At level 0

This card is a nice generic tutor for anyone who can take Rogue cards. Now you can tutor events or skills (or some assets) way easier (the Backpack (0) and Calling in Favors already covered most assets).

• Compared to the Backpack, if you hit 3 targets, it cost you 1 more resource. And if you're unlucky, it costs you less/nothing so it's kind of similar.
• Compared to Calling in favor, it goes 3 less cards-deep but could potentially target 2 more cards for 2 more resources. Again, overall pretty fair.

So yeah, this card is pretty nice at level 0 if you have a plan in mind with your Traits !

Which Trait(s) to choose ?

• Favor : If your name is Preston (or you are a rich Dilettante) and you like paying people to do stuff, take Favor ! It will find your other copy of Friends in Low Places and a lot of good cards (Black Market, Money Talks, Intel Report, etc.).

• Illicit : If your name is NOT Preston and you love the illicit life that TSK brings (Finn Edwards or Kymani Jones most likely though it is a bit in competition with Finn's signature)

• Talent : Right now this is one of the ONLY way to tutor Talent cards (the other one being Molly Maxwell and that's all I think) ! That generally includes cards that boost your skill tests (Hyperawareness, Hard Knocks, etc.) or nice niche effects (Pickpocketing, Scavenging, etc.). Jenny Barnes would love that with her average Skills. The tri-colored Talent suite from EoTE is also great because it also pays for all the cards you'll add to your hand, compensating for the "1 resource each" cost.

• Firearm / Weapon : If you want to kill things, you get the idea (hum hum Tony Morgan !).

• Ally : If you REALLY are into allies (Charlie Kane, Leo Anderson...).

• Innate / Practiced / Developed : If you're building a deck with a lot of skills. Winifred Habbamock seems the best with direct access to this card !

And more genereally any Traits that appear on your Deckbuilding Options or in your ability (Item for Bob Jenkins and Dexter Drake, etc.) OR, and more importantly, on the other investigators at your table (Charm for Amina Zidane, Relic for Ursula Downs, Tactic for Mark Harrigan, Tome for Daisy Walker, Bless for Mary, etc.). There is no limit if you coordonate your decks !

What upgrade(s) to take ?

1 □ Helpful. When you play Friends in Low Places, you may choose another investigator at your location to resolve its effects.

• Generally hard to use but if you synchronize your deck with your teammates this could be very good ! Give a weapon to your Guardian, a Book to Daisy, and so on. The possibilities are almost infinite. Otherwise not that good because your teammate needs a specific Trait 'ideally in common with your deck) and resources to add the cards to their hands.

2 □□ Versatile. Choose another Trait: ____. When you play Friends in Low Places, you may choose one of the looked-at cards with both chosen Traits to add to your hand without spending 1 resource._

• Pretty good if you have a very focused deck. You could go with Illicit+Weapon (for most Rogue guns), Favor+Service (for the Intel Report suite), Spell+Cursed (for the Armageddon suite). You may not hit every time but when you hit it's good !

• Alternatively you could go with associations like Item+Weapon to have a broad list of possible targets and an occasionnal cost reduction. This is safer, probably the best option.

• Finally, the last option is to go for totally different Traits like Item+Ally. You will never have that nice cost reduction but you will hit a lot of targets. This is a good option if you can pay for it !

3 □□ Bolstering. Each card added to your hand by Friends in Low Places gains a icon until the end of the phase.

• Very situational but good for a Winifred deck built with skills that share a specific Trait or two. A skill for her is half a card so every resource you invest is better invested. But if you hit too many targets with Friends in Low Places+Bolstering, you will lose the icon. It might be better if you have a lot of action (or play at high player count) so you can have enough skill test to commit your skills to.

4 □□ Clever. Instead of shuffling the remaining cards into your deck, you may place each of them on the top of your deck, in any order.

