This card has a cool interaction with Gene Beauregard. You can freely move to locations and move enemies off of you to a convenient spot. It's a very expensive combination in terms of slots, resources, and XP. However, it gives you tremendous, testless protection against enemies.
Amanda, Silas and Minh need good skills. Bob, Carol and Yorick traffic in assets. But nobody does events like the famed forger. And as the carpool is expanded, she’s gone from a curiosity to a main eventer if you know how to build her.
For example, rogues now have more ways to make money. Instead of just Hot Streak, there is Faustian bargain, 21 or bust (which pairs well with token manipulation, easily available in Mystics 0-2), voice of Ra…because forging isn’t for artistic value, it’s for money.
Miss Rousseau plays a different big money game than Preston or Jenny. Willpower four and matching agility mean you don’t have to fear the encounter deck as you build up your cash. And instead of steady supplies, you get big rushes: up to 16 bucks in one action with a double blackjack, or 10 bucks spread to the team and four curses at only 8xp.
Edge of the earth adds underworld ties, which makes sense for someone who encounters the mythos from a profit perspective. You get triples of your best card (the painted world), your favorite toys are exceptional… and your deck size is big enough that you can still fit in whatever you want, with substitutions. Lockpicks and spells. Well Connected and Greg Gry (add a +5, then get a dollar for over succeeding!) or David R. Unlike Winnifred, you can ignore skill dependency with spells, and use your money to avoid having to upgrade them much. Then, Well Connected.
Plus, tarot cards, not introduced when The portraiteer first took the path to Carcosa, are easy to find in a 13 card opening hand.
Get rich quick. Succeed by a ton. Forge, forge, forge!
For those looking to play hyper flavor-first campaigns/decks, note that the art features Alice Luxley. (Unfortunate that it doesn't really make sense for her to be present until Threads of Fate, though.)
The Harbinger essentially disables your deck, which is such an interesting effect for a weakness. I've been trying to think of ways this card could be used to Norman's advantage.
While the harbinger is in play:
Any ability that would have no effect without deck interaction cannot be activated [^1]
(You could not activate Word of Command—naming a Spell Card does not alter the game state)
Any cards with additional costs which interact with your deck cannot be activated [^2]
(You could not trigger an attached Bloodlust)
We can only play cards that would interact with the deck if the deck interaction is not a cost of playing the card and they have some other effect on the game.
The first thing that sprang to mind was Winging It. If you have harbinger on the field, you could infinitely play this from the discard pile, granting an endless 1 cost source of -1 Difficulty, +1 Clue Investigate actions!
Winging It does not exclusively interact with the deck. It starts an Investigate action. The deciding factor on whether this is possible then, is whether the "If you do, shuffle it into your deck after resolving its effects." clause is an additional activation cost when you opt to play it from the discard pile.
"You owe me one!" has the same wording with no "after" timing. The card's effects are not dependent on drawing. You would still be able to play an ally's card if one or both Investigators are unable to draw. This event is still be playable.
Enchanted Blade is even more similarly worded: "you may spend 1 charge... If you do, you get +1 and deal +1 damage for this attack." If something were preventing you from increasing your or damage, I believe you would be unable to spend a charge to empower the blade, as the game state would not change apart from paying a cost. If boosting only 1 of either the +1 or +1 damage was blocked though, there would still be an effect, the optional cost should be payable, and the empower effect activate-able.
Given these 2 cards, I'd argue that shuffling it into the discard pile is an unresolvable effect, due to the Harbinger, and that Winging It is thus playable.
We could play Blood-Rite to discard cards without drawing, or Knowledge is Power to discard Spell or Tome assets from our hand without drawing cards.
I struggle to see how it could be beneficial for Norman though.
Any Treachery that would interact with your deck simply doesn't.
This has limited usefulness in most scenarios, but can be of immense benefit in some specific campaigns. It's hilarious to draw encounter cards that just have no effect due to the deckless playstyle.
[^1]: An ability cannot initiate ... if the resolution of its effect will not change the game state.
[^2]: If an effect that requires an additional cost would resolve, the additional cost must be paid at that time. If the additional cost cannot be paid, that aspect of the effect fails to resolve.
So this is one of those cards that improves in multiple (very noticeable) ways on upgrade from Parallel Fates.
First, it looks at more cards, with a 6 card look at the encounter deck that's 6(!) rounds in true solo, 3 rounds in 2 players and 2 rounds in 3 players of knowing exactly what the encounter deck is going to throw and at who, which is a 50% improvement over the level 0 version.
Second, it doesn't have a 'failure' chance. Unlike Parallel Fates where if it whiffs you've lost your planning advantage, the card and the action, the leveled up version doesn't require a token draw. Note that you can still shuffle the deck if the 6 cards you see are particularly unappealing, but it's likely a fringe case as having knowledge of upcoming encounter cards is likely better than shuffling and you can put the 'problem' card or cards at the bottom of the 6 card stack.
Lastly, it can be used on investigators! Look at 6, draw 1 allows your buddy (or yourself) to search for an important asset early on in the scenario. It can also let you dodge or plan for weaknesses later on (Hey, you'll draw your weakness 4 turns from now, be ready!). This one makes a bit more sense to shuffle if none of the cards are useful so you can get to a part of your deck you want to see faster and not have to draw through 6 duds. Also note that the targeted investigator does not have to be at your location.
Overall it seems like a high quality card that has good versatility. I think parallels (ha) can be drawn to Cryptic Research(4) for drawing key cards (digs 6 instead of 3, but isn't fast, 2xp vs 4) or very favorably to Scrying(3) (1 action to look at 6 instead of 9, 0 cost vs 1, 2xp vs 3).