This card can reduce a shroud to zero. This means it can be used by a guardian with no enemies to make it to where even ones like Daniela can safely investigate even high shroud locations. It's also thematic. Frustrated you're dumb with an INT of 1? Just break everything.

It does get outplayed by other guardian abilities (lessons learned, evidence) once upgrades are available, but its a decent level 0 mid-tier card.

"Until the end of investigation phase" while this is drawn in Upkeep Phase means the 2 boosted skills and 2 reduced skills could be tested in Mythos Phase, before you can start using boosted skills in Investigation Phase.

I think this card very much needs a taboo of either (max once or twice a round) Because it’s a level 0 card which with the right set up can lead to spiraling combos.

“Inspired by the stars”

I’m sure there are other ways to recur this card, but the one which I think has the largest impact is its synergy with written in the stars. There are ways to facilitate making sure this is the card which you discard off the top of the deck, characters with access to scroll of secrets, rogues with friends in low places, or mystics with scrying. Because the card is committed each test, you can even continue past deck draw as long as you reshuffle while inspiring presence is in the limbo state outlined in the rule book. (And the horror soak doubly encourages this)

From there, it’s just a matter of deciding what ally you want to target with the refresh. The two which I think have immediate potential: Abigail Foreman and Chuck Ferguson as these both give access to fast abilities which give you a chance to take a skill test. It’s not fully infinite but the longer you can keep passing those skill tests the longer you can go.

This is one of the best bruiser cards in recent memory and is required in all bruiser builds that can take it.

The main role of the bruiser character is to keep enemies off of cluers. Most are able to do this with just a weapon up and don't need a whole lot of setup. There is nothing more annoying then, than having your bruiser spend three actions doing functionally nothing, and then the next turn you draw two enemies from mythos. You inevitably probably can't deal with both, and one of them gets to either take a free shot at you, or worse lock down your cluer.

This card does many things a typical bruiser wants to do. It thins the encounter deck of enemies by forcing a spawn now. Those three actions you would have essentially wasted, you get to now take two others doing what you're designed to do.

Honestly, the card would be great if it just did that. But it also has the potential for massive resource gain (if you pick a 3 HP enemy, you basically played an emergency cache) and you even get a clue out of it, which can help thin out particularly high shroud value locations.

It's also one of the only cards that can bypass concealment (concealment procs when you draw an enemy per wording in TSK manual, and this card specifically has you spawn the enemy, not draw it).

The only thing bad about this card is it can whiff the search. But if it does, your enemy frequency was pretty low anyway (or you just got really unlucky).

Tldr this card forces enemies on to your enemy handler, which is something they want anyway, and gives you a clue and a crap ton of resources for one action. Honestly a little too powerful and should be automatically included in any bruiser that can take it.

Really weird card. First, the art is personally a bit ick to me, "wet-looking realism" isn't my preferred style.

Second, this thing's balancing is absurdly variable; either it just surges into something harmless, surges into something bad, or costs you an action before throwing something bad at you. Add in the fact that there are 2 of these in the encounter deck (almost certainly back to back, because encounter decks are sentient and malevolent) and you could go from "nothing-nothing-Ghoul Minion" to "nothing-nothing-Corpse Dweller" to "lose an action-lose an action-get an Asylum Gorger thrown in your face." Yes, I understand that randomness is an inherent element in a card game like Arkham, but this degree of it doesn't feel right.

Third, Descent into Madness does nothing with the rest of its set. No "If there is a hidden card in your hand..." trigger, no "For each hidden card in your hand..." reference, just a Revelation effect that feels more at home in the Core Set's Striking Fear. This is a bit of a letdown, especially due to how innovative the rest of the set is (or at least was, on release) with the Hidden keyword.

Very "eh" card. Best thing I can say about it is it's a masterclass in why Surge should virtually never be printed on cards that actually alter the game state; Surge is a very blunt tool, and the variability it adds to a card can make the element of random chance go from "present" to "overpowering."