I'm cautiously intrigued. The existence of Sword Cane, Scrying Mirror, the new and improved Chthonian Stone, and the classic Grotesque Statue is going to make a two-handed asset a hard sell. Hand slots are in higher and higher demand these days for this faction. But if you're a Mystic who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty, this card is a contender.

The peak performance of this card is easy enough to spot: fill all your arcane slots and you get an unlimited +3 , 2 damage attack. Compare that to any other level 0 weapon--it's just bonkers good. For laughs, throw in Familiar Spirit to crank it up to +4. Or if you're an absolute clown, and have access to Bandolier, put a Sign Magick or Book of Shadows in your free hand for a +5 (or both/double for +6 with the upgraded Bandolier, plus a bonus +1 !). Or with access, use Arcane Enlightenment to hold Book of Shadows, then use that additional arcane slot to hold another--okay, you get the idea.

Meme builds aside...the big catch is the setup cost. Nothing we haven't seen here--it's an asset-that-lets-you-hold-more-assets which also gets-stronger-with-other-assets. And so this card suffers under the same dearth of efficiency suffered by all such cards. Say you're going for the bare minimum of getting the damage bonus.

First and foremost, the resource cost: the staff itself costs 3. I imagine you'll pretty much always want to play an investigation spell alongside, which will cost 3/3, 4/4, or 5. And with that, we've already ruled out a turn one setup without also having some economy in your opening hand. Next you may want an evasion spell to complete your trifecta of tested actions--that's another 2/2 or 3/3. Uncage the Soul is a big help for more expensive spells, but there are leaner alternatives. Alchemical Transmutation is cheap, and will help to cover the cost. Scrying is a nice bargain too.

Next there's the action cost: With the exception of Mind's Eye (2 slots), Obfuscation and Talisman of Protection (Fast), that's 3 actions to play the cards you need. A whole turn.

For both of these issues delivers some decent out-of-faction support through Ever Vigilant. In fact, I'd say that Dragon Pole is barely playable without it. It's almost as if this card was designed with a certain long-awaited / Martial Artist in mind. Cultists, nuns, or zealous chefs may be equally interested. Perhaps the clowning with Bandolier is actually viable?

My mind also turned to Akachi Onyele upon seeing this card. With her decent and her love of spell assets, as long as she can address the setup issues, she could go full battlemage with this!

All things considered, if you want to get the most out of this card, you'll need to build around Dragon Pole like you'd build a road around a sacred thousand year-old tree. I prefer to see that as an opportunity rather than a problem, though I imagine most traditional Mystics would rather stick to 2x of a standard attack spell. Of course for all we know, there will be more support for this card once the cycle is released. Looking forward to it!

Soloclue covered the best uses for Glimmer, but I want to talk about its individual effectiveness when those synergies aren't available.

The first thing to note is that all symbols aren't equal. Depending on the makeup of the chaos bag, being 1- or 2-over the threshold can have drastically different odds of success. Meanwhile, being 3-over won't improve your odds at all if there are no -3s in the bag. In a lot of cases, committing a +1 to three tests is much more useful than committing a +3 to one test. It lets you sit at a comfortable chance of success and avoid the many "-2, if you fail do X" penalties for drawing symbols.

Glimmer of Hope's utility is in ensuring you—and your fellow investigators—hit that comfortable target as efficiently as possible. As a recurring +X to tests, it's comparable to a pump asset like Dig Deep, with a few advantages (and limitations). While pump assets cost two dollars and an action to install them up front, Glimmer can be played out of hand and is paid for only when you need to recur it. If you draw a Glimmer in the upkeep phase and immediately need to use it, that's fine. Glimmer is also a wild symbol, whereas pump assets only affect two skills—and in survivor, neither available pump asset affects . And while pump assets can only boost your own skills, Glimmers can be tossed around to other investigators' tests.

However, Glimmer suffers in a few ways. Most glaringly, their usefulness depends on how many you've drawn; recurring a single for a dollar and an action is a terrible exchange rate. Drawing two breaks even, but ideally you want all three; without heavy card draw, that can be difficult. Also, the cost of an action and a dollar isn't quite the same as two dollars for the equivalent boost from a pump asset. Depending on your economy you may find yourself with an excess of cash, especially late in a scenario, but you will rarely have an excess of actions. And finally, while a pump asset can hit any threshold(s) with enough cash, Glimmer has a hard limit of +3 to a single test. There's no way to bank more, and recurring the +3 for a second test provokes opportunity attacks.

So is it good? As established, with Pete/Wendy/Minh or a Cornered deck, it's great. With a lot of card draw or a scenario where you expect discard effects (e.g. Dunwich), its good. Silas runs cheap and focuses on combat, so he generally prefers Scrapper/Scrapper. Preston hates it. With anyone else, it's really down to preference, with a slight edge if you're playing multiplayer.

I'm going to give this a try in Patrice Hathaway. It's a cheap spell she can get out that helps her deal with Watcher from Another Dimension. Plus, you get extra actions. I really really like extra actions to deal with hidden weaknesses / weaknesses / playing the things in your hand.

I'm also going to give this a try in Leo Anderson. Leo's lack of innate evasion where sometimes it is required makes this kinda a really interesting choice. HMMM. What a weird investigator.... uses Willpower from Guardian statline on a Rogue/Mystic card that lets you use agility, but Leo takes advantage of the card pool access...

This event seems absolutely fantastic for Rita Young. An attack at skill value 8 is nearly guaranteed to succeed on standard against all but the strongest of enemies. And the auto evade afterwards means you can ping the enemy for a third point of damage or move for free! Not bad for 1 resource and 1 experience.

Also pretty good for Nathaniel Cho. It's a Spirit event, so he can look for it with his Boxing Gloves. There is a lot of competition for card slots in his deck tho.

This would be the fourth card that Parallel Daisy back has access to that Standard Daisy does not, the other three being Grimm' Fairy Tales, Scroll of Secrets (3) (Mystic), and Book of Shadows (3).

Of those three, Book of Shadows is by far the most interesting. Parallel Daisy back has access to the Archaic Glyphs spells, which use charges, rather than secrets (and so can't be recharged with Astounding Revelation). Book of Shadows could conceivably guarantee a use of Guiding Stones every turn, which is pretty strong. Where this starts to get really exciting, in my opinion, is with the Astronomical Atlas. Combining the extra icons + recursion from the Atlas with Practice Makes Perfect and you're well on your way to big commit Daisy deck that can just scoop up mountains of clues very consistently on higher player counts.