This card was pretty bad, mostly because it was so rare that the game would deal out damage in chunks of 5, but then Innsmouth happened. Now your Blue gators can hold their breath underwater forever, but also get paid to do so. Quite often, you purposefully try to drown yourself, just to gain those sweet sweet Fishbucks.
Cannot say enough good things about Blackjack (2) in multiplayer Innsmouth, a campaign with tons of enemies in the Encounter deck:
You skip all penalties for engaging with enemies - no taking damage, no taking horror, no losing cards, etc.
If you care about your fellow investigators, you save an action from not having to engage with enemies
You deal no damage to your fellow investigators when you miss
Automatically gets its +1 damage benefit on massive enemies when there's another Investigator in the room (like another attacker or an evader)
Limitless use (no charges or supplies)
Only takes up one hand slot
At just 2 dollars, it's really inexpensive
Want to give it a little extra oomph? Enchant Weapon for +1 damage each round.
The only downside is it doesn't leave you well equipped to handle the enemies that are engaged with you. But that's what guns, Machete, Timeworn Brand, Enchanted Blade, etc. are for, and good news, you still have a handslot for them.
10/10, would Blackjack again.
I want to emphasize, what I have already mentioned in a comment to another review: this is a great card for parallel Skids! First and foremost, because he can take this as a Fortune, but not Astounding Revelation. Also, he has no access to Ancestral Knowledge, which might very well be another nail in the coffin for most other investigators interested in this card. If any of the cards get randomly attached to the permanent, they lose their purpose.
This card was insane for Skids before the current taboo, which removes Three Aces from the game after used. I think, I assembled them 4 or 5 times in a single scenario of The City of Archives, with the help of Practice Makes Perfect and a certain location of that scenario. But even if you now don't go PMP with Skids (which you probably still should), he has great search potential with Lucky Cigarette Case (3) alone, and Surprising Find will make cycle through his slim deck so much faster.
With the latest taboo, this can be a fantastic card, in a multiplayer scenario with a well-connected place for sniping. We confirmed this in a four-player playthrough of Return to Night of the Zealot. In the last scenario (Devourer below), Mark Harrigan was sitting in a hiding spot at the main path, with an extra hand for holding a side-arm, reloading the Springfield regularly. Never have the forests felt so tranquil... Cultists spawning aloof and getting headshotted, while others just walk past was, well, satisfying, to put it mildly. The fact that the sniper never had to move saved a ton of actions to him. We had 3 doom to go when we disrupted the ritual.
It's true that a sniper has to take the risk of hurting allies, but e.g. Mark, with only the rifle and his base stats, was fighting at skill 8. We playing on Normal, most of the time only autofail was the risk.
Elite monsters will be an issue (good thing the big boss didn't spawn), but you usually know when there will be one, so you can plan ahead.
Probably needless to say, but the new taboo ability saves practically no actions in scenarios with a linear map: in such scenarios, typically all investigators have to walk to the end of the linear map, also the sniper. But off the top of my head, I would say such scenarios are a minority; most have at least a somewhat central location good for sniping; maybe not as ridiculously OP as the main path but still.
Quick question. If you draw your 10th card in the card+resource phase, do you advance or do you have to discard cards?
I think you advance cause its immediate, but Im not sure.
200 characters. 200 characters. 200 characters