• THIS is the best option in my opinion ! You could chose a Trait not even existing in your deck, this would still be good ! For 1 action and 0 resource you can now rearrange however you want your next (up to) 6 draws and/or locate a weakness and prepare for it. Very useful if you draw a lot, a bit less otherwise obviously.

• Be mindful though, there is a big anti-synergy with cards like [Lucky Cigarette Case (3) (not the level 0).

5 □□ Prompt. Friends in Low Places gains fast and "play during any window".

• 2xp FOR -1 Action on 2 cards is very good. It will ease your setup if you had a bad mulligan, give you more actions to use your new cards or maybe take a resource before playing this card to make sure a target is not wasted because you're poor !
• It is even better after you bought other upgrades for this card. You could play it before another investigator takes it's turn if you combine it with 1. Helpful or you can play a weapon or soak while engaged with 7. Swift.

6 □□□ Experienced. Increase the number of cards looked at by 3.

• Another VERY GOOD upgrade. You get much more value by looking at 9 cards (generally a third of your deck at turn 1).
• Combine it with every other upgrades for more efficiency. 4. Clever is even better now that you can rearrange a third of your deck (more later in the game) !

7 □□□ Swift. You may play one of the cards added to your hand (paying its cost).

• This one is reserved to really rich people or low cost decks that don't rely on Skills. Preston and Bob are perfect because they're rich, have access to Survivor's cheap cards and need a lot of assets !
• If you can manage to pay for your cards with a +1 cost though, this is bonkers ! You get back the action you used to play Friends in Low Places so this event almost gains Fast.

Upgrade combinations

• "I'm a philanthropist rogue !" : 1. Helpful + 2. Versatile + 7. Swift (+ 5. Prompt) => 6/9xp Help your fighter to find and play their only copy of Flamethrower at the right time !

• "Sort them all !" : 4. Clever + 6. Experienced => 5xp Rearrange from up to 9 cards of your deck everytime you play this card and avoid your weaknesses for days. It costs 5xp so, sadly, it becomes a level 3 card and splash-Rogues can't take it...

• "I'm a skilled person !" : 2. Versatile + 3. Bolstering (+ 5. Prompt) => 4/6xp Choose two mutually exclusive Traits on Skill cards (like Practiced and Innate), add a lot of them to your deck, play first this round and then draw 2-4 skills with +1 to commit this phase !

Final thoughts

It's good, not broken or anything but good like every other Customizable card. I'd say Preston (with Favor / Service Traits), Finn (with Illicit / Weapon Traits) and Winifred (with any two Practiced / Innate / Developed Traits) are the best users of this cards. But everyone could make good use of it and adapt it to its deck/group.

Bonus idea : Combine it with the tri-color Talents from EoTE like Antiquary to pay for all the cards you will get (and pay 1 resource each) thanks to Friends in Low Places !

Friends in Low Places is quite possibly THE STRONGEST CARD DRAW ENGINE IN ARKHAM HORROR.

That is, if you use it properly. Allow me to explain…

Some quick TL;DRs, as this is an in depth review:

• Friends in Low Places shines when you have at least 12 cards with a matching trait in your deck
• It outclasses the best card draw cards in the game when this criteria is met.
• It is fairly easy to meet that criteria when utilizing the Trick suite of cards.

1. FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES IS NOT SIMPLY A TUTOR.

Do not think of it as an additional copy of 3 or 4 cards in your deck. While it CAN do that, this is almost assuredly a waste of its potential. This card can be so much more than a tutor.

2. PROBABILISTIC ANALYSIS

This is where Friends in Low Places starts to get deep. There will be a brief summary at the end of this section, so if you wish to skip the evidence here, please feel free.

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of a hypergeometric calculator, it is not as complicated as it sounds. It is simply a calculator that can tell you the probability of drawing a card you want from your deck, given the size of your deck, and the amount of cards you are drawing. An analysis of FiLP from this perspective can be found on this spreadsheet: docs.google.com

This is quite revealing.

