Dario El-Amin

It's just a hot take, but based on how the spoiler season for "Hemlock Vale" went so far, Alessandra might actually be the investigator, Dario was waiting for. Blackmail File, (taboo'd) Power Word, Stall for Time and "Drain Essence" (spoiled by "Optimal Play" on their youTube-channel, but not yet listed on ArkhamDB) all ask for , Existential Riddle gives a choice between and . There are player cards with Parley-tests for all skills, but currently seems like the most common. And it used to be the most common Parley-skill tied with , too, when these were only found on encounter cards and encounter specific assets. While investigators in the past were not really craving for static , he provides her with the two currently most important stats for Parley-tests. Time will tell, if players can make Power Word work in Alessandra with taboo. I'm sceptical, but maybe with Fine Clothes and Moxie (3). Her (3) is not amazing for proactively using this skill, all the more important is the boost, Dario could provide.

Sure, you have to set up for him, but between the extended card pool of economy cards and Uncage the Body, this can happen much quicker than when the card was originally released in "Unspeakable Oath". It's a bit of a pain, that his ability requires you to be on locations without an enemy, while Parley often assumes enemies at the location. Let's hope for an upgrade, maybe cost 3, level 2, replacing his ability with:

Exhaust Dario El-Amin: Parley. Gain 2 resources.
This would be flavourful (Dario gets unaffected in his dealings by enemies with experience), and give great value to Alessandra, while sadly would likely still not be enough for other investigators to pay the experience for.
Susumu · 372
So 2-3 xp for lone wolf but it takes the ally slot? — MrGoldbee · 1477
I don't see the analogy. "Lone Wolf" does not provide Alessandra with two relevant stats for her. — Susumu · 372
Wrong Place, Right Time

This card seems like an auto-include in every Tommy Muldoon deck from here on out. Two actions for a 5 heal, up to 5 resources and a card or two seems absurdly strong and I can't wait to try it!

In fact, this card has the possibility of doing so much at once in Tommy Muldoon that I can see it freeing up deck slots for other cards, like more upgrades for his dear Becky

Chillstad · 35
I am really looking forward to playing this card soon. My first thought though, went to empowering my teammates shenanigans that benefit with moving around of health and horror. I’m thinking Agnes, Caroline, and the Peter Sylvestre booster club to create an even larger chain effect. — Staticalchemist · 1
Sparrow Mask

I can imagine this being a solid card for Calvin, or in conjunction with Spirit of Humanity. Throw in all the Survivor self-healing soaks (Peter, Jessica, Precious Memento) and you've got some sustainable combinations.

Benwobbles · 13
Seal of the Seventh Sign

Just an idea since it's hard to know just how useful Seal of the Seventh Sign is in any given run:

House rule it to change "Seal ()" to the following:

Forced - After a token is revealed during any skill test: ignore that chaos token and draw another chaos token. Do not trigger any abilities as a result of this effect.

By house-ruling it to leave the token in the bag and just drawing a second when you pull it, you'll get to know exactly just how many tentacles this card has saved you from. Happy brewing!

Athe · 11
I don't have the numbers here, but a more "scientific" approach would be to see how many tests a scenario usually has in average, and check what are the average chances of pulling an autofail. Then you would probably decrease the result by a good 30% or something because the Seal will usually not be your first card to play (you'll prioritise your Spells like Shrivelling or Sixth Sense), and that will give a rough estimation of the number of actions saved per game. The question will then be: is the result worth the very quite high costs - resources, experience and slot? — Valentin1331 · 75530
Barricade

Decided my comment was better as a review so I'm posting it here.

This could be really good in The Forgotten Age. Over half the scenarios see you starting with only one available location and everyone starting there, with the rest of the locations to be found by exploring (i.e. only when the investigators want to). Since there are no valid locations for non-elite enemies to spawn, they get discarded instead - double value if you discard one of the many vengeance enemies you don't want to defeat! It can especially help with setup if you took interlude penalties that interfere with startup. Of course, it does require you to find one in your opening hand... and a certain starting penalty might make it hard to find. Still, there are many dangerous non-elite enemies in TFA and quite a few of them don't have hunter, so you could theoretically explore around them, depending on the scenario, even if you draw Barricade (3) later.

Even outside TFA, it could play well with anything that can hit multiple enemies. Some cards that come to mind are Dynamite Blast, Storm of Spirits, and the Seeker's own Ancient Stone (4) + Cryptic Research (4) combo.

Athe · 11