Most likely you don't have to read this review to know how powerful Scrying is.

Everyone who played The Lord of the Rings LCG by Fantasyflight games over the last years knows what nasty stuff the encounter deck will throw at you to ruin your game and the same goes for Arkham Horror. (Everybody who got busted up by Umôrdhoth's Wrath please raise your hand.)

So just like in LotR LCG, cards with an "encounter deck manipulation" effect are very powerful. There are different forms of encounter deck manipulation. Some examples are:

• cards that simply cancel the effects of a drawn encounter deck card
• cards that let you know what the next draw(s) from the encounterdeck will bring
• cards that let you move cards within the encounter deck..

Scrying let's you do the latter 2 things. Knowing that a very nasty thing will happen in 3 rounds (or that it won't happen) makes it a lot easier to plan ahead and decide what cards to play or to keep in hand. "Burying" a particular nasty enemy or threachery to delay it being drawn for like 8 rounds and at the same time controlling in what order the next 8 cards from the encounter deck will be drawn is even stronger.

After using Scrying, you know its safe when to to play Drawn to the Flame, because you plan using it knowing that you will draw Obscuring Fog at a location with no more clues on it. Or you can just prevent Umôrdhoth's Wrath coming into play for a lot of rounds. And as a cherry on top, Scrying let's you take a look and order the next 3 cards in the investigator deck too.

For me, Scrying is an almost auto-include for every investigator whose deck building rules will permit me to use it... IF I'm playing solo. Due to the fact that more players means more draws from the encounter deck each round, Scrying sadly loses a lot of its power in multiplayer games. If the team of investigators has to draw 2-4 cards from the encounter deck each round, Scrying just can't keep up. In solo-play however, this will be a card that we will be still using for years to come.

For most card players, getting the ability to search your deck for something and putting it into your hand is pretty awesome. For some CCGs, cards that do just that are more expensive just because they do that. It's a fantastic advantage to have.

But this isn't a CCG, it's Arkham Horror LCG.

On paper, Research Librarian seems perfectly suitable for any would-be Tome user:

• At 2 resources, it's a really good 1st action, 1st turn play.
• He comes with 1 health and 1 sanity, so he acts as a nice shield.
• I can't emphasize how crazy some people get over tutoring for a card.

So he should be an auto-include for someone like Daisy Walker, right? ...Eh, kinda.

Research Librarian's greatest strength is also his downfall. Should you happen to draw your tomes before him, he just becomes a very flimsy 1 health/1 sanity shield, which, for 2 resources, is not very efficient. He also takes up the ally slot, which could be better used to fit whatever you're building toward.

His only usefulness is, like I said, on action 1 of turn 1 to search for your tome. After that, feed him to Forbidden Knowledge or shield some of that Dynamite Blast you had to use. Otherwise, keep him in your hand for that agility test. He's a one off at best, at least in my opinion.

Daisy Walker seems like a mild-mannered librarian, and in many ways, she is. But with a little bit of magic in her, she can be so much more.

Daisy's biggest strength seems pretty apparent: At 5 base Intellect, investigations are little challenge, and her passive becomes phenomenal when paired with any of the tomes in the game, with Old Book of Lore being the most useful. Combine this with Dr. Milan Christopher, and her resource game is set. Add in a Magnifying Glass for an even bigger boost, and if combat's going to be a thing, there's always Mind over Matter.

Her activation always seems amazing: Coupled with her passive, why not just load her up with all the tomes? Because it's horribly unreliable. Daisy seems like a card drawing fiend, but don't be fooled: choose your tomes wisely, and consider using a Research Librarian to get them quickly. Arkham Horror really makes you want those free actions!

Of course, Daisy isn't great at everything: She needs some serious back-up to fight or evade. The previously mentioned Mind over Matter helps in a pinch when fighting, but it's situational. At 5 health, Daisy can't slug around with ghouls and crazies like Roland Banks can. She would need some armor to even hope surviving the night.

This is where her Mystic dip comes into play: At 3 Willpower, Daisy has the wherewithal to cast some of the staple spells: Shrivelling and Scrying help make it so she doesn't have to fight something she doesn't want to (or if she does, it gets wiped out quickly), Fearless helps get The Necronomicon under control (Or can be used to make Forbidden Knowledge not so sanity intensive), and the Holy Rosary buffs her Willpower to make spells better at succeeding.

In conclusion, Daisy is a support character at her core. She's there to filter decks, warn the party of what's coming, and investigate the heck out of some places. She is nowhere near a front-line fighter, but a few smart card choices can help her deal damage when she needs to, and then get out of dodge. She is my favorite investigator by far, though, because when it's all hitting the fan, Daisy's investigating prowess is all the table needs to advance the agenda and make it out safely.

The text on this card is super weird, but according to the Rules Reference, when you attempt a skill test, you have to draw a random chaos token and reveal it, which activates it's modifiers. So, basically, this card makes it so you don't auto fail or get a bad modifier that could cause you to fail a test.

Really good card that fits the Survivor's "last ditch effort" theme. It lets you have a pretty powerful turn and keep all your actions, so if your stats are high enough, you could automatically kill a monster or fully investigate an area. However, the "last ditch" part comes with the cost to play and the cost to even have.

At 3 experience points, it's very costly and is put up a lot of other handy cards. Then, once it's in your deck, you'll have to pay 4 resources. Even though most Survivor cards are cheap, that's still setting you back at least a turn (Emergency Cache and other such cards notwithstanding), so Will to Survive really has to pack a punch when it's played.

All in all, I love this card. It's fantastic when its used with your back up against a wall, and at worst, it's a safety net to ensure your tests will go smoothly.

Scavenging let's you repeatedly re-use "items" that are in your discard pile.

Some of most obvious cards in the current card pool that work well with Scavenging are items you discard to get benefits (like Knife), items you discarded because they ran out of "charges" (like Flashlight or .41 Derringer) or cards that simply tend to get discarded faster due to forced card abilities (like Baseball Bat.)

When you look closer, bringing items back into play with Scavenging doesn't come cheap. To get an item back from your discard pile into play you:

1) have to use one of your precious actions to investigate;

2) have to investigate succesfully by 2 or more;

3) have to use another action to play that item you just got back into you hand;

4) most likely have to pay recources to play the card.

Looking at these costs, it becomes clear that cards that combo nicely with Scavenging are cards that trigger another beneficial effect when investigating (succesfully.) A great example of such a card is Burglary. Investigate succesfully with Burglary while triggering Scavenging both gives you 3 resources and let's you take back a discarded item (which you can pay for with the resources you just gained.)

It's also beneficial if the items you bring back to your hand have no resource costs. In the current card pool cards like Leather Coat come to mind. With Scavenging Leather Coat becomes a resource-costs-free and re-usable damage sponge.

Cards like Sure Gamble increase your chanches of investigating succesfully by 2 or more, as does Wendy Adams' special ability. Speaking of Wendy, you can fuel her special ability by discarding an item card, which you can bring back later into play with Scavenging.

At the moment I don't think Scavenging is a "great" card. It's not a cornerstone that decks are built around, but examples like the Burglary combo show that it has good potential. In the end, Scavenging is as good as the item it lets you retrieve from your discard pile.

UPDATE 17-1-2017 After the release of The Dunwich Legacy, I took a look at some old reviews I did to see if the new cards had an impact on the reviewed cards. And man have I found a good one. In my initial review on Scavenging I mentioned the nice combo with Burglary That combo has even become better with new investigator Rex Murphy. Normally triggering Burglary's resource gain replaces gaining a clue when investiging succesfully. But when Rex Murphy uses it he still gains a clue due to his special ability.