Pendant of the Queen
Of Nothing at All

Asset. Accessory

Item. Relic.

Cost: –.

Seeker

Bonded (Segment of Onyx). Uses (3 charges). If this card has no charges, set it aside, out of play, and shuffle 3 set-aside copies of Segment of Onyx into your deck.

Exhaust Pendant of the Queen and spend 1 charge: Choose a revealed location and select one - move to that location, discover 1 clue at that location, or automatically evade an enemy at that location.

Diana Martínez
The Dream-Eaters #22.

Latest Taboo

This card’s constant ability now reads: “If this card has no charges, remove it from the game.”

Pendant of the Queen

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Clarification: If an investigator’s deck contains a card that summons one or more bonded cards, those bonded cards are set aside at the start of each game. The number of copies of each different bonded card that are set aside in this way is equal to the number of copies of that were included in the product in which that bonded card was introduced. The number of cards in your deck that summon the bonded card in question does not factor into this limit. *For example: An investigator may only have 3 copies of Soothing Melody set aside at the start of the game. Similarly, an investigator may only have 1 Essence of the Dream set aside at the start of the game, regardless of how many copies of Dream Diary they include in their deck. - FAQ, v.1.7, March 2020

  • Automatic Success/Failure & Automatic Evasion: Some card effects make an investigator automatically succeed or automatically fail a skill test. If this occurs, depending on the timing of such an effect, certain steps of the skill test may be skipped in their entirety.

    • If it is known that an investigator automatically succeeds or fails at a skill test before Step 3 (“Reveal Chaos Token”) occurs, that step is skipped, along with Step 4. No chaos token(s) are revealed from the chaos bag, and the investigator immediately moves to Step 5. All other steps of the skill test resolve as normal.
    • If a chaos token effect causes an investigator to automatically succeed or fail at a skill test, continue with Steps 3 and 4, as normal.
    • If an ability “automatically evades” 1 or more enemies, this is not the same as automatically succeeding at an evasion attempt. As per the entry on “Evade” in the Rules Reference, if an ability automatically evades 1 or more enemies, no skill test is made for the evasion attempt whatsoever. Consequentially, because no skill test is made, it is not considered a “successful” evasion. The investigator simply follows the steps for evading an enemy (exhausting it and breaking its engagement).
    • For example: Patrice uses the ability on Hope, which reads: “ If Hope is ready, exhaust or discard him: Evade. Attempt to evade with a base value of 5. (If you discarded Hope, this test is automatically successful.)” If Patrice chooses to discard Hope, the skill test automatically succeeds before chaos tokens are revealed; therefore Steps 3 and 4 of the skill test are skipped. However, the skill test still takes place. Cards may still be committed to the test, and the investigator’s total modified skill value is still determined, as it may have some bearing on other card abilities. However, if Patrice instead uses the ability on Stray Cat, which reads: “ Discard Stray Cat: Automatically evade a non-Elite enemy at your location,” no skill test is made whatsoever. - FAQ, v.1.7, March 2020
  • Q: Can I play a card with a cost of “–”? A: No. Cards with a cost of “–” have no cost that can be paid, and therefore cannot be played. For example, if Pendant of the Queen is discarded from play and then shuffled back into your deck and drawn, you would be unable to play it from hand. (Cards that put it directly into play bypassing its cost would be able to put it into play, however.) Cards with a cost of “–” that are played as a copy of a different card, such as Eidetic Memory, use the resource cost of the copied card, and therefore bypass this restriction. - FAQ, v.1.8, October 2020

Last updated

Reviews

This card is S tier as scenario tech. With a deck that can assemble it, it's one of the strongest tech against dangerous Hunter enemies (and one of the few that works against Elite), and its teleportation ability is invaluable in any scenario that requires extensive backtracking.

Outside of its use as scenario tech, I'd rate the post-taboo pendant as a B+ card in multiplayer. A hot take I know but hear me out!

