My first impression was the same as SGPrometheus'. Isn't this card kinda broken? I mean, mystics have all kinds of ways to use their will stat in place of others, but this single, level 0 asset let's them (for most intents and purposes) replace TWO stats with will. And it does it on the cheap. And it does it with great action efficiency. But then I thought to myself, how many mystics are going to be running neither a combat nor an evade spell? Because if you have, say, Mists of R'lyeh in your deck, or Shrivelling, or any number of such cards, then only half of the Sword Cane's effect matters to you -- unless you're taking it as a backup card until you find your main tool. Now it seems less attractive... I think it still has a place, but a narrower one. If you are a mystic using your two arcane slots for spells that neither fight nor evade, then this is a lovely little trick to have up your sleeve. It lets you do a bit of fighting and evading, enough to get you out of a pickle, while you focus on investigating or scrying or whatever it is you do. If you are a mystic who likes to mix it up with the baddies, chances are you're packing heat that, when you put it on the board, will make the sword cane largely a dead draw.

In case it wasn't obvious, this card has great synergy with Backpack (especially Backpack (2). You can play the Backpack as the first or second asset installed by Ever Vigilant, resolve the Backpack's install reaction (searching the top of your deck for up to 3 more items), and install one or two of the items from the Backpack at a discount with the remaining Ever Vigilant install(s).

Generally, it's most optimal to install items from the Backpack rather than your hand (especially duplicates), to preserve cards that you can commit and free up your body-slot as quickly as possible.

Pretty nasty basic weakness that sends any item that takes a hand slot directly to the discard pile.

This guy, and many combat oriented investigators, hates it with a passion.

The only way to protect yourself is to have an asset in play that increases your hand slots.

Icing on the cake, you can't really discard it if you only have 1 health left, unless you can last until the end of time.

If i'm reading this correctly, if you reveal a curse token during this investigation, regardless if it succeeds or fails you can discover a clue at a connecting location or place 1 charge on Eye of Chaos? That's a nice way of mitigating potential curse token downsides, and it makes Eye of Chaos useful even without curse tokens, as unlike the other spell-based searchers it has no downsides for drawing specific kinds of tokens. (Outside of sixth sense, but that's inherently slower without the additional clue clause).

A lot of people have been talking about using Brute Force as a one-off, "in-case-you-need-it" card, and that's true, it's only good in a pinch if you're playing as most investigators. But if you are playing as Silas Marsh? Just throw away one of your weapons, because you won't be needing them as much.

The majority of enemies in this game have around 2 health, maybe 3, and occasionally 4. With Silas's base 4 , he's going to get 7 minimum, which means on Standard he's going to easily succeed by 2 or more most of the time and land 3 damage. And after you land that 3 damage with Silas, use his unique ability to return Brute Force back into your hand so you're ready to punch another cultist.

In the unfortunate case that you lose Brute Force, either through a random discard or because you had to REALLY punch SUPER hard this turn or what have you, there are many options to get it back. This includes Silas's ability, of course, as well as cards like Resourceful and True Survivor.

Resourceful in particular is interesting because I believe that if you commit it with Brute Force, you would be able to use Resourceful's ability to pick up Brute Force from the discard pile, and then use Silas's ability to put Resourceful back into your hand. So for your next fight action that turn, you can commit both Brute Force and Resourceful again, and use Resourceful AGAIN to put Brute Force back in your hand, so you're, again, ready to punch yet another cultist.

I suspect that Brute Force may become less useful the more players you have, but for what it's worth, I tested it in a 3-player Return to Dunwich campaign with an investigating-focused Luke Robinson and a fight-focused Leo Anderson, and with Brute Force along with Sharp Vision, I was basically able to do everything that the other two players were too busy to take care of. By the end of the campaign, I only used my Meat Cleaver to commit to tests. And plus, there's nothing more satisfying than punching a cosmic horror with nothing but your bare fists.