5 XP buys you 3 cancel cards that are really weird to use, requiring at least 2 be in play to get good use out of them, seeing as most scenarios will probably only have treacheries applicable to one of the cards, and blowing up that card early would squander the value of the other two.
Ignoring that for a moment, this is an interesting card, loads of potential, as it's Fast and costs 1 XP. That's a lotta value, and while 5 XP is a steep cost it's Myriad, so you pay once to get all 3. A card like this definitely isn't for everyone, and quite literally it is not for everyone as it's an Investigator Tag restricted card, which I love, hope they print way more cards like that in Neutral. But, this means as we consider who can use it best, we gotta also consider who even can use it.
I'm not gonna list literally every character who can use this, seeing as you can use this very website to do that yourself. Instead, I'm gonna focus on what I believe to be the standout cases.
Diana Stanley: I have to start with her because she's literally two of the things on this card, yet to her, it's absolutely awful. Yes, it procs her ability, and if that was all we cared about that'd be fine. However, the flip-side of Diana is that she can get clogged up with cancel/ignore cards, which means she can't use her ability until she unclogs, and there's only two ways to do that: hitting her signature weakness, and using her signature asset. The relevance here, for anyone who has never played this investigator (if you're reading the review for this card and haven't played Diana Stanley, she's great, one of my favs, and she's all about what this card does), is that her signature asset only lets you play/commit skills or events that are placed under her. Sacred Oath being an asset means that it is a brick under Diana that makes it harder to use her resource engine. This is fine though, Diana doesn't really wanna be a part of the Lodge anymore.
Kōhaku Narukami: He gets access to Shrine of the Moirai, which could let him recover one Sacred Oath as well as a level 0 card. Why would you draw an encounter card to recur encounter cancellation? A good question, which must be considered whenever I mention that someone can take the Shrine, but it's something that can be done. Perhaps you just really need a specific level 0 card back, and drawing the Sacred Oath is just a way of mitigating the cost to do so.
Wendy Adams: Parallel Wendy gets the Cursed tag, which lets her take Sacred Oath. I believe she might have the most potential shenanigans to use this card with, though the efficiency of these shenanigans are debatable. With her Survivor access she can take Shrine of the Moirai, as well as Survival Technique. This gives her the ability to repeatedly recur level 0 cards while greatly mitigating the cost to do so, assuming you only ever draw treacheries that match your in-play Oaths. Of course, Wendy can already technically recur events using her signature asset, so why does this matter? Well assuming you don't play her special scenario during your campaign, you can use this to deal with tricky clog cards that stand between you and something actually usable, or bring back precious soak assets that you'll be needing after getting brained for 2 direct horror by Abandoned and Alone, or even trying to save some cards from said braining if you don't yet have your amulet in play. Is this combo worth 8 XP and 4 deck slots? Depends on what value you can squeeze out of the recursion. Important to note, this works with either card back, so you can take original Wendy's card back to bring back her Oath alongside something like "Watch this!" to maintain a steady, mostly actionless income.
Patrice Hathaway: Patrice's ability to run through her deck means she's not gonna have to worry too much about getting the relevant Oaths into play. She also can't normally hold onto cards, which means having encounter denial that sticks to her board has a bit more value if you're worried about specific encounters. She can do all the Shrine stuff I've already mentioned to recur this, but unlike Wendy she can't just recur every single event in her discard, which adds a bit more value to this combo that it did for Wendy.
To conclude this review, I want to address why my three picks to highlight all included Shrine of the Moirai:
I didn't want to write a review for what it's like to have 3 pieces of very specific encounter protection that require some finicky setup, because the answer to that question, quite plainly, is "it's not that good". However, Sacred Oath is an asset with the only the Pact tag, which makes it hard to find meaningful interactions. And, of the two that I could find, one of them was negative. The Oath's themselves are not bad, it's the price that's bad. Being level 5 holds back its only synergy tremendously. With Shrine it's possible this card may hold a niche in some deck, but without it there's nothing special here, just binder fodder. I hope, though, that future card/Investigators invalidate my review in time.
