In bad fantasy movies, there’s a powerful demon that gets sealed for thousands of years. Then on page 3 it gets loose. Bind monster doesn’t have that problem, if you use it right. Because there a certain reasons you keep monsters in play instead of sending them to the encounter discard pile.

In four player, you’re going to cycle the encounter deck a few times. That means monsters recur, and ones that have an obnoxious spawn or engage can bother you over and over. If you have a hunch that the encounter discard is going to be shuffled back into the deck, you might not want to kill an enemy this turn, but you don’t want to take a hit.

Relatedly, you might have scenario effects that empower the nearest enemy. In threads of fate, having a cultist with one HP in your location vs having to spawn one across the board could make a full turn a wasted effort, or create unpreventable doom chain, ending this scenario.

Third, some investigators like having an evaded enemy. Trish can get a bonus clue every turn that you keep this card active. The .25 Automatic is a fun combo, or Sneak Attack.

It has some advantages compared to handcuffs: it can target non-humanoids and doesn’t require a set up action to put it into play. But the cuffs are permanent once applied, and are level 0.