I know that this is probably not a fair comparison, but I think that interest in Elder Sign Amulet will probably decline now that the Key of Ys exists. They both take up the accessory slot, are both neutral, have the same skill icons, have the same horror soak, and have the same Item and Relic keywords, However, for 1 resource and 2 experience more the Key of Ys gives you a really powerful effect. It's really hard to justify spend 3 experience on this when you can get the Key for 2 more experience because it's almost always worth it.

The advantages Elder Sign Amulet has over Key of Ys:

• Key of Ys is unique, so only one can be out at a time per group.
• Key of Ys discards cards when it leaves play whereas Elder Sign Amulet does not.
• Key of Ys costs 2 more experience than Elder Sign Amulet and experience is a precious commidity in this game.
• Key of Ys costs 1 more resource which could make it slightly harder to play then Elder Sign Amulet for some investigators.

Key of Ys is so similar to Elder Sign Amulet that if you asserted that the Key of Ys was originally slated to just be the level 5 version of Elder Sign Amulet, I would have been inclined to believe you. Of course, saying that this card is a worse version of what many would argue is the best card of the game isn't really an insult. This is a relatively well-balanced card and I think a lot of people considered it as a reasonable source of horror soak in the core set. However, I think that going forward it will be hard for people to take this card without thinking "maybe I should save up for the Key of Ys instead..."

This is practically an auto-buy for Finn Edwards, who can manage five actions right out of the starting gate using his free evade and Quick Thinking, and potentially boost it to truly absurd extremes later on with upgraded .41 Derringer and Ace in the Hole - plus he's the only Rogue who can't get his hands on a Level-4 Hot Streak.

The "end your turn" effect is mostly academic, since you want this to be your last action anyway. It's sad that Pay Day is based on the number of actions you performed "this turn" instead of "this phase," because otherwise you could get 16 resources from playing Pay Day at the end of your turn, and 17 from playing a second one on another player's turn using Quick Thinking, for a total of 33 resources! (Exactly how you'd get 17 actions on one turn is left as a fairly silly exercise for the reader.) More interestingly, the "end your turn" effect suggests that other cards with a "for each action you performed this turn" effect may eventually turn up, and they wanted to nip game-breaking combos in the bud.

So Finn definitely wants it. Does anybody else? That's a tougher call. If you've built your Rogue with decent access to extra actions (mainly using the abovementioned cards), Pay Day is a decent replacement for Emergency Cache - you get better efficiency, but it has more playing restrictions. In that way, it's analogous to Uncage the Soul.

The main problem there is that the Rogue class has lots of ways to accumulate resources, and some of them are 0-level cards, like Lone Wolf, "Watch this!", and Decorated Skull, and Pay Day doesn't distinguish itself that well. It's not bad for most Rogues, but it's not amazing either. If you're running Ace in the Hole or the upcoming Borrowed Time, though, then of course that analysis goes right out the window.

Notably, Pay Day's ability to monetize on large action-counts might induce me to like Leo De Luca again. I don't think Pay Day alone is enough to tip the scales, but perhaps someday soon...

Magnificent. Introducing the Browning Automatic Rifle, a weapon that lets you spend exactly as much ammo as you need to one-shot the enemy.

I think the most obvious card to compare this to is Lightning Gun, and I think they tend to be neck-and-neck. The key here is that the Lightning Gun's insane +5 bonus is usually more than you need, given that every character who can buy this already has at least 4 . Mark Harrigan in particular is going to prefer the BAR's more judicious approach to spending ammunition.

Some noteworthy interactions:

• Probably the best card to date to combine with Sleight of Hand, so Zoey Samaras and Leo Anderson should especially consider it.
• One of the few cards for which Contraband unambiguously pulls ahead of Extra Ammunition.
• Speaking of which, Extra Ammunition and BAR are genuinely terrible together. You want Extra Ammunition to at least double your usage out of a weapon, and this combination is nowhere close. (I might consider it before Contraband, though. You could probably make the case that it's worthwhile to get 22 ammo instead of 16.)

The BAR seems to just generally love Rogue cards, actually. Even Double or Nothing, a card I'm not ordinarily fond of, can seriously up its game in a BAR deck, where its chances of producing a 10-damage strike are much better than with Shotgun.

In all, the Extra Ammunition problem prevents the BAR from being quite as good as the Lightning Gun, but it's not quite as expensive, either, so they're roughly in the same tier. (Lightning Gun pulls ahead on Expert, though, because its +5 becomes more relevant.)

The BAR seems so powerful for Leo that I think it's my automatic first upgrade if I ever run him.

As far as investigator-specific weaknesses go, Vengeful Hound is relatively mild. I would say it is most like the basic weakness Stubborn Detective in that it effectively blocks out Norman's special ability.

The differences between Vengeful Hound and Stubborn Detective:

• Stubborn Detective has +1 fight, where Vengeful Hound has +1 evade.
• Stubborn Detective's effect blanks every investigator's text box at the location, whereas Vengeful Hound's effect only works on the investigator engaged to them.
• Vengeful Hound deals one point of horror damage whereas Stubborn Detective does not.

Generally speaking, character-specific weaknesses are supposed to be worse than basic weaknesses, so if you get a character-specific weakness that's on par with a basic weakness, that's pretty good. If you compare Vengeful Hound to other character-specific enemy weaknesses like Sacrificial Beast and Graveyard Ghouls, I think it's much milder. In fact, I think even Stubborn Detective is a tougher weakness since it has a harder fight and you really don't want to be evading these types of smaller hunter enemies anyways.

I think this weakness was made weaker because Norman Withers has such low and , but he has plenty of combat options to help him deal with this weakness. Mind over Matter, "I've got a plan!", and Shrivelling can all potentially take down this monster with tests that are base +2 or base +3. That's really not bad. Of course, if it's multiplayer and Norman doesn't have any combat options in his deck for some reason, another investigator can easily dispatch this enemy for him.

I'm not sure what the non-replacement cards for Norman Withers will look like. I think that the other replacement card, Split the Angle, is situational at best. However, I think it is possible people may come back to use these replacement cards even after the main cards are released so that they can continue to use this relatively mild weakness.

There's an obscure theorem that I feel I should bring to your attention:

Finn's Law

For any card in Arkham Horror CG, if the card's combo potential with Double or Nothing is part of what makes it exciting, then that card is actually very boring.

Double or Nothing depends on being played with just the right card in just the right circumstances in order to accomplish anything. The effects of this card can certainly be spectacular, but spectacular does not win scenarios - utility, efficiency, and reliability do.