Very fun card.

For a testless Daniela Reyes build, you want to use Brute Force with Toe to Toe, as Toe to Toe is a basic action. As it automatically succeeds, you will be succeeding by 3 with Brute Force as the skill card itself adds +3 fight anyway. So that is +4 damage from those two cards. With Daniela's on attack retaliate ability built into her ability, you are returning one extra damage so you are looking at +5 damage from just two cards, with only 1xp spent on Brute force to achieve this (or you could reduce the damage by 1 and take the automatic evade instead if you need).

But if you throw a Vicious Blow into the mix then that is +6 damage, which is amazing for playing 3 cards and again only spending 1xp. If you have a Guard Dog and it takes some damage when the enemy attacks, you could be looking at +7 testless damage in one turn! Even better yet, if you have Aquinnah in play you could be returning even more damage with her so possibly even more than 7 testless damage (if the stars align and if you play a load of cards at once).

For this build to really pop, you would want Resourceful to return Brute Force, and Hunter's Instinct to return Toe to Toe so you can do this more often a scenario.

[Of note; Hunter's Instinct IS from new new 2026 core, so if you are happy to house-rule playing with an extended build of all cards available then you can add it - I know some people want to only play with cards released in a particular edition etc]

Possible rule oversight about this card.

This agenda adds an activation ability to the Alien Device to turn your clues into damage against the boss. However, said boss has an ability that says to "Reduce that damage to 1 unless it was dealt by a Spell, Relic, Charm, or encounter card.".

Alien Device has none of those traits, and despite being a special scenario card, it's an asset, not an encounter card. So RAW, it should only deal 1 damage per 2 clues.

Which doesn't sound very logical to me... First, why not just write that it deals 1 damage ? Second, all similar abilities on other agendas have a "2 clues for 2 damage" ratio.

Unless we're supposed to consider that the ability, while added to Alien Device (an asset), is actually from the agenda (an encounter card) ?

A dangerous treachery, with an interesting twist.

Like all cards in the "small encounter sets" for this scenario, it is added to the encounter deck upon reaching Act 2, but only in 4 out of 10 possible outcomes.

The first part adds a doom to a specific boss enemy, which can only happen during "The True Culprit" endgame agenda, and only in 2 of the 10 outcomes (so only 50% of the time ; because when this treachery is present, 2 out of 4 possible endings will feature a different boss). But when it does matter, it stings, and adds insult to the injury of the second part.

The second part is a hard Willpower test for either 2 horror or 2 damage (ouch), with the possibility of dealing the damage to another investigator instead of your own. Or, you can deal the damage to a Humanoid enemy, which is generally a bad idea in this scenario if the enemy is Innocent or if the police are present (they will intervene and attack you).

But ! on occasion, this treachery will come as a boon, giving you 2 testless damage against an enemy that you want to defeat... There are 4 such enemies in the basic encounter deck (including a mini-boss), plus 3 other bad guys in 50% of the possibilities when this treachery is present.

I mean, what are the odds of drawing this treachery twice in one Mythos phase while being engaged with the evil concierge, and almost killing him with it ? Apparently, not zero, as it just happened !

Chapter 2 Trish Scarborough is Chapter 1 Finn Edwards with a facelift, with everything good and bad that implies. They might have the same card pool, but they operate in very different ways.

On the upside, if you enjoy Finn Edwards, Trish Scarborough is functionally identical. In exchange for a slightly worse Elder Sign that provides free movement rather than free clues, Trish Scarborough gets a better signature than Finn's Trusty .38 and a joke of a weakness than joke of a weakness compared to Caught Red-Handed that actively punishes you for evading enemies. Her card pool is also much better than Finn's --- an illicit card pool outside of Rogue never materialized during Chapter 1, whereas new Trish Scarborough still retains access to Seeker 0-2. I'd be hard pressed to justify playing Finn when new Trish exists.

On the downside, new Trish occupies a slightly different niche than old Trish in ways that might provoke some frustration. Old Trish Scarborough can take advantage of enemies to discover additional clues each turn and use clues to automatically evade enemies. Her signature lets her disengage from enemies at fast speed and her elder sign lets her investigate any revealed location, giving her a lot of opportunities for creative applications of her abilities. By contrast, New Trish Scarborough is an Evasion Matters Rogue with extremely powerful fundamentals, a free evasion action each turn, and a free copy of Pickpocketing as her signature. Her ability is more restrictive and less creative, but a free action paired with cards that trigger on evasion can add value rapidly. New Trish takes better advantage of the Rogue card pool, but old Trish is better at using the Seeker card pool. It depends on what flavor of Trish you plan on building.

I ran this recently in a Trish (2026) deck through The Forgotten Age, and I was shocked at how much extra money it was printing compared to the level zero version. It probably helped that I was stacking static boosts. The synergies for Item, Tool, and Illicit are appreciated.

If this is in your deckbuilding options and you're playing a or character and you need more money, this is a reasonable pick.