I have not played much of this card, but now it is an excellent piece for the decks built around Move in Shadow, Death by a Thousand Cuts, and No Time to Bleed. It's paying a card to draw a card, so the extra trigger on these upgrades is essentially free. It does the same for any Iron Fist deck. Not game-breaking or anything, but worth pointing out.
If you were to ask me what the best aspect was, I would say Leadership.
If you were to ask me what the second best aspect was, I would say Protection.
And yet, if you were to ask me what the best aspect CARD was, I would say Skilled Investigator.
There's no other card in the game that I feel is so much of an auto-include. You should run into side schemes in just about every game. Even without doing anything special, this card will pay for itself. Because of that, it doesn't take the place of anything you would rather play. You aren't sacrificing anything by dropping it down. Normally, the more cards you have, the less consistent your deck is. But if you have a 40-card deck, a copy of Skilled Investigator can only make your deck more efficient and you'd be better off making it a 41-card deck just for this.
This is true if you're doing nothing to play side schemes, but even more true if you have player side schemes in your deck. And since you're playing Justice, you probably should have player side schemes. A lot of player side schemes are good enough to play without Skilled Investigator. Most heroes will have key upgrades that will want Superpower Training. There are tons of incredible support cards you'll want to be able to cheat into play with Build Support. And now we have Run Them to Ground which straight-up skips a whole villain turn.
This was a great card before player side schemes were added to the game, but it's only gotten better since.
I really see little reason not to have a copy of this per player in every Justice deck you play.
I'm absolutely shocked the top comment on this is saying it's a bad card. Skilled Investigator already existed when this was made.
If you're playing One Way or Another, you're playing Skilled Investigator. Unless there's another side scheme you thwarted the turn you play this, it really does net you +3 cards, which is good value for a scheme in solo that's 2-4 threat. In 2-player, you bring a second copy of Skilled Investigator for the other player. Now you're looking at 4-6 threat, but +4 cards. I would say that's still a good tradeoff for Justice which is incredibly efficient at thwarting.
It's only when you go up to 3-player that this becomes more questionable. Now you're looking at up to 9 threat in exchange for 5 cards between everyone. I think it's still worth it, but only barely. I also feel that this is less necessary since the villain will naturally play side schemes in 3-player and you can trigger the Skilled Investigator without it. But it's still not too bad at that level.
My verdict would be that this is great solo, and decent in 2-player. I'd really only use this in 3-player if one of the players was Leadership and using Mission Leader. Because if there's no other side schemes, Mission Leader is in play and everyone has a Skilled Investigator, that ends up being +8 cards for up to 9ish threat.
This also synergizes with cards that attach to side schemes like Followed and Chance Encounter.
A newer card that benefits from this is Stealth Training which lets you stun the enemy when you exactly defeat a side scheme. That one is where I might say this pays off the most.
In solo, when set up, you find a side scheme, draw 3 cards. Complete the side scheme, draw another card, and then stun the villain. You can lock the villain down with incredible efficiency with very little resources lost.
I made a review of Blood Rage where I talk about how much worse it is than similar options in other aspects, and I think we should talk about Battle Fury too since it's in a similar position.
This is a loose cycle of 1-cost upgrades that ready you after performing an action associated with the aspect.
First up is...
Indomitable costs 1 and readies you whenever you defend. The defense doesn't need to be anything special. You don't need a perfect defense. Just any defense will do. And you can play as many of these as you want.
Next is...
Justice Served is a bit more restrictive now. It only activates when you clear the last threat from a scheme and is max 1 per player. The good thing about this is that it doesn't need to be a side scheme. You can get the benefit just from clearing the threat off the main scheme. It doesn't matter what you or the enemy has in play as long as there's threat on some scheme you can finish removing.
And that brings us to Battle Fury. Same cost as the others. It requires you to defeat a minion, meaning it only works while a minion is in play. It's limited to one per player just like Justice Served. Right on the surface, it seems less useful than Justice Served.
But for some reason, it also deals 1 damage to you.
Why is Aggression dealing itself damage to do things other aspects get for the same cost?
You paid 2-ER. Then you killed a minion. That should get you a ready. Why are you dealing one damage to yourself after?
I want to say that maybe there was some type of plan to have a pain archetype in Aggression which would reward you for taking damage. Something like Spider-Ham's ability. If Aggression did get an archetype like this, it would add some synergy to cards that are otherwise worse versions of what other aspects already do. If we do get an archetype like that someday, I might forgive this and Blood Rage tacking downsides onto what other aspects do for the same cost.
But today, there is no such benefit unless you're playing Spider-Ham. And it just feels like FFG has been intentionally punishing players for wanting to play Aggression.
Readies are good enough in some decks that it's worth it anyway. If you're using Combat Training, Aggressive Conditioning and Innate Aggression, your basic attacks are dealing about 5-6 damage per hit. Any source of readies in that scenario is a good source of readies. This is one of the best sources of readying yourself in Aggression, even if it's worse than similar cards from other Aspects. But it is annoying just how much worse it is than those similar cards from other aspects.
This card really highlights why Aggression continues to be the worst aspect in the game. This card seems hit hard by the Aggression tax.
Compare for a moment to Skilled Investigator.
Skilled Investigator triggers when any side scheme is defeated regardless of who defeated it. It costs 0. It can be played on any player so you can put additional copies in multiplayer decks, and let every player draw when a side scheme is defeated. There is no additional restriction on it aside from being in hero form.
Then we have Blood Rage. You can only use it on yourself, it costs more than Skilled Investigator. It only triggers when you kill the minion, and only if you use a basic attack. And then it deals 1 damage to you for some reason.
In fairness, when Skilled Investigator was released, player side schemes didn't exist so you wouldn't be guaranteed to have as many side schemes available to thwart. Skilled Investigator has always been really good, but player side schemes has made it much more powerful and reliable.
Protection actually has a couple cards that are similar to this. Unflappable costs the same as Blood Rage and lets you draw a card if you perform a defense without taking damage. It doesn't damage you for using it. Change of Fortune costs the same amount as Blood Rage, and rewards you for defeating enemies during the villain turn instead of rewarding you for defeating them with a basic attack. It lets you draw 2 cards for this, and doesn't damage you.
Leadership doesn't have a direct equivalent of a "draw cards when you complete a certain task" upgrade. But it does have a comparable card in Clarity of Purpose. Same cost as Blood Rage. Deals 1 damage to you. The reward is a wild resource instead of a card, which is generally worth less. But there's no restriction on when to use it. And like Skilled Investigator, copies can be given to teammates.
Technically, Unflappable and Change of Fortune can be given to teammates too. I'm not sure how often you'd want to give them to non-protection players, but it's cool that option exists for people who do, and it's weird Blood Rage can't.
Blood Rage is a "good card" in that it's the best an Aggression player has access to if they happen to be building a deck that involves a lot of minion killing with basic attacks. But it's also easily the worst of the comparable cards in other aspects.