Without support

The pendant is always 3 testless clues globally even without support, and that's already better and cheaper than Working a Hunch. But unlike Working a Hunch, there's a few strings attached:

  • Assembly required: You need to assemble the pendant before doing anything. In a slower-drawing seeker deck, Segment of Onyx are dead draws that gum up your hand, costing you valuable time in scenarios that demand speed.
  • Limited uses: Even in a fast seeker deck, it's only 3 uses, so it doesn't work as a deck-cycling payload. Fast decks also lack for deck space due to the amount of draw they need to pack and have a hard time fitting the Pendant in for just 3 uses.

So while in theory 3 better copies of Working a Hunch can fit into any deck, it's actually quite rare to see decks taking the taboo'd pendant without building around it because of the above limitations.

Building around

Recharging the pendant creates some interesting deckbuilding puzzles with a strong payoff if you manage it: one extra testless clue a turn isn't that amazing for the support needed to enable it, but that's made up the additional safety margin the pendant adds by the other two options it gives.

  • Eldrich Sophist: The bog-standard way to enable such a build is Eldritch Sophist with a battery like the The Red Clock or Runic Axe, which has large opportunity costs in terms of slots or XP, resources, and play actions. It's a Rube Goldberg machine that functions only with all its many pieces in play and tends to result in a relatively slow deck*.

  • Recharge Tech: The alternate way is to pack recharge tech (Winds of Power, Recharge, Enraptured, etc.). The drawback here is that recharge tech is expensive and a little clunky to use, being balanced around their ability to affect mystic spells with higher action compression like Rite of Seeking, and still being limited to 1/round usage even if you cycle your deck (unless you use The Raven Quill). This is most optimal if you have other cards to recharge (hello, Luke Robinson), but it also does mean that you get also less milage out of the pendant.

The Queen of Nothing at All

In conclusion, the pendant's compression and flexibility strongest in solo, where it's ability can single-handed clear location instantly or solve an enemy for good. In multiplayer, the pendant mainly acts as a very strong insurance against the unexpected. It bails your team out of situations you haven't prepared for and saves you from a careless team wipe.

In other words, it's a bit of a crutch.

But the better your deckbuilding and your piloting is, and the better your team is, the less likely it would be that you would actually need bailing out. If you're aiming to win more, win harder, and win faster, and you can trust your teammates, you're often better off ditching the pendant to be a leaner and meaner seeking machine.


* relative to another deck that uses those slots and XP for better action compression, faster clue power, and or utility/team support in other ways. The difference is magnified on Hard/Expert where you can't mindlessly cycle cantrip skills.

suika · 9247

Tabooed or not this card is ridiculous. For the love of God, please change that evade to "non-Elite" enemy. Even then it should be at least 3 XP (Sorry Luke). It's easy to find; it's easy to get in play; it's 3 bonus testless actions.

ErrantChuck · 553
It's funny that this is fine but then we have cards like Infighting and Tennesse Sour Mash (survivor) which they slapped non-Elite on because "oh no! imagine canceling Elite attacks (*cough* Dodge) or evading an Elite using a Combat skill test instead of an Agility! (*cough* Stunning Blow) That would just be too powerful, even for an xp card!!" — Nenananas · 241
Agreed. I suspect they need a second tier of enemy to get the finesse they want with encounters. This card, as is and well-played, is essentially a "pause-the-final-boss-of-any-scenario-for-three-turns" card. — ErrantChuck · 553
By that standard, an evade check pauses the final boss of any scenario for an infinite number of turns. And it's not like evade checks are particularly hard to make. — suika · 9247
Perhaps you are missing the fine print: you don't have to be at the location of the enemy to evade with with the Pendant. — ErrantChuck · 553
While I do agree with suika that evasion is surprisingly good at defanging bosses, that wouldn't make your point about Pendant's absurdity any less true (just because A is strong doesn't mean B isn't), especially because this isn't a comparison of equals; evasion requires an action (generally) and a test, Pendant requires neither. Evasion is a very strong boss-stopper, Pendant is literal point-and-click removal. — NightgauntTaxiService · 265
So Finn is the most ridiculous investigator in the game. He gets a free evade AND he gets a ton of cards and resources and from evading. Broken much? Why don't the devs tabooing Finn's evade to not work on non-Elite enemies? Remote evasion is cool and all but it's also mostly unnecessary vs final bosses. — yinwhite · 8
Fr though, Finn is up there on the investigator tier list; not many stronger than him. His only downsides are low will and a pretty annoying weakness — Nenananas · 241
You're right, Finn does get a free evade action like Pendant. However, the Pendant's evasion is testless, unlike Finn's. — NightgauntTaxiService · 265
I don't get this fixation on testlessness. Is everyone playing on expert where making evade tests is such a big deal? — suika · 9247
Even easy mode has the autofail. While it is a low chance that you'll draw it, being able to completely avoid the chance of doing so, especially on a test that might very well mean the difference between living and dying, is extremely valuable. — NightgauntTaxiService · 265
The consequence for failing an evade is most commonly just losing an action to evade again. If you have a 10% chance of failing the test, making the evade testless is worth 0.1 actions. — suika · 9247
Not sure about your thinking re: actions as divisible units suika, but can you name a better action (currently in the game) than a "fast testless evade of -any- visible enemy in play"? — ErrantChuck · 553
Sure I can: 3 free actions fast. Skip mythos phase. Skip all encounter cards for a mythos phase. Remove a doom from the agenda. Fight at +4 dealing 4 damage. 3 testless damage fast. X testless damge fast. 4 testless damage. I can go on but I'll leave it here. But a more straightforward answer would be that I pendant's ability only a little stronger than +1 action per round on any difficulty below Expert, apart from a very few scenarios where remote evade or teleport can cheese the scenario. — suika · 9247
And how many of those actions only cost 1 XP and have 3 uses? — ErrantChuck · 553
None of them because they're all so much stronger than a testless evade that it's bad faith to make the comparison in the first place. 3 testless evades is good don't get me wrong but it's just a nice insurance policy that you don't need most of the time. — suika · 9247
"Bad faith." Lol. Testless evade vs an Elite enemy and you don't have to be at their location. It's a crazy card. I standby my initial statement: taboo the Elite part, bump it to 3 XP cost (and get rid of the current taboo restriction). — ErrantChuck · 553
It is nice to see people defending this card while it is completely busted or they have never seen it played to the full power. Most Seekers draw like crazy and can stunlock an elite enemy with this WHILE ALSO making sure they spend the last charge when they are down to something like 5 cards in their deck, so they make sure to get it out ASAP in the next 2-3 turns and get another 3 amazing effects. Most Seekers that actually play this don't assamble it just once and have 3 free clues or evades or teleports, they assamble it 3-4 times in a single scenario, so we just stopped playing this shit until we decided to just nerf it and do what the original comment said; we made it not work with Elite enemies. This card is broken on so many levels but the fact that it is not a Finn-level of power is pretty obvious. Imagine if Finn had an ability that once per turn he can choose to discover a clue, free evade without a test on any enemy, or free teleport anywhere?!?! The mere flexibility makes it insane, not just the effect — Blood&gore · 342
It feels like we're just arguing in circles here. Suika's right, a free evade action isn't as broken as some of the shenanigans other cards can get up to (Ace in the Hole, A Watchful Peace, Hallow), but it's still very, very strong, especially since, as Blood&gore pointed out, Pendant doesn't just evade enemies. Rogue got evasion handled? You can still use Pendant to save move actions or vacuum up clues. I personally think you're underestimating the value of a free, testless evade, suika, but even if you're right (and your ratings indicate you probably are), Pendant's still a teleