Maleson is most useful for investigators that have EXTREMELY lopsided ability to deal with certain encounter cards over others, so that it's actually worth dropping a clue in order to swap a "ruinous" encounter for a chance to draw a "breezy" one. It also helps if the investigator is likely to have clues to spare, and can pick them back up in a hurry.

Therefore, Maleson is suited to two investigators in particular:

Minh Thi Phan:

• uniquely vulnerable to Enemy cards:
  • 2 Combat;
  • 2 Agility; and
  • no Mystic cards to weaponize her Willpower;
• strong against Treachery:
  • 4 Willpower;
  • crazy skill card combos.

Finn Edwards:

• uniquely vulnerable to many Treachery cards:
  • 1 Willpower;
  • One. Willpower.
• strong against Enemies:
  • 4 Agility;
  • free Evade action, and;
  • some decent weapons and attacks.

Crucially, they both also have the four Intellect they need to pick their clue back up from most locations with reasonable odds.

Ultimately Maleson is a stronger choice for Finn. Minh Thi Phan will usually do better with Dr. Milan Christopher, and a well placed Level 2 Shortcut will let help other investigators come to her rescue more efficiently in addition to its other benefits. Her special ability also means she'll be sharing space with other investigators a lot, so she can often just foist her Enemy encounters on whoever is nearby. Conversely, rescuing Finn from a Treachery card isn't even possible for a lot of fellow investigators, so giving him the ability to mulligan the cards himself can change a scenario-breaking debacle into an inconvenience.

I might even consider including it over Leo De Luca for Finn, because it's one of the game's few repeatable cards that protects against encounter-draws. Between Maleson's ability as a first line of defense, "You handle this one!" as a second, and Maleson's damage-soak as a third, Finn can largely insulate himself from his main weakness, and thereby dedicate his remaining 26 cards to grabbing clues and murdering or exhausting enemies.

Of course, Leo may also be too good to pass up. Charisma may be in order!

Edit: I'm actually downgrading my assessment of Leo De Luca (see my review there for an explanation), so Dr. Milan Christopher is the more relevant anchor comparison.

As Synisill remarked in his review, this card does not see a lot of play. Why is that? Certainly, the level 0 Emergency Cache is a pretty playable card. It provides useful resource acceleration, which lets investigators get expensive cards into play much more quickly by sparing you the need to use multiple "take a resource" actions. Some investigators have access to superior cards for this role (e.g. Mystics with Uncage the Soul), but for a lot of investigators, Emergency Cache is still the best level 0 resource acceleration available.

So if Emergency Cache is pretty decent, and Emergency Cache II is clearly even better, why do so few people make the upgrade? The answer is twofold. First, it is important to note that although Emergency Cache II is clearly a better card than Emergency Cache, it is not actually better at the core mission of the card, which is to provide resource acceleration. Both the level 0 and level 2 versions get you more resources with equal speed.

The second reason, and the more critical one, is that paying two XP for +1 card is a lousy deal. This is because, at this point in this game's development, every investigator has access to a huge number of cards that can simply trounce that. Take Beat Cop II. That's also 2 XP. Compared to its level 0 version, you basically get two successful Fight actions that you can use whenever you want. A successful action is much more valuable than a card, and Beat Cop II gives you two of them! Or take Pickpocketing II. You get the Fast keyword, which is almost always better than +1 card (consider that you can use the action saved to draw a card, if you want to), and you get a substantially more powerful effect. Or Deduction II, which gives you +1 clue (and +1 to a skill test). Again, far superior to +1 card.

And, of course, spending 2 XP on a measly +1 card will also slow down your progress toward the high-XP game-changers--you know, the stuff like Lightning Gun, Key of Ys, Shrivelling V, and Will to Survive--the cards that can just dominate scenarios. Those cards are absolute bombs, and there is no way that a slightly more efficient Emergency Cache is going to justify delaying them.

I won't list all the XP options that trounce Emergency Cache II in terms of efficiency because it would just be a list of most of the XP cards in the game. The fact is that spending two XP for +1 card is simply behind the curve. XP is precious and immensely powerful in this game, and spending two to get an additional draw isn't worth it.

One of the best cards in the game on Expert. Flashlight is consistently very useful, so much so that I run it in the majority of my level 0 Expert decks.

