Здобуток

Talent.

Cost: –. XP: 3.

Вартовий

Permanent.

Spend 2 resources: You get +1 until the end of the phase.

Spend 2 resources: You get +1 until the end of the phase.

Bryce Cook
Кров на вівтарі #185.
Keen Eye

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

Compared to the other XP permanents, particularly Higher Education and Streetwise, Keen Eye has a couple things working against it. First, except in an ideal situation its ability is a bit less efficient in terms of resources spent per bonus. Second, Guardians are heavily dependent on expensive assets, and all their in-class economy cards (Ever Vigilant, "I've had worse…", Stand Together) cost XP. So they probably don't have a ton of spare resources to devote to a card like this.

For these reasons, I think a lot of players underestimate Keen Eye. This is a mistake. It isn't as good as Higher Education or Streetwise, sure, but it's really, really strong. This is largely because of the amazing power of the Permanent keyword.

Don't think of Keen Eye as adding a card to your deck; think of it as adding an ability to your investigator sheet. Like your investigator ability, it's going to be there for you whenever you need it. And Keen Eye's ability is really useful. Combat and Intellect are the two game-winning skills, and the ability to substantially boost either one whenever you have extra resources is really nice. It's often the case that you'll want to spend your entire turn investigating or (more likely) fighting, and in these cases you can get some really nice efficiency out of Keen Eye.

But the true power of Keen Eye comes from the sheer consistency it offers a Guardian. The simple fact is that sometimes you really, really need to boost Combat, and you just don't have the right icons in your hand. In these situations, Keen Eye will always be there to see you through. As long as you have some resources (and that's something you can plan around), you will be able to boost yourself in an emergency. Your combat performance will therefore be much more consistent. I consider this incredibly important.

The fact that Keen Eye sometimes is genuinely efficient (if you can get +1 to 3 tests from 2 resources), in addition to offering consistency and security, is why I consider it one of the best cards in the game.

Obviously, Keen Eye is best for Zoey, who often does end up with excess resources. Keen Eye is a great way to spend them. In addition to the combat use of this card, discussed above, spending four resources and investigating like a Seeker for a turn is an awesome trick for her to have up her sleeve. In a multiplayer Zoey run I would very likely purchase this before any other upgrade, and in a solo Zoey run (where boosting her Intellect becomes very important) the decision is even more obvious. For the other Guardians, it's less urgent, but it's a good card to pick up before too long.

As a final note, Keen Eye has a nice interaction with Police Badge. It's an expensive combo, but five highly charged up attacks are a pretty cool way to take out a boss.

CaiusDrewart · 3124
to clarify, you'd only ever need one copy of this card (or higher education, scrapper, streetwise) in a deck, correct? — shenaniganz11 · 40
Yes. — AndyB · 944

I completely disagree with Caius take on this card, Keen Eye is, without a doubt, the worst "Permanent: spend resources for stat boost" talent in the game by FAR. Not only it doesn't hold a candle against Scrapper, Streetwise and Higher Education (and the fact it's the only card out of these 4 not to get taboo should tell you a lot), but it's absolute ineffective on its own even without considering its class alternatives.

"Now why is that?" You may ask "Why is this card so bad? It gives a stat boost of +1 for and , two of the main game winning skills, for the rest of the turn for 2 resources, and you can even stack it if you have the cash"

And the end of that sentence is exactly the issue: Guardians do not have the cash for this kind of luxury, with possibly the exception of Zoey Samaras, Leo Anderson and Tommy Muldoon, they are constantly paying for assets, put allies in play, play events, they simply cannot afford the economy to leverage on the stat boost reliably. Nathaniel Cho can, given his playstyle is less asset heavy, but his is too low for the boost to matter, and his is high enough he doesn't need it

Second, +1 for 2 resources for all your skill checks in a round is a very bad deal in anything above easy, and very questionable on easy itself. By the time you can afford the exp for this permanent, the stat boost will probably not suffice for most skill checks you will have difficulties to complete. Sure you can spend 4 resources for a +2, but where you are gonna get enough money to do so?!

Third, and this is the reason what leaves Keen Eye completely dead in the water: boosting all of your skill checks in one turn by little is massively inneficent compared to boosting one skill check by a lot, because that means you are committing the rest of the round fighting and/or investigating. Most guardians aren't just gonna spend all of their actions investigating one location, even in multiplayer, they are very likely to want to take other actions in between, before or at the end of their turn, like moving to another location to investigate there. And even the most combat heavy guardian will struggle to do nothing but fight the whole round (unless you are playing a full 4 player game with heavy enemy spawning and high boss health), their turn will probably also be interspaced by moving and engaging. You sacrifice massive action flexibility to make use of this Permanent, which makes it very difficult to justify using. Sure the times it works (in location with lots of clues and enemies) can be pretty good, but remember you are spending 3 exp for a highly situational permanent and possibly adding to your deck and buying various economy cards just to make use of this

I cannot understate, for a 3 exp card, how bad Keen Eye is, it's almost worthless on its own and ridicolously situational if you have the economy for it. Ironically, if this was the Rogue permanent talent instead of Streetwise... It would still be absolute rubbish, but at least would fit a niche because rogues have various ways to grant themselves additional actions to make the most of the buff

