String Along

I wonder how this interacts with Stealth. When you trigger the reaction here you have basically one card that tells you "do" and another one that tells you "do not" for the same effect. Neither card has the wording "cannot" (for this effect), so they have the same priority.

Grim Interpretation: You get +1 and the card draw from the successful evasion, but neither do you disengage from the enemy, nor does it exhaust. Why would you do that? To trigger Delilah O'Rourke in one of the player windows during the skill test and to draw a card.

Reasonable Interpretation: "do not" does not force you to do something, you are just not doing it. So when String Along tells you not to disengage, you don't, but since Stealth tells you to disengage, you eventually do.

Chill Interpretation: Two contradicting effects with the same timing - if the game doesn't choose for you, simply do it yourself. If you want to disengage, do, if you don't, don't. Backed by the Silver Rule: arkhamdb.com

Let the hate flow through you in the comments!


EDIT

I have added a link to the Silver Rule: arkhamdb.com to the Chill Interpretation, which might actually be the answer.

Probably Intended Interpretation: Although it is not (reminder text) (see Kicking the Hornet's Nest, for example), they could have omitted the "disengage with it" clause from Stealth without changing the card, since disengaging from an enemy is the default effect of a successful evade. Therefore, you could argue for the Grim Interpretation and Piegura's comment. The Golden Rules (https://arkhamdb.com/rules#The_Golden_Rules) is also in favor of this interpretation.

AlderSign · 395
Counterpoint: Stealth specifies that, until the end of the turn, that enemy "cannot" engage you. Therefore, I would rule that you must prioritize Stealth over String Along in order to fulfill the "cannot" clause. — NightgauntTaxiService · 463
Better find another way to draw a card for free? — Tharzax · 1
Hi!! I'd say that: — Piegura · 7
On the successful evade action -> You don't disengage for String Along (even if Stealth would let You) - The enemy doesn't exhaust (for Stealth) - And, oh yeah: You draw 1 card. — Piegura · 7
As a result: You are in the same situation as before the evade action = engaged with the enemy, but with 1 more card (and 1 less action in this turn) in your hand. So basically You spent 1 action to test to draw 1 card without the opportunity attack of the enemy engaged with You. :-D — Piegura · 7
Updated the review after some digging in the rules. — AlderSign · 395
Piegura is correct. The two texts don’t directly contradict each other because Stealth is the action you initiate and then String Along is a reaction that modified it. — Eudaimonea · 5
And also the enemy can't engage you but he already is. — Tharzax · 1
@Eudaimonea: What action comes "first" is irrelevant; here you have two ABILITIES that both initiate an effect that resolves at the same timing point (the step during the skill test). Since they tell you A and not-A, that's a contradiction. — AlderSign · 395
I wasn’t really saying it mattered which one came first. You initiate an action, which is obviously legal and has clear effects. Then you take a reaction to modify the initial action in a certain way—in this case to subtract one of its effects. This is also legal and leaves you in a position where the successful evasion achieves very little. — Eudaimonea · 5
Talisman of Protection

Only one thing that bothers me, why the fuck did they had to specify "fast, play during only your turn", as it's already the case for any assets. Not enough words in the textbox ? Just like my comments that actually needs to reach 200 characters.

blobe · 4
Fair enough. — AlderSign · 395
Ocula Obscura

This card is absolutely ridiculous. It's not just a permanent Premonition, it's more like a permanent Will to Survive. Why it's only limited to "once per phase" I have no clue (pun not intended).

Here's why this thing is more than just Premonition. While Premonition can grab anything ─ Auto-fail, nasty symbols, "draw another token"-tokens like blurses ─ this thing will grab only good tokens. Not only that, once it has a good token, it's really not that hard to keep that good token... FOREVER.

Here's what a typical game looked like when I was playing Agatha Crane for the first time:

  1. Draw Ocula Obscura, make happy noises because you'll no longer have to deal with the chaos bag soon.
  2. Play Ocula Obscura, and use Eyes of the Dreamer to fish out a good token, let's say 0.
  3. Next mythos phase, draw any non-combat test, automatically succeed and immediately seal your 0 again.
  4. Investigate any 4 or lower shroud location, automatically succeed and immediately seal 0 once again.
  5. Keep yourself busy with any of the many (testless) events you're playing anyway because your name is Agatha like Preposterous Sketches, Deep Knowledge, Guidance, Cosmic Revelation, Extensive Research, Blood-Rite, Drawn to the Flame (probably do this one before no. 4 in case of a test)...
  6. Repeat from no. 3 next turn.

Heck, you don't even need to play any stat boosters or skills anymore (I sure didn't), because you can literally succeed at anything that's not combat! This leaves so much room to add many events to your deck which leads to incredibly flexiblity on top of your ability.

My team was astounded by how ridiculously easy the game suddenly became for me. "Oh no! We have to do this difficult Will test of 5, what do we do!" Oh, let me just hop over there and commit a single willpower icon from one of the many events, which I can immediately play anyway later with my ability, and re-seal that 0 for good measure.

Even if you lose that 0 because you just HAD to do 2 tests this phase (PHASE) or drew one of the extremely rare combat test encounters, it's laughably easy to get it back and repeat the cycle all over again next turn.

