Imo the most miscolored card in the game. I think the only reason this is Rogue is because it came in the same cycle as Tony Morgan and they wanted to give Mark Harrigan another off-color Tactic. But this card just screams Guardian. Hell, look at Zoey Samaras! I'm not saying Rogues can't pull it off or that Zoey can't take it; I'm talking about the thematic flavor here.

Additional, if this was Guardian, every class would each have their own way to earn additional XP: Shrewd Analysis (Seeker), Charon's Obol (Rogue), Arcane Research (Mystic) and Déjà Vu (Survivor).

Here's hoping this card will some day receive a Guardian version so I can feel a bit better about this catastrophe of a color mismatch.

Should you take a trauma to defeat non-elite enemies? If you are a guardian... probably not. But if your investgator is named Calvin Wright, then yes of course!

For him, this card is awsome in so many ways! At first it has 2 Icons, so you can always contribute to a test, if you shouldn't need the event effect. But you are Calvin. You want to be defeated. The more trauma you have (up to 2-3 mental and physikal), the stronger you'll start the next scenario. Later in the campaign you can either still use the 2 icons or upgrade it to "I've had worse…", or something else/similar. In multiplayer this card get's even better. You give your team mates room to breathe and you get your trauma in one go. There are also some enemies with victory points who aren't elite (especially in Dunwich! Look at the Dunwich Artwork and you know one of them...).

Yes, this is a niche card for every other investigator who's name isn't Calvin Wright (also look for Ghastly Revelation).

With taboo (2020-10), ability is changed into ability; thus, you can trigger that ability 3 times only with 1 play and 1 resource. When you select any investigator's deck, this card ensures 1 draw which can be discarded before any revelation abilities are triggered.

• (pro) 1-cost, 1- card providing 3 cards; cheap drawing source
• (pro) you may discard the card drawn by it before revelation. (Note that you look a card and then discard it. It's legal you discard weakness in deck, and revelation effect is not triggered because you do not draw it but just look it.)
• (con) you only can draw 1 card for 1 round.
• (con) this card occupies your hand slot.

Of course, investigators may not consider this because has several instant drawing sources such as Preposterous Sketches, Deep Knowledge and many searching cards. Also, they have some good assets with hand slot such as Magnifying Glass.

But, investigators may wish this card. does not have any good drawing card and mostly relies on Arcane Initiate. Also, the hand slot of investigators is less important than other factions. Additionally, this can be a good target for Sacrifice after you use all secrets on this.

Some cards you see and you underestimate. I felt that way about "I've had worse…"; if you’re playing guardian right, I thought, you should have plenty of money and not take any harm at all!

When I saw Hand of Fate, my mind filled with those horrible bosses that have 4/4 damage/horror. And if you put this on your deck and team up with Trish, you’ll once per campaign enable the play where she investigates to evade the main boss, you flood the bag with tokens and everything is hunky-dory.

But a lot of the times, you’re going to be with enemies that are 1 or 2 damage or horror.

Now, most cards go well with Diana, this one goes super well. You get a one buck refund, +1 will power, a card, and can save it outside of your hand (underneath her) and bring it back when you need it with Twilight Blade.

But most people associate any card that gives bless tokens with Sister Mary, and this one would be harder to fit for her. Guardians are already clogged with costly assets, so three bucks is a lot to carry around. (You likely won’t be able to get the cash when you need it, because opportunity attacks mean enemies, and if you’re sitting around collecting resources while an ally is engaged at your location...)

If you’re Playing Leo, you can bring this in with adaptable when you know you’re going to be facing bosses. With a rogue splash, you can certainly have three bucks for a fast event.

The best reason to slot this card is if you meet many of the following factors:

*You’re Diana.

*Your deck makes a lot of money or your fellow investigators give you a lot of money.

*You have a lot of uses for blessed tokens, like Rite of sanctification, Ancient Covenant, and Radiant Smite.

*The card art reminds you of Alonso Quijano de la Mancha, and you loved the musical.

Previously, the consensus on this card has been that while the +2 Combat boost and the 5 ammo are nice, the damage boost just isn't reliable enough to make it an effective weapon -- unless you have access to cards that let you pull multiple tokens, which basically means Olive McBride (Grotesque Statue occupies a hand-slot, unfortunately). With the new taboo list that was just released, this consensus needs to be reassessed. To give the conclusion up front, thesis-statement style: you still need Olive McBride to make the Winchester sing, but there are now ways to make its note even more... piercing.

