chaos bag.

I really like this card, although it really isn't for every deck.

This card plays well in decks that run about 1/3rd of their deck as asset cards and plays best with a mix of semi-permanent cards (like the machete) next to cards that are designed to get used (lantern/beat cop/knife).

It also alleviates the classic problem of the core set talents, in that it almost entirely negates the tempo hit for playing them out.

Its also good in investigators with draw (Mark).

It has synergy with Laboratory Assistant (play it first, draw two cards. Then play a few other cards).

Late game this card can be pitched to an investigate or parley test.

Really, my only problem with this card is that Guardian builds right now do not have all that many assets that are "expendable". Most guardian builds are expensive and use minimal actions to set up a weapon, an ally and maybe some other asset to help. In this classic build, you are pressed for time for anything else. Ever Vigilant gets you additional gear when you have those spare turns with an action but no idea what to play.

Watch this space. This card will certainly become more useful as guardians (and other classes) continue to gain new assets.

Note that if you're playing Lola this does not allow you to play non-guardian cards while you are guardian. You can play this card, and it can even target non-guardian assets, but since it makes you play them it doesn't work. This is different from Sleight of Hand.

Who knew that Fine Clothes would make Exorcisms so much easier?

In the card pool up to and includng Path to Carcosa Deluxe expansion, we've seen only 4 player cards (not counting different XP versions of the same card) that can harm the Poltergeist:

• Blinding Light

• Shrivelling

• Song of the Dead

• Spirit Athame

So unless you're packing very specific Mystic cards, your only option is to exorcise these ghosts via Parleying. The good news is that a decent intellect - or, as above, some Fine Clothes - make this process not excessively onerous, although one you'll almost certainly have to do twice.

As they say, dress for the job you want. In this case, that job is apparently Father Merrin.