I think he works alright with Well Connected already in play - i.e. so you won't be failing that many tests to begin with. If you play him as your final action in a turn, then that's only two turns you need to keep him alive for before he's hasn't cost you any resources (so you can take one fail across those and he still lives). When you think of it like that he's not so bad IMO (not strong, sure, but not as bad as people think he is). — HungryColquhoun · 16858 5/10/26

"He maybe won't die before he pays off" is a tough ask for the best slot. OR pay $1 more for free moves and +1 Agility. — MrGoldbee · 1563 5/11/26

Marcus is like the worst class ally in the game: even Henry Wan has a niche with blurse — HeroesOfTomorrow · 95 5/11/26

@MrGoldBee usually though you want to build and not spend money on a Well Connected deck. 4 resources is a big hole to fill, especially with Andre who doesn't have particularly good card draw (it's not like Wini where you could feasibly cycle your econ cards and so rack up cash easily). If you consider him 0 resource cost 1/1 soak (i.e. you take one fail on the chin) which I think he tends to, I think people would go for that personally on a big money deck (obviously I did, haha!). I also think Olivier maybe adds less value to Andre (as Lockpicks are once per turn, and Thieves' Kit run out of supplies - so it's running down the clock on these faster and then likely you don't have anything to replace them with given the bad card draw issue). All of this makes the picture less well cut on standard difficulty (no one every agrees with me on Marcus around this point though, haha!). — HungryColquhoun · 16858 5/11/26

(*ever agrees, and re. running the clock down on your supply assets if you're saving a move action with Olivier then you're usually gobbling through supplies on Thieves' Kit more quickly, and then will often not have something to replace them with due to the lacklustre card draw). — HungryColquhoun · 16858 5/11/26

I really don't understand why Andre would consider Marcus over a +1 Agility, free move for $1 more because of....lacklustre card draw? If you're burning through charges on Thieves Kit you're getting more clues, and then you can use the actions saved from having to spend actions on moving to literally draw cards from your deck if you can't find your lucky cigarette cases. If there was an investigator ability that read, "if you succeed a skill test by 2, then draw a card (once a round)", it would already be incredibly strong. Marcus is absolutely overcosted, and the calculation is totally off: that somehow if you play him the final turn in the investigator phase he would require only two additional turns to pay off. You're forgetting that you could literally be using an action to take a resource instead. At a minimum, it takes three turns to break even AND he takes up the best slot in the game AND he is competing against Oliver Bishop for the same slot AND if you can't fail 2 skill tests over those three turns or he just dies. And also, saying it works well in a Well Connected deck doesn't make much sense if you're playing Current. Well Connected is a 3 xp card. Oliver Bishop is level 0. "If you consider him 0 resource cost 1/1 soak", yes, and if my grandmother had wheels she would be a bike — PestyDemon · 1 5/12/26

I don't like to build decks around taking resource and draw actions personally, but your mileage clearly varies. And re. building towards Well Connected, yes I build decks with the XP leveraged combos in mind and not just the level 0 deck. I think time to brining Well Connected and Black Fan online is important for Andre, and the 4 resource cost for Olivier is a significant chunk out of that (if you don't want to be taking resource actions to make up the shortfall, because they're woefully inefficient, which you seem more happy to). We have different opinions, and I don't particularly care one way or the other if you think I'm an idiot. — HungryColquhoun · 16858 5/14/26