Investigator Expansion Review: The 2026 Core Set

Hot Take Edition

This set is very new, the review was written before holding the cards in hand. I will eventually go back and revise many of these ratings, once we are all a bit more familiar with the cards and the new baselines set forth by Chapter 2.
Until then, take these comments as what they are, hot takes fueled by first impressions and I’ll give you a headsup on when i update this in like half a year or so.

Introduction

On this page, i go over all of the player cards in the Core to evaluate them. The goal is not only to find out how playable the cards are on an individual level, but also to see how well set up the classes are to build coherent and capable decks that can tackle a campaign.
This evaluation will be mostly self-contained to the Core Set, so chapter 1 references will be kept to a minimum.
The ranking I use for cards is Bad < Okay < Good < Excellent with each of those spanning quite a range. I use something like “Okay to Good” or “Good to Okay” when I want to specify whether it’s on the upper or lower range of that rank. Cards that are particularly important because they can slot into many many decks, get the Staple ranking. Being a Staple or not is often not just about individual power, but also about opportunity cost, favoring cards with low XP and resource costs.
Please don’t take these rankings too seriously and more as a guideline, cards need to be evaluated in context and compressing these contexts down into just one word is really unprecise. I still find it useful for this overview as a shortcut to put the cards into relation quickly.

The Investigators

Investigators in the Core Set all follow the same deckbuilding rules, they can play any card level 0-5 from their main class and a limited range of level 0-2 of a specific subclass. These are big and flexible card pools that allow for a good amount of variety.
Daniela Reyes: The primary Guardian, secondary Survivor. She supports a tanky playstyle where you intentionally get in harm’s way and retaliate on the enemies while protecting your teammates. As a 5 combat investigator with full Guardian access she is definitely able to play the role of the main fighter.
Joe Diamond: Seeker first, Guardian second. His statline and card access has him split between being a fighter and a seeker, but both his main class and his investigator ability makes him lean greatly towards seeking. What you end up with is a good main seeker that can also defend himself from monsters, but is somewhat vulnerable to the encounter deck. His card draw makes him even more consistent than Seekers usually are already.
Trish Scarborough: Rogue with Seeker. She makes for a compelling main seeker that like Joe is also able to handle herself, but through evasion instead of combat. Her free evasion action per round can be enhanced further through various evasion payoffs in the card pool, giving both ends of her skillset some range.
Dexter Drake: Mystic 0-5, Rogue 0-2. Like Daniela, he sports a 5 in his primary attribute, immediately putting him in a spot where his competence is not really in question. His ability to manipulate assets in play and play multiple cards in one action supports a more traditional spell based game while also leaving room for shenanigans. He is a flexible investigator that can both fight and investigate, as long as he has the right spells in play.
Isabelle Barnes: Finally, our Survivor who also has Mystic access. The one in the lineup with the least clear defined role. Her investigator ability allows re-use and recursion of skill cards which allows her to spike her flat statline to whatever purpose she needs at the moment. With access to lowlevel spells she can immediately flex into all roles and her signature weapon does give her at least one compelling reason to consider taking up an enemy handling role as well.
Something that can be said right away about these investigators is that they aren’t necessarily “watered down” or “introductory” characters. Like in the original Core, the abilities will keep these investigators relevant even when down the line, dozens of other ones will be introduced. The only one with a somewhat basic looking ability is Joe Diamond, but he does at least stand out from other Seekers through his combat capabilities which will always give him a niche to shine in – fighty Seekers are quite rare even in the full chapter 1 pool.
They also all seem reasonably powerful, i don’t think any of these will be as initially problematic to get to work as Skids was in the old Core Set.

Guardian

Bodyguard: Okay to Bad. If you manage to fully make use of his soak and also save an action through the damage trigger, then you are actually getting solid value for your resources. But this is going to be hard to line up in a consistent way, your ally slot is very likely to want something better than this.
Endurance: Okay. The initial investment of 2 resources keeps this from universally desirable, but once its in play the conversion rate of money into skill bonuses is quite good. Who has the money though? Guardians usually don’t.
Logan Hastings: Excellent, Staple. Allies that provide +1 to a primary skill are always at least playable, and Logan comes with a nice ability too. That extra income will often do very little more than just pay off himself, but that’s perfectly fine of course.

