The initial use of this card is pretty obvious: fill up the bag with blessings, and then play Ward of Protection at a cost of one fewer horror and one less resource. It also works on fellow investigators! The trade-offs are clear: it’s not automatic. But with favor of the sun, it becomes automatic. With Tides of Fate, it becomes much more common; that card specifically lets you play it before drawing cards in the mythos phase. This card shines in support Mary or Mateo, where a lot of your game is spent filling the bags with goodness and protecting your fellow investigators.

A Preston blessing deck is extremely viable, based on ancient covenant getting you to a 3 when you need it. And this card is the cornerstone. Unlike most characters with survivor access, cash aint an issue when it comes to playing it. Use resourceful on other investigators test to recur it.

So, a lot of people have figured out that you can use this to evade the Harbinger multiple times in one turn without having to re-engage it (especially good with someone like Rita Young who would be better at evading it than fighting it). Well, I have an even more janky proposition for you:

Suppose that you're engaged with enemies and you have Entombed in your threat area. You provoke an AoO (or get damaged through some other means), it would defeat you except that you have Cheat Death in your hand, so you play that. Normally, the first step of Cheat Death is that you disengage from each enemy engaged with you, but Entombed prevents this from happening so you go to the next step, discard all cards in your threat area. This includes both Entombed itself, and the enemies that you are engaged with.

But wait, it gets better...

Because Cheat Death is not expecting to discard enemies at all it has no text preventing it from discarding Elite enemies. This means that if you have the Harbinger of Valusia engaged with you, you simply discard her from play; Achievement unlocked.

But it gets even better...

Normally, in the resolution to The Doom of Eztli, if you haven't defeated the Harbinger, you would record that she is still alive, which means that she comes back in future scenarios, however the actual text of the resolution is as follows:

If the Harbinger of Valusia is still in play or set aside, record in your Campaign Log that the Harbinger is still alive. Next to this, in parentheses, record how much damage is on the Harbinger of Valusia.

In general, if the Harbinger is not in play or set aside, she is in the Victory Display, but if you somehow discard the Harbinger, she will be out of play and not in the Victory Display. Congratulations, you have eliminated the Harbinger of Valusia without wracking up any Fury of Yig at all.

As has been mentioned, only Carolyn Fern might want this, and only in multiplayer.

That said, Carolyn Fern might want this! (but only in multiplayer!)

A couple things in the past year have boosted it's stock:

• Safeguard / Safeguard 2. This fantastic talent already helps Carolyn stick to & support her pals. For Kerosene, this makes it much easier to be in the room when a baddie gets thwacked, ready to serve up some Fiery Psychiatry.

• Backpack 2. Kerosene's an item! Carolyn doesn't otherwise need her body-slot, and Backpack 2's 12-deep search can grab 3 of her key tools early, including Kerosene, as well as her Cameras, Pills, Pipes, Keys, Hooch, and Surgical Cleaver.

Kerosene's major downside is its clunkiness. But if Carolyn's already using the above tools (which she has ample reason to do), a lot of that clunkiness is mitigated, making Kerosene an appealing low-XP, no-slot-occupying, tutorable, multi-target healer & resource generator.

This review is coming atcha from a fellow who has never used this card. I therefore speak with all the confidence and all the experience of a political pundit.

Here's my golden dream: couldn't this card be the ultimate answer to enemy control? Now that it also prevents monsters from spawning at its location, when you are camped out in your barricade, you WANT to draw monsters. And there are cards that can help you do it. If you're a couch-bound Rex, you could take a couple copies of On the Hunt and "Let me handle this!", and greatly increase your chances of drawing monsters or taking friends' monsters. Your buddies can help with cards like Scrying, "You handle this one!", and other encounter deck manipulation tools.

What happens to those monsters bouncing off your bunker roof? It's embarrassing for them, but they just sort of pile up. The hunters are totally neutered, because despite your inaccessibility, you are always going to be the closest investigator, and therefore, unless their instructions say otherwise, they will try to hunt you. Even if there is another investigator just as close, the rules still allow you to designate yourself as the target (again, unless special prey instructions dictate otherwise) And so, on the enemy phase, they will pathetically nose around your impenetrable cocoon, accomplishing nothing, while your friends clear the board of clues.

The advantage of having the vast majority of monsters drawn do NOTHING at all doesn't really need to be spelled out. It's so good, that it's almost worth it in a four player game to have one person just camp out and do nothing but try to draw enemies. But of course, as we all know now, it's possible to work remotely. All investigators with access to Barricade also have access to In the Know, Seeking Answers, and Pendant of the Queen, among other tools. Connect the Dots chains very nicely with In the Know, allowing you to gobble clues efficiently from the comfort of your little sanctum. And though In the Know will run out quickly, there are ways to recharge it: Truth from Fiction, Enraptured, and Eldritch Sophist, specifically.

To me, the question is, how many scenarios give you the luxury of camping out like this? Obviously in scenarios like Essex County Express, it's a no-go. It's worthless in The Miskatonic Museum, because the only enemy in the deck is elite. But take a scenario like The House Always Wins. How cool would it be to chill in the Clover Club Bar all game? When the first abomination spawns in the Lounge, rather than making for a beeline for your compatriots in the back rooms, he'll just lurk around the lounge, giving you dirty looks and maybe kicking over a table every now and then. When the second abomination tries to show up in the bar, he'll find himself ignominiously shunted into the lounge instead, thus doubling the stupidity. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to draw the third, so all three stooges can chill there together. The only potential complication is the damn Clover Club Pit Boss, who is elite. The team needs to find a way to make him hunt west rather than east, possibly tough to do if you are the seeker...

And now my dream ends, and I await the rude awakening which I'm sure will be delivered to me by the first commenter!