Holy Rosary is a true classic, easily one of the best Mystic cards in the Core Set and still a top performer many years later. So when Crystal Pendulum came out, I was initially a bit resistant to switching over to this. Sure, for Jacqueline Fine with her built-in token manipulation and 9 Sanity, the Pendulum seemed like a slam dunk. But elsewhere, was it really worth giving up the concrete benefit of 2 Sanity soak for unreliable card draw? Most of my Mystics don't run a lot of token manipulation at lower XP levels. And this is the same class that must start every single campaign with 2 mental trauma (it's in the rulebook.)

But the more I weigh the Rosary and the Pendulum, the more I've found myself swinging in the latter direction, if you know what I mean. Practically speaking, even without any support, the Pendulum represents something in the neighborhood of 25-30% of a card every round. And the thing is... that's good! That does add up over time. I think it's at the least highly competitive with 2 Sanity. And that's just the floor for the Pendulum. Factor in the random token manipulation effects you may have wanted to run anyway (Diana likes her Dark Prophecies, for instance), and the Pendulum does better.

Moreover, the Pendulum tends to scale really well into the late campaign. Most Mystics want to pick up the really powerful token manipulation effects like Grotesque Statue and Seal of the Elder Sign because, well, those are great cards. And they certainly lead to more draws from the Pendulum. And in the mid-to-late campaign, you'll miss the 2 Sanity from the Rosary a lot less, because you'll have options like Deny Existence V, soak-heavy Charisma builds, etc.

So I think it's very close between the Rosary and Pendulum in the early campaign, and then as the campaign progresses, the Pendulum tends to get better and better. So I've found myself tilting that way recently, and I've been happy with the results.

A final note. The Pendulum is a fiddly card and does have the potential to seriously slow down the game in multiplayer. If you're going to run this, I recommend memorizing the contents of the chaos bag (which is helpful for good gameplay in any case), so you can be quick in making your predictions. Be mindful of your pace of play here. No amount of extra draw is worth dragging the game to a halt!

One thing to note is that Ritual Candles improves your odds of connecting with this card because you can choose to use Ritual Candles ability after seeing the token, giving you a little flexibility with your call.

Also Jacqueline Fine gets extra use from Crystal Pendulum because she can opportunistically select which token to keep.

The best comparison is to Holy Rosary. Same cost, slot, tags, level etc. The difference is you're trading away 2 Sanity for possible card draw each turn. The question is then how often will you draw the cards? If you are doing chaos bag manipulation then this card is great but what about a standard mystic? That depends on the bag composition.

Its important to notice that you will succeed on a Pass or Fail by that number so to figure that out you have to do some math. First off it fluctuates due to scenario effect tokens having different values each scenario but I'll create a bag as an example.

+1:2 0: 3 -1: 5 -2: 4 -3: 2 -4: 1 F : 1

Find the number you want to succeed on, then sum the qty's above and below, then again, and so on. If you are trying to succeed on the -3 then you can call 0 for 2/18; 1 for 5/18; 2 for 5/18 etc... If you are trying to succeed on the -2 then you can call 0 for 4/18; 1 for 7/18; 2 for 4/18 etc...

Though the bag may be quite different from this its not unreasonable to say that you'll probably succeed 1/3 of the time. So now you're trading 2 sanity for an unreliable extra card every 3 turns or so. I think it really depends on your deck composition and if you need that extra sanity or not. If you're taking the spells that give you horror then I'd recommend the Rosary. If not, then I think I'd probably prefer the Pendulum.

As Gnarl's Apprentice and Zinjanthropus have noted in the comments, this card will work with Scrying Mirror and Premonition. And if it combos with those, then you can also use Dark Prophecy and Olive McBride as well, making the card draw an all but guarantee when you want it. You can also use Recall the Future to ensure a success. This makes it an incredibly powerful tool and worth considering in anyone who is going to pack even a few chaos bag manipulation effects.

Scroll of Prophecies has rapidly become a mainstay of mine, and I suspect it will continue to be so since it occupies the much less congested Hand slot. However, the Pendulum is cheaper, does not require an action to activate, and doesn't force you to discard. All of which are incredibly valuable traits that cannot be overstated. The reason the scroll works so well is that you're generally comfortable discarding something; I am anyways. And if that's the case, it means there are key cards in your deck you want to have down; the rest are just candy.

The Pendulum will help you draw up those axis cards you want to see as well as grant you that sugar rush I mentioned, and the boost ensures you aren't sacrificing your accessory slot. Really, the only downsides to this card is it will be inconsistent when you don't have tech to help see the tokens, and not all the tech is full proof. You could replace this with a different accessory once you've dug up those essentials, but again, that +1 means you don't have to.

This is an exciting card that plays well with the guesswork approach. 's have been a bit starved for card draw but that is changing. Crystal Pendulum is a welcome addition that makes your jewelry of choice all that much more competitive and rewarding.

EDIT: One thing I did not mention originally is that even taking a gamble is not hugely risky, and not simply because there's nothing lost if you guess wrong, but because you're guessing the modifier, NOT the token. Unlike Recall the Future, the Skulls could be say -1, which is a popular token already. You're statistically more likely to get the card draw in this way, and seems to be an improvement over Recall the Future.

I like this a lot in an Ancient Covenant / Favor of the Sun deck, especially Father Mateo because he can get Bless fully online at the start of a campaign with his 5 Bonus XP plus 3 from In the Thick of It: Ancient Covenant, 2X Favor of the Sun, 2X Priest of Two Faiths, 2X Radiant Smite.

• I miss the Sanity Soak that Holy Rosary provides...
• ...BUT in AC Bless with Favor of the Sun I know exactly how much my test will succeed by any time I choose to use my Favor rather than drawing a token, or can just hope that a token will come out even if I don't (and Nkosi Mabati makes those odds better).
• You can still upgrade to Holy Rosary (2) if you feel you aren't getting enough tokens into the bag (but my deck is also running Book of Psalms to heal the 2 Mental Trauma I took for In the Thick of It and add ).

This card is a Mystic's Rabbit's Foot, except it can also randomly draw cards if you don't get hit by a check, and gives a buff to the one stat that you really care about. It also gains value as the difficulty of the campaign increases, since you will end up eating more random (3)/(4)-difficulty treachery checks on your bad stats - declare that your stat will go to zero, get hit by the usual -3 token, and hey, free card.

Really kind of a shockingly good card for level 0, and if you're trying to play a strong Mystic then I would call this an auto-include. It's powerful synergy with commonly-played cards like Premonition is the icing that it didn't need.