The power of Flashlight lies in the fact that it can reduce test difficulty to 0, if it targets a 1 or 2 shroud location. That means every token except the autofail will succeed. Even the -8 is no threat! So Flashlight essentially equals three guaranteed clues from low-shroud locations. That's very strong.

The average token in the Expert chaos bag is usually somewhere between a -3 and -4, which means directly investigating a 2-shroud location with an Intellect value of less than 5 tends to go very poorly. Yes, you could just let the party's Seeker handle the low-shroud locations; but it's extremely useful for the non-Seekers to chip in with a few clues. The team can advance the Act deck far faster if the Seeker gets some help. Flashlight is one of the most reliable ways to provide that.

Flashlight does face competition from other cards that can help low-Intellect characters pick up clues, cards like Scene of the Crime or "Look what I found!". But it can get more clues than any one of these events, albeit at the cost of more actions.

In a pinch, of course, Flashlight can also be used on a 3+ shroud location to boost your odds of success. There its benefit is much less dramatic; and on Expert it's generally best to either a) cheat out clues from high-shroud locations or b) let the Seeker handle them. But sometimes you've got to improvise, and if you urgently need to crack a high-shroud location, Flashlight can certainly help.

A further benefit of Flashlight is that it stays in play when its charges are exhausted. This makes it useful fodder to protect your essential assets from the likes of Crypt Chill, Pushed into the Beyond, Corrosion, etc.

Three more synergies should be mentioned. First, Flashlight turns Double or Nothing into a de facto Deduction (if used on a low-shroud location), which is a very nice play. Second, Flashlight works very well in conjunction with "Look what I found!". Investigate a 3 or 4 shroud location with Flashlight and it is guaranteed that you will either succeed, or you will fail by 2 or less and be able to play "Look what I found!". Third, if your Seeker friend is running Arcane Insight, you can combine it with Flashlight to near-automatically crack 3-4 shroud locations, too.

So under what circumstances should a level 0 Expert deck not run Flashlight? The first is if you can't afford to give up a hand slot. This isn't often the case with level 0 decks, but maybe if you were really excited to run Baseball Bat, Flashlight would not work. Of course, XP increases the value of hand slots, and adding powerful two-handed assets like Lightning Gun may necessitate dropping Flashlight down the road.

Seekers can also often skip Flashlight. If you can investigate with a base Intellect of 6+ (as all Seeker builds should aim to do), and your class provides plenty of efficient ways to boost yourself further, Flashlight's ability to auto-succeed on 1-2 shroud locations ceases to be that significant. Flashlight still isn't terrible, as +2 to three investigate tests is a decent return, but it's no longer a game-changer. Seekers can generally find more efficient investigation boosts from their own class, and leave Flashlight to their teammates.

This card combines very well with an Evade strategy. Especially in games with 3+ players enemies that you do not want to kill for whatever reasons will pile up on locations and will sometimes have to be evaded again and again while you are waiting for some crucial clues to be collected. Playing Hiding Spot on these locations will prevent the enemies from re-engaging in the upkeep phase and let the investigators use their actions for something else.

A deceptively powerful improvement over the basic Emergency Cache. Even leaving aside the powerful Strange Solution combo, this upgrade is fully TWICE as efficient as its base, if we assume that one card is roughly as valuable as one resource:

Standard gain resource action: 1 action => 1 resource: baseline efficiency.

Basic Emergency Cache: 1 action + 1 card => 3 resources: 1 point of efficiency (2 additional resources - 1 card).

2XP Emergency Cache: 1 action + 1 card => 3 resources + 1 card: 2 points of efficiency (2 additional resources - 0 cards).

3XP Emergency Cache: 1 action + 1 card => 4 resources: 2 points of efficiency (3 additional resources - 1 card).

This puts Emergency Cache on similar footing as Cryptic Research (which is a straight-up net of two cards with no action cost), with the added benefit that it's impossible to backfire by drawing weaknesses.

The real question is, can we justify spending an additional XP over the 2XP Emergency Cache? Yes, I think we can. The ability to convert one card into four resources is more tightly focused than the ability to convert one card into three resources and a card. Being able to pull out a Lightning Gun or a Leo De Luca quickly can make a huge difference to an investigator's chances.

Obviously, Hot Streak is on a whole other level, but any investigator without access to higher-level Rogue cards should consider picking this up.