This guy is the enabler of true solo decks. is a very good class pair as it bridges hard-fighting and hard-clueing, many hard-to-solo investigators (which the class maybe neither nor , but deckbuilding requirement dabbles into these classes) can use his help. I can enjoy the gameplay without playing 2 handed for more characters now!

The problem in building such a deck is that a character can't fight accurately, can hit accurately but for tiny amount of damage or limited time, or can't clue 3+ shroud location. This guy fixes them all as long as you manage to get 5 XP from the 1st scenario. Not only that, 3 health 3 sanity also "fixes" the character by enabling face-tanking treachery on the side that the character is weak for 1-2 more times, because solo play deck is not able to receive external icon commits coverage like in multiplayer and is likely to surrender to some treacheries.

For example :

• Monterey Jack Solo : Trusty Bullwhip can +1 damage only once, takes forever to dispatch piling up enemies alone. Now you get more +1 damage to combo with his accurate whip to get out of trouble fast, after hard work of gathering clues to refill evidences. (3 damages in one action is huge for one-shotting monster just drawn! Especially that both whip and Michael will exhaust.)
• Lily Chen Solo : With Discipline and putting this guy down pushes her to where she can continue the story on her own with a bit of glass cannon clue tools like Evidence! or Drawn to the Flame.

Also, a lot of true solo failures comes from 3 HP enemies not quite dying fast enough when a new one comes in, and there is no other investigators to finish the job with lower firepower weapon, sometimes resulting in massive waste of ammo/charges. +1 damage is great for many +1 damage weapons available out there.

Probably the least popular first pick Discipline, but I’ve found in the context of solo/2p, to be the best choice to build your starter deck around. The reasons are laid out below.

Firstly, in solo/2p, versatility is greater valued as a deckbuilding goal, and I argue should even be slightly biased towards clue discovery, no matter your chosen character. 3 Intellect is the reasonable spot where you can start investigating right off the bat (assuming Standard, Hard/Expert solo/2p needs different deckbuilding considerations), especially in earlier campaign scenarios where the shroud values at or around your starting location tend to be 2-3.

Compared against a +Willpower Lily build who needs to hard mull or draw/Arcane Initiate into either of her 2x Sixth Sense, a +Intellect Lily can more reliably start pulling clues early, especially with some support from a good range of cards such as Flashlights or pitched icons.

Secondly, this Discipline’s draw power has the highest potential in terms of game impact. In solo/2p, you can’t rely on other investigators to cover for you while you draw into your dream min-maxed combo. Quite often you got to deal with whatever the obstacle is yourself, which can range from show-stopping Arkham nonsense such as a Locked Door, to a stubborn enemy that just spawned on you while you aren’t “ready”.

The +WIP Discipline healing ability is a nice to have ability, but its scope to bail you out of a bad situation is extremely narrow. The +AGI combo ability is cool to pull off, but honestly if you already have the setup to have a reasonable shot at 3 different Fight/Evades, it’s more of an icing-on-the-cake-cool-to-have but not absolutely game saving ability, and is only limited to getting you out of bad situations involving enemies. The +STR Discipline’s AOOless +5 is pretty flexible, but I would argue the ability to draw into potential high-impact out options such as a Promise of Power or Spectral Razor in an emergency, has better value in solo/2p. Even better, this Discipline’s ability gets stronger the more desperately you need it, when you have lesser cards/options in hand, and just need something to quickly stabilise yourself.

Lastly, you probably won’t use the ability more than a couple of times each scenario, but if you do, it’s when you are desperate. Don’t be greedy and wait for when you have no or 1 card in hand, pulling for 3 cards or more in 1 action is already pretty good especially in a Guardian/Mystic.

All in all, do consider this as your first Discipline the next time you build for solo/2p Lily, and try a deck that is built around the ability to replenish cards the quicker you use them. Skill cards, fast abilities, cards with a versatile spread of icons, gain value in such a deck approach. Which, I would argue, dovetails nicely into the deckbuilding considerations for lower player counts.

(Review edited to remove a mistaken non-critical point I made about the Discipline potentially unbreaking itself the same turn you break it)

This card is amazing, and it's worth taking in just about every and quite a few characters that have access to it at Level 0. Let's discuss the nature of events and compare this one to the others across the card pool at present to explain why this card is so useful.

