This is to Sleight of Hand what Pathfinder is to Shortcut. Dont let that fool you though. This card sucks.

These cards offer compound consistency when brought together, therefor strengthening both cards since now there are more windows for you to draw and apply the mechanics they offer. This means that you can either include both in a deck or upgrade Sleight of Hand into Fence (if the Fast keyword is the effect you indeed desire, I think Sleight of Hand is the better card of the two because of the fun interaction with firearms).

I don't think Fence is a good economy card, not at all. The actions saved and resources gained get outclassed by the classic Leo De Luca by a mile. What Fence does offer however is the circumstantial but powerful benefit of allowing you save yourself the cost on items you don't actually need, until you need them.

Think of it this way: How often has it gotten in the way that you need to spend an action here and there to play the gun, to play the Lockpicks before you run at the problem at hand? How often do your assets get burned by the encounter deck and how often do you wind up not actually needing the item you played? Fence lets you be very efficient with the where and when of the cards you play.

There is a rather terrible downside to this card. The later you draw it the more cards you miss out on the Fast or returns on. If you're playing the kind of deck that warrants this card then you probably have Pickpocketing, Lupara, Leo De Luca, Chicago Typewriter and so on and on, and as it happens, those cards tend to be "Mulligan Queens", a greedy player who doesn't mulligan this for the cards that it targets is taking a terrible and useless risk! I.E, this card must be in your hand Post-mulligan or drawn very early into the scenario, all too narrow a window.

One more downside, when I played this I had Leo De Luca in the deck, I discovered that all too rarely there was any sort of window for this card to be played, or else i'dd play it at the cost of getting out a major item like Lupara or Lockpicks. I can imagine that you wont be able to afford playing this alongside a certain incoming ally.

So, if it doesnt sit well alongside Leo De Luca or Lola Santiago, where does it work? Well according my experience, alongside Peter Sylvestre in a Finn Edwards deck. Perhaps if the lineup of allies we're cheaper, then Fence would be better. But after a couple tries I just don't see the benefit until some more powerful economy Illicit options are released, Burglary level 2 maybe?

The Survivor's Magnifying Glass. useful to a clue minded investigator who needs something to do with his/her hand. The net effect of +1 is not always a worthwhile bonus but depending on your character and other cards you may stand to gain a lot if you can hit the magic numbers (2 above the difficulty for Standard, 3 for Hard). Wendy Adams can put this to use till she gets her Lockpicks, the other survivors all suffer intellects of 2- or preferable alternatives. For them Flashlight is a better pure-investigation tool.

But Lantern has an extra use. Automatic damage! Autodamage is always good, a guaranteed dead Swarm of Rats or Acolyte can be absolutely critical, or as a finisher to a foe that you managed to tag with a punch or to end a foe that you've chipped at with a proper weapon. This is the real kicker for this card, say for example you hit someone with a .45 Automatic leaving them with 1 hitpoint, say you wanna avoid some particular tokens in the chaos bag, the Lantern got you covered.

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A note unmentioned in a review of this card insofar.

A -1 Shroud value will affect tertiary card effects, by this I mean Double or Nothing, Lucky!, "Look what I found!" ETC.

I.E, if you reduce a 3 difficulty location to difficulty 2 and fail, your minimum value (0) ensures that you can play "Look what I found!" on the test you just failed by 2 points.

Correspondence with developer:

Q: How does Charles Ross, Esq. work? The card doesn't explicitly states its time window. Can you use its ability then in the next round use up the cost reduction? Maybe even use it twice before playing an item? It using at your location, does it mean your location when you use the ability, or when you play the item (if you use the ability and then move, where can you play an item at reduced cost)?

A: Correct; Charles Ross’s ability applies until it is used, so if you use it in one round you will still get the discount next round, and if you use him more than once before playing a card, you would get a –2 discount. As for your second question, if you move after using Charles Ross’s ability, the discount would apply to the next Item asset played by an investigator at your new location, not the former location.

So basically you can get one additional resource from it per round. Awesome for a 2 resource card!

As cards come out that let you recurse from your discard, this card gets progressively worse. Resourceful, True Survivor now let you grab stuff in the discard and can become borderline (or totally) unplayable because of the risk posed by this card removing all the viable targets, Scavenging has always been a liability and these cards are only gonna grow in number. Thankfully Wendy is getting some solid cards like Waylay and Lucky Cigarette Case to slot next to Backstab and Rabbit's Foot and thus all 4 cards gain consistency.

Here'S hoping Wendy gets a novel though because I really would like to try True Survivor survivor on her.

This might be easy to misread, so just a clarification.

Taking -2 Sanity is not the same as being dealt horror, I.E this is not horror you suffer or a permanent reduction in horror health. Therefore the net benefit of St. Hubert's Key is:

+

+

+2 sanity.

In other words, this card gives you the exact same benefit as a Holy Rosary, and then throws in the extra +1. The difference is however that St. Hubert's Key self-destructs and automatically heals you when you hit your reduced Sanity threshold, thus while St. Hubert's Key gives you a bunch of extra power and safety you must still be careful or you'll loose it faster then you'dd like.

St. Hubert's Key does not invalidate Holy Rosary, the latter is still a much tougher asset than the former and in the mystic's already expensive lineup of key assets finding the extra cash to pay for an often unused boost is hard. Often the St. Hubert's Key will find itself sought after by non- characters like Daisy Walker, "Ashcan" Pete or Rex Murphy who will better appreciate the extra since they spend a lot of their time using that skill to begin with. Note that the reduced Sanity stat has an interesting interaction with Desperate cards (Like Reckless Assault).

Currently the lineup of character's will prioritize tests over tests, and often paying the extra cash will just be a waste, since you will spend a lot of your time utilizing a Rite of Seeking or the like. Note that your experience with this card will vary with difficulty, an of 4 for example (like Jim Culver or Father Mateo with the St. Hubert's Key) will get you much further against difficulty 2 locations in standard than it does in hard and it'll be much easier to bridge the gap for higher difficulty locations with other cards. An of 4 will succeed on a difficulty 2 investigate in The Gathering 80% of the time on standard but just 60% of the time in hard, that's the difference between finishing a 2 clue location (Study) in one round or two.

Final evaluation: St. Hubert's Key is powerful, absolutely, but not always useful. Perhap's it is St. Hubert's Key's downfall that Holy Rosary exists.

EDIT: Bonus note, give special consideration to St. Hubert's Key in solo, especially Solo on standard.