This card was printed exactly as designed during Arkham Nights 2020, and that is amazing news.
3 experience per copy is a steep cost, so let's see the reasons behind.
The obvious:
- Flashlight (3) has 1 more supply
- Flashlight (3) now supports evasion tests
- Flashlight (3) logically gains an icon to commit.
That is alright at best. Supporting evasion is good, but except for a few evade-focussed investigators like Finn Edwards, Rita Young or Kymani Jones, this is unlikely to find many homes.
The less obvious:
- Flashlight (3) is not an anymore, and is instead a . This opens so many doors.
- This means that Flashlight (3) can now be used on any investigate or evade action triggered by events and other assets
- It especially shines in the succeed by X events like Pilfer (3), Breaking and Entering (2), Lockpicks.
- Flashlight (3) is now one of the centrepieces of the "Difficulty 0" archetype. Not only it reduces the difficulty itself, but it adds onto other difficulty reduction effects like Winging It, Impromptu Barrier, Old Keyring (0) and (3), Lantern, Stealth and Stealth (3). As pointed out in the comments, it also works with The Skeleton Key, which guarantees every test difficulty to be 0.
Conclusion:
If you are planning to play the Difficulty 0 archetype, with Shed a Light and Exploit Weakness (reducing the evasion to 0), Flashlight (3) is going to be a must-have. As this archetype is mainly , this means that you'll probably use Scavenging (2) as well.
The other archetype that could use this card is if you plan to investigate/evade using the succeed by X cards and that has access to Scavenging (2) to replay it constantly.
Who will be playing this?:
Any investigator with Scavenging (2) and who would want to use Exploit Weakness can take Flashlight (3) and will get value out of it. Out of them all, the investigators that I see taking the best out of Flashlight (3) are:
- Darrell Simmons the master of the Difficulty 0 archetype.
- Wendy Adams as she can easily dispose of Winging It through her ability and play Shed a Light with her Wendy's Amulet and play Scavenging (2)
- Preston Fairmont with his 1-1-1-1 stat line, who can Double, Double Shed a Light and with Lola Santiago, you will actually have 2 so automatically succeed means triggering Scavenging (2).
- Rita Young and her new Breaking and Entering (2)
- Minh Thi Phan using Arcane Insight, Shed a Light and Scavenging (2).
I'm tinkering now a lot with the zero difficulty archtype in Rita, and I agree, this is the most important card here. For all the reasons, you say.
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Susumu
· 366
I would add Bob Jenkins to the list : he has access to most cards you mentioned, and as an Item it works with his ability and signature.
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DrOGM
· 25
One other difference is that the card no longer reduces the shroud, so you can freely use it in conjunction with The Skeleton Key (but not with Lola Santiago to get a cheaper clue)
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dscarpac
· 999
That's not right. The shroud IS the test difficulty for investigate action. "Skeleton Key" set's it to 1, and this card also reduces the shroud for Lola, just like the level 0 version. The reason, tha card does not call it shroud is, because it also works on evade tests.
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Susumu
· 366
@Susumu is there an explicit official clarification for this somewhere? The default difficulty for an investigate test is equal to your location's shroud and shroud modifications therefore change the difficulty, but that's no reason to assume that changing the difficulty also changes the shroud.
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TheNameWasTaken
· 3
I stand corrected. Under "Difficulty (skill tests)" in the RR is written: "When investigating a location, the base difficulty of the skill test is the location's shroud value." Because of the "base" this should probably be possible to be altered.
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Susumu
· 366
Thanks, I will add this in the review! Also @Susumu feel free to share your Rita concept with Flashlight (3). I have just added a deck example but I am not fully sold yet...
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Valentin1331
· 69035
My first attempt was more of a flex deck, 3 players "Return to TFA" on normal, forging our own path and winning "Turn Back Time". "Dirty Fighting" was very nice for the additional 1 damage punches to fill the Harbinger with resources, then for the last 2 scenarios, I packed a Chainsaw: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/2484140 Now I'm currently playing her in the fan campaign "Return to TDE", also 3 players, but on hard, and this time the full cluever. The deck is quite similar to your's, but without Waylay, and with "Short Supply", mainly to increase the odds of at least one early Crafty (with Resourceful). Pilfering and Sheding a Light on it is something, any Rogue will shake their heads about, and any Seeker will envy: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/2499997 I'm planning to publish a deck, or write a Rita review, or both, once I'm done with this campaign. My impression is, that Rita has been an underdog for the longest time, but became an amazing powerful investigators with her growing card pool, and can be build in many different ways now.
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Susumu
· 366
Weirdly enough, you can "zero" shroud 4 locations also with only one lvl 3 and one lvl 0 version out, activating the lvl 0 ability and then triggering the lvl 3 ability.
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AlderSign
· 284