
This is one of the least impactful upgrades in the game, but still deserves a review. Although I often get Leo De Luca, I rarely get this upgrade. The general “rate of exchange” in this game is that 1 XP makes a card one cheaper, and this card follows that rule. However, I tend not to like it for two reasons:
- There are usually tons of far more meaningful things to spend your XP on, cards you can only get by spending XP and upgrades that do really important things that change how your character works. Spending XP just to make cards cheaper is relatively boring and lower priority, and I would only do that once I'm done buying the really important cards that improve my deck in more substantial ways.
- I would normally have two copies of Leo in my deck and would thus need to spend 2 XP you upgrade both of them, but if you draw both copies during the game you will only be able to play one of them so you will save at most one money, not 2. And he is so expensive that if you draw him late, you might not play him at all and might not save any money. If I'm going to spend XP to make cards cheaper, I would rather do it on a card I am almost always going to play when I draw.
However, I should mention a couple reasons why you would play this card:
- Sometimes, late in a campaign, you reach a point where you have purchased call the new cards you really want, and all the remaining level 0 cards you have are key parts of your deck and it is quite painful to get rid of them to buy a new card. In this case you want to start upgrading your existing cards, and the number of upgrades available in the game is often quite limited, so even if this option isn't that amazing at least it has the virtue that it is available and makes your deck unconditionally better.
- Leo De Luca is so unusually expensive that most of the time I end up needing to spend actions to gain money just in order to play him, or in order to play both him and whatever else I need. And spending actions to gain money is not, in a general sense, what you want to be doing in the game. This seems to be the primary intent behind the card, that in practice it doesn't merely save you money, but in fact saves you an action, which is more valuable.
I think that if either of these two advantages are appealing to you, you would be even better off buying Another Day, Another Dollar instead - assuming your character is permitted to take that card.