First, the card type of choice for doing damage is an asset, whether it is a Spell or a Weapon (Nathaniel Cho excepted, of course). Your monster fighters have to spend an action to put it down and pay for its (high) resource cost, but it pays off in the end since you are paying just the single card for usually 4 or more shots. In order for events that deal damage to compete, there has to be some benefit over weapons to justify their high card cost for a single attack. Of course, for clue-focused investigators, damage-dealing events are key because they don't need to be played until the investigator is in trouble, but then they'd better solve the problem quickly. So, let's look at how the Level 0 and Level 1 damage-dealing events justify their cost.

• Dynamite Blast: Costs 5, 3 testless damage to every enemy at a connecting location.
• One-Two Punch: Costs 2, max 3 damage, but two tests at +1 and +2 .
• Toe to Toe: Costs 0, testless 2 damage, but enemy attacks you first.
• Monster Slayer: Costs 0, 2 damage, no skill boost.
• Clean Them Out: Costs 0, 1 damage, no skill boost, gain 2 resources.
• "Get over here!": Costs 2, 1 damage, free engage of an enemy at current or connecting location.
• Mano a Mano (1: Costs 0, testless 1 damage, only as your first action to an enemy engaged with you.
• Sweeping Kick (1): Costs 1, 2 damage, add , auto-evade on success
• Gang Up (1): Costs 3, up to 6 damage, up to +5 , contingent upon classes controlled.
• Blood Eclipse (1): Costs 1, 3 damage, uses with +2 skill value. Must take 2 damage first.
• Radiant Smite (1): Costs 1, up to 4 damage, may use , up to +3 skill value, contingent upon sealing tokens.

• "I've got a plan!": Costs 3, up to 4 damage (contingent upon having clues), uses , no skill value boost.
• Occult Invocation: Costs 2, up to 3 damage, uses , up to +2 skill value, contingent upon discarding cards.
• Blood-Rite: Costs 0, up to 2 testless damage, but requires you to spend up to 2 resources and discard 2 cards, is bonded to Occult Lexicon.

• Blinding Light: Costs 2, deals 1 damage as a result of a successful evasion ( used).
• Storm of Spirits: Costs 3, 2 damage to every enemy in your location, uses , no skill boost, can damage all investigators in your location for 1 damage.
• Spectral Razor: Costs 2, 3 damage (2 to Elites), adds your , free engage.

• Backstab: Costs 3, 3 damage, uses , no skill boost.
• Sneak Attack: Costs 2, 2 testless damage only to exhausted enemies, can provoke AoO.
• Small Favor: Costs 2 (4), 1 (2) testless damage, only to non-Elites, can provoke AoO, cost can be increased to target enemies at other locations.
• Cheap Shot: Costs 2, 1 damage, adds your , auto-evade on succeed by 2.
• Coup de Grâce: Costs 2, 1 testless damage, draws a card upon enemy defeat, ends your turn.
• Ríastrad (1): Costs 0, up to 4 damage, up to +3 , damage and skill boost contingent upon adding tokens.

• Act of Desperation: Costs 0, 2 damage, skill boost is equal to the cost of the hand slot item discarded, potential resource generation.
• Improvised Weapon: Costs 1, up to 2 damage if played from discard pile, +1 skill boost.
• Flare (1), Costs 2, 3 damage, +2 , must be Exiled.
• Brute Force (1), Costs 0, 1 damage, +3 , 3 damage total on succeed by 2 (not actually an event but acts like one).

At this moment in Arkham Horror, dealing 3 damage with one action will get you out of almost every problematic enemy (including weaknesses) that spawned on you, freeing you up to dealing with another larger enemy or something else you want to do that turn. Since most of the lower level weapons only do 2 damage, barring Vicious Blow, you're looking for a different one-card solution to these sorts of enemies: an event! As you can see, dealing 3 damage in an event is very rare across the classes at this level. It's usually more expensive, or doesn't give a skill boost at all, or is contingent upon some other effect. Spectral Razor gives all of that AND a free engage, saving your teammate or grabbing an Aloof enemy. It's true that Mystics need the stat boost here because their stats are fairly low, but they're also likely to have static boosts in play, and even fighting an enemy at 6 to 3 is not a bad idea. But since most Guardians have 3 or 4 , those that can take this are getting a ton of value. Yes, you'll miss the third damage when you fight an Elite, but this is a single event card, and you (or the team) should have other ways of dealing with other enemies.

