It's sad how Ikiaq still doesn't allow mystics an in-faction way to avoid the Unbound Beast. How else am I going to slot this dog into the latest fad Empower Self deck?

It's surprisingly viable on Sefina or Dexter running Geas and Crystalline Elder Sign/Tristan Botley now at least. With the Taboo'd scroll of secrets and promising never to draw, the odds of drawing the corresponding weakness is low indeed.

A lot has happened in the four years since Roland was released to round him out, and he’s a stronger investigator than ever.

Most of these cards are used by soloclue in his ARRR deck, which adds seeker splash for search and finances. There are new ways to increase your horror threshold and heal yourself as you go, like seeker allies, enchanted blade (3), or hallowed mirror, that weren’t available before.

Roland can also move lickety-split for a guardian, with copies of safeguard and shortcut. With a level zero deck, it’s possible for him to move himself and an ally to another location for zero actions.

A new wrinkle is that the “get clues by killing enemies” tech is even better. Grete Wagner and the updated evidence(1) combo well with Roland’s talent. Assuming you finish off four health worth of enemies in a turn, you can get four clues. Or use the Disc of Itzamna and On the Hunt to replace the encounter phase with "summon a two health enemy at your location, kill them instantly, get three clues.” Don’t mess with the Bureau.

Why should you take Handcuffs just to handle Tommy? From a naive action-cost perspective it doesn't seem to make sense: you just spent 2 resources, a card, and an action to save yourself 2 actions, in a class that isn't known for having an excess of resources. Effectively you're playing a Swift Reflexes, which isn't even a particularly good card on Rogues, much less Guardians.

But there are three important reasons why you would do this. Firstly, Cho will almost certainly draw through his deck every scenario, meaning that there's a good chance of seeing Tommy twice if not for Handcuffs. Secondly, you only need to pass a single test, not 3, which is particularly important at higher difficulties. Thirdly, it means you can draw safely during your turn. Since it usually will takes 3 actions to clear Tommy (baring Beat Cop (2), Dogs, and One-Two Punch), it'll feel terrible taking a draw action and find Tommy while trying to refill your hand. Banking an action with Handcuffs will save you from being smacked around by Tommy for a turn, or deal with him easily if he's drawn by an Overpower or Glory.

I feel I need to provide the contrary viewpoint and say that this card, while usable, is really pretty disappointing. I want to like this card because it forms part of the major theme of mystics. There are spells like Shriveling that let Mystics use Will to be good at fighting, there are spells like Rite of Seeking that let Mystics use Will to be good at investigating, and this is ostensibly the spell that lets Mystics use Will to be good at evading. Unfortunately Mists is really weak compared to these other two. The problem is that Shrivelling is much better than a basic fight action (+1 damage), and Rite of Seeking is much better than a basic investigator action (+1 clue), but mist is not really better than a basic evade action. In theory it gives you an action compression bonus just like the other two (+1 move), but that bonus is far less useful because you rarely want to use it. Indeed, it is so much less useful that it is barely makes up for the penalty of sometimes having to discard a card.

The most important use of evade is to keep an elite monster distracted while the party fights it, but if you are doing this you do not want to move away from the monster. Evade can be good against regular monsters for many characters who are not fighters and find it much easier to evade and let other characters do the fighting. But if you are a Mystic you have the option of taking your fighting spell instead, and it is almost always better to do 2 damage to the monster rather than evade the monster. Evasion can be better against monsters with 3+ Health if you can just leave and ignore them, and the +1 move bonus of Mists seems primarily designed for that exact circumstance. But FFG seems really reluctant to put many such monsters in their adventures, it seems like the great majority of the monsters either have Hunter, or have doom on them, or are otherwise better to kill than leave alone. To be fair, there are some monsters you can run away from, and there are some monsters you are better off evading than fighting because you get a penalty if you kill the monster, and here is where Mystic evading shines. The problem is that even in these cases +1 move isn't a great bonus because often when you encounter the monster you are not done investigating or otherwise interacting with the location it is on, and you still don't want to move away. This is compounded by the fact that Mists is not an event, it is an asset, so while it is conditionally useful, you have to play it before you know whether that condition will be satisfied; once you have played it, you are likely to end up using it mostly at times when you don’t want to run away.

Despite all of this, mists would be fun to play around with if it didn't take up a slot. But the fact is that it takes up an arcane slot, a slot that is in very great demand for most Mystics. This means that even if you decide to have a bit of whimsy and put this in your deck, you often regret playing it rather than waiting for a better spell to put in that precious slot. Mists is best for characters who have high Will and low Dex who have access to Mystic cards but don’t really use their arcane slots and have the resources to fool around with conditionally useful cards. Not a very broad selection of characters, to say the least.

If you don't have many expansions, Mists is a better card because you do not have many other options, if the only way you can fight is with the two copies of Shrivelling in your deck you may want to put this card in just so you can do something when you don't have Shriveling. On the other hand, if you have lots of expansions, the real nail in the coffin for this card might be Sword Cane, which lets you use Will to evade without spending charges or using an arcane slot.

Worth noting this card can have extra value in Return to The Forgotten Age, where the updated explore mechanic means you'll either get to this card faster, or possibly even shuffle it into the Exploration deck for a nice surprise while exploring. If it goes into the Exploration deck, it's also protected from encounter deck shuffling and can be searched using Exploration deck supplies.