Nenananas · 270
Kohaku is back. — MrGoldbee · 1491
Oh my god, you are right. I didn't realize you can use the reaction ability for the token released by the forced effect. What were they thinking? — AlderSign · 395
Shards of the Void says hi, by the way. — AlderSign · 395
Admittedly, I can see two ways we might've misinterpreted this card (they better clear that up in the next FAQ): you can't reseal the token on this card because 1. resolve ≠ reveal, or 2. the token has not yet been released from this card in time to trigger the reaction ability — Nenananas · 270
If you go through the steps of the skill test timing from the framework it is really clear that you can. — AlderSign · 395
Here's one reason why it might not work - Ocula Obscura directs you to resolve the sealed token and then release it, which could mean it goes back into the bag right then, not at the end of the test. And then it's no longer around to be re-sealed after the test succeeds. — TheNameWasTaken · 3
You mean because of that ruling that says you can't access/find a card that goes into the deck (FAQ here: https://arkhamdb.com/card/60324)? — AlderSign · 395
(If so, then I don't see how that FAQ would be applicable here, because the released chaos token is certainly not "in a place where its position is impossible to determine". "Impossible" is a questionable formulation to begin with, but in opposition to a card deck, tokens in the chaos bag don't even have a sense of order or positioning. — AlderSign · 395
Scratch all of that, I see my error now: The "reveal" step is replaced, but no token is actually revealed. — AlderSign · 395
Sefina Rousseau

I recently ran a flex (cluever-lean) Sefina in a 4-player Carcosa hard runthrough and boy did she rock.

A common Sefina critique is that her stats extremely defensive: Low , means she is bad at both fighting and investigating. I find this criticism overstated:

  • There is no shortage of cards that fight or gather clues while using Sefina's actual high stats. Or just cards that fight/cluever without any tests at all.
  • Rogues and Mystics have access to plenty of passive / boosts. Standout among them is Moxie, which meshes perfectly with Sefina and makes your important stats whatever you want them to be.

For my Sefina deck, all gamestate-advancing cards were events. While this build is usually inadvisable, it synergizes extremely well with Sefina. Thanks to the massive 13-card opening draw, I never had a scenario with less than 5 events in my opening hand. Even after tucking 5 events into the basement, oops-all-events Sefina still has 3-5 events in hand, meaning she can hit the ground running like no other investigator can, picking up clues immediately with the likes of Intel Report, Drawn to the Flame, or Read the Signs. With card-draw cards (Easy Mark, Lucky Cigarette Case, etc...), Sefina never stops having events to play and never stops contributing to either gathering clues or killing enemies.

This Sefina build has one major downside: your effectiveness at any given moment is determined by which events you have in hand. Having all fight events when there are no enemies or having all clue-events while enemies are swarming can leave Sefina in an awkward spot. Still, this weakness only seriously comes up when several things have gone poorly at once and can be mitigated greatly by taking a good balance of clue/fight/economy events in your deck/basement.

Sefina is an extremely powerful flex investigator that fits well into any team with a designated cluever/goon. While the Seeker/Guardian are getting their assets into play, Sefina immediately starts contributing by scooping up clues and hitting enemies.

Errata/Must-Include cards

  • Double, Double gives you an extra effective action each round. Definitely recommend saving XP to pick this up ASAP, even if it means forgoing upgrades in the first few scenarios.
  • Crystallizer of Dreams essentially eliminates the need for skill cards, leaving more room for the events Sefina loves so much
  • Chuck Fergus' is not an auto-include as his usefulness is impacted by what kinds of events you're using (ie a Sefina with several Mystic events might want to pass on Chuck). But given the right set of events, Sefina can make use of Chuck nearly every turn.
  • Hot Streak/Easy Mark/Faustian Bargain. Playing the number of events Sefina wants to is expensive. While you don't need all of these recource cards, you should definitely focus on economy even more than you normally would when building for Sefina
spockw · 3
Stall for Time

I tried to wrap my hand around this card for a while. This is a pseudo evasion+ attempt that ignores the alert keyword. But...

Who wants this? Alessandra Zorzi? Although saving the action, it's still very meh in itself. Maybe for having an enemy with her for stuff like Grift. Benefitting from the bonus skill value from Dirty Fighting? Trish Scarborough? Can't take it and has too low willpower, anyway. There might be some other obvious investigators who take this early in a campaign as a mid-tier pick, but what I find especially weird is that Patrice Hathaway, who is depicted in the card art, does not benefit from the fail-safe at all!

Then it came to me. Fail-safe...

POV: You are Stella Clark and are utilizing discard shenanigans, benefitting from having cards in your hand. Play this with Drawing Thin, return it to your hand and then simply keep it as fodder for e.g., Cornered, or... Live and Learn to get the evade+ effect and still have the card in your hand for using it again later.

Not sure if that interaction makes the card viable, but I honestly see it more in a fail deck than in a parley deck.

AlderSign · 395
A pseudo evade that can't really fail, uses a different stat, can test against fight, and can hit something that isn't on you. Seems fine in most survivors to me. — SSW · 217
Fun with dirty fighting? — MrGoldbee · 1491
@SSW: Yeah, maybe I was too hard on it. — AlderSign · 395