At higher levels, the Spell and weapon assets start to catch up since they have multiple or infinite uses at the cost of an action to play them down first. But it's worth stating that Shrivelling (5), which does 3 damage to any enemy, doesn't have the free engage and can hurt you for 2 horror on a bad token pull. Cyclopean Hammer, in contention for the best weapon in the game, has the same "add your " effect as Spectral Razor, but the third damage is contingent upon succeeding by 3. Since this strong effect is a level 0 card, you and your XP is freed up to think of ways to recur it, or even play it many times...

It disengage/evade only an enemy with a leyline, so when engaged with multiple enemies, this allows thinning down the fight for your fighters. (Unlike something like Elusive, which disengage with all enemies, so they are still clumped up together.)

Often the fighter is fighting a high damage enemy without knowing if more enemy would join in mid-fight on the next Mythos draw or not. By putting leyline on that high damage enemy, you can have a way to mitigate that situation.

If the fighter did draw a new enemy while fighting, activate to tear away harder enemy and left the fighter with easier enemy engaged and moved together to the fighter's new location. The fighter finish that enemy and is now free to walk away one more location such that the strong Hunter enemy cannot just follow and preemptively attack.

The next turn when it closes in, fighter moves in and resume the fight. Since leyline is not removed when you choose disengage option, you can repeat again later. Ensuring more 1-on-1 fights.

When playing 3 players, it is also cool to have the other person go in and grab the left-behind enemy, also save Engage action that would otherwise needed to go in and directly take it from the fighter that is now swarmed.

I originally thought that this card would be broken, but after putting into practice for a campaign, I think that it is fairly costed. It's a one-of that is hard to find in your deck, costs 4 resources, requires you to do a little work in the first scenario you find it, and it costs 4 XP. Let's talk about that last point for a second -- 4 XP is a lot and usually gets you cards that progress the scenario. In Seeker, it certainly buys you strong cards. You can get a fast free draw 3, an ally that will provide some soak and double the effects of some Tomes, a fast event every turn, and six (or more) extra actions.

What does Gateway to Acheron do? You have to spend an action to move anyone to 4 locations -- notably ones that have already been revealed. On the biggest of maps, if you really want to move to the far corners more than once, this will save you quite a few actions by itself. In practice, most of the time you're going to move two or three locations away, and you might use it on a friend who doesn't have any actions left. This is very useful! But Arkham Horror has been pushing movement cards for the last few cycles. We have Scout Ahead that moves you up to 3 times. Seeker already has Join the Caravan to perform this effect once without spending any actions. Even Astral Travel will get you across a map at Level 0 and has been in the card pool for ages. And usually scenarios with big maps have scenario effects that let you move a little more quickly.

Now, the other part of this card in particular is to take a free investigate action at the cost of removing the leyline. In practice, given the pressures of the scenarios, I used this ability in conjunction with the movement almost every time, and always on myself (I was the seeker after all!). You still have to take the test, and it could be using any asset or event to do so. But again, you still have to spend an action to trigger the ability in the first place, so in practice this felt like I was saving 2-3 actions every time I used it. Very good, and probably a bit better than the other 4 XP cards, but not overly so. You're more likely to get the obvious uses out of Eon Chart, whereas this one will sit on the table (or your hand) until it feels like you'll get the most value out of it. Still, this card is very good; great, even, but plays fair. I also found it fun to decide when was the right moment to use it, unlike Eon Chart which you pretty much just use every turn you have a secret on it.

Finally, a comment on "breaking" certain scenarios -- yes, a few certain older scenarios expect you to trek across a map, one location at a time. But I don't think Arkham Horror cares if some scenarios are easier than others if you tech for them or get lucky. Luke Robinson's entire schtick is that he can warp anywhere starting from the beginning of the campaign. There are plenty of other cards, even at level 0, that allow you to avoid or trivialize entire acts -- heck, "I'm outta here!" is designed for this. The balance is that some scenarios make Archive of Conduits fairly useless. If you have a small map, or no reason to go to revealed locations you've already visited, this is a 4 XP card sitting in your hand. At least in that case it has excellent icons to commit.