This card has "Dilemma enabler" written all over it. Certainly the first card I'd upgrade into if I were playing a Dilemma deck. Also 2 stamina and 2 sanity is a great soak. 3 cost and 2 EXP is a moderate cost for the effect, but I don't think you would want to pay it if you have no Dilemmas in your deck. You can view this card as an "additional hand", somewhat safe from hand-milling effects... But it is a very slow second hand then.

Okay, this is not the first time I find myself hating this Forced ability... But only playing 2 turns (with a Overzealous and a Monster weakness) ? This has gone too far !!!

Here are some solutions to balance a little bit this Intrigue (more particularly for 3-4 players as it just takes even more actions from you then) :

• Just don't put a doom (easy, but efficient, probably too efficient though).
• Add a "max once per round" to the doom-part of the effect (elegant, it assures you at least 4 rounds and probably more like 5-6).
• Add a doom each time but discard the Monster instead of putting it aside (still oppressive but you don't get doubly punished when the Act advance...).
• Only take "non-weakness Monsters enemies" into accounts, or "Spectral enemies" if you prefer (you don't need to trigger it more often...).

My preference would be :
Forced - When you draw a non-weakness Monster enemy: Instead of spawning it, set it aside, out of play. Then, place 1 doom on this agenda (max once per round). This effect can cause this agenda to advance.

I've recently played this card in a Norman Withers deck. Of course, you can't actually upgrade the card due to his deck-building restrictions, but while other customizable cards aren't that impressive or don't really seem to do much at level 0 (looking at you, Summoned Servitor), this does bank card draw at level 0, if you can manage to succeed by 3 consistently (or fail I guess but why fail when you can succeed?)

I was able to trigger the "succeed on a test by 3" criteria pretty much every round. Norman's 5 book paired with the new Grim Memoir allowed me investigate at 7, and our good friend Dr. Milan Christopher brings that to an 8 without commits. I would more often than not commit Enraptured from my Astronomical Atlas to replace the Grim Memoir secrets, which put me up to 9. On normal difficulty, this beats pretty much every chaos token, and more often than not I'd be right at succeeding by 3.

The banked card draw on Empirical Hypothesis was really nice to make the most out of Norman's once-per-round ability, and helped immensely when trying to cycle out Deductions, Enraptureds, and other useful cards from the deck once The Harbinger was gone to regain tempo.

I'm not the biggest survivors fan but I love my "lowering difficulty" Wendy Adams deck, based around action gain (Leo De Luca and Haste) and 2x Quick Learner in which I used Old Keyring (0) to reach a 0-difficulty test in 4-shroud location.

And now for 3 XP I can

• 1) have 1 more use (or +50% use) before getting it back with Scavenging / Scavenging (2)
• 2) get a 2nd clue each time (unless I draw a and can't discard a card to replace the token or get a 2nd in a row)

Hum ... yes please !

Apart from this best-use case scenario, the card is great for getting 3 times 2 clues, and possibly multiple times with a recursion solution (and they are plentiful in the survivor card pool). And I can add that this is the box in which there is the Flashlight (3) that can add a 2nd -2 difficulty to the test (basically bringing us to the case above).

I think this card is much better than it's predecessor and I think it might get overlooked because that one was generally not that good (outside of a few niche cases).

Compared to Handcuffs, this is fast (to play), costs 1 less and removes all doom on success (the first only prevents new doom).

To me this feels a bit like a cheaper Spectral Razor but reusable for free until you hit. Spectral razor will usually give you a slightly bigger bonus (usually +3 or +4) but handcuff let's you fight against an enemy's evasion instead which can easily be +1 to +3 vs just fighting outright (most enemies have lower evade than combat).

It's lacking spectral razors engage, lacks any utility against elite enemies and can only be used on humanoids though unfortunately which stops it from being a great card (especially at level 2 vs spectral razors level 0).

This would've been an excellent level 0 or 1 card but for 2 exp might be a bit steep. Still it has some niche uses for other effects that require you to have an enemy at your location (like Scene of the Crime. As before might be useful to lock down certain humanoid weaknesses .