M1911: Excellent to Good, Staple. The new gold standard for Firearms.
Machete: Excellent to Good, Staple. Unlimited ammo when compared to the M1911, but can attack for 2 damage only once per round. Which one you prefer will depend on your deck, player count and how many enemies the campaign throws at you. You might want both.
Resilience: Okay. Slightly overpriced. But additional soak that doesn’t take up an equipment slot can have a place, especially if your strategy involves intentionally tanking attacks, like Daniela does.

Lesson Learned: Okay. A card for a clue. Likely won’t solve a location, so it’s just some incidental clue gain that would require more redundant cards to really make a difference. Among those cards, it’s likely going to end up as one of the weaker ones.
Right Tool for the Job: Good. Allows finding your big weapons you invested into … or just any weapon at all, which is important considering how much a Guardian can falter if they don’t draw a weapon. The ability to also find a Tool gives it some flexibility, but the main job here is definitely making sure that you get a weapon in hand. Will lose importance as the card pool grows with redundant options.
Scene of the Crime: Good to Excellent, Staple. Sometimes slightly awkward due to its timing, but getting 2 free clues without a test for one card is something quite special in Guardian. A very easy to include way of getting a little flexing into your otherwise combat heavy decks.

Vicious Blow: Excellent, Staple. One of the key cards that makes Guardian good at their job. The capability to spike up your damage output from the usual 2 damage to 3 damage solves all sorts of problems, saves actions, makes them competent at their thing. You rarely leave the house without these.
Counterattack(1): Excellent, Staple. Like Vicious Blow, this is an extra damage for a card. It does cost a resource and won’t boost your attack, but in exchange you get to cancel an attack. This even works against attacks of opportunity, which makes this a lot less conditional than it looks at first glance and gains further utility through working on attacks against other investigators. A great way to spend a single XP.
Bodyguard(2): Good to Excellent. A massive glowup from the level 0, the additional soak makes this version of Bodyguard a lot more likely to eat up enough damage and/or horror to be worth his price. That he also deals 2 damage instead of 1 on his way out means that he can even take down small enemies all on his own.

Sledgehammer(3): Okay. Does the job, but between 3xp and being two-handed this weapon asks a bit too much just to get a repeatable 2 damage fight action without a combat bonus. The full swing is fine, but eats up your actions in a way that is uncomfortable.
Winchester Model 12(5): Good. The big gun of the set which promises 3 shots with up to 5 damage each. Getting there is unreliable due to the test involved, but the amount of damage you can do with this in a short time when you unload it completely into a boss monster in one turn is hard to beat. Makes excellent use of extra ammo effects.

Most useful: M1911/Machete, Vicious Blow, Counterattack
Least useful: Bodyguard(0), Lesson Learned, Sledgehammer

Verdict: There’s two main parts to the Guardian class here, fighting and taking hits. The fighting part is further split into melee and firearms. Each of these three things has some solid support here, including both level 0 and upgraded cards that allow some investment even on just the Core Set.
Daniela can use all of this pretty well of course and is in turn very well supported here. No complaints on that front at all.
The other investigator in the box that uses Guardian cards is Joe and he will find enough to like in here as well, enough even to take the part of the main fighter if he has to. Since he’s 7 health and 7 sanity as a base, he could even get cute and use some of the tank/retaliate pieces. The Sledge and the Winchester are out of his pool, but everything else is up for grabs and potentially of interest for him.
Overall, the Guardian pool looks quite good. Bodyguard(0) is the only very questionable card here, while a lot of the other cards are proven staples from chapter 1 or staples in the making with the rest mostly still ending up somewhere in the Good to Excellent range.
I wish the class was a bit less one-dimensional, but there is little room to complain about what we get here.