For example, let us assume that you have upgraded into Prompt for 2 xp, and are therefore searching 6 cards deep for cards you can draw. This is by far the best first upgrade choice. How many findable cards in your deck does it take to make this card draw as many or more cards on average than the 4 xp seeker option, Cryptic Research?

A simple answer, 12 cards. If you have 12 cards in your deck that share a trait, you have a ~52% chance of drawing 3 or more cards off of one Friends in Low Places. Past that, if you can find 14 cards, you have a ~68% chance of drawing 3 or more cards off of one Friends in Low Places. Of course this comes with a resource cost, but I will explain how we supplement that later.

This means that, to put it simply, for 2 xp, some quantity of resources, and the deckbuilding restriction of having at least 12 cards which share a trait in your deck, at worst your Friends in Low Places is on average as good as or better than the best card unrestricted draw event.

What happens if we add 3 more xp for Experienced? How much better does this make this event?

Searching three more cards has a HUGE impact on your ability to draw cards. For the same 52% chance of drawing 3 or more cards off of one Friends in Low Places, you only need to have 8 cards in your deck with a matching trait. If you have 14 cards with a matching trait in your deck, you will have a 50% chance of drawing 5 or more cards from one Friends in Low Places. That is an INCREDIBLE return on investment, and more than worth building your deck around. Adding one more card increases these cumulative odds to 60.36%.

Note that these odds do not include cards that draw more cards in their resolution, such as cards like Manual Dexterity or Easy Mark. This has the potential to allow you to cycle through your deck RAPIDLY.

TL;DR; If you are searching 6 deep with this card, you want to have 12 cards that share a trait in your deck. If you are searching 9 cards deep, you will want to have AT LEAST 8, but if you have 14, you will be drawing 5 cards on average for each FiLP.

3. HOW DO WE HAVE THIS MANY SEARCHABLE CARDS?

There are a few EXCELLENT available traits for Rogues that offer the card density we need. For example, Trick is a personal favorite of mine. Chuck Fergus is an incredible card that allows you to essentially take an additional action EVERY TURN, as we cycle our deck extremely rapidly, and get additional benefits, such as reduced resource cost on events (more resources in our pocket is more resources for the next Friends).

Some great Tricks to include in your deck include:

RESOURCE GENERATION/ECONOMY

Easy Mark : Three tricks, that draw you additional cards and gain 2 resources for every one you spend to draw them, potentially at fast off of Chuck Fergus or off of each other is incredible! These are almost entirely free to include in your deck.

Grift : A new addition from Hemlock Vale, this card is potentially a free 6 resources, at fast off of Chuck, with a generated easy skill test that you can use to trigger the success trigger on Lucky Cigarette Case or your skill cards, such as Manual Dexterity and Quick Thinking.

"I'll take that!" : The fewer resources we have to spend to set up, the more resources we can funnel into Friends in Low Places to keep the party rolling.

Cheat the System : Automatically pays for itself, and can pay for more of your cards at fast given you have other off-class cards in play. Synergizes well with Crafty for additional resources, or with Charon's Obol or even off class permanents, such as Short Supply or Down the Rabbit Hole. (TY NarkasisBroon)

INVESTIGATION/EVASION

Breaking and Entering : This card has always been incredible, and the ability to do it at fast, and for free off of Chuck Fergus is incredible. Your skill value on many Rogues will be quite high, and the ability to return this card to your hand when it is upgraded is incredible. Additionally, the evasion ability it offers is incredibly useful. There are few ways to evade enemies off of other investigators at your location without spending an action to engage the enemy. The team support ability is nearly unmatched.

Pilfer : Pilfer is a great card, albeit resource intensive. I usually include one Pilfer, as we cycle our deck extremely rapidly and will find the level zero variant again, or we may just succeed high enough for the upgraded version to return to our hand. It makes for an excellent resource vent as well once we near the end of a scenario.

Sneak By : Sneak By is potentially both a fast evasion off of Chuck and a fast two dollars. When it isn’t necessary, it’s still a great card to commit to skill tests.

