I've been playing Olive in a Jim deck for Carcosa, and...my experience hasn't been very good.

The numbers on the card are the best parts. 2 resources for 3 Horror soak is great. But I don't think that's worth the slot on its own, as Mystics traditionally have lots of options for Horror mitigation.

Her ability is underwhelming. On standard difficulty, you're likely to draw something like (-1), (-2), . "Great!" you think, "I avoided the tablet!" But, because of how math works, you've drawn a -3 instead. So what? You just have to commit cards or whatever until you're 3-up or 4-up on the difficulty. Well, why not just draw a single token if you're 4-up on the test?

My beef with Olive is this: in order to use her, you have to compensate for the moderate negative value you're likely to draw, but by doing so, you no longer have a statistical advantage by using her.

Now, she combos pretty well with Song of the Dead and Defiance(2). But now you've got a combo piece in your deck that doesn't do much on her own except offer Horror soak. And you're unable to play other allies like Arcane Initiate, Peter Sylvestre, or David Renfield.

The Jim deck I've been playing beats tests because it has 3 extra (0)s in the bag (the ). I can essentially under-commit on tests because I'm likely to succeed at 2-up or even 1-up. Using Olive actually requires me to commit more to my tests than I would otherwise. So it's only helpful when I'm using Song of the Dead, but then it's only 1/turn, and even then it's far from guaranteed to draw that .

The best case use I can see for the witch who'll try anything once is in conjunction with Lucky!, as that allows you to react to the swingy-ness of the double token draw. You drew (-2), (-3), ? Well, you were only 3-up on the test, but you can succeed anyway! But then again, isn't that just a testament to how good Lucky is?

To pass on this gem with Carolyn Fern would just be Foolishness. This is so good on Carolyn with Peter Sylvestre in play. 2 resources every turn for 4 turns -- awesome. With Dr. Milan Christopher, this setup, Liquid Courage, and Teamwork, The Nerd Girl becomes killer support, and the bigger the group, the better. Before you know it, everyone's rolling in it. Have her hand a Dark Horsed Silas Marsh a St. Hubert's Key while you're passing out goodies, and they may as well start calling you Dr. Frankenstein, because you've just created a monster.

This is a purely speculative review.

This looks like a terrible card, but i'dd like to give it a shout-out in:

• A. Leo Anderson decks. With minimal support he can expect to beat a standard (3) difficulty test (I.E, Rotting Remains. Chaining a successful defense in the mythos phase into a massive buff for the round throughout is terrific returns for a single skill card. And bear in mind, against exactly this kind of test, even an unsuccessful play of Intrepid will still probably save you a point of horror.

• B. The easier the difficulty the easier the test is to make, this means that Intrepid is exponentially more likely to trigger and help you stay on top of the challenges Standard and Easy difficulty throw at you.

Of course the greatest argument against Intrepid is still the fact that it's not guaranteed to be playable when the benefit would be useful. You're not always going to draw Rotting Remains the round right before you do 3 fight or investigate actions (although there is a decent chance you'll manage to do at least 2 of those total). Don't forget the combo potential for investigators with access to extra actions, for example Leo De Luca and/or Quick Thinking (The latter is incidentally easier to trigger via the Intrepid bonus, so there's an easy combo right there! Intrepid seems more and more taylored towards Leo Anderson).

Including this card in your deck is like ripping off a band-aid.

At first you look at the 5xp cost, and the net effect, the requirements to pull it off, and careful consideration should bring you to the conclusion that Monster Slayer is a bad card to invest in for 5xp.

But.

Personally.

I tried Monster Slayer, gave it a chance rather then going straight for Lightning Gun, a card that has proven to be worth the cost. At the time I had already finished a Talent based build built around Well Prepared. And then I got the second copy one scenario later.

In the final scenario me and my teammate proceeded to draw two big monsters in the same mythos phase, and I, like Superman grabbing a couple of crooks and bonking their heads together, defeated them with just one action each.

So there I sat, the monster hunter with nothing to do anymore, in disbelief over how effective the "bad card" turned out to be.

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So, yes. Including this card in your deck is like ripping off a band-aid. It looks iffy and you really don't wanna do it, then you finally do it in a burst of stress and determination, and then you relax with a sigh of relief because it was'nt nearly as bad as you thought it would be.

I'll just say this, when you have cards like Physical Training(2xp) and Well Prepared to boost your fight stats without weaponry, Monster Slayer becomes a far worthier addition and a relatively good fit into the cost-curve of such a deck.

Rabbits foot is cool in the right circumstance.

• A. Those regular failures you may encounter will at least refund you a little of the lost value in the card draw.

This is a nice side-bonus but this is not actually the thing that makes this card useful.

• B. Rabbit's Foot triggers when you execute a "Look what I found!"/Dumb Luck/Oops! combo.

Again, nice interaction, but you usually only play with "Look what I found!" or at best two of the three cards, setting up just 2-4 (combo dependent) triggers with Rabbit's Foot is'nt a viable plan.

• C. You can try a test with minimal success chance, for example investigating a Shroud 2 location with an of 3, and turn the test into a win/win circumstance.

This here is the real reason why you bring a Rabbit's Foot in a deck. The faction is good at turning near-losses into measurable success, and very good at conserving resources while doing so. Having Rabbit's Foot in play lets you make a call like "I could commit a Perception on this investigate check, or I could bank on drawing a good token and not waste the action since I get a card if I fail". Quite often an character will spend several actions to evade an enemy and not bother committing anything to the tests, again a good circumstance for Rabbit's Foot.

Using Rabbit's Foot in this way basically conserves your actions, now you will spend less actions drawing for cards, you'll get those cards while testing your luck at progressing the scenario. Keep in mind that even if you DO get lucky, net the successful evade / investigate / Parlay / Whatever, Rabbit's Foot is the card that instigated the Win/Win scenario and thus is the card responsible for netting you the successful check. This is why Rabbit's Foot can actually be a fantastic card even if you don't actually trigger the card draw.

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When you put all the elements together:

• A. Rabbit's Foot will net you a few cards per map, due to regular failures.
• B. Rabbit's Foot will net you cards when you use a "Look what I found!" combo.
• C. Rabbit's Foot depending on exact circumstances, Rabbit's Foot will turn your "Card draw" actions into potential bonus Clues/Evades/Whatever the scenario demands.

TL:DR, despite the card text, Rabbit's Foot is actually best used as a card that conserves actions. If all you want is card draw then go check out Pickpocketing, Lucky Cigarette Case or just a neutral skill card.