Improvised Weapon

This in Stella Clark with two Quick Learner lets you kill a 3 fight 3 health enemy in your third and fourth action, provided you don't draw the tantacle. Seems to be a nice combo for expert difficulty.

In your first action you can fail an evade or attack against the enemy to draw cards and/or gain resources to pay for two times Improvised Weapon and trigger Stellas extra action in the process. Of course you have to deal with one attack of opportunity while doing something useful in the second action before you fight the enemy. But have enough cards for tanking damage, even Stellas -ability can heal you later.

Quick Learner and Improvised Weapon only reduce the fight value by 2 or am i missing something? — Nallej · 1
Nevermind, you took two Quick Learner, I misread your review. — Nallej · 1
With [Parallel Roland Banks](/card/90024) this card is now looking pretty great as a [fast](/card/90026) self recurring 1 cost 1-2 dmg attack. Become a master improviser with [Sleuth](/card/08121) to unlock its true potential! — greenmantis55 · 100
Shazbots, posted the above ^ in the wrong place! — greenmantis55 · 100
Ice Pick

So, I just want to add that Scavenging + Ice Pick is still a fantastic combo. The review by elkeinkrad mentions that you can't use Scavenging in the same test as you use Ice Pick for an extra clue, which is entirely correct (as Scavenging is Step 6 of the test and Ice Pick step 7), however some people seem to have misunderstood that for the two cards not working together at all.

They do, obviously, you just have to use Ice Pick and then on a subsequent test trigger the Scavenging. It takes a bit more effort, but having played this deck in "Ashcan" Pete with Granny Orne and Plucky, I can guarantee you it is the real deal. Love this card, it is the payoff the Scavenging deck needed.

Veronica212 · 301
you can just use two ice picks and swap them constantly, this truly is an obscene card. Minh approves. — Zerogrim · 296
Roald Ellsworth

TLDR: Ellsworth is a very good for a support partner in the early scenarios that throw many sticky location treacheries at you, but gets generally less valuable as the campaign progresses.

Ellsworth was extremely useful in my group's run of Edge of the Earth, much more useful than I anticipated! Ellsworth can blank several infuriating cards, such as Polar Mirage, Antarctic Wind, and Through the Ice. He can trivialize these sticky treacheries at fast speed , simply costing a supply and exhausting. During and after To the Forbidden Peaks, I maybe used 3 supplies off him at most in a scenario, because sometimes we were already moving from the location or we weren't investigating that round. In this sense, I really enjoyed the flexibility of using it during any investigator's turn, such as if you didn't have anything else to do and your seeker was trying to save their cards, you're able to use Ellsworth to thwart Polar Mirage. Especially since Polar Mirage and Through the Ice care about you being at that location or moving to or from it, if you don't care about going back to that location, then you've relegated that card to an icy crevasse, never to be dealt with again!

Although extremely useful in the majority of the campaign, Ellsworth was just not used in either of the Heart of Madness scenarios. Often, there were few to no targets for his ability, and he was just relegated to a damage soak and target for Miasmatic Torment (Sorry, bud).

Overall, I found Roald Ellsworth to be a solid overall choice for a support partner asset. Man, he is a great choice in Ice and Death and Fatal Mirage, and a decent pick in To the Forbidden Peaks and City of the Elder Things.

I definitely agree, Roald doesn't look like much at first glance, but once you realize just how much of the encounter deck is made up of these "stick to location" treacheries, his worth quickly becomes apparent. A Big Hand Seeker might consider bringing Roald specifically to counter Polar Mirage, while a low agility investigator may consider him to blunt Through the Ice. Overall a great general-purpose pick for the first half of the campaign if you aren't particularly in need of another companion. — Soul_Turtle · 495
Question about his ability - if a treachary card on a location says "discard at end of round" and Roald blanks it with his ability, does it stay around until the end of the next round? — Chappykinz · 1
Roald only blanks the treachery for one investigator's turn, that is, until their portion of the investigator phase is over. It will be active during other investigators' turns and during the end of the round check. — dscarpac · 1249
Dauntless Spirit

This card, along with Survey the Area, Defensive Stance, and Occult Theory forms a cycle of cards that boost two of your skills (Savant is a different breed, but is the Rogue 1XP version). The two skills are the ones that the Edge of the Earth investigators have a 4 and 5 base skill in (Lily excepting), so for those investigators specifically, these cards boost those skills to a modified skill of 9 (without any other modifiers in play). Number big! Why would you want to pay an XP for such a big number, when Unexpected Courage usually puts you in a good position to pass a test, or you want the draw off of Guts?

  • You're looking for something to help you succeed-by-2 (although note that that's most commong in , and that class didn't get one of these cards (but hey, off-classes exist).
  • If you're dealing with Curse tokens, this may make you feel more comfortable about a very important skill test.
  • On Hard difficulty, this may be worth it more of the time when you must pull a chaos token.
  • Occasionally you do need to pass a very tough skill test. Several locations throughout the campaigns ask you to test (5) to unlock something or another or avoid something bad. Being up by 4 should protect you almost all of the time on Standard,
  • If you're playing with other EOTE investigators, having high stats means you have low stats in something else. Specifically with this card, Daniela can commit it to Monterey Jack's skill test, granting him 6 for a tough treachery. Jack could do the reverse with Survey the Area, allowing Daniela to try to pass a crucial test, again at a modified value of 6.

Because these skills only modify two skills, they also draw comparisons to Curiosity, Able Bodied, Steadfast, and Cunning. The classes and skills don't exactly match up to this cycle, but the main draw with those is that they are at 0 XP. This cycle needs to work at 1 XP because of the unusual deck-building requirements of the EOTE investigators. For other investigators, whether or not they want them is a case-by-case analysis. They're worth a look because you'd be paying 1 XP to put in a Level 0 card anyways if you really needed the skill boost. But most other investigators are not regularly testing two stats, nor do they need to boost them quite so high. 1 XP cards are tricky because the deck slot itself is extremely valuable, and you'd rather fill it with something that helps you do more than pass a single test. Plus, for another XP, you can test your class's main stat with the Overpower (2) cycle, and draw cards to boot.

I've written this review for Dauntless Spirit specifically because it boosts , which is always useful. It's Innate and a card, so it's easy to pick back up again. Many investigators should take a look, but I think Silas Marsh will make the most use out of it, giving him 6 for a treachery to avoid horror, but note that he can't pick it up with his effect.

dscarpac · 1249
Commit resourceful to get it back with Silas. — MrGoldbee · 1496
Played it in a Minh deck with Strange solution: Acidic ichor and later added the pair of Brute forces. She was quite the fighter by the end of the campaign. Very fun deck to play! — Skrattmas · 9