UTILITY

"You handle this one!" : This card not only protects you from any will tests or particularly bothersome treacheries, it also gains you a resource at fast! Incredible value!

Scout Ahead : This card is very scenario dependent, but I have found that it is almost always worth running one copy. The action compression offered by Scout Ahead is very powerful in most rogue decks.

Ace in the Hole : We can cycle this card so rapidly that nearly every turn we will be playing it. 3 free actions is amazing, obviously.

Vamp : This card is quite good at doing several different things. Being able to make it fast is excellent.

THERE ARE OTHER EXCELLENT TRAITS FOR SPECIFIC INVESTIGATORS, before you choose, take a look through your deck! Chances are you might find something excellent. For example, Sefina can use Friends on Trick or Spell (or both!), and Preston will probably forgo Trick entirely in favor of Favor!

NOTES: The Versatile Upgrade

If you are upgrading into Versatile for the increased card draw, there are many great traits to choose. For example, for Sefina, Spell if you have started with Trick is almost always incredible. Sefina’s signature, The Painted World, can be more copies of Friends in Low Places, and if you choose Spell, it can find itself! Incredible synergy. If you don’t have a great choice, Innate is almost always an excellent choice. Quick Thinking and Manual Dexterity are both incredible cards that are in many rogue decks, and adding 4 available cards to your Friends in Low Places search from 12 cards to 16, with the Experienced upgrade, gives you a 70% chance to draw 5 or more cards off of each Friends in Low Places.

4. GETTING CLEVER

Clever is almost certainly the second upgrade you take on any deck running Friends in Low Places. The utility it offers is unmatched. For example:

Dealing With Weaknesses:

You can place your weaknesses at the bottom of your search, however this is not the best way to deal with your weaknesses using Friends. With the deckbuilding cost of running one copy of Black Market, you can place a black market on top of your deck to draw for upkeep, followed by your weaknesses. At the start of the following investigation phase. You play your Black Market, removing your two weaknesses from your deck for the duration of the turn, allowing you to draw around them, potentially even drawing through your entire deck, reshuffling it. This places your weaknesses back into the contents of your whole deck, putting them off indefinitely. You can also use this to “stack” your black market. You know what cards you will reveal off of your black market, so if you need to give another investigator money, but they’re at a different location, you can allow them to play your Faustian Bargain. If your investigator is not suited for combat, just toss your Ace in the Hole into the black market for your fighter to use!

Finding Any Card

You can use Clever to find cards that DO NOT MATCH your chosen trait in a similar way. You can place them on top of your deck, to be drawn via skill cards or lucky cigarette case. This is an excellent way for Sefina, for example, to find Double, Double on turn one.

Reshuffling

Remember: Clever is a may, not a must. You can always reshuffle your deck if none of the cards you're going to draw interest you. You can also use upgraded Lucky Cigarette Case to reshuffle your draws after a clever search if there’s one card you want that doesn’t match your Friends trait, and the rest can be shuffled away.

NOTES: USING YOUR RESOURCES

In my experience, when showing people this type of deck, one of the things they usually get hung up on is that the deck draws “too many cards”, and they are sad when they have to discard to hand size. Remember: most cards can be committed to skill tests for additional skill value. Friends, in a way, is acting as a replacement for a card like Streetwise in this case. You are spending a resource to gain 1 to 2 skill value for a test, and drawing a card in the process. That is an EXCELLENT return on investment. NEVER be afraid to commit your cards. They will come back when you cycle your deck anyways.

