Event

Upgrade.

Cost: 0. XP: 1.

Guardian

Fast. Play only during your turn.

Attach to an Item asset you control. Limit 1 per asset.

After attached asset is discarded: Return it to its owner's hand, along with each other Upgrade attachment that was attached to it.

John Pacer
The Wages of Sin #152.
Well-Maintained

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

Well-Maintained is a card multiplier, it's power is strictly dependent on the card you apply it to so evaluating Well-Maintained in vacuum is HARD. Even so, here are some notes to keep in mind:

  • It returns the cards to your hand when discarded, this means that cards that do not self-discard are not returned till manually or unintentionally discarded. The card is missing a clause that let's it discard the attached asset, in my mind.
  • There are several treacheries that discard assets, such as Crypt Chill, that Well-Maintained helps you defend against.
  • Costs are not refunded so you still must be able to pay for the asset again, an issue mostly for the big guns.
  • Custom Ammunition and Reliable are the only/most important Upgrades to be released so far.

The most immediate way to read Well-Maintained is to assume it's meant for a big gun, but there are lots of cards that operate far more smoothly within the bounds of the wording. For example:

There are lots of items that don't discard but still work good with Well-Maintained, it just requires an extra step to execute on, to recurse an empty gun you need to play something else over it in the slot, for example a Flashlight or another copy of the gun, this is still a rather slow process so I wouldn't pick Well-Maintained for this purpose exclusively, Extra Ammunition is a much better option for reloading guns! But, when you have some of the other cards mentioned above, and/or one or both of the upgrade cards, Well-Maintained becomes a much more impressive addition.

Finally there's a couple more combos that are absolutely worth your attention:

Tsuruki23 · 2469
Does well maintained return itself to your hand? — Django · 4859
@Django It does not; it specifically says "other" upgrade cards. — SGPrometheus · 745
Could I have 2 of them to return both? — trazoM · 9
Limit 1 per asset, so no. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
For Skidds and Tony, this combos really nicely with Joey "The Rat" (3). Free trigger to 'discard' it back to your hand plus 2 resources to help play it back out - maybe even Fast. — Death by Chocolate · 1364
From the rules; "A defeated asset is placed on its owner's discard pile." So not discarded. Making it worse on bulletproof vest and the like. — Rafael_Rupert · 1
Going past a slot limit (like the 1 accessory slot) does make you discard assets of that slot untill you are not longer over it. So that can trigger this. — Rafael_Rupert · 1

I think Jury-Rig raises the usefulness of this card even further for the 6 investigators who can take both without buying Versatile (and I wouldn't buy Versatile for a single copy of Jury-Rig):

While I typically don't like assembling a three-card combo, Old Keyring + Jury-Rig + Well-Maintained is pretty strong. You won't get Well-Maintained back, but you will get the Keyring and Jury-Rig back.

Lantern only gives you -1 shroud instead of Keyring's -2, I think it's better for the Investigate combo because of no Uses (X) and you can discard the Lantern on demand, which allows you to wait until the combo is assembled and then "recharge" your Jury-Rig when empty.

Any Firearm + Jury-Rig + Well-Maintained is a great combo with this and Jury-Rig, as it allows you to recharge the Firearm AND the Jury-Rig, and obviously synergizes really well with Act of Desperation.

A Well-Maintained Backpack is really interesting for investigators who need to find their items and supplies, and / or those wanting to search their decks (anyone who can take this and Astounding Revelation or Surprising Find)

Well-Maintained says "Attach to an Item asset you control." Backpack says "If there are no cards attached to Backpack, discard it." As written, Backpack would not self-discard if Well-Maintained is attached. You would need some other means of discarding such as playing a second body slot over the first Backpack. — Pugtato · 1

While this card can be used by guardians as insurance against item destruction on their expensive weapons (lightning gun, timeworn brand), paying the cost of 4 or 5 resources to replay the item could still be problematic ('act of desperation' could mitigate this by giving you resources equal to the item's cost after a successful attack).

A much better use, in my opinion, is to play 'well-maintained' on low-cost and high-value items that are cheap to replay and preferably discard themselves after use. One such item is 'grotesque statue' in the mystic class. Diana Stanley can take both 'well-maintained' and 'grotesque statue'. Once you have a statue in play, the two 'well-maintained' events basically function as extra copies of the statue, so you're functionally playing a Diana deck with 4 copies of 'grotesque statue'! Lola Hayes can take both cards as well, but she needs to be a mystic to trigger the statue and a guardian to trigger 'well-maintained' which might be difficult to achieve consistently.

11zxcvb11 · 3
In addition, while Sleight of Hand + Act of Desperation is already a popular combo. Consider adding Well-maintained. Now that's a pretty big combo (4 cards, counting the high cost item you want to use), but that's some effect. — Phelpsb83 · 190

arkhamdb.com

Overpowered in a Vincent Lee recursion deck with the combo piece Bandages + Well-Maintained + Spirit of Humanity. Endless recursion of Bandages, fill the bag up with 10 Blessed Tokens with Spirit of Humanity. This also procs Vincent's ability, giving you endless On the Mend (Unexpected Courage). You'll need someway to offset the horror damage, though.

What's the meaning of "endless recursion"? Did you miss that you cannot return Well-Maintained itself? — elkeinkrad · 468
You can't take Spirit of Humanity on Vincent as it's a level 2 Survivor card. — HungryColquhoun · 1890
Vincent can take cards that "heal damage" level 0-5, so Spirit of Humanity should be possible. But I'n unsure how you want to recur Well-Maintaned often. — Miroque · 23
All you would need for the endless bless token cycle is spirit of humanity + Jessica Hyde + Petey Boi + Charisma. No need to fluff about with recursion. — Sengy · 1