Seeker

Dorothy Simmons: Excellent, Staple. Seekers love their primary skill bonuses even more than Guardians, so Dorothy immediately has a place as a way to get +1 intellect from the ally slot. She only costs 3 and has a resource ability to boot, which makes her easy to include in most decks.
Fingerprint Kit: Good. 3 Deductions in a box is great value for one card to provide. There is of course the matter of having to pay 4 resources upfront which keeps it from being played more.
Laboratory Assistant: Excellent, Staple. Card draw and horror soak in a very tidy and cheap package. Having one or two of these in your deck is just never wrong.

Local Map: Okay to Good. When it works, it’s giving you a good payoff with a bonus to investigate and free movement. But it’s a bit awkward to use, requiring that the target location is already revealed. It also can’t be used just for the bonus on the location you are already at.
Magnifying Glass: Excellent, Staple. There are more impactful things that you can do with your handslots, but all of those do require a lot more from you than just a single resource. Mag Glass is nearly free, not even asking for an action to play it, which makes this a very easy way for Seekers to beat shroud value through their intellect and basic investigate actions.
Sharp Rethoric: Good. Most likely you are only interested in the ability to investigate at +2 here, but that’s already enough to give it a very solid role.

Gather Intel: Excellent. The condition is not one you need to engineer, it’s one that just happens on its own eventually. Actionless card draw is great at keeping your deck consistent. I think this plays second fiddle to Laboratory Assistant as level 0 card draw, but in many cases you’ll just run both.
Through the Cracks: Bad to Okay. Emergency evades as a clue getter are a thing, but I really don’t see this effect ever be worth 3 resources.
Working a Hunch: Good. Two resources are a lot for a clue, but it’s completely unconditional. What really saves this card however is the two intellect icons, which are often a way to gain a clue with this that doesn’t cost anything.

Deduction: Excellent, Staple. The archetypical “card for a clue”, this doesn’t cost anything. Actually, it even helps you with your initial test, although you probably only want to use this when you are sure to pass already. In any case, a signature seeker card.
Mysterious Grimoire(2): Good to Excellent. Digs four cards out of your deck with some selection behind it. Revealed weaknesses are drawn, but note that this is actually a good thing in most cases. Card draw is card draw, even if it’s bad cards – those are cards you aren’t drawing later. Two XP isn’t a huge ask for this and 3 resources are fair too, but the hand slot is going to be a limiting factor.
Through the Cracks(2): Okay. Two resources is much more reasonable to pay for a heavily buffed evade with emergency move. It’s still a fairly fringe card and paying 2xp for it hurts, but it does the job.

Studious(3): Good to Excellent. This extra card is drawn before deciding on mulligans, which means it also can be part of the mulligan. You also can have two of them that stack with each other. As a result, Studious does give a great deal of consistency when it comes to having specific cards in your opening hand. This is a great way to dump any XP once your deck has the basics cared for and will hugely improve those first crucial turns of a scenario.
Unbridled Knowledge(5): Good. This is a lot of card draw and card selection. It even allows you to put any weaknesses found this way under your deck and out of sight for at least a bit. 5XP is however a lot to ask for and i would probably go for double Studious first in most cases.

Most useful: Deduction, Dorothy Simmons, Magnifying Glass
Least useful: Through the Cracks… and uuuh… nothing else really.

I can’t really in good conscience put something like Sharp Rethoric and Local Map on the “Least Useful” list, those are perfectly fine cards. Well then, looks like Seeker simply doesn’t have any bad cards except for Through the Cracks. That one is kind of niche and overcosted to matter and i feel like especially the two investigators that can use it – Trish and Joe – already have ways to evade or fight any enemies, so they need this sort of effect even less than someone like Daisy might have.
Seeker gets its usual mix of card draw and investigative power, both through intellect bonuses and acceleration. There is little doubt here that both Joe and Trish can find enough to make them excellent at being primary seekers.
So yeah, this is all just very good and looks even more universally useful than the Guardian pool did.

Rogue

Lucky Cigarette Case: Excellent, Staple. A cheap assset that will keep feeding your cards all throughout the scenario without having to do much for it. If oversuccess is part of your main game plan, this gets really incredible, but LCC is perfectly fine even as just a value play.
M1903 Hammerless: Okay. Since this requires you to evade first, this still makes you spend 2 actions on killing a 2 health enemy. Or 3 actions on a 3 health guy. This makes the weapon rather ineffective unless you want to evade the enemy anyways or can do it without an action. In the right hands, this is a good weapon, but there are few that can use this well.
Olivier Bishop: Excellent, Staple. Getting a free movement per round is not quite a full action gained, but about as close as you will get for 4 resources. He is also the +1 skill ally for this class, giving him further value for those that want to invest into agility.

Silver Tongue: Okay. I’d rank this below the other talents because it’s a lot more limited in its application. Evasion usually has better enablers and Parley is not all that common, at least for now.
Sticky Fingers: Good. A nice complement to the Lucky Cigarette Case that gives you trickle income that goes towards affording the extra cards you draw. As long as evasion is part of your plan, this does pay off quickly.
Thieves Kit: Good to Excellent. Gives flexibility at the very least, enables investigation for those with low intellect at its best. All the while it pays off its own cost and then some. The lack of a straight skill bonus means you won’t be cracking high shroud locations with this alone, but as a flexing tool to support a different main seeker this is great.

Breaking and Entering: Excellent to Good. A problem solver that can either provide a safe evade or break through something like an Obscuring Fog or just a high shroud in general. The evade works on Elites which is very relevant. It’s also a great oversuccess enabler. It barely misses the mark on being a staple, but it’s definitely a very good card.
Paint the Town Red: Okay to Bad. For this to be worth it, the fact that you are pulling out an extra enemy needs to be an upside for you. If it is, then this pays you for getting what you want, but at least for now there is little reason to want more enemies.
Prestidigitation: Excellent to Good. A tricksy card that allows you to hold back playing an asset until you actually want to use it while also potentially recovering uses on a spent asset you return to hand. The card respects the costs of the asset you put into play, stopping overly powerful shenanigans from happening.

Out of Sight: Bad. This really doesn’t do a lot and when you need to do it, it isn’t consistent enough.
Sticky Fingers: Okay. Doesn’t provide enough of an upgrade over the level 0 to be worth bothering with. It still does the job, but not any better than it did before.
Decisive Strike: Good. The range of investigators that can use it well is fairly limited, but for those that can the extra income on a kill event is pretty good. In chapter 2, this is still waiting for an investigator that really wants it, but the numbers on the card are very much good enough to make this a good deal.

Another Day, Another Dollar(3): Good. Two extra resources don’t sound like much, but you get them exactly when you need them the most and without having to do anything for it. I don’t rate this as highly as Studious which gets a lot of extra value from its interaction with the mulligan, but this is still a fine card. It tends to fall out of favor once other more punchy options for your XP become available however.
Out of Sight(3): Okay. Unlike the level 0 which barely gives you enough to justify the card slot, this throws three icons towards your test which is not nothing. The bonus movement is restricted to revealed locations which severely limits the usecase however. That together with the relatively high XP cost makes for an unattractive pickup, but the raw impact is there, at least on a small card pool.

Most useful: Lucky Cigarette Case, Olivier Bishop, Breaking and Entering
Least useful: Paint the Town Red, Out of Sight(0), Sticky Fingers(2)

The first thing that jumps at me looking over the rankings i gave here is the low count of things that i’d consider Staples when compared to Guardian and Seeker. Even if we consider Thieves Kit and Breaking and Entering, both of which are on the cusp to that, there is not as much here that is firmly anchoring an archetype or role. Partly this is because because Guardian and Seeker simply have more defined narrow roles. But a big part is also because something like a Hammerless just isn’t that great when held next to a M1911 or a Mag Glass, even when it manages to get the job done.
Oversuccess and Agility Matters are fairly well established as main archetypes nonetheless and we are definitely able to build solid decks with these cards. Trish is an innately very strong investigator that can use a lot of this well, especially the evasion based things while patching up any lack of investigative power with her yellow cards. Dexter will probably not find too much here, however? Traditionally, we’d expect Dexter to look at his green access to fix the lacking economy of his purple cards, but the main pieces of income here are either agility based and thus not really in his wheelhouse (Sticky Fingers, Thieves Kit) or just out of reach of his Rogue access (Another Day). I am assuming that a Dexter that is built on only the Core is going to mostly have to stick to his Mystic cards with a LCC thrown in. And Prestidigitation of course, that card pretty much has his name on it.
Overall this is workable, but far from the same level of quality that the Guardian and Seeker cards have to offer.

Mystic

Cloak of Resonance: Good to Excellent. Not every enemy deals horror on attack, so as a plan to defeat enemies through taking their attacks of opportunity, this is a bit more limited than chapter 1’s Guard Dog. That being said, the ability is still very good and interacts with a lot of Mystic cards, so you are likely to get your resources’ worth here.
Cosmic Flame: Excellent, Staple. While it only comes with three charges, these only get used up on successes (and skulls). Flame can also be used without spending a charge at all to basic attack with your willpower which is definitely relevant. This is a great combat spell.
Jim Culver: Excellent, Staple. Like the other three classes before, Mystic gets a +1 skill ally and it’s the best one yet. Willpower is a very key component to almost every Mystic, giving Jim importance just on that alone. But he also comes with a draw ability that is brilliant to have in a class that so much depends on drawing the right cards to do something proactive.

Lucky Charm: Good. This is a neat card that can turn direct damage/horror into normal one that can go on soak. It also lets soak you play apply retroactively which is nice. Any investigator that somehow uses damage or horror as a resource will get good use out of this and while it doesn’t provide actual healing, it does at least come with two points of soak on its own.
Second Sight: Excellent, Staple. Even if you never end up spending a charge on this and just keep the charges banked to ward of the cultist token, you get a way here to basic investigate with your willpower. Mystics are very interested in this sort of thing and you get a lot of uses out of this card before it runs out. If you draw a second copy or just feel the need to pick up some tempo you can even generate extra clues with it. Another great spell.
Spiritual Intuition: Okay to Good. If you have spare resources you can make all your spellcasting near fool-proof as just a +2 on a presumably high base willpower will already put you in a good spot. That being said, spare resources are not something i associate with the Mystic class, so unless something fundamentally changes there, this probably will not see too much play.

Premonition: Good. Improve your odds of passing tests through telling you the token in advance and has some neat uses to optimizing player turn sequencing. This has a lot of subtle positive effects, but sometimes they are too subtle to justify spending a card slot on this when you could run something more obviously impactful or an extra skill with good icons.
Ward of Protection: Excellent, Staple. Canceling the shenanigans of the encounter deck is an immensely powerful effect that can do anything from saving a couple of actions that would otherwise be spent on handling whatever came up to saving an investigator from getting defeated by a damage treachery.
Will of the Cosmos: Good to Excellent. As long as you can find a way to get rid of that doom after the fact (like putting it on a Premonition that’s in play or an asset that you plan on discarding or returning to hand anyways) this is just two easy bonus clues. There are plenty of ways to make this work out in your favor.

Soul Link: Excellent, Staple. If you can nail a treachery test with this, it does the exact same job as a Ward of Protection. Except it doesn’t even cost a resource and it can be committed to other player’s test. Ward does hit more treacheries than Soul Link, but of course Soul Link isn’t restricted to treacheries in the first place, it can just secure any important test. This card is fantastic.
Mask of Silenus(1): Good. A way to improve your odds on three upcoming tests that doesn’t really ask much of you as it only costs 1xp and uses an uncontested slot. The resource cost is the only issue here, but if you can fit this in, it will likely be worth it.
Fearless(2): Excellent. Two icons for your willpower tests while also healing horror? Yes to all of these. Especially good if you use sanity as a resource for something, but even just as a counterbalance to your Soul Links and Wards of Protection this does a lot of heavy lifting.

Augur of Elokoss(3): Good to Okay. Pretty brilliant if you can make all parts of the card work, but that will probably require further investment in cards like Premonition and Mask of Silenus to feel comfortable. Worst case, it’s a good investigation spell, but at 3xp you really need to get that anti-treachery effect to fire for it to feel worth it. Notably, this can hit weakness treacheries too, which gives it an interesting niche that might keep it relevant.
Cosmic Flame(5): Excellent. A near-infinite source of attacks at +2 skill and +1 damage that takes only a single slot is pretty massive. And when required, this can even deal an extra damage, which doesn’t even have to go at the same enemy. This is super powerful, very worth it and the only thing that’s keeping it from getting the Staple rank is the opportunity cost inherent to level 5 upgrades.

Most useful: The spell assets, Jim Culver, Soul Link
Least useful: Spiritual Intuition? Augur of Elokoss maybe? Honestly, this is just straight up all good.

What a great set of cards for Mystic. It covers the bases they need to be useful during the game with several options for discovering clues and fighting while also giving them utility through token manipulation, cancels and great skills. The investigative side has more cards to it than the fighty one, but in exchange the combat side has a peak level 5 asset that immediately transforms them into a main fighter.
With the notable exception of a resource card, Mystics are eating very well in this Core Set and Dexter will have no trouble finding everything he needs to function well here. Isabelle can also use a bunch of these very well thanks to her high base willpower, and of course Fearless(2) is just the best chapter 1 reprint she could have hoped for.
Overall outstanding card pool.

Survivor

Aleksey Saburov: Good. Gives a huge survival boost, the amount of damage and horror he can filter out is outstanding. The ally slot is usually expected to deliver something a bit more proactive, so Aleksey does require ways to turn that soak into a gameplan that helps you win. Both characters in the Core that can take him have that, but i am a bit more sceptical for his overall place in the pool as we broaden our range of investigators.
Bandages: Excellent, Staple. One of the best bits of damage healing in even chapter 1. Negating three points with a cheap card that doesn’t take a slot is great utility, as is the ability to use it on others and even ally cards.
Hunter’s Instinct: Excellent, Staple. Another cheap card that doesn’t require a card slot and just gives incremental value. Even if you don’t do anything degenerate with it, just returning the likes of Look What I Found is good payoff and well worth putting into most decks as just a value piece. The ceiling of this card remains to be determined, but is likely very high.

Jumpsuit: Good. Solid utility here between cheap soak and recursion. Nothing exceptional happening here, but the flexibility makes it work.
Levelheaded: Good. Alongside the Seeker one, this is the best of the talent cycle. This is a blanket joker card that can fix a lot of problems for you and might even make or break a blind run where you encounter a showstopper test (like an important parley on a story asset) you weren’t prepared for otherwise. But even just as treachery protection, this does good work.
Meat Cleaver: Good to Excellent. A consistent way to attack is great, but don’t underestimate the price that comes with having to repeatedly take horror and keep your sanity low. There are ways around this, but they will leave you more vulnerable to the encounter deck. Still, a very solid weapon.

Look What I Found: Excellent, Staple. A reprint of what’s legitimately one of the best investigation events of chapter 1 and a mainstay of Survivor identity. Two clues for a low price, this will rarely be wrong to include.
Shove Off: Okay to Bad. The lack of a skill bonus makes this card barely worth the spot it takes in the deck. You get to tack a damage onto an evasion and that’s fine, but hard to apply in situations where that damage actually matters.
Slippery: Okay to Good. The “double-evade” goes a long way towards making evasion a suitable way to disable enemies. This is still slightly low impact for a card slot, but the icon and lack of a resource cost makes all the difference when held next to Shove Off.

Timely Intervention: Excellent, Staple. Turning close fails into close successes after revealing the chaos token is a fantastic reassurance to have and universally so, no matter what sort of deck you are playing.
Scrape By(1): Excellent, Staple. And for just a single XP you can turn almost any fail into a success, not just the close calls. Either a significant upgrade to Timely Intervention or a card you run in addition to it to feel extremely comfortable about taking risks while testing.
Old Compass(2): Excellent to Good. A relatively cheap investigation tool that never runs out is very nice to have. Note that you can still use it when exhausted, so it will always provide at least the 1 point of shroud reduction.

On the Brink: Bad to Okay. I can’t straight up call this Bad because it does at least have 2 wild icons, but i can’t ever see myself pay 2xp for an Unexpected Courage. Yes, it replaces itself if you happen to fail the test, but there is no shot this has any combo potential you can reliably use with other skills or anything. Weirdly, this card would be better (but still fringe) if it had no icons at all.
Meat Cleaver: Excellent to Good. A significant upgrade over the level 0 and comes with no added costs on the horror/sanity requirements. You get straight up a better return for the hoops you jump through here and while expensive at 3xp, that is very worth it. That one extra combat icon is huge on a melee weapon you rely on to do everything for you.

Most useful: Hunter’s Instinct, Timely Intervention/Scrape By, Look What I Found
Least useful: On the Brink, Shove Off, Slippery

We get a little bit of everything in this Survivor pool: some recursion, healing, evasion, a weapon, an investigation tool and a double helping of test manipulation. While this may appear a bit all over the place, it’s pretty on brand for survivors actually, and their two main themes of turning fails into successes (either literally or through something like LWIF) and recursion do have a notable presence here.
We get two red cards that aren’t really all that great, but for the most part this looks quite good with plenty cards that are useful in a broad way and will be a good base going forward.
Izzie can build a solid flex deck here, but notably the pool is lacking something really nice for her skill recursion to focus on. She gets that to some extent in Mystic and the neutrals, but i feel like we are missing something a bit more special than just throwing Soul Links, Courages and Fearlesses around to really make her sing. Something that isn’t just icons.
Obviously Daniela finds a lot of soak here that she is definitely interested in.
Overall, this Survivor card pool makes a good impression.

Neutral

Hand-Crank Flashlight: Good to Okay. I quite like this. The discard ability isn’t super relevant, but just as a cheap investigation tool for investigators that don’t have Mag Glass available, this is rock solid.
Fedora: Bad to Okay. Two points of soak in an uncontested slot isn’t fully useless, but it’s also not worth a card slot and two resources.
Emergency Cache: Good, Staple. You kinda don’t want this, it has no icons and only gives you a couple resources. That being said, you need resources to play your cards, so what are you going to do? Just stop playing cards? Take resource actions? If your class doesn’t offer you better, just play these… it’s not great but it’s at least better than resource actions.

Broken Bottle: Okay. If you can’t fight with your innate combat value, this won’t get you there but as a stand-in weapon you could do worse. Hopefully you can do better as well, though.
Guts and Manual Dexterity: Excellent, Staple. They aren’t called “Core Skills” for nothing. The two most important of the five core skills, these cover the two attributes that the encounter deck tests most often. So they have value as encounter protection, even if you don’t use willpower or agility as part of your active gameplan. Unless you already have only 1 or 2 base skill, these are just always useful.

Overpower and Perception: Excellent, Staple. The next two Core Skills in the hierarchy. While these don’t ward off the encounter deck (exceptions exist, of course), they do support the two main ways to progress the game: Fight and Investigate, usually through Combat and Intellect. If that’s what you do, you pretty much always want the skill that matches.
Unexpected Courage: Excellent to Good, Staple. The final member of what we know as the “Core Skills”, this one doesn’t have the card draw that makes the other four such easy inclusions in any deck and i’d rank it last among them for that reason. This slight loss of tempo is compensated with flexibility however and that is very often worth it as well. In many cases, decks specialize enough that this flexibility isn’t necessary. But while there are sometimes cards that are better than Courage, Courage is never bad or useless.

Charisma and Relic Hunter: Excellent, Staple. A key part to the balancing of ally and accessory assets is that each investigator only has a single slot for them, which allows those assets to be more powerful than a slotless one or even a handslot asset. Charisma and Relic Hunter break that balance by giving you the ability to have multiple of these powerful cards in play. This significantly increases the ceiling of your decks power. Charisma is definitely the more important one of the two, due to allies being a more frequent type of asset than accessory and because of the extra soak that these extra allies represent. Relic Hunter requires a bit more built up card pool before it starts going off.

These neutral cards mostly consist of a range of staple cards from the old Core, reprinted to form the backbone of decks once again. This isn’t unexpected and does make sense. Of the three cards that aren’t reprints, only the Hand-Crank has a place as a playable card beyond just deck filler. Fair enough, i suppose.