This is a great card in the core campaign, especially for "The Midnight Masks", but its even better in "Return to the Night of the Zealot", as its still amazing in "Return to The Midnight Masks", but now pretty good for "Return to The Devourer Below" also, as the update has refreshed the need for intellect-based-investigation.
It's particularly great for Pete (as it works with Duke) and Minh, both of whom want to be searching anyway. Wendy's probably down with it too.
This card scales extremely favorably in 4-player games. If you've glossed over the Skull in 2-player (the most common format), but are invited to a 4-player, then do give it another look.
It sadly does clash with the Rosary for Akachi and Sefina, but Ursula, Leo, Wendy, or any of the other Rogues can make good use of it it in a 4-player game. I'm not sure I'd go as far as spending a splash-card for Pete, Rex, etc though.
This card is really very good. Even ignoring the 2x Agility icons, it has lots of play. It's difficult to describe exactly what you would use it for, as its such a tactical card, with its use depending on the situation, but here are a few scenarios where I have found it useful.
Basically, it is often Unexpected Courage + Dodge, all for 0 XP, 0 Resources, and even when it isn't, it can function as a double-Agility.
It's in all my rogue decks, and I rarely want to take it out. It's up there with Elusive, Leo and Lone Wolf as one of the best 0 XP Rogue cards, in my opinion. It doesn't have as much impact, but it's got so much value.
Oh, and the picture is cool too.
Ideally you want to always play this from your discard, at which point it is like a 1-shot revolver, (that also generated whatever value put it in the discard in the first place). Playing it from your hand is generally bad. So the card looks like goes pretty well with Wendy and Pete, both of whom have strong discard-for-value abilities. Except... Wendy and Pete don't want to be fighting with their base stats. (You can't use it with Duke).
So that leaves Yorrick, Calvin, Silas, Mark, Mihn, Agnes and the 5-splashers. Many of whom would quite interested in playing it from the discard, but don't have a reliable and valuable way of getting it there .
So at the moment, it's a bit of a "no mans card". If another card for Survivor comes out that provides a discard-for-value ability, then I can see this suddenly being very playable. (Or if more cards arrive to support combat options in Wendy/Pete, but this is less likely).
Sadly, I think the good Father is pretty bad, at least as Mystics go.
Firstly, he seems to be missing a stat point (at least compared to the mono-colour + trait template that Mark and Akachi set,). Although Silas too is missing this point, so perhaps it is deemed that "Blessed" and "Innate" is better than "Tactics" and "Spells", which might be true for Innate, but certainly is not for Blessed.
Compared to Agnes or Akachi, he is considerably weaker. He is missing the 5 willpower, which as we know from Jim is huge, but he is also missing the free damage or the spell charges, both of which are considerably more powerful than his own once-per-game (OPG). Compared to Marie, he lacks the investigation options or bonus actions. He compares more favorably to Jim (the current weakest mystic), but even here he loses out. Jim has more support cards now, and is generally seen to be more of a solo-investigator, and has the any-5-splash. Mateo's low strength means solo can be an issue, as he has very little options for the extra 1 point of damage on 3-health enemies if he can't find his Shriveling.
His unique asset (Codex of Ages), is good if you want to pass a single test, but its expensive, uses a hand-slot, and is especially bad in multiplayer where sealing that Elder Sign for more than 1 or 2 turns hurts the whole group. It has uses, eg, with a big Storm of Spirits play, or a Double or Nothing, but these are pretty situational. Combined with his OPG, which can only trigger on a tentacle, and you have two very niche abilities, neither of which really shine.
Then you have his weakness (the Serpents of Yig)... and by god will you hate this guy. His 3 health means that, unless you have Shrivelling5, it will take 2 shots to kill at least. He is difficult for you to deal with without big spells, his damage is pretty high, and he seals the token. He's worse than the Silver Twilight Acolyte, which is one of the worst weaknesses you can draw, and adding spiky-weaknesses to a spiky-class is never great. Every now and again, you will draw the Serpents in turn 1-3, before you can find your Shriveling or Mists, and it can be crippling.
So you have:
So where does this leave you? Well, his one saving grace is the +5 XP he gets at start (or in standalone). This is meant to make up for all of the above. You have lots of options here, but they tend to fall on one of the following lines:
(1) is to jump-start whatever build you were planning on playing. (eg, upgraded Shrivellings, Spirit Atheme). This is the approach taken in this solo deck here (https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/5564/solo-mateo-cheats-his-way-through-forgotten-age-1.0). This is probably the "best" approach, although if you were looking for the best, why did you pick Mateo?
The impact of this XP boost can be high, especially in the first 1 or 2 scenarios, although towards the end of the campaign you're likely going to notice it less.
Overall, having played the Father in a few campaigns now, I've found him to be weak and a bit boring. I'd like to see him have many more cross-colour Blessed cards to open up his options before I'd want to play him again on Hard.