Granny Orne

A fairly hefty price tag for a typical survivor deck (and Stella Clark out of the box doesn't have a strong economy engine), but Orne is a solid buy, especially for Miss Clark, whose "fail and go again" strategy benefits from controlling degrees of failure. While Granny's +1 helps you pass many Treachery tests, her ability reduces the effects of Rotting Remains, Grasping Hands, and so on and lets you you pick your poison on cards like Abyssal Reach. More positively, she also helps you trigger Grimm's Fairy Tales, Oops!, Dumb Luck, and "Look what I found!", etc. She's not as useful a Horror soak as Peter Sylvestre, but 3 Sanity is nothing to sneeze at. Granny Orne might find a home in a number of Survivor decks, and her upgrade is even better.

What happens if you fail by 1? Can you choose failing by 1 less so you don't take any damage from cards like Rotting Remains? — subjectcero · 1
Yes, you can fail by 0. Interestingly, with 13th vision, since you fail on ties, you can then fail by -1. — StyxTBeuford · 13028
Failing by -1 could also happen with Granny Orne if you draw the auto-fail on a difficulty 0 test (such as a Flashlight investigation on a shroud 1 or 2 location). — Death by Chocolate · 1485
It's definitely clear from the card that you fail by one less or more, so, while Basic Orne can make you fail by 0 (for Rotting Remains, say), she can't make you succeed. Her 3 XP version, on th eother hand.... — LivefromBenefitSt · 1067
Failing by one more could give you the ability to play Eucatastrophe, or to dig one card deeper with Rabbit's Foot (3) — Zinjanthropus · 229
Rabbit's Foot yes, Eucatastrophe no. Level 0 Orne only changes how much you fail by, she doesn't change your actual skill value. And she triggers after the time when you could play Eucatastrophe anyway. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
That's disappointing. I assume it's the same with Granny (3) (the timing part. Granny (3) does change your skill value). Makes the -1 option very limited in it's usefulness. — Zinjanthropus · 229
Yeah, the -1 helps with Rabbit's Foot (3), Grimm's, and maybe getting a different result on something like Abyssal Reach where, situationally, a "worse" result is better. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1067
If you pull auto-fail she can mitigate some of the losses. For example auto-fail rotting remains will give you only 2 horror. Interesting that her upgraded version can't do this, as auto-fail +1 is still 0. — vidinufi · 69
Harvey Walters

Disclaimer: I haven't gotten to play Harvey yet, so the following is speculative theory.

I am personally VERY skeptical about Harvey's value for biggest-hand seeker. Having 9 or more cards in hand when he draws his signature weakness will hurt a LOT, and if you go all in on draw, you will likely hit it a couple times. Many of his starting cards and upgrades suggest you should be aiming for a 11+, 12+, or even 15+ card hand, and I think they're an absolute trap for him. There are certainly tricks around it, such as using Mr. "Rook" to bait it out when you have 8 or fewer cards, but in general, I believe he has much better and less dangerous uses for his abilities if you still want to lean into his abilities as an unstoppable draw engine. Here I suggest three options:

Farseer Harvey (hand size 6-8) The biggest hand Harvey that I recommend should aim for the sweet spot of hovering around 6-8 cards, for the spicy Seeker ritual, Farsight. There are many general events that you can happily toss out one or two a turn as free actions that you might not be running in another seeker deck because they don't 'give enough value on their own' for their deck slot. Harvey's 5 means that he can get by on raw investigation tests throughout the scenario, and cheep investigate action events such as Burning the Midnight Oil or Seeking Answers, where most of the 'cost' is the action they take, become the workhorse pieces. Economy from Emergency Cache or Cryptic Writings (even if you draw it out of turn) are easy to slip in. Conditional emergency cards such as Occult Invocation, "I've got a plan!", or Logical Reasoning can comfortably sit in your hand until they're needed. Even Guidance seems pretty sweet when you don't have to pay an action for it. Generally you should expect to draw 3 cards per round (1 in the upkeep and 2 in the investigation phase, ideally from triggering Vault of Knowledge and your ability, so you can get it as an incidental to investigating and just keep trucking. An ideal turn looks like - draw to 8 with upkeep, during your turn, Farsight at the start, investigate to draw back and then use the other Farsight. You can be less paranoid once you've passed Thrice-Damned Curiosity, and there is still a lot of flexibility.

Support Harvey (hand size 4-5) Like Minh, both Harvey's ability and his signature can be used on your allies. Unlike Minh, Harvey doesn't actually need that much help himself. With just a Magnifying Glass, or any other bonus, he can gleefully investigate away, succeeding on -3 for Shroud 3 locations. Old Book of Lore is another fantastic support card that also synergizes with his ability and can pair nicely with the grossly overqualified intern or the derby-rocking badass or both! Crack the Case or Charles Ross, Esq. can help them pay for all the cards you give them. You'll be fairly self sufficient, and really give your team-mates some serious boosts (especially with the insane value compression of New Book of Lore all while hovering around an irrelevant but middling number of cards. Keep some options, but only take 1 damage at some point. Whatever.