NOTES: SWIFT/BOLSTERING/HELPFUL

These are certainly niche upgrades. To start, Swift, in the case of utilizing Chuck Fergus, is often unnecessary. However, if you are playing Preston, for example, you can use this as a replacement Chuck for your favor cards! You can also utilize Swift and the Trick trait if you would like to fill your ally slot with a different ally than Chuck himself (NarkasisBroon)! Bolstering is mostly useful in a Winnifred deck, however even there it is assuredly unnecessary. You will be drawing so many cards to commit to skill tests, that an additional +5 skill value will not make a difference in how much you succeed by, as you will likely already be succeeding by the maximum value cared about by the cards you are using. Helpful is perhaps useful if you recognize that another investigator you are playing with happens to be utilizing your secondary trait from Versatile or perhaps even your primary trait. For example, Winnifred will often have Innate marked on her Friends. Many other investigators run good Innate skills. You can use your Friends to allow them to draw their skills. Additionally, you can use helpful to stack other investigators’ decks with Clever! This is very helpful if they are running cards such as Scroll of Secrets, which will allow them to discard their weaknesses.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In order of importance, I would recommend you upgrade into Prompt, Clever, Experienced, Versatile, Helpful in MOST cases. You can follow this track to your investigator’s experience limit as well. If you have access to Rogue 0-2, Prompt and Clever are incredible to have access to. Choose a trait which you can run 12 copies of. Item almost never meets that requirement, for example. Additionally, it’s smart to choose a trait which will find resource generation, whether that be in the form of "Watch this!" - like skill cards, Easy Mark - like events, or even assets such as Alchemical Transmutation. This card is an incredible engine, and I am surprised it has not been hit by a taboo yet.

Another review tells details about FiLP and it is really helpful when you read it! In this review, I'll talk about some parts easily overlooked.

First, rogue class has really few tutor cards, and FiLP is second rogue tutor card and first 0 level rogue tutor card; first one is Lucky Cigarette Case (3). In fact, survivor class is almost similar, i.e., they has only two tutor cards: Flare (1) and Rabbit's Foot (3). IMO, Preston Fairmont is really love FiLP.

Second, Bolstering gives icon. It means added card can be commited into any type of the test, regardless of the icon it has. For example, we can commit "Watch this!", Manual Dexterity, or Overpower into Lockpicks test. Moreover, non-icon card can be commited into the test, such as Dark Memory, The Devil • XV or Pay Your Due. (note: only player card type of weakness can be committed using this method.)

Third, Prompt + Shift make us play any non-fast event at any window. It is useful between 3.2 and 3.3 or during the test of the encounter card. Outside of that, it is also useful when making the example with the non-fast event playing as fast speed.

Lastly, FiLP states "look" and "add" cards. Thus, it does not interact with lots of seeker cards, such as Mandy Thompson, Astounding Revelation or Cryptic Writings.

Traits note for skill cards (Bolstering)

• Most skill cards have either innate or practiced. None has both traits. Thus, it's recommended to choose either innate or practiced.
• ALL developed cards are innate. ALL expert cards are practiced. Choosing developed or expert for default trait is useless, and that for Versatile trait may reduce 1 resource cost. Only one exception is Seal of the Elder Sign. It is Expert but not Practiced.
• Here is list of the skill cards neither innate nor practiced. arkhamdb search link
• Another candidates for Versatile is Gambit, including "Watch This!", Copycat, and Calculated Risk.

Traits note for event cards

• The traits for events are variable, but here are the main type of event traits not considering classes: tactic, insight, spirit, spell, supply, fortune, trick, favor.
• In many cases, it depends on your deck or the investigator's subclass.
• Considering rogue class, trick is great candidate for Prompt target. Also, favor is also good target, but most of them in the deck are fast.

This is the only card that can tutor Rituals or Talents, making it very attractive for builds using those.

Especially given the renewed interest in bless/curse, this card can really help find Favor of the Sun/Moon.

A question that’s come up is “does the Helpful upgrade allow both you and a teammate resolve the card, or just one or the other?” I lean toward one or the other, based on how cheap one check mark is, but it’s ambiguous enough that I could see it going either way. Thoughts?

www.reddit.com

Good discussion about traits to name. Innate, practiced, gambit, fortune, item, illicit, talent, ally, spell can all be useful.