tl;dr Well Prepared, Archaic Glyphs (Guiding Stones), The Necronomicon is a crazy combo that can trivialize clue-gathering.

In longer form...

This card is a core piece of my favorite Arkham LCG deck: Joe "The Book" Diamond. It's a basic three-card combo deck that can perform absolutely mind-boggling feats of clue-gathering and save tons of actions.

So we've got the Nomnomicon. What's the rest of this combo? It's pretty simple, but at the time of writing only Joe can pull it off. You just need Archaic Glyphs and Well Prepared! With the Necronomicon this comes out to 15 XP total. Triggering Well Prepared on the Necronomicon gives you +5 to Intellect, which with nothing else is already a 9-value stat. Assets and other commits, as well as skill boosts from the Necronomicon, can easily raise you enough to pick up 3 or more clues reliably per action.

Plus, this card just straight value in Joe. It supplements free clues from his Hunch deck, damage against enemies, and can be refilled/used for free via Truth from Fiction, Astounding Revelation (if you're running searches), and Knowledge is Power.

You won't always need to spend four Nomnomicon charges, exhaust two copies of Well Prepared, and commit four Intellect icons from hand in order to succeed an Archaic Glyphs investigation by 23 and pull 12 clues off of a single location with a single action. But when you do, the Well Guided Necronomicon is here to help!

Sugar Granny has gotten a lot more tempting with Cornered being part of the Survivor cardpool. In Yorick, who likes to pitch assets to Cornered and then replay them a lot, he can often run low on both cards and resources. Madame Labranche is very versatile in such a build, helping you replenish whatever you're short on. As a bonus, she's fairly inexpensive herself and has decent soak, so she fits well into a Yorick tank build.

The only question that this card needs to address is the situation in which (spoilers: After reaching to Act 3 and Agenda 3, how do you activate this ability?). The text reads to Move 1 doom from one agenda to the other, but if the second agenda does not exist, how can you use this ability, see "Then" keyword in rules reference. It is possible for you to never enter an additional location by spending the requisite clues if you cannot use this ability later on in the game. This card may need to be errata otherwise you will never be able to receive the necessary amount of clues to advance the act deck.

I think people get the wrong impression of Stella. Her abilities reward failure, but there are really two ways to go: failure with success, and failure with “not caring about success ”.

What makes her so special is that there are so, so many survivor cards that reward failure. Predestination, take heart, rabbit's foot, “look what I found“, Live and learn... So if you’re going for partial success, you have the option to fail in your first and second action and set up your third and fourth. What’s great is, even in campaigns like the dream eaters where there aren’t many skill test on your encounter cards, you can slot the new level zero “test of will” to either get rid of a treachery or gain an extra action (and probably a card, because rabbit's foot is the best fit for an accessory.)

Permanents like a quick learner, which would be poisonous for most other survivors, let you fail early and succeed later. In fact, a -1 to future difficulty test means that you’re going to face automatic successes, especially if you’re dodging a low agility enemy, hitting an acolyte or group of rats, or using your old key ring to investigate a three shroud location. (Vital to appreciating this card: knowing that it doesn’t apply to the mythos phase. Your stats are safe there.)

In solo games, you’ll be able to persevere/bungle your way through skill test and fights with “neither rain nor snow”, getting these amazing +3 bennies, recurring with resourceful, and later True Survivor. Or you can rely on the Mysterious Raven to attack your sanity in exchange for one action clues, and heal with Grimm's fairytales.

In a group, you’re likely to get in a flex role: you’re great at agility, and with dark horse or the right skill cards, can be good at a few other things. Sometimes, with Peter S by your side, it’s soaking fear or dodging enemies. But Stella has a surprising role that is harder for other survivors to play: support. "Neither rain nor snow" allows you to give +3 wild skill icons to fellow investigators. Plus, it gets rid of the sting of failure. Some scenarios have cruel effects that, when resolved, can defeat you, take rounds off the scenario, or drive you insane. Not anymore.

You’ll have a lot of options to pick through as you gain experience, because the chainsaw and your .18 derringer both reward a failure first style. True survivor and drawing thin, while expensive in terms of XP, make an amazing late-campaign engine.

Playing Stella will have you saying weird things though. Things like “darn, I succeeded all of my actions!”, or bragging about how only the grit of the Postal Service can take on the horrors of the universe. So watch out for that.

You need this card only you're playing with a campaign with high Will test.

Pay-out

• 3 Exp
• 1 Action with 2 Resource

Benefit

• +2 Will (3 Times for Treachery only)
• 1 high change to auto evade a non-elite enemy

However, survivor can use Cherished Keepsake, the cheapest horror soak or Nothing Left to Lose to prepare for incoming treachery with 5 Card and 5 Resource

"Ashcan" Pete can play Moonstone with the same price.

It's hard to squeeze this card for the full-potential because you need to play it before the treachery appeared. Then wait for 3 another treachery card.

Verdict

• Recommend to use Nothing Left to Lose and wish you found Lucky! in 5 of that 5 cards