This card goes so much better with a Fire Axe + Dark Horse build Survivors. Other versions have to balance the +1 damage and +1 stat with the flexibility from Lucky!, but this version does not have that restriction since it can be played at 0 resources! To top it off, we get an extra +1 and can play it on friends to boot.
Fantastic.
About even with Ward of Protection, and we know how often that sees play. You are spared the Horror, but the cancellation isn't certain. Leaving Calvin Wright out of it, only Silas Marsh starts with a below 3, with the Remaining investigators split evenly between 3 and 4, so a (3) test shouldn't be insurmountable for most of the Survivors (and it could save Calvin from a late game Horror Treachery...). I wouldn't say that this is an auto-include, but it's certainly a useful tool in the Survivor toolchest.
I like this card better than A Test of Will (1); I'm not sure the consistency is worth the Exiling, unless you are worried about a specific game-ruining Treachery or are leaning heavily into Exile with Déjà Vu. I think I would feel worse about missing the test on A Test of Will (2) than I would on this version.
Outside Survivor, I doubt Agnes Baker or Marie Lambeau want it (unless they are doing some sort of "shut down the encounter deck" strategy). Finn Edwards and Preston Fairmont surely don't. I suppose William Yorick or Tommy Muldoon could combo it with "Fool me once..." to blank an event and cancel the next instance, too. Minh Thi Phan probably prefers Dr. William T. Maleson or Forewarned. A Tony Morgan too soft-hearted for "You handle this one!" might like this card better.
Setup question: is the second attempt part of the same action, or a second action that has its action cost waived? This leads to the real question: How does this interact with Quick Learner? Quick guess: it's like Drawing Thin in that if you use it in your first action you'll get -1 to both attempts (-1 +2 = +1 for the second go). This would be true if both attempts are considered part of your first action. However if the second attempt is a second action whose cost has already been covered (including the action cost), then L&L is now a full +2. Flavor-wise the second makes sense as you are benefiting from learning quickly.
We don't talk how ridiculously good this card would work in the Dream eaters cycle. You have two swarming (3) enemies at a location? How about dealing 6 damages and drawing 6 cards for 1 resource and without action? Such situation isn't so hard to imagine after all. I won't even talk about the action compresion.And the more players, the more powerful this card can be. This should be considered as warcrime against the dream-people.
I have a question about this basic weakness.
Right now the rules say the random basic weaknesses are added at the end of the deckbuilding process. Does that mean that the 2 experience you get from becoming the bearer of this weakness can't be used until the end of the first scenario? With the rules as written, that seems to be the case, but I wonder if that was the intention.
I haven't played with this weakness yet, but it seems debilitating if your name isn't Preston Fairmont. I think most investigators would prefer Paranoia. These campaign weaknesses that evolve to create disastrous consequences just seem mean in general. Having 2 experience here is at least nice little bit of compensation - if you could use the experience before the first scenario, it would seem more like the game was saying "here's a challenging weakness, take some experience to see if you can fight it off." However, since it seems like the experience comes after the first scenario, it feels instead more like the game is saying "this weakness is ultimately going to get you so you might as well live fast, here's some experience to see how far you can level up before you go."