I agree, I tried to make this card work but it felt very clunky for a Permanent that is supposed to make you feel not clunky... sure it does not take my deck space even if I don't use it but I want my 3 XP back. If it boosts all stats by +1 AND lasts for a round instead of phase it would have application in mythos cancelling, some use with flex Guardian who do different things in a turn, or attacks that adds up different stats. This card's text is just handicapped on all sides. — 5argon · 9883
The only time I used this if for a Lily Chen deck that run out of stuff top upgrade, and even then I got more use of Soul Sanctification than Keen Eye — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
Ha! Lily Chen was also my deck which I tried to make this work. (Int Discipline + Butterfly Sword) — 5argon · 9883
Strange to start a review talking about how poor guardians are and end the review showing how guardians have received tons of resource generation over time. you can easily play a guardian who has one melee beat stick and then never spend another resource on anything important, for 3xp keen eye allows such a deck to spend a turn or two being a clue gatherer, the thing the class struggle with the most, what other XP guardian clue gathering card is anywhere close to that reliable? — Zerogrim · 292
Evidence or Gerte, Scene, Runic Axe, Field Agent, Breach the Door... — MrGoldbee · 1449
Field agent and Grete are both expensive, require drawing and playing them, why not spend all those resources getting +2/3 on keen eye and doing 3 investigates? Breach isn't XP, evidence 1 is close to useless and runic axe is one of the strongest guardian cards in the game. — Zerogrim · 292
"[B]oosting all of your skill checks in one turn by little is massively inneficent compared to boosting one skill check by a lot, because that means you are committing the rest of the round fighting and/or investigating": I don't really get that, because that's what you normally would do with this card anyway. A guardian should be able to smash a minion in one action, committing a card or two, without boosts. But what about bosses, who require more actions and have a fight value of 5? In this case, a "Keen Eye" can surely help efficiently. And if you can't deal with a minion, because your hand is empty, but have some resources to spare, you gladly take the ineficient push to do what is needed. Caius' review is also 5 years old. There had been released alternatives, which might replace "Keen Eye" nowadays, none with the permanent keyword, though. So his point still kind of apply. Sure, the other permanents (that spend resources) are better, they had been chained for a reason. But this does not make "Keen Eye" unplayable. It's a matter of having the 3 XP for it or not. — Susumu · 366
@Zerogrim, Have you noticed all the options for resource genration but 3 I mentioned (one that is not that good either) are locked behind exp? My issue with Keen Eye is that you also need the economy to play that consistently to justify the use, and if you do not you are gimping yourself from playing a weapon or other useful assets. Also I find it funny you are saying Grete and Field Agent are too expensive when using Keen Eye Twice costs the same amount of resources as agent and 1 less for Grete for a not semi-permanent stat boost, and both are far easier to play through stuff like calling in favour and motivational speech. Literally the only thing Keen Eye has over them is, as you mentioned, being there at the start of every scenario, but it is still not a good option. Getting Grete to level 3 and buying Well-prepared is literally a better Lore boost then Keen eye ever will be. Also, playing with one weapon and relaying on Prepared for the worst to cut down the cost of your deck, is asking you to get punished by the rng through Crypt Chill or having the weapon be shuffle on the bottom on your deck. — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
@susumu I literally mentioned bosses as one of the situations where Keen Eye might be decent, especially in high player counts given their higher health values. But I refuse to believe, even 5 years ago, there weren't many better cards to spend your exp on than Keen Eye. It was garbo in the past and it's only getting worse with time — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
And you know what, I will go as far to say the whole appeal of being "permanent" is completely pointless, because the whole advantage of a permanent card is the static boost, the fact you can use it and relay on it any time. Nobody is using Keen Eye turn one, you are asking to cripple your economy otherwise, you first gonna explore, prepare your play area with key assets, take care of easy foes, maybe play the economy cards I mentioned to help you use Keen Eye and other cards... In other worse by the point you actually would use Keen Eye, you are likely to already have drawn a non-permanent card that helps you fighting and investigating anyway. In the meant time, you can throw one or 2 resources in Scrapper and Higher Education to help you with a hard check, and Rogues can generate cash easily to justify the cost of Streetwise early too if the draw the right hand — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
if you only consider Field Agent and Grete resource cost then yea they are better than keen eye, you also have to consider their cost to be drawn, cost to be played, the fact they take up a slot both in play and in your deck, sure with combo's they are way better than keen eye, but run tommy with the star and keen eye and laugh at who trivial 6 or more resources is to be spent. — Zerogrim · 292
@Zerogrim I literally did mention in my review that Tommy is one of the few investigators that can actually make Keen Eye because guy gets Assets refunded regularly. And as I said, I'm not convinced of the argument of Keen Eye's cost being even out by the fact it's already in play and ready to use specifically because when you use it, you need to spend your entire turn fighting/investigating to justify the expense. By the time you may want to use it, you may already have drawn a strenght/intellect booster. The way I see it a Keen Eye you are buying is a charisma you are not getting, which is significantly better for people like Tommy and Leo — HeroesOfTomorrow · 49
I think by the time you consider taking this, you've already injected a bunch of economy into your deck with stuff like stick to the plan, ever vigilant, I've had worse, etc. Sure, a 0 XP guardian doesn't have the money for this, but there's a lot of campaigns where I end up considering this. — Blackhaven · 9
Also there's definitely more value in Permanents that just the consistency. They basically save you a card, an action, and however many resources it would cost it if wasn't Permanent. — Blackhaven · 9