First off, 4 soak for 2 resources is a pretty great deal; she ties with Bulletproof Vest and Elder Sign Amulet for cost-to-soak ratio, but she's level 0 and occupies a slot that's not heavily contested for most Mystics. Her icons aren't terrific, but at least they're relevant for Mystics.

In my opinion, this makes her look pretty strong in most mystic decks, even before we consider her ability. We can only use it once per round, unlike Grotesque Statue, but we can use it to guarantee success in the same way, even though it's a little more difficult.

Where we really see Olive's strength is when we combine her ability with any of the chaos token manipulators already available to Mystics. If we chuck Defiance on the same test, we can hunt for the symbol we've just negated; likewise, we can choose a terrible symbol and then use Counterspell to pass the test. With the Seal mechanic we can make these results even more likely, and with Jim Culver we already have tokens that we can ignore.

I think Olive is crazy good in a Jim deck, but she's not half bad for any mystic that plans to manipulate the bag.

This is an exceptionally strong card. One of the most powerful and coveted upgrades in the game.

A repeatable source of 3-damage attacks is amazing. The number one way the developers make this game hard is by throwing lots of high-health health enemies at you. The number one way to lose is to draw more enemies in a short span than the team can deal with. A card that can repeatedly annihilate 3-health enemies in one action makes the game way easier. Being able to consistently crush the bigger stuff that comes out of the encounter deck in 2 actions is extremely useful, too.

Shrivelling V stands out as a particularly great purchase relative to the other superweapons in the game. Let's compare it to Lightning Gun (itself a very good card!). Shrivelling V is 3 resources cheaper, which is a huge deal, and has 33% more charges! It also has a far better slot situation as one arcane slot is a much smaller price to pay than two hand slots. Yes, you lose some to-hit bonus, but Shrivelling V's +3 bonus is still very good and will get results even on Expert. There is the horror penalty for Shrivelling V, which is harsh but has several workarounds (see below). All in all, I think the comparison is very favorable.

The 2 horror drawback is notable, one of the few "if you pull a special token" effects on a Mystic card that is harsh enough to make you sit up and take notice. But I find Shrivelling V well worth it. First, Mystics have naturally large sanity pools, and two excellent level 0 cards that can soak multiple horror. Mystics also have efficient in-faction horror healing if they want it. Second, since Mystics have really high Willpower, they take fewer horror from the encounter deck than anyone else. All this means that one sanity hit from Shrivelling V, or even two, is often not that a big deal.

Moreover, Mystics have an abundance of cards that cancel a bad token, let you redraw one, or let you draw two tokens and pick one (which drastically reduces your odds of triggering these effects.) You can combine any or all of these with Shrivelling V as the campaign goes on, which really neuters its drawback.

Note in particular how perfectly Grotesque Statue's 4 charges line up with Shrivelling V's 4 charges. I often aim to have both in my deck by the mid-to-late-campaign. If you get them both in play, you basically have 12 damage whenever you want it--damage that you can literally guarantee, even on Expert. Awesome.

To go back to the comparison with the game's other superweapons: compared to something like Lightning Gun or Shotgun, Shrivelling V is much more convenient. From a slot perspective and a resource perspective it's much easier to just pop it into your deck; you can easily still have the money and room to play other expensive and powerful stuff in addition. I'll repeat once more that 4 charges (that's 12 damage!) for 3 resources is just an amazing deal. It really is.

I end up buying this sooner or later (usually sooner) with pretty much every Mystic I play, and I really think it is one of the most important cards in the game for consistently winning at high levels.

Finally, the fact that Shrivelling V is a Spell is very helpful, given its powerful interactions with the likes of Arcane Initiate, Recharge, Uncage the Soul, and Arcane Research.

This is incredible out of Roland.

When fighting a monster on a location without clues he can use this to gain +3 for the check then recover the dropped clue for free.

If his personal weakness is drawn he can drop a clue on almost any location and hoover it back up with the boost. This is especially useful if all the nearby clues have already been taken.

Now that Marksmanship is out, my group did a theoretical calculation of max damage possible in 1 attack, particually to kill Spoiler in one attack. The following assumes a party of 4 players and using Extra Ammunition, Venturer and Contraband to pump ammo into Shotgun equal to or higher than the amount of chaos tokens.

Thanks Caius and Jd90 for your tips

• 1 base damage
• 1 Lita Chantler
• 1 Zoey Samaras's , so zoey is the one shooting
• 2 from 2x Marksmanship (fast cards can only be played on your turn, so 8x is not possible)
• 4 from 4x Hatchet Man (comited by Zoey Samaras, Leo Anderson)
• 5 Shotgun
• 10 from 5x Vicious Blow 2, assuming all 4 characters have it (other players can only commit 1 card)
• Double or Nothing
• "Eat lead!" to guarantee

Sum: 48 Total Damage!

Newspaper is everything Newspaper was not, the ideal way to pull your weight in clues while your primary job is something else. Take it solo, take it in duo, leave it in larger player counts (except 3 player with "Ashcan" Pete, where the ability to grab 3 clues is astonishing).

The extra clue is all the difference. A 2 character can complete a moderate or easy location by committing a Perception or Unexpected Courage and even stand a decent chance without the extra cards, it's also great for those rounds where you've got your weapon out and some combat support assets so you've got nothing better to do than to try the easy clues. William Yorick and even Agnes Baker will suddenly have a pretty good way to fish clues from 1 and 2 difficulty location, and the added bonus can still contribute to a successful "Look what I found!".

Wendy Adams and "Ashcan" Pete can both put Newspaper to good use, although unlike William Yorick who only goes for clue's occasionally, they look for them all the time, which slightly diminishes the effect and priority of Newspaper in favor of more consistent cards like Flashlight. Take note of the 2 icons, those icons are a big number for an item, especially considering the fact that both of those characters are pretty good at Scavenging. A recursible +2 bonus is not to be ignored! Even if you never actually play the card as an asset.

The only real downside for Newspaper is the scenario factor. if you advance the act repeatedly and keep wiping off your clues then yes its good! So good! But when there's just two acts (One even?) Then you're straight out of luck, thankfully though there's still the Scavenging interaction.