Cthulhu forgive me my sins, but this must be said:

Move over Flashlight! there's a new king in town. Lockpicks allow Rogues to investigate locations at an insane base skill value of + (or other skill value, in certain cases). This is a really nice benefit, but to really illustrate the point consider the following comparison:

Flashlight is a strongly considered item in Expert because of the abundance of high-negative number modifiers that may pop up. While flashlight doesn't modify your base number significantly, for 2 shroud (or less) locations using flashlight lets you auto-succeed any non- token pull. If Wendy or Skids use lockpicks on a two-shroud location they are also almost guaranteed to succeed, bar a total modifier that is greater than -5!

Of course there are a couple downsides: Lockpicks is marginally more expensive at 3r and 1exp instead of 2r, and flashlight doesn't exhaust allowing you to drain a location very quickly in a low-stress turn. On the upside, however, lockpicks can be used almost indefinitely, depending on how often you're likely to fall below the succeed by 2 requirement. At a minimum they have as many charges as do flashlight, and in the off case you are investigating a non- location you can always use to boost lockpicks using Streetwise.

All-in-all an exceptionally good card who's sole real downside is that it cannot be used consecutively in one turn. While power-investigate turns do happen, with some intelligent forethought these situations can be minimized. A very unique and powerful addition to the Rogue card pool, and recommended as a 2x early upgrade.

I'd like to see someone hide the Chicago Typewriter up their sleeve! Whip that bad boy out, unload on a mob of goons at your location, then after the smoke clears and your stepping over the corpses, just return it to your hand! Awesome card!

Seems odd at first glance, why would you need +2 if you have passed? My initial reaction was that it would help land Double or Nothing but it doesn't actually help there, because of how that works (it doubles the difficulty rather than you needing to get double the target).

It does combo with cards where you need to succeed by a certain amount:

Switchblade

.41 Derringer

Opportunist (though this seems a pretty poor use)

Scavenging

Rex Murphy's trigger

Expose Weakness

Deduction

Alchemical Transmutation

(I might well have missed a couple)

Ultimately none of these uses are that mind blowing. I think a card that only works in combination, and only provides lukewarm benefits even if you draw the combo together is pretty weak.

Rite of Seeking (4) is unusual in that it is one of the few cards to grow more expensive when upgraded. However, it is certainly worth the cost. One danger of the previous Rite of Seeking was the waste of a valuable charge on a failed check. With the (+2) built into the upgrade Rite of Seeking this is far less of an issue. Furthermore, gaining two additional clues instead of one is a sizable gain, further compressing actions. On the other hand, it is near useful in solo play as rarely will locations have three clues on them.

Marie Lambeau was offered as a promo card in the Investigators of Arkham book. I hadn't the chance to grab that at the time, as shipping was prohibitive. Now, if you're in the same position, proxy her. Really.

Marie Lambeau is a great investigator for solo play.

Just look at the stat-line breakdown of Marie Lambeau:

• at 4 , she has the ability to cope with a lot of what the encounter deck will throw, at least in terms of Treacheries.
• the 4 of Marie Lambeau puts her on par with Minh Thi Phan and Rex Murphy, at second place behind Daisy Walker, all of them being investigators! This is really amazing, as you definitely need the clues in that game.
• at 3 , nothing to sneeze at, Marie can always evade what she can't fight.
• at 1 though, she has no way to defend herself, at least until you get that Shrivelling out.

Her ability is a bit tricky, but can be powerful.

First, remember that you only check for the Doom threshold during the Mythos phase, allowing you to pile up some Doom tokens on the board the turn before the Agenda is supposed to advance. That said, when the Agenda does advance, you remove every doom token in play, even the ones on player cards.

This entitles three things:

1. Willingly getting a player card out with a Doom token on it to trigger Marie's ability will reduce the time you have before the Agenda advances by 1 turn. Then for the X-1 turns remaining, you have 1 extra action . But wait! There are restrictions on those actions: you can play Spell cards or trigger their .
2. When the Agenda advances, you lose the benefit of Marie's ability, as all doom tokens are removed. So you need a way to get those Doom tokens back in play.
3. Going blind on most scenarios (or not), no matter what, you're probably not so prepared to help the encounter deck advancing too fast. So you may want to trigger that ability with parcimony, thus getting extra doom tokens on the penultimate turn before advancing the Agenda.

All of this require :

1. Experience of the scenarios you play
2. Experience at actually playing the deck, and being tricky overall
3. Getting a reliable and consistent way to put those doom tokens on player cards

That last point is not that easy. Marie's ability is not reliable. Browsing the current card pool, the alternatives are:

• Alyssa Graham gives you further , parring Marie to Daisy, and encounter deck control as well as Doom management
• Arcane Initiate gives you at least the Doom token you want, and helps you grab those Spells. And... that's it! Granted, those two allies are pretty good in their own right.

Yes, yes, and just when you think those two cards are perfect for Marie Lambeau and just after you add 2 copies of each in your deck, you take a look at her special weakness: Baron Samedi. I think Baron Samedi is a very punishing weakness:

1. He cannot leave play until he as 3 Doom tokens on it. It's action yes, but as it requires to exhaust him, you need 3 damn turns to get him out and obviously before the Agenda deck can advance, so in most Agenda (with a Doom threshold at 6 or less) it's not even possible. In the meantime, you can always benefit from Marie's ability true, but 3 Doom can really hurt.
2. It fills the damn sole tiny, tiny, tiny ally slot you need so badly.

Overall, on your first scenario, pray not to draw him too early, and get at least 3 victory points. If you do, you will be able to buy Charisma.

All this blabbering on Doom management makes you want to introduce some shielding. Marie's special event Mystifying Song is one way to go: for 3 Resources and no (it's a Fast event) it buys you one more turn to pile those Doom tokens. That's pretty good if you draw it.

If you do not though, include 2 copies of Moonlight Ritual. At least, you'll be able to hold on to the current agenda if something has Ancient Evils comes your way.

Check out the sample deck here: arkhamdb.com