Forbidden Knowledge is the definition of Risk-Reward that makes Mystic a tricky faction. 0 cost for 4 resources is great, 4 Horror is not so great. Agnes Baker can use this to her advantage by dealing damage when she receives Horror, but you are limited to once per Phase. During your investigation phase you can take a free resource, take a horror, and deal a damage. If you're in a really tight spot where you need to eliminate an enemy, you have a player window during the Mythos phase after encounter cards are drawn and immediately before enemies attack. That's a total of 3 damage dealt, 3 resources gained, but also 3 horror taken in a single round, without having to make a skill check.

This is a useful asset, but you should only use it when absolutely necessary, or you'll find yourself dropping out of scenarios from sanity loss. Unless you're with friends that can patch you up with First Aid, you're going to be saving your second copy for the Intellect icon, or replacing it with leveled up cards as a campaign progresses.

If you are a fan or follower of LotR LCG it will not surprise you that "Unexpected Courage" is a Core Set card with style, versatility and the promise of longevity in many decks. It is Level 0, Cost 0, Neutral and provides a +2 Skill Boost to any trait. Additionally, it has a cool keyword "innate" and the artwork is pretty awesome in a kitschy Kid vs Dinosaur kinda way. This card will certainly still be in decks many years from now.

Just finished our first game, and this was a standout card in my deck. Daisy Walker gets a free action to use tomes, so this is a free card draw every turn (doubling your basic rate of drawing) and it's filtered, meaning you won't ever draw a Weakness at the wrong moment on your turn. Plus, of course, it turns on her ability.

A fringe benefit is that it gives a shuffle (not sure how useful this will ultimately be, but gives a nice combo with cards like scrying to shuffle your deck if you don't like 2 of the 3 you see), and also note that it isn't unique. Sure, I can't often see having two, as there are likely more crucial tomes to take (especially over time as we get new cards), but extra card draw for your colleague could be nice.

I mean... what's not to love? I can't ever see Daisy not running 2 of these, and in fact I'm going to be packing Research Librarian as a two of to get it to my hand as quick as possible.

Incredible value here.

1 resource for a 1/2 ally in play seems great already. A note on resources, they are not so easy to come by and decks loaded with assets and events are going to find it hard to play all those juicy cards. It's necessary therefore to pay attention to resource curve. Arcane initiate fits the resource curve requirement.

This enables card draw. In it's best scenario you've added a card to your hand and thinned the deck so you can draw more skills or assets. To maximize this effect you may wish to include 1/3 of your deck of spells (10 total spells). However, I don't think that's necessary. If you miss, no big deal as you can simply repeat it again next round. Spells will help 's through combat.

Finally we'll need to evaluate a doom token. I suspect that doom will be a big deal. So it will be necessary to investigate faster. I firmly believe Arcane Initiate provides self protection against additional doom.

... time will tell.

My favourite card of the core set, and what I consider reasonably powerful.

Essentially it gives you 2 clues and most likely some sort of test to pass, but unlike normal investigation effects where you need to pass the test to gain the clues, here you get the clues regardless of the outcome of the test.

Of course you might get an enemy, but it might not that matter if you grab the last two clues from your location and simply move away for a few damage.

I can't see ever using this for the icons, unless there are simply no more clues left to obtain, so the only thing that would make this better would be if it had combat icons perhaps, though it has the icons to match most mystic/seeker cards.

I just wish I could use this card in a Roland deck, but I plan to use it with the upcoming Zoey Samaras

(Reviews are enabled now, so this is a test review)