With the recent release of Stella Clark Investigator Pack, Edge of the Earth and now The Scarlet Keys, Scavenging requires an updated review as an incredibly strong and possibly broken card.

With Stella Clark expansion and the release of .18 Derringer and Old Keyring, Survivors now have access to a pair of the strongest level 0 item cards in the game that allow you do the two most essential functions with efficiency and reliability: clueving and fighting. Having these items as targets for infinite recursions means your clueving and fighting will always have a skill test advantage (and extra damage with the gun).

With Edge of the Earth, Survivors not only get access to Short Supply, they also get access to Schoffner's Catalologue, which makes recursion set-up quicker and more affordable. The EotE investigator Bob Jenkins also counteracts the immense resource cost recursion typically incurs.

With TSK, from my play experience, a Charlie Kane recursion deck that relies on allies to bolster skill test and recursion of items to further augment skill test backed by cards that play on economy (Gregory Gry) is incredibly powerful and versatile.

The recent release of investigator cards now makes Scavenging a foundation for recursion deck building and a powerful archetype.

All the fight/evade reduction cards that enable Exploit Weakness (not including Darrell Simmons):

Guardian

• Bolas (The Scarlet Keys #25)

Seeker

• Anatomical Diagrams (Echoes of the Past #108)
• Map the Area (The Scarlet Keys #48)
• Expose Weakness [lvl 1] and Expose Weakness [lvl 3] (Undimensioned and Unseen #228) and (Heart of the Elders #195)

Rogue

• Momentum (The Search for Kadath #115)
• Stealth (and Stealth (3))

Mystic

• Wither and Wither [lvl 4] (The Wages of Sin #157) and (Before the Black Throne #321)

Survivor

• Makeshift Trap (The Scarlet Keys #100)
• Grizzled (The Scarlet Keys #101) (after taking the nemesis upgrade).
• Improvised Weapon (The Forgotten Age #33)
• Impromptu Barrier (Shattered Aeons #312)
• Gumption [lvl 1] (The Scarlet Keys #112)
• Quick Learner (Stella Clark #30) {Thank you Kryha30}

Neutral

• Flashlight [lvl 3] (The Scarlet Keys #122)

-- Other:

• Ruth Westmacott??! (Dark Revelations #20)

Couple things to note:

First, between reducing fight to 0 or evade to 0, there are more tools (in Bolas and Flashlight (3)) for reducing evade than for reducing combat. There is also less opportunity cost in choosing to take Exploit Weakness in an evader's deck over a fighter's deck; fighters will likely already have plenty of tools to remove enemies from the board, and so have less need for Exploit Weakness.

Second, did you forget about Anatomical Diagrams? I sure did, but now you should never forget because it gives the most fight/evade reduction of all the current options. Even Flashlight (3) only compares on the evade side, and that's a level 3 card! What a dark horse candidate.

Third, before you're tempted to put every fight/evade card listed here into one deck, make sure you can actually make good use of them. The Survivor and Neutral cards don't necessitate anything, but Bolas requires you pass a decently hard check, and Anatomical Diagrams demands a high sanity investigator or horror-resilient investigator, or both (Map the Area on the other map is usable by almost every single investigator).

Forth, this list shrinks to only 3 entries if you want to trigger Exploit Weakness on Elite enemies, which is entirely reasonable; effectively test-less 3 damage plus an evade is nothing to scoff at. If that's your goal, only Map the Area, Gumption, and Flashlight (3) will cut it, and at that point you should consider Darrell the only viable investigator to make those cards shine, since they stack with his investigator ability.

This card is a role playing heaven. What more could you ask from the rats when you can make them distract the ghouls, tend your wounds, or even confess where the cheese is..

Anyways, I'll drop a rule related to the Confess option since I had to look it up a bit : "Health" is a number which damage counter goes up to and defeat it, so damaging it partially will not decrease effectiveness of Confess. Also it does not say "printed health", so I think any mythos-modified health can take effect. (Rule : Health and Damage)

This card is doing some good work with Lily Chen. No longer are we stuck with Dragon Pole or Cyclopean Hammer. Lily and Zoey are prime candidates for HUNT and FURY. To start, I recommend getting SCRIPTWEAVER as soon as possible. HUNT and HEIRLOOM next. If you want a lvl5 axe, finish it off with SAGA and GLORY. The cool thing is you have upgrade path options as well; ELDERS for Roland Banks, FURY for Zoey Samaras etc.

Question, how do his copies of on the mend interact with Ancestral memory?

Do they count as skills in my deck for the 10 skill requirement, or are they like bonded cards?

I assume they cannot be put under ancestral memory?