The evolution of that card over the course of its upgrade is the same as a wizard for a DnD campaign. It starts really, really underwhelming but reaches stratospheric level of power in its late stage. Be it enemy mitigation, sustain, getting clues, this card does everything and testless. It becomes so absurdly powerful that when you get to draw three of them in its fully upgraded form, it will trivialize a scenario on its own. Many ennemies spawn in the first few turns of a scenario when your fighter isn't set up yet? Slam them on the biggest threats, transform them into powerful allies, and distract the other monsters from hurting your friends. This card effectively reads: convert a bomb card from the encounter deck into a boon for yourself. Not only the fact that your allies can also trigger all the effects makes it so versatile, but you effectively remove the biggest threats from being a problem, and thus, instantly.

However the card really needs tonguetwister to get going, but when you get it with thrice spoken things start to escalate. You evade most monster you meet, testlessly get two clues, heal friends, and effectively, definitely remove any monster (except elite) in the game, in a class that has access to ward of protection level two. Congratulation, on your own, you disabled not only the most menacing treacheries, but also the most terrifying monsters the game has to offer. Anything else is just between your main fighter and the boss of the scenario, and your cluever who has all the time of the world to do his job. If you think that as a mystic, you ever needed a weapon, this card solves all problem you need, being slotless and fast. By the way, you don't need weapons when you convert any otherwordly abominations to your cause. This card is worth any xp point you can spend on it.

Just a lore observation, not a real review: This is likely the Art Student mapping the area. Why? Because she is also left-handed. And left-handed people were quite rare in the 1920s, when they were generally forced as children to learn using their right hand instead.

Then again: Mark Harrigan is also left-handed. And this is a Tactic... :)

While the design and the flavor of that card is great, it is sadly underpowered imo. I've run it in a dedicated Luke deck with plenty of static book boost (magnifying glasses, st Hubert key, yellow tarrot card), enablers and even then, at most, the summon picked up three to four clues over the course of the scenario, even fully upgraded. Sure, sometimes, it came handy because it evaded a few monsters for my fellow investigators, but if you had to choose between that card and Powerword, the latter is far more useful and versatile, and doesn't require a build around deck to function (even if the comparison is unfair, since a fully upgraded Powerword is the most absurd card in the game).

You clearly don't run it for the extra bit of unreliable damage, but mostly for its evade and investigation ability (also its 3 health pool that counter balance the squishyness of most mystic investigators). It's also awkward to use since it cannot explore on its own, and can only navigate through explored areas. Most of the time, I just landed it on a location I was tasked to investigate, then joined the rest of my team while it picked some clues on its own. The best point of this card is it offers you a good presence across the board, no matter your location (your own dream world for exemple). I absolutely recommend it if you want to do a Luke run. It's really a lot fun to watch the little buddy lives its life to its fullest on its own but you should rather skip it if you plan to play anybody else.

The card would've been great if it wasn't considered "unique" and you had to fantasy to be able to run two of them at the same time. In its current state, it is a below-average/okay card in a dedicated deck, but it won't carry you your investigator on its own. It kinda fits a peculiar archetype (flexing) as an element of the whole, but not at the foundation of the archetype. The ability to go through uncharted locations would make the card far better than it is now, even if the owner of the summon would have to be hurt the revelation ability from those locations. Putting two extra xp as fee with a taboo on "Wings of Night" with this said ability would solve a lot of its problem, without hurting the balance of that card.

Here is the list I used for a return to Dunwich playthrough: Initial version: arkhamdb.com Fully upgraded: arkhamdb.com

Core set card that's awfully dumb. The doom option is absolutely never worth it (draw 2 cards for a loss of two cards, two resources and six actions), so the card might as well read take two horror.

Bob's extremely cool special talent gives us interesting new deck-building options where we can get Survivor and Rogue items to investigators that have never had access to them before. The problem is finding that special talent in Bob's deck.

Searches Bob can do himself to tutor Shrewd Dealings:

• Friends in Low Places 0 resources to play, and 1 resource per card you add to your hand from the results. One of the new customizable cards, but even at level zero, it allows you to search 6 cards deep for any cards with a trait you preselected (here you would presumably want Talent). By far your best native option; thanks to @death by Chocolate for the catch! (Honestly, this is probably one of the best deck searches in the game at all.)

• As pointed out before, Lucky Cigarette Case: 3 XP, 2 resources. After a successful skill test, allows you to search the number of card you succeeded by. This likely won't search many cards at a time. (Edit: moved Rabbit's Foot (3) below. I forgot Bob can't take native Survivor upgrades!)

Searches with support from a Seeker (or someone who can use Seeker cards) to tutor Shrewd Dealings:

• Old Book of Lore, search top 3 cards.
• No Stone Unturned, search top 6 cards

Searches Bob can do by "borrowing" a card from another player to tutor Shrewd Dealings:

• A Chance Encounter, used to steal Mr. "Rook" from a discard pile for a turn, and search the top 3-9 cards, up to three times on that turn. Somewhat convoluted and slow to set up, but it could happen.
• "You owe me one!" can be used to steal a search card from another player's hand and play it for Bob. -- Take Old Book of Lore or Mr. Rook from a seeker and then use Bob's own actions to search his deck, freeing up the Seeker for finding actual clues instead of just helping Bob get his act together. (Can't you just hear the librarians who kindly offered to help Bob search his inventory, aghast at the state of his warehouse? "Don't you ever ORGANIZE anything in here, Bob? How on earth do you FIND anything?")
• Take Rabbit's Foot from another survivor (the upgraded 3 XP version). After a failed skill test, allows you to search the number of cards you failed by. This option is cheaper and maybe easier to trigger than Lucky Cigs, but with Bob's baseline at 4, he doesn't have a great option to fail badly on tests that don't have any negative repercussions. So you probably won't be searching super deep this way.

Mandy's ability to enhance any search by an additional 3 cards would obviously be quite helpful to Bob, with the latest 50-card deck taboo, I'm not sure anyone will actually play Mandy anymore.

Edit to clarify: There are indeed many other search cards that can help Bob find and recur items and other assets, but this list is specifically regarding ways to tutor Shrewd Dealings, not other assets.