This might be the best Seeker card in the entire game. Not only does it give you +2 to your investigation skill test, it will more often than not award you with 3 clues. 3 clues for a single action is a huge time saver and well worth the use of one card and 2 Xp. You can pretty much vacuum a location for all traces of tentacles prints and black candles and still be able to move away the same round.

Actions are pretty much the life blood of the heroes. Saving time is what will win the day, and this card is a huge timer saver. Even more so with Rex Murphy, since Deduction mimics his amazing ability to find extra clues.

But, is it the first card you should upgrade in a campaign? Probably not - the basic versjon Deduction (+1 Knowledge) will net you 2 clues; enough for most cases. If you play a Seeker hero there's bound to be other weak spots in your deck you need to cover first - like being able to kill at least a few monsters on your own.

The card is also less likely to net +2 Clues in a Hard or Expert campaign, but the +2 to the skill test is also more likely to be vital to your success. I think it's worth it.

I decided to write my own review on Song of the Dead to expand on my response to AndyB's previous review. A couple of weeks ago, I most likely would have agreed completly with that evaluation of the card, but after having played quite some Agnes and Daisy solo decks, I came to really like Song of the Dead.

Sure, the +2 damage is far too unreliable, so let's just forget about that part of the card text and we end up with a rather cheap, very reliable damage spell that deals one damage to an enemy ... that IMO fills a very important slot for solo spellcasting investigators. You won't use this to deal damage to a boss enemy or a Conglomeration of Spheres, that's what Shrivelling is for, but if you have to deal with all enemies yourself you will encounter several weaker enemies that you don't want to waste your precious Shrivelling charges on. That means either packing a weapon ... or Song of the Dead.

The three investigators that can take that card (after core + Dunwich) are Daisy, Agnes and Jim, so let's look if and how they can profit from Song of the Dead in solo play:

Daisy Walker: if you play a caster Daisy with Higher Education, Song of the Dead should almost be an auto-include. You don't have access to good weapons and all alternate damage dealers like Mind over Matter are far too expensive to waste them on Swarm of Rats or Whippoorwills.

Agnes Baker: Propably not as important as for Daisy, because any Agnes deck should have a way to use her ability to deal with weenies, but that also means that you might be able to kill 2 hp enemies with a single Song charge. In addition, with the Fire Axe you have a good weapon alternative, but that might mean some investment in additional resources to fuel the Axe, so Song of the Dead might be the more reliable solution.

Jim Culver: Song of the Dead seems to be tailor-made for Jim , but ironically I think he needs it the least; with a higher -stat and access to the Machete he can handle lesser enemies quite well without it.

Big shiny guns, big scary price tags. Lightning Gun is for the discerning Guardian who wants to never worry about enemies ever again. Well, at least until it's ammunition runs dry.

Upsides: +5 allows you to ignore nearly any token for most fights, and for high enemies even half of the bag usually is success. An easily overlooked upside of this is that LG shots almost never miss, making them more efficient than other ammo weapons.

3 damage will kill most enemies, eat up bosses and allow you to save your vicious blows to kill 4 health enemies. No other weapon can do that. The Shotgun can do more total damage, but you can't tailor it to a specific number which means risk.

Downsides: 3 ammo is sparing, making Extra Ammunition a good investment.

6 money is a tempo hit. Not, mind you, that much worse than .45 Automatic or Machete, but it is a hit.

5 exp is expensive, not much else to really say about this.

2 hands means you either need to ditch your other items or fish for a Bandolier. This isn't as bad as it sounds, as the bandolier only has to be in play before you play LG and your Flashlight but it's still a deck slot and some actions to put that together.

Personally I think it's effective. The ability to know enemies are almost certainly dead in one action is wonderful peace of mind. Still, you can't just purchase this on a whim, a number of support cards are required to make it particularly effective. It's also just plain fun.

Zap

Song of the Dead - how I've tried to like you! When you came along I thought "Yes, another combat spell like Shrivelling, but with a more useful number of charges". But, here's the thing - you just don't do enough damage.

Just like Blackjack, this card has a major weakness in being very action-expensive to kill off most enemies. 1 damage just doesn't cut it next to Shrivelling (at any of it's various levels), and while there is a bonus for symbols, this is pretty unreliable.

The best investigator for this card is Jim Culver; with his abilities, he can get (slightly) more skulls, and he can make use of skulls that would be fails for other investigators. It does feel like it might fit with him.

However, for other spell users so far (Daisy Walker and Agnes Baker), it offers little. It does too little damage per action for Daisy, and Agnes already has other ways of dealing single points of damage.

It's only other use, as far as I can see, is that it does offer a way of doing an odd number of points of damage - thus potentially saving Shrivelling for the coup-de-grace.

So yes, I'm afraid I've more or less fallen out of love with Song of the Dead.

I've been surprised by just how much I enjoy using this weapon. Yes, you heard me correctly, please hear me out! (I promise I'm not completely insane... yet.) While certainly not to be considered action compression, this card will let you get in a "second" attack while avoiding the Chaos bag entirely. This is not that big of a deal when playing on Standard or Easy where you can whiff a few times without much consequence, but as the tokens get nastier and the negative modifiers get larger (and the pile of committed cards grows) I find myself wanting to avoid that bag like the plague. Because sometimes your second attack misses AND a ghoul spawns. And that's just no fun for anyone.