What is action compression, what is action investment? Why is this card so damn good?

For 1 resource (something you almost always start your turn with one of) you get at least one engage action with this card. This is the lowest value you get for this card and honestly even at that level it is deceptively good.

Here's the thing: not all actions are made the same. Say you have an enemy engaged with your fragile Daisy flower one stop over from you, if the enemy has 2 health and you have a .45 then it takes you three actions to move, engage and kill that enemy no problem. However if the enemy has 3-4 health you're now in trouble. If there are two enemies at 1-2 health you are similarly guaranteed someone has to take damage (unless your daisy has a plan)

With Taunt you now have that action you need to cut through the chaff and save everyone. Wonderful! For 1 banked resource you saved someone 1 damage and 1 horror probably.

Where Taunt breaks the game is if you're a certain nutty chef. As Zoey you can:

• run into the room
• wave your cross at a horde of rats
• cap one 2 health enemy with your .45
• hack another 2 health enemy with your machete

And make 2 damn resources for your slaughter.

Does it usually get that efficient? No, but since it's minimal efficiency is trading one resource into an action (which is a good trade) it's never a bad card. As soon as there's two enemies in a location fire away and reap the rewards of action economy!

Does this card have a place in a deck that isn't Zoey's? Yes, in one very specific case, which I'll get to in the last paragraph:

Taunt shares a theme with certain other fast cards; Shortcut, Working a Hunch, and Sleight of Hand, come to mind. Cards that involve a fast version of a basic action that any investigator can do, such as moving, discovering a clue, playing an item card, or engaging an enemy, as the above examples provide.

Thing is, some basic actions are more valuable, and needed more often, than others. Take the humble move action; every investigator is going to be moving between locations, in every scenario, from start to finish, regardless of class, role, or objective. It guarantees the usefulness of Shortcut, made even better when it's use can be applied to any investigator at your location, nor just the card holder. Same with discovering a clue, same with playing a item asset.

Engaging an enemy just isn't one of those actions. For an engage action to be taken, there must be an enemy at your location that's either exhausted, or engaged with another player. Even then, only the latter really calls for an engage action to be taken, and EVEN THEN it's completely optional, as all engagement does is eliminate the risk of the other investigator taking damage, either by your hand, or the enemy's. It makes justifying a card slot solely to be able to taunt faster very difficult, as it doesn't actually help perform a guardian's primary role, and non-guardians will be more likely to want to AVOID enemies, not Taunt them. So then why, other than being Zoey Samaras, would you want to include Taunt in your deck?:

To eliminate the downside of Flamethrower... yeah that's pretty much it. Flamethrower harshens the downside of not being engaged with an enemy, which makes engage actions more valuable, which makes Taunt more valuable. If you're running Flamethrower, consider running Taunt.