Notably one of the only customizables Charlie can take, and one that has a couple of uses for him. Dominance (2XP) gives him a handy extra ally at less XP cost than a Charisma, Dreaming Call (3 XP) gives him the ability to bounce back Art Students or damaged allies, Wings of Night (1 xp) gives him a ride and potentially a taxi service, and any of the others gives him a bonus action at 4+1 wild for exhausting, which is both a substantial buff and a mini-Leo.

With all of those, you have a 7 XP bonus ally you can move to and leave at hard to stomach locations and still exhaust in mythos for 2 will or investigation phase for 1 ?. Not terrible for late game XP soaks, but probably not the first XP you're spending. For decks that want 4 Summoned Hounds, or just can't deal with that cards more considerable drawback.

Daemonic Influence is more of a trap - it cuts off the versatility of the card and is an obscene amount of XP that needs to be spent on other keystone 5 XP friends.

On other characters, this one's tough. The arcane or ally slot needs to be dealt with to really maximize usage, and Daemonic Influence is probably the breakeven point, meaning that you're spending a full 10 XP to fully kit a monster to eat your Renfield or Acolyte and give you limited extra actions at what will likely be less than your normal values. Might be a decent pick for doom oriented investigators who need to be able to toss assets, particularly the Mystic who comes with it, Amina Zidane.

Of course, once you have one, there's a ton of things about this card that are unique, and I think its position as an immobile action generator is most interesting:

1. it can be left at hunter occupied locations to evade them endlessly, trivializing some enemies and even some scenarios. Ignoring Alert means its particularly good against Vengeance enemies and a certain forgotten age Snake.
2. It attacks aloof monsters, and you can add vicious blow to the skill check. It also occupies space, which helps with placement of Acolytes and empty location enemies (although I think you'd prefer to drop Acolyte ON the space)
3. It can live in hard to reach areas with bad EOT effects, as well as areas that constantly repopulate clues, where it will just get you a clue every turn. Scarlet Keys has a few of these.

Note that although Guardian of the Crystallizer enters play exhausted, it still enters play engaged with the investigator who drew it.

When an enemy card is drawn by an investigator, that investigator must spawn it following any spawn direction the card bears (see "Spawn" on page 19). If the encountered enemy has no spawn direction, the enemy spawns engaged with the investigator encountering the card and is placed in that investigator's threat area.

This is probably the hardest of the cycle to make work. However, there's one new tome in TSK, grim memoir, that works pretty well with this as it's both expensive and requires multiple skill tests. Using in a Daisy deck that also managed to find another good tome as a story asset.

Forgotten Age isn't everyone's favorite campaign, but it's worth noting the original Curse of Yig story was based in Oklahoma. So the next time you're wishing you weren't lost in the jungle while Poisoned and covered in vines, just remember: you could have been stuck in Tulsa.

This optional boss rewards 5 XP for killing him, which nice if you can juggle the vengeance needed to get here. That said, Yig has a decent bit of health. I recommend making use of the discard ability on Knife to get an additional damage in while fighting him.

Interesting note: Rift Seeker has Cultist, so once it's shuffled in you can use it as a target for Mysterious Chanting that doesn't speed up the doom clock the turn it enters play.

Aside from that neat little interaction, Rift Seeker is honestly pretty basic; no Hunter if you decide to evade it and leave it behind, no "Spawn:" instructions spawning it at a different location preventing you from dealing with it, not even Retaliate in case you fail the 3 (or 4 once The Entity Above, The Entity Above, or Swallowed Sky enters play) test to hit it. Yes, it does have the Parley option, but that's a trap, paying a high cost (2 horror and 2 doom) for something that's honestly not that difficult (defeating a slightly tougher Ravenous Ghoul). Assuming you don't draw the against it, you can fairly safely treat Rift Seeker's text box as blank, except for Traits: those actually make it interesting, allowing you to fish out a (moderately) tougher Cultist with Mysterious Chanting in exchange for no doom entering play.