Assistant.
After an investigator at your location commits a card to a skill test: That card gains a icon until the end of the test. (Limit once for each investigator per round.)
effect: +1. You may choose a skill card committed to this skill test to return to its owner's hand after this test ends.
Deck Size: 30.
Deckbuilding Options: Seeker cards () level 0-5, Neutral cards level 0-5, Survivor cards () level 0-2.
Deckbuilding Requirements (do not count toward deck size): Analytical Mind, The King in Yellow (Act 1), 1 random basic weakness.
Some observations:
Since the committed card gains after it's committed, this doesn't let you commit cards that don't a matching symbol or cards (like Emergency Cache) that don't have any skill symbols.
The effect only applied to skill cards, not any card you are using to support a skill check.
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
It’s worth reconsidering Minh a few years after her debut. And it’s because nearly every beneficial card survivors have for clues is in the 0 to 2 XP range.
In terms of assets, the mariner's compass lets you run a speedy-efficient dark horse Minh. In duo, you can clear most locations in one action. With scavenging, you can recur the ice pick(3) and make it three clues. Or use scavenging(2) to continually grab your old keyring.
The new survivor skills are also amazing. In your hands, unexpected courage (2) is a ???. With analytical mind, you can use it all game to mitigate tests they won’t pass but are punished by how much they fail. You even get a card! Plus, you can recur it to help deal with your weakness.
Signum Cruces can fill the bag with blesses, even if you’re intending to use a fire axe and succeed. Unrelenting lets you take test without symbols that penalize you for trying.
On the seeker side and ignoring recursion, Ancestral knowledge and Guided by the Unseen get you more skills. And while Ancestral might make PMP harder to trigger, it allows you to get skills you need later, like stunning blow. Congratulations, the guardian just evaded the boss! No more retaliate this turn!
There’s a lot that makes you hardier than a normal seeker: bandages, jury-rig, hiding space… So many different ways to build the seek-tary. (Although most of them involve the card you can get from either color, grisly totem.) Plus, you can use it to help deal with your weakness.
Now go get a lot of clues and make your team more efficient!
Tried her again with the TSK card pool. She's still bad.
The problem is her weakness.
Let's compare Minh to the first seeker in the game everyone has access to: Daisy.
Stats (Winner: Daisy) Daisy has a 5 int, whereas Minh has 4. Daisy has a lower Will, but a higher sanity and can safely fail will checks easier.
Survivability (Winner: Tie) Minh is more durable with 7 health, whereas Daisy is quite squishy with only 5. Minh has access to survivor cards like leather coat and Jessica Hyde, but Daisy has deny existence. Overall, they can both stay on the board pretty well.
Card pool (Winner: Tie) Some really good survivor cards came into play with TSK. However, they both aren't really going to want to delve too deep into their offclass as the seeker cards themselves are still pretty nuts.
Weakness and Sig Asset: (Winner: Daisy, by light years)
Daisy and Minh both get assets that completely lock up a hand slot,and limit each character to one hand. Daisy's signature asset completely locks down her weakness though, and basically ends up netting her one hand at the cost of increasing the auto fails in the bag by 1. Minh's weakness on the other hand completely locks down Minh's signature asset to where she basically can't use it if King in Yellow is on the field. For Minh to clear the King, she's going to want to be draw heavy so she can over commit. Since she's draw heavy though, she's going to be drawing the King a lot too. If youre playing with more than one actove hand slot, you always have the threat of King bumping one of your slots. Compare that to a draw heavy Daisy. Once she has necronomicon safely tucked in her book bag, it's a non issue for the remainder of the game.
Investigator ability (Winner: Daisy, by light years).
Minh can boost each investigator by one each time. They're probably not attempting checks they couldn't innately pass anyway, and this ends up essentially being pretty useless. Daisy on the other hand gets a free action on tome abilities, which she will most likely use on Old Book Of Lore. Draw (and even free asset play) each turn, pretty much every turn, guaranteed.
Overall: Daisy.
The librarian will outperform the secretary in almost every scenario. Since they're both competing for the same role... I find it hard to ever really recommend Minh. I have yet to find a deck build for her that Daisy can't do better, and as such she's a C Tier investigator for me.