This card is amazing in conjunction with Archaic Glyphs!

Going all in on Guiding Stones can clear a whole location's worth of clues in one go but runs the risk of the ol' tentacles. Not any more! In addition, if no tokens are drawn every two icons you add guarantees you another clue.

This is an 8 XP combo requiring a researched asset with limited charges on both. While it's on the upper end of the power curve I don't think it's inappropriate.

This is a niche upgrade. Sure, you get +2 to the things you were testing before (foot/fist/brain), and you can put on book tests (which is great news if you’re Trish), but there are a lot of great cheaper rogue cards. I can see this fitting into Winifred once you pass 30 XP and have all the assets and events you’re looking for. You can spend up to three, which means spending zero is possible, but at that point, you spent 3XP to add a pip to unexpected courage.

In theory, I understand the idea. If you can play this and consistently discard illicit assets that are high value, you can then get them back and play them again. But in order to do that, you need to spend 4 XP, draw and play an exceptional card, have a reliably way of getting that illicit asset out of play, spend 2 resources and another action, and spend the resources/action to play that again? And then do that multiple times to really get value from it? The barrier to getting good use out of this is incredibly high.

It's made worse by the fact that this is in rogue - one of the classes where you can do the same thing and so much more by simply drawing through your deck again. Ace in the Hole, All In, Friends in Low Places, Lucky Cigarette Case, and so on all exist - if you're really relying on getting something illicit twice, you can do so by getting more cards.

And that's assuming that your illicit asset isn't important enough that you're throwing a second copy of it under Underworld Market, which is already a premium way of gaining access to illicit cards - a second copy of any other illicit card is still going to be a resource and action cheaper than trying to use this.

Is there a space for this somewhere? I suppose this could theoretically also go under Underworld Market, so you could do something involving using this, firing off a Gatling Gun at full power repeatedly, getting rid of it somehow, then spending a couple of actions to play it again and again. But making this worthwhile requires one of those 4+ card combos that needs to set you up for the rest of the game, and this just doesn't. I'm not sure I'd use this as 1 XP permanent, never mind a 4 XP, 1 Cost Asset.

This requires so much to do something so theoretically straightforward that you can hear survivor recursion cards laughing at all of the effort and resources it takes.

Does anyone know what would happen if I choose a spell such as Armageddon as my branded spell, and end up playing on a scenario that makes me start the game with fewer than 5 resources? per either the Indebted weakness as certain scenarios and campaigns can have you add a random basic weakness to your deck midway through campaigns

Example being, I am starting a custom scenario with 2 fewer resources per the setup instructions in this campaign,

What would happen with my branded spell Eldritch Brand since I no longer have the 4 required resources to pay for the branded spell before drawing my opening hand,

Would the spell stay in my deck and I just have to hope I end up drawing into it because I cannot meet the payment requirements?

Eldritch Brand

For many of the uses of A Glimmer of Hope (0), this is a marginal upgrade at best. If your desire is to have a bunch of cards that you can use as discard fodder and then profitably recur as more discard fodder by pulling back two or three at a time, then this is only a slight help - if you find you need to commit the cards instead, then they serve as an Unexpected Courage half the time instead of a meagre icon. Unfortunately for "Ashcan" Pete, a strong "Glimmer of Hope" candidate, this is generally the wrong half of the time for him - if you're pulling Glimmers back to your hand so that you can ready Duke and then commit to help him sniff out a clue or take a bite at a ghoul, A Glimmer of Hope (2) doesn't serve you any better than the base version. It is at least inexpensive, clocking in at just 2/3rds of an XP per card. If it ends up helping your Wendy Adams pass an important or test, then it might earn its keep even if you normally plan on discarding it to fuel her ability. But Cornered also costs 2 XP, can give you a +2 to any type of test, and takes A Glimmer of Hope (0) just fine.

I think this card is more directed towards the other use case of A Glimmer of Hope, where you actually intend to commit the card for its icons. This usually means that you're improving those icons in some way: Grisly Totem (0) and its advanced variants Grisly Totem (3 - Seeker) / Grisly Totem (3 - Survivor) and/or the ability of Minh Thi Phan. Just one such effect elevates each copy of A Glimmer of Hope (2) above Unexpected Courage, and being able to recur two or three at once for an action and a resource starts to look like a reasonable deal. If you're able to add two icons to the card instead then you're golden. Better still, if you manage to get all three copies of A Glimmer of Hope (2) into your hand and/or discard pile as Minh, then you've got a perfect package solution to your signature weakness The King in Yellow: Act One; exactly three cards with six icons for either a or test. The kicker? If you run into the nightmare scenario where Minh pulls the autofail on her test to get rid of The King in Yellow: Act One then you can simply take the action to pull all three copies of A Glimmer of Hope (2) back into your hand and try again at the next opportunity, potentially saving yourself from total disaster.

The other natural A Glimmer of Hope (2) committer is George Barnaby who gets to commit the cards that he's using as discard fodder - potentially right away. Either Glimmer is a +2 to a skill test for most Cornered investigators, but the 2 XP investment in this version might be the difference between discarding to Cornered and instantly committing to a test giving you +3, or +4. This is particularly notable given George's base 2 , where going to 6 rather than 5 might be more comfortable as mythos protection, particularly on hard or expert difficulty. Similarly, for Georges who are hoping to snare up some opponents with an Anchor Chain, while you cannot immediately benefit from a A Glimmer of Hope (2) that you plan to use as discard fodder to activate Anchor Chain's stun, if you happen to have one "tucked in the boat" already then that can pump your evade attempt to 6 instead of 5. Nautical!

Finally, A Glimmer of Hope (2) is not a dead card for Yaotl in the way that A Glimmer of Hope (0) would be; It's still a weak card for him, especially for an experienced card, but it could resolve some of the tension between wanting access to more discard fodder and wanting your cards to feature non-wild icons in something like a desperate "Ashcan" Pete Yaotl deck.