I really want to make this card work with Sefina Rousseau. I feel like Sefina's 4 Willpower is really not enough to use Mystic spells all that effectively, and her 5 health is obviously a problem. David could potentially kill two birds with one stone, while also providing a nice influx of resources. Jim would probably also be interested, as like Sefina he really needs Willpower boosts, and right now David is the only in-faction Ally who could provide that for him.

In practice, though, I've found David almost completely impossible to use. Obviously his benefits are not at all worth it if he costs the team one or more turns. And it's not like Arcane Initiate where you can just play it while the agenda is about to advance, the doom goes away, and that's that. This guy is no longer useful if the doom goes away. So unless there is a very long span until the agenda goes off, David doesn't work. That means that his ability is unusable the vast majority of the time in this game. I tried to use him over a number of different scenarios, and each time I drew him I either immediately saw that I couldn't play him and use him, or I did play him but ended up having to kill him off before I could benefit much from his abilities.

So right now I'd have to say this is a card that looks really effective at first glance, but in practice is just unmanageable. But maybe other people have figured out how to make better use of him.

This weakness is quite a drawback. First any weakness that reads "When you draw shuffle it back into your deck" is cause for immediate concern. The ability to draw any weakness more than once creates that much less of an opportunity for you to draw powerful player cards. The problem is magnified when playing an event heavy deck with many one shots that mush be continually drawn. I conclude that even if the card had no other text than what I quoted above the weakness would be still somewhat of a liability.

To add to my concerns, Stars of Hyades whittles away at Sefina's greatest strength (the events underneath her character card). But the greatest problem is that Sefina takes damage (and horror) when she can't remove an event underneath her character card and with Sefina only have five starting health I see a huge a liability.

How do you over come these? Having access to these cards seems like a good start:
Alyssa Graham

Scrying

Bulletproof Vest

I think it's really interesting that most of the relics currently in the game don't use charges, the exception being Grotesque Statue. So with this card you could charges to a relic that doesn't use them, perhaps this could be an interesting way to subvert Akachi's weakness without wasting charges on a spell? Might be worth keeping an eye out for other interesting interactions in the future.

I just used Logical Reasoning with Roland Banks in a run-through of the Night of the Zealot, and I was moderately impressed. The ability to heal 2 horror is more important to him any of the current seekers, and there aren't that many options for healing horror. Combined with double Willpower icons - which I found I used - it's pretty handy.

Probably the closest equivalent I could find was Moment of Respite, which costs 3 to heal three horror and draws a card - but requires 3XP. Compared to it, Logical Reasoning is 'Moment of Respite Lite', with the lower XP cost being the only real advantage.

The other part of the effects - remove a Terror card - is possibly occasionally useful, but at the moment there are relatively few Terror cards that go into a players threat area. Delusions and Striking Fear are the only relevant encounter sets at the moment, and all Delusions can be 'paid off' with 2 actions. Logical Reasoning is 1 action and 2 resources, so it's not a great bargain. It's decent against 'Frozen in Fear', but I wouldn't pick a card to counteract 1 encounter card.

I would say, don't underestimate the cost and conditions. 2 isn't exactly cheap (at least, for guardians who seem to have plenty of expensive cards), and you do need a clue too. You might not always have one. (Been there, done that).

In summary, reasonably impressed with this for Roland as a starting card to beef up his lacklustre sanity. With XP there are better options. I've taken to thinking of it as a better alternative to Guts for him, trading draw for, potentially, healing horror.

Other investigators? Well, seekers usually have better sanity anyway. Minh Thi Phan might have a use for it, and the Dunwich investigators can all take it as a splash card - though, to be honest, there are better choices, I think.

As my nickname here suggests, I'm a rogue deep in my heart, therefore every upcoming green card piques my interest. Sadly, so far Dario El-Amin only brought me disappointment. Breakdown goes like this:

• to gain his bonus, you have to pay 4 upfront, spend an action and fill your ally slot AND sit on 10 resources. Now, one might say that in rogue class, having 10 resources is a cakewalk, with all those Hot Streaks and Lone Wolves, right? Well, in theory, yes. In practice though, you really need to be able to spend them to either gain more actions or pump your stats during skill checks - you need the cash flow, not the trust fund. What Dario does effectively need you to do then, is to treat 10 as your new 0. One might still think that's easy, since
• you can use Dario as an action, to get 2 resources every round. Without him, one action can give you only one resource, so doubling that looks like a value proposition... Untill you realize that to get it, you have to: spend 4 resources, an action, fill your ally slot and spend another action... It's just too much and one might call it "slow"... It's a snail move. Rogues ain't no snails, we wanna go fast. Which brings us to the elephant in the room. Or, err, lion. Lion in the room.
• Since the Dawn of Core Set, rogues have access to arguably the strongest ally in the game, namely Leo De Luca. Played early in the game it's a gift that keeps on giving, everyone loves him and we know that for some time now. Sadly, every green ally printed since then is always going to be compared to him, and so far none have proven to be worthy. In my games in last few weeks, every time I had Dario in play, I wished he was Leo instead. Which is really depressing, because
• Dario's bonus is excellent when it's there. My old man was looking forward to boost his that was kicking him down all the way through Dunwich, and even Sefina thought she might be able to reach mystic-like state, but to no avail. On that note, Sefina is probably most likely to effectively use Dario's bonus stats, because she can paint herself a juicy hot streak of Hot Streaks. That one additional is also very nice, even if not as substantial. But that's the problem with Dario in general: he seems nice. He wants you to think that he is this friendly companion, but can he take a hit for you, with his 2 health/2 sanity? He offers exotic boost of two stats, but in that regard his business proposition is merely a distorted and mutilated echo of what Peter Sylvestre has brought to the table.

By now I hope I've proven that Dario is not good enough to be the new number one ally in rogue decks, but can he be number 2? I wish I could tell you that he's good enough to warrant taking Charisma for him, but that'd be very optimistic on my behalf, and I have Hospital Debts to worry about, so optimism is not really my thing. I do, however, hope that his time will come at some point, only on the basis of his promise and flavor, even if those things were - so far - very deceptive.