For those who haven't checked the list, here's the change. In order to get the +2 damage from Winnie's attack, ANY token with a non-negative modifier will do. It doesn't have to be a zero, +1, or elder sign.

What other tokens have non-negative modifiers? Depending on the scenario, sometimes the special tokens will fit the bill. For instance, the skulls in The Gathering will often be zeros (assuming your location is ghoul-free). Same thing in The Untamed Wilds, until you have vengeance in the victory display.

But that's a minor, scenario-specific situation. The real change here is that bless tokens, with their +2 modifier, now score you the head-shot, too. Let's see how pumping the chaos bag with bless tokens changes the calculus.

For most campaigns, you start with around 16 tokens in the chaos bag. Usually four of those would trigger the original Winchester. That means that, pre-upgrade, you had a 25% chance to do 3 damage, and a 75% chance to do one damage or miss. (We're assumining that you're going to hit if you pull a zero or better.) Not great for a four-cost, two-hand weapon. Now, by adding bless tokens, you can improve those odds, though only to a point. If you fully load the bag with 10 bless tokens, you have about a 54% chance to do 3 damage, and a 46% to do 1 or no damage (this isn't exactly true -- there's a chance you pull a bless token and then follow it up with an auto-fail or a -5 for example; just not sure how to calculate that).

Those odds are respectable, but it's hard to earn them. Sniper Mary, I mean Sister Mary, would seem to be the only character capable of maxing out the bag reliably. Others would need either Sister Mary in the party, or a pretty massive commitment to bag-pumping via cards like Blessed Blade, Hand of Fate, and Book of Psalms, The first and last of those cards take up a hand slot, which can create timing problems unless you're sporting a Bandolier. (There are a handful of survivor cards that can pump the bag, too, but if you have access to them, you probably don't have access to the all-important Olive McBride. Those cards can still be helpful, though, if another player is running them).

And this brings us back to the original Winchester strategy -- drawing multiple tokens. If you can pump the bag AND draw multiple tokens, the story changes. Let's say you have Olive McBride as your ally and a certain number of bless tokens in the bag. Now you're turning into a true deadeye!

Odds of a critical hit with Olive and X Bless tokens, assuming a standard 16-token bag:

0: 61%. 1: 68%. 2: 73%. 3: 77%. 4: 81%. 5: 83%. 6: 86%. 7: 88%. 8: 89%. 9: 90%. 10: 92%.

Of course, with Olive, there is now a slightly higher chance that you find a token you want but still fail the test. In most cases, if you draw a zero or a bless token, you're passing, but if you have to pair that zero with a -4 because of Olive, you may fail. Still, the math is now firmly in your favor, even if you're only lightly padding the bag.

What's the upshot? The new and improved Winchester is now a legitimately good card for a particular kind of character -- namely, one who is blessing the bag (or has a partner who is) and who has access to Olive McBride. It still has drawbacks of course -- until you get Olive out, Winnie will be hit-or-miss, and mainly miss. But once you do, the advantages are substantial -- huge damage for a level 0 weapon, plentiful ammunition, and a very handsome boost to combat. And there are upgrade paths that make it even better: Custom Ammunition brings you up to seven, highly impactful shots; and Telescopic Sight could create an interesting playstyle as well, as long as you are not the tank. So, who can make it all come together? From best to ok, I'd say:

1) Sister Scary, I mean Sister Mary. She checks all boxes. The Winchester also converts her mediocre 3 combat into a very respectable 5, without the need for a Beat Cop or skill card.

2) Jim Culver is a sneaky candidate, since he treats skulls as zeroes always. Even without bless tokens, as long as he's rolling with Olive McBride, he has a massive 79% chance to trigger Winnie's effect -- though if you want him to be able to bugle while he blasts, you'll need a Bandolier.

3) Diana Stanley is another character who might benefit from the strategy, since it usually takes a few turns to get her to a spell-worthy Will value. The new Hand of Fate, which cancels an attack and adds bless tokens, is doubly effective for her if she goes this route. It fattens the bag, making Winnie more accurate, and it can be placed under her investigator card for a draw, a resource, and a Will boost. Like Jim, though, Diana will likely run into hand-slot issues: her signature asset occupies one, too.

4) Zoey Samaras. I don't know that she has any special synergy with the Winchester, but she has access to all the cards you need to run this strategy. She doesn't need the +2 Combat as badly as the characters above, but it's still nice to play one asset and suddenly be at a 6. Also, Zoey's Cross is an accessory, so no difficulties with hand slots there.