At first glance, Alice Luxley invites natural comparisons to Dr. Milan Christopher, but with more careful consideration, it becomes clear that she's a completely different beast altogether.

Ms. Luxley's reaction ability seems quite unremarkable in solo mode, but becomes noticeably stronger on teams - the larger, the beter. The reason is that if you're playing solo and you're at the same location as an enemy, you are most likely engaged with it. Thus you're probably spending your actions fighting (or otherwise dealing with the enemy) rather than looking for clues. As such, Alice's reaction ability is going to trigger a lot less frequently than you'd probably like for that 4-resource installation cost. Now, there are other ways to discover clues that won't trigger an attack of opportunity (Working a Hunch, for example), and sure, it's great to be able to dispatch a Whippoorwill or some other Aloof enemy; but these situations tend to be exceptions, not the rule.

On the other hand, with more players you'll frequently find yourself in situations where an enemy in engaged with another investigator, and this is where Alice's ability really comes in handy.

As other reviewers have mentioned, she's a good fit for Carolyn Fern, but I think she's even better with Roland Banks. With Roland, you can set off a nice chain reaction where you kill an enemy, thereby discovering a clue, and finally using Alice's ability to damage (and hopefully kill) another enemy. Timed correctly, Alice and Roland can do some real crowd control. The nice part about this combo is that since no investigation actions are required, Alice is maybe OK even for solo Roland (but I still think he has better ally options).

I don't know if I'd seriously consider Alice Luxley in a William Yorick deck (with his lower ), but you can see the potential for some fun combos there as well.

Minh Thi Phan, the Secretary. Assistant.

The best* seeker in the game, and the worst^ seeker in the game. Minh revolves completely around her access to her signature Analytical Mind, without it she struggles to pass tests without depleting resources and is forced to huddle around her allies to make use of her ability. Once Analytical Mind is in play, however, her potential is unshackled and she can project unparalleled support across the map while accomplishing her own clue-oriented objectives.

For this reason Minh is below power curve until she has two No Stone Unturned (5)s to guarantee immediate access to her unique asset. Past 10xp Minh begins to outpace her contemporaries, and past the midpoint of a campaign she should be trivializing (through some combination of hard card draw and Deciphered Reality) scenarios which severely hamper others.

Obviously she’s better in higher player counts, but she is more than effective enough in 2p. A late-campaign Minh can reach tiers of effectiveness even a pre-taboo Rex would flinch at.

* above 20xp

^ below 10xp

I want to like this card, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

I think this card would be really good in just about any other faction, but seekers have so much access to both filtered and unfiltered card draw that I can never justify spending XP on this.

I know that theoretically this could give you up to 8 cards(10 with the Laboratory Assistant), but I can't say I commonly find myself in that situation and the various draw 3 cards(Preposterous Sketches, Cryptic Research) will probably end up being nearly as efficient.

The only caveat I can come up with is drawing Amnesia as a basic weakness or possibly Minh as she tends to be committing lots of cards, then I might more seriously consider this.

If we get more research cards that trigger during a search and can be placed back into your deck, like Mandy's Occult Evidence, this may be a card that finds a home in her deck, though the risk of just drawing them back into your hand may not be worth it.

If we get another seeker that eats through cards like crazy, this may find a home, but only the future will tell on that.

As a final note, I wish you set aside any number of non-weakness cards from your hand, drew up to your hand size, then shuffled the set aside cards into your deck. Then this card would get some serious consideration from me.

The way I'm going to review this card is by re-interpreting the text into three separate texts, one for each of the outcomes from success (every weapon does the same thing when you fail, so that's an un-necessary consideration). I'm also going to interpret "succeed by X", as "this test gets +X difficulty". This will turn a review of one weapon into a review of three weapon with direct comparisons to other existing weaponry, in an attempt to gauge the power-level of this card:

First, say you have a heavy aversion to risk, and really just want the cheap +2. This weapon might as well read "Spend 1 ammo: FIGHT, You get +2 for this attack", in this case. There exists one other weapon (as of Dream-Eaters) that provides a +2 boost without additional damage: Gravedigger's Shovel. A quick comparison shows that the imaginary .41 Derringer falls way short: for one less resource and two less exp, you get the same boost an infinite number of attacks, plus a little extra versatility to boot. So clearly you won't be getting this weapon for it's base effect.