Harvey Goes Brrr (hand size 0-3) Okay, this one may not be the best. It's almost certainly not. But it's definitely my favorite. Just lean all into the gas. CHURN through your deck. Almost every card in the deck should draw cards and/or is fast so you can tear through again and again, playing cards as quickly as you draw them. The engine itself is Abigail Foreman holding an Old Book of Lore. Yeah, you're spending an action each turn to use the book (except when you don't), but that's giving you two searches, and your bonus. That's 3 cards, plus a Surprising Find and/or Surprised Rabbi you stumble across in your reading. Add that to the card you're drawing in upkeep and another expected off of Vault of Knowledge - because you should be investigating once or twice every turn with this deck. The Cryptic Writings play themselves, and other assets will just jump out of your hands. Between spin-cycling your deck and Practice Makes Perfect, the Deductions will easily make back your actions spent reading. Any build-up of accidentally drawn can be easily vented by pitching to your own or allies' investigation actions, or burned into your foes. Best of all, Thrice-Damned Curiosity will become literally the softest weakness in the game - often dealing 0 damage and discarding itself!

Great review! Thank you for allowing me to understand how I'll like to play Harvey, for me, it will be Harvey the mentor because I love support investigators! I'll cite you in my inspiration for the deck! — mogwen · 254
Reactions nowadays? — MrGoldbee · 1471
You could add versatile/ deny existence to counter his weakness with a big hand. — Django · 5108
Clairvoyance

Another routine investigation spell, the lineup of options now includes Rite of Seeking, Sixth Sense and Clairvoyance, a good lineup!

Taking horror is not a problem, not much of a problem at least, you might shy away from using Shrivelling (enter Azure Flame or Wither) or you might teck in Horror healing via Fearless to balance things out.

If you mix the clue spell assets in one deck to have 4 or 5 cluegetter spells your ability to clue will rival a , this sort of dependability is something that the faction hasnt had insofar. The future is bright for the class.

Tsuruki23 · 2557
Azure Flame

A straight up competitor for Shrivelling!!

I think I personally prefer the horror suffering from Shrivelling, however as a campaign progresses the negative tokens will quickly outnumber positive tokens, especially on hard, so while Azure Flame is more dangerous, it is less likely to hurt you.

This is a brilliant card to replace or supplement Shrivelling in a spell based deck that does ALL of it's fighting with magic. It also means you can build a who is as likely as a to be able to fight completely routinely. Is the class the new ? If you have 2 copies of this and 2 copies of Shrivelling you might as well be!

Tsuruki23 · 2557
While it would have to be a pretty weird deck, you could maybe combo this with Shards of the Void and Crystalline Elder Sign to seal good tokens. — Zinjanthropus · 229
On easy and standard you could even play 2 Crystalline Elder Signs to seal +1 and the elder sign. — Django · 5108
Yeah, and there's no limit to how many 0s Shard of the Void can seal as far as I'm aware. — Zinjanthropus · 229
It also depends on the investigator. Diana with two "Arcane Research" would prefere the damage from the Flame to the horror from Shrivelling. — Susumu · 371
Grete Wagner

Roland's ability, the card!

Grete Wagner is super expensive, so not an autotake by any means, but the ability to turn killed enemies into clues is brilliant, if you have a powerful cash engine (such as by adding Stand Together and Clean Them Out) then you can run Grete plus a good weapon and not be completely broke, at which point you should be able to munch through enemies and rack up clues with her.

It's a brilliant Roland Banks card, it directly synergizes with his shtick. It's a great Mark Harrigan card, as the damage she takes is a card for Mark, All the characters really can use her, but I would like to say that she stands out perhaps exceptionally in a deck that has powerful economy to start with (Zoey, Leo, Tommy, where there is enough resources rolling around to pay for both her and the weapon of choice as fast as possible, Grete is useless if you cannot win fights!

Grete Wagner upgraded is also very good, especially for a Roland where the + is useful and the ranged-cluegetting synergizes with his base ability to become hyper-efficient at turning beaten enemies into clues.

Be aware that, like Roland Banks, the ability specifies that -you- must defeat the enemy to net the benefits.

Grete Wagner is good, but be careful about your resource economy.

Tsuruki23 · 2557
I think she's really great IN a Roland deck, as a replacement/supplement for Beat Cop; having better odds of reaching that lofty 5 Combat is great for Roland, and she only costs 1 more resource. I also really like doubling up his ability: if there's one clue on the location I'll use his ability and preserve Grete's health; If there are two I can snag them both; if there's one clue (and one enemy) on two locations I can kill the enemy, scoop the clue, kill the other enemy and scoop another clue. Efficient! — SGPrometheus · 821
Also worth noting that the 3XP upgrade to her gives you +1 intellect as well (marginally useful), but most importantly the ability to scoop a clue up off of a connecting location. Enemies don't always play ball with their locations, nor do shroud values. — BlankedyBlank · 23
Effective in Mark Harrigan to trigger card draw and Mark needs — Hulahoop12 · 1
It is interesting card to use for Mark to trigger up to 3 additional card draw and good alternative in solo Mark for clues (though there are less enemies). She can be used in an ideal deck/scenario, (mythos phase -> beat cop and soften enemy, investigate phase-> Grete Wagner and finish off enemy, Enemy phase-> Engage another enemy before that and take dmg, upkeep phase -> solemn vow ), Mark can draw up to 5 cards a turn! (and no need to discard end of turn) The upgrade though may not be so necessary for him (he doesn't really benefit +1 intellect, and he can reposition with shortcut). — Hulahoop12 · 1