Cherished Keepsake

Elder Sign Amulet at a savings of 2 XP and 2 Resources but that also Exiles? Definitely more to consider than the average bear. A 1-point Exile isn't so bad, and you can play over Mr. Pawterson when he hits 3 Horror. Déjà Vu will get it back for you, but that's an extra 5 XP, making it more-or-less break even with Elder Sign Amulet, but, if you are investing in Déjà Vu, it's likely that you are going Exile-heavy, so it's less of a burden. Does anyone outside of Survivor want this? It would be a nice resource-generator for Tommy Muldoon, although the XP cost will add up. Anyone who can take 1 XP Survivor cards might like it for a one-shot, but I think this card and its sibling, Leather Coat (2), will mostly find its home in Survivor with a lot of Exile.

It's not totally clear, but I don't believe Tommy gets any resources from Cherished Keepsake (1) being defeated. Forced effects trigger before Reaction triggers, so the Keepsake's ability will be completely resolved (and the card exiled) before Tommy's ability can trigger. It will technically be in the same timing window, so he could trigger his, but the card would have been removed from play and thus had all tokens and attachments removed. If he even could still resolve his ability, it would give him 0 resources. — Death by Chocolate · 1485
Ah, well, even more reason to limit it to a particular Survivor build. Thanks for clarifying that! — LivefromBenefitSt · 1067
This is a really weird one, definitely not an obvious straight upgrade or anything. For some investigators, having 4 horror soak for no resource cost is worth the potential exile- Agnes for example might welcome it, as might Silas or Rita. However, Keepsake seems to work best in Tommy Muldoon and William Yorick, both of whom can replay it over and over again for much more horror soak long term than what this provides. I'm not fully certain who wants this. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
Yorick can still get great value if he gets the other into his discard or otherwise play them to break each other and prevent exiling. So they are functionally 1xp to increase their soak from 2 to 3, which can still add up to quite a lot! — Death by Chocolate · 1485
What Chocolate's trying to say, this item is only exiled when it's defeated by horror, not when discarded. Like if you play another relic slot item (like the second version of this) or some crypt chill. — Django · 5108
Lucky Cigarette Case

This card is insanely good! Have you ever built a Rogue deck that was based on assembling a big combo? Well now you can assemble said combo much more quickly. All most Rogues will need to get decent digs is Lockpicks, but there are a few other ways as well, such as Well Connected and Money Talks. Money Talks is especially bonkers, because it's quite possible to build Rogue deck that can horde 50 or more resources. You'll probably be able to search your entire deck with that. Even if you don't have a way to oversucceed immediately, you'll probably occasionally draw a 0 on a test. It's also still an improvement on the original, because you only need to succeed by 1 instead of 2 to get a draw. Finally, if you're taking it as a 2-of without Relic Hunter, the second copy isn't a dead draw, as it has a generous for icons. Not bad for an asset.

Some specific combos to highlight (apart from those already mentioned):

Zinjanthropus · 229
I think the best thing about the upgrade is that you still get a card at +1 success and for larger success margins you can shuffle a weakness back into your deck. Drawing your weaknesses more quickly is always one of my concerns if I have a lot of unfiltered card draw in a deck. Drawing cards is still worth but I prefer to shuffle those weaknesses back in. Or draw them at an opportune time of my choosing. — The Lynx · 980
If you have All In, you could actually theoretically reduce your deck to only weaknesses, or mostly weaknesses, then reshuffle your deck, shuffling the weaknesses back in. Can only do it once with the most recent taboo, though, sadly. — Zinjanthropus · 229
Beretta M1918

The obvious card to compare this to is Chicago Typewriter, since both are 2-handed, 4 XP rogue weapons.

  1. Cost: The Beretta is slightly cheaper to play.
  2. Damage and ammo: Both can do up to 3 damage per action once they are in play, and both have 4 ammo.
  3. Combat bonuses: The Baretta gives a bigger upfront combat bonus, while the Typewriter allows you to use up extra actions to get +2 combat for each action spent (this might seem terrible, but it does increase the total damage output for very high fight enemies who you would otherwise fail fight tests against). If you need to ready the Beretta, this takes away the combat bonus advantage of the Baretta over the Typewriter, since you have to succeed by an additional 2.
  4. Risk: the Baretta has a glaring weakness of requiring exhausting it to fight. It can ready again if you succeed by 2, but this could get you in the sticky situation of missing and having your Beretta "jammed." So it's good to have an escape mechanism if you are using the Beretta (which can be as simple as high agility to evade).

If you do the math on damage per action (factoring in the chance of missing, based on the token pool), the Beretta deals more damage than the Typewriter when only one shot is needed per round, especially against higher fight enemies. The one attack per round might be enough for some parts of the game, especially if you are using a "hit and run" strategy focused on evading enemies and getting clues. Because of the +4 combat bonus, it offers a very high chance of dealing at least 2 damage. But the Typewriter deals more damage if you need to attack multiple times per round. So the choice depends mainly on what type of attacking you will be doing with your investigator. Of course, you can take both, and play the Beretta earlier in the game to fight lower health enemies (especially 2-3 health enemies), and play the Typewriter later to fight high health bosses.

jmmeye3 · 629
I think generally, if you have the actions to spend, Typewriter clearly wins. If you just want a way to help enable succeed by cards, Beretta is a solid choice. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
Celaeno Fragments

15 Cards in hand is very unlikely unless I've missed something that gets you a huge hand size boost and even then you're unlikely to both fill the hand and want to hold them all.

10 is doable with the new size boosters (Looking at Harvey Walters) but a card in hand is one you aren't using

Quite a few Seekers routinely hold 5 cards for their Educational edification however. It's not fast or free but if you're playing with a big hand anyway you might want this over the Magnifying glass (it's a Tome)

EDIT: I missed Dream Enhancing Serum which could get you some very big hands -you're probably still better off just throwing the cards at checks most of the time.

Timlagor · 5
Dream Enhancing Serum, plus most of Harvey Walters’ deck honestly. Keeping 15 is not hard at all, and 5 gets you to Magnifying Glass level on its own. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
1$ for +1 will — MrGoldbee · 1471
I've played Carolyn and Roland and can confirm that Dream Enhancing Serum + Rook gets you cards quickly, especially if Rook triggers the serum. Astounding revelation for more secrets on rook also helps the combo going. — Django · 5108
Minh Thi Phan with Lab assistant + Dream-enhancing serum has easily 10-12 cards in hand. WIth the help of Blood ritual, Feed the mind, Studious, ... it's doable if you design your deck for this purpose. — AlexP · 252
And realistically this is great even at 10 cards. Similar to Camera except you can actually combo this with anything that cares about tomes. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
Even with 5 cards the +1 INT is better than mag class for INT tests that are not investigations (mostly scenario our encounter cards) — Django · 5108
Big Hand Mandy with Arcane Enlightment might like this tome, and she'd have plent of hands to hold it in.... — LivefromBenefitSt · 1067
I agree -- good at five, great at ten. For Parallel Daisy, even more so. She gets a will boost for each tome as well, regardless of cost or xp level. This makes the cheapo tomes like this one even more efficient. You're paying 1 resource for a hawk-eye that already has two resources on it (assuming you can hit the 5 card threshold) — Mordenlordgrandison · 456
Watcher's Grasp

Game designer Matt Newman has confirmed on Twitter that The Watcher’s Grasp effect includes causes the Spectral Watcher to exhaust: “Q: Does the Spectral Watcher exhaust after moving and attacking with Watcher's Grasp? If that's the case, it would not attack later in the enemy phase, right? A: Yep!”

from mobile.twitter.com

Fenchurch · 5