Next, let's say you really like the un-upgraded .41 Derringer, and care little for extra bells and whistles. In this case, the text is equivalent to "Spend 1 ammo: FIGHT. You get +1. This attack deals +1 damage". Sound Familiar? It's a .45 Automatic, albeit for for less resource, and one less ammo. Sounds fair, right? Except the .45 Automatic costs no exp, so to be equivalent in power to a card that costs 2 less exp is a bad sign, and thus, this imaginary weapon also falls short.

Finally, the big one. "Spend 1 ammo: FIGHT. You get -1. This attack deals +1 damage. Gain an additional action (limit once per turn)". This would be the only weapon in existence that would reduce your for the attack, if it existed. And yet, if you're gunning for the biggest prize, and as proven in the prior example, you'll be playing with an inferior weapon if you don't, then you have to consider the difficulty value as three higher that it's actual value.

If, say, you want to succeed despite drawing a -3 (the staple standard for tests at medium/hard difficulty), then you want to have a final at 4 HIGHER THAN THE TEST. Not impossible, but damn are you shooting for the moon for this extra effect.

The funny things about rouges is, despite having the second largest select of weapons to guardians, not one of them have a value higher than three (until the Dream Eaters came out, I'm getting to that). Of the rogues that do have 3 , "Skids" O'Toole has access to guardian cards, Jenny Barnes can pull off some magic with Money Talks and Well Connected, and Finn Edwards does like his illicit card synergy. Whether that's enough, I'll leave to you, because personally, I'll not sold on the idea. A better candidate would be Leo Anderson, especially with Beat Cop, who, with all the expensive allies he'll undoubtedly have, might appreciate a cheaper weapon alternative.

...And then along comes Tony Morgan, blowing all other candidates out of the water. Unlike the others, he's a combat thoroughbred, unlikely to be doing anything other than fighting (don't you dare mention seeker Tony). He alone can make .41 Derringer work, in my opinion, and not a moment too soon, as I like the "succeed by X" archetype for rogue, but never really got to see the fighting version of it (alongside Switchblade), until now.

I want to make a point about this card, and it's three cousins "Watch this!", Eureka!, and Resourceful, skill cards with three, fixed, distinct icons.

These are, in essence, win-more cards; cards that get their value when you commit them to tests you're already likely to succeed, and will fail you should you be looking to even the odds against a skill test that's beyond you. They will only ever add +1 to whatever test you perform (save for some fringe cases where two attributes are being tested in one skill check), and they pile on the pressure to pass that test, as the gap in outcomes between success and failure widen from committing this card.

Skill cards lie on a sliding scale between improving your odds of succeeding versus increasing the rewards for doing so. Cards like Cunning and Inquiring Mind occupy the former extreme, Inspiring Presence and its ilk occupy the later, and the core set neutral skill cards (e.g. Perception) define the middle ground. When picking which skill cards to include in your deck, you need to be mindful of which extreme they lean towards.

If you're planning to make use of an investigator's base attribute of three, then forget about win-more skill cards: your success will never be guaranteed without a +2 boost to that attribute MINIMUM. If you have base attribute of 4, the odds will be on your side on the easiest of tests (i.e difficulty 2 and below), but if you have an attribute value of 4, then you're likely expected to take on the harder tests (i.e difficulty 4 and above), for which win-more cards alone won't cut it. If you rock a base attribute of 5, then you're golden; include these cards to your heart's content...

...Which leads to the catch-22 of Inspiring Presence and co.; that they have three skill icons for different attributes, but will only really find use in test with base attributes of 4 or above, of which no investigator has more than two such attributes, and only a handful have more than one. You'll do yourself a dis-service should you spread yourself too thin,.

So here is the big conclusion of this review; the flexibility of this card exists NOT at the game stage, BUT AT THE DECK-BUILDING STAGE. In essence, these win-more cards are almost identical to Vicious Blow, Deduction, Fearless, and Survival Instinct; they just have a place in more decks thanks to the icons. Using the example of Inspiring Presence, most Guardians would compare this directly to Vicious Blow, but other takers, like Jim Culver or Joe Diamond, could very well make the case of replacing (or complimenting) Fearless and Deduction respectively in a more ally focused deck (like for instance, Olive McBride and Dr. Milan Christopher post Taboo List).

These cards are easy includes into decks that can make use of them, their power deriving from benefits that require no actions OR resources to play. Just, take care to not fall into the trap of thinking your deck is now all-purpose; just because the deck-building metrics tell you you've got a lot of , , and icons in your deck, doesn't mean you're going make use of all of them.