You ALWAYS take this card

IF you have the following allies in your deck

• Beat Cop, so you can swap your damaged Beat Cop with a fresh and free Beat Cop. And you get the old patched up Beat Cop in your hand. Unbeatable.

• Guard Dog: same reason as above. You can mix Cops and Dogs for major mayhem. Woofwoof.

• Brother Xavier: More meatshield. Just trade him for himself. You just saved 4 coins. Prayer answered.

• David Renfield, so you play him, you ll take some damage on him, take some doom on him. Take some coins off him. And then when doom becomes a probem, you swap him. You can even ditch Moonlight Ritual or Forbidden Knowledge from your deck. Amazing!

• Aquinnah. Is it true? Can you recycle her just like the old and true Beat Cop? YES! But that's insane. INSANE!

But Fellow Investigator what happens when you got this idea about a deck, with one Ally card, that you need to get in play asap or else it's GG? No probem. Here is Calling in Favors the true Hero of your deck.

• Dr. Milan Christopher Yeah. You want him early. Swap a Charles Ross, Esq. or an Art Student or a Research Librarian or even an Laboratory Assistant and get a near-guaranteed early Milan. MONEYPROBLEMSSOLVED.

• Charles Ross, Esq.. So you want Charles, not Milan? The brand new early game money booster. Yeah why not. Swap him for students, assistants or librarians. Or wait... you got both Charles and Milan??? Works like a charm. You find one. You get the other. You play both. Its a DREAM!

• Leo De Luca, so you have this idea of Action heaven, but you need Leo early. Give him a ring. I am sure he'll pick up the phone. Cause he owes you a favor!

• Madame Labranche, a combination of Forbidden Knowledge and Peter Sylvestre combo'd into one old nice lady with an obvious walking cane weapon? Tea please!

Other strong contenders:

• Cat Burglar You usually want this guy before you see the first Monster popping up right next to you. Meow. Meow.

• Dario El-Amin Two coins for one action? Yes please. He can even do work with Leo de Luca who is also on this list. Kashing.

• The Red-Gloved Man Some people have crazy ideas about this card in combination with William Yorick. With calling in favors, you can make sure that Red Glove Dude is ready and waiting in your discard pile. Hello Mystery Man!

Did you just list every single Ally? More or less. Yes. I didn't list Stray Cat. Cats dont do favors. Everybody knows this.

A small excerpt from the interview I did with Doyle Jefferies from the local newspaper about this new appartus: The phone.

But why? Why is this phone such a spectacular invention? My readers deserve to know.

Well Doyle, it offers so much. Lets list it up:

• Card search for what many consider to be the strongest cards: Allies. 9 Cards! Thats better then No Stone Unturned
• You can use an Ally with a come into play effect and upgrade him or her to a more permanent Ally or use the come into play effect twice or up to three times.
• You can heal up old Allies and play them again.
• You get a discount on the fresh Ally. So you dont need insane economy to play all these allies.

Does this phone and ring apparatus work better when you have many friends? Yes. It starts working when you get 4+ allies in your deck. It gets slightly more reliable when you have more.

Should our friends here in Arkham consider picking up Charisma, the extremely popular parfume everyone keeps raving about.. The phone works even without Charisma, Doyle. But yes. It's delicious. Hell. You can even fit in two copies of Charisma now, for the ultimate well scented experience.

TLDR

THIS CARD IS BONKERS, CULTISTS HATE IT, ALLIES LOVE IT, PUT IT IN YOUR DECK, TWO COPIES, ALWAYS, NO REGRETS.

Very strong card...in very specific decks. You are only going to want to include this in your deck if you have either A.) A really strong ally that you want to get as early as possible AKA Leo De Luca or B.) You have disposable allies that you play for a one time effect such as Research Librarian. The strongest disposable ally is The Red-Gloved Man , which you could play to either grab two clues, or fight an enemy twice, and then play Calling in Favors to pick him back up to play again later while replacing him with another ally from your deck.

The problem with this card is that you are really going to want to play at least 5-6 allies in your deck, as you need to have one out first to play it, and then enough left in your deck to have good odds of finding one in the top 9 cards. Some investigators just aren't going to want to play 6 allies in their deck due to which ones are available to them, and the resource costs of those allies. Plus, you'll have to get at least one copy of Charisma to avoid being stuck with allies you can't play in your hand.

On top of that, you are going to run into situations where Calling in Favors is a dead draw, such as when you haven't got an ally out yet, or when you already have your best allies out and don't want to replace them. I'd probably only play a single copy of Calling in Favors most of the time, unless you are trying to abuse The Red-Gloved Man.

Looking to use this in a Lola Barns deck, but I am not sure how it interacts with her role restriction.

Question: Can Lola Barns play a non-neutral ally that does not match her current role using Calling in Favors?

This is in Response to the FAQ entry: Can you use Calling in Favors on Helpless Passenger or Innocent Reveler?

If you play any Version of A Chance Encounter on an ally from another investigator and later Calling in Favors, the ally will return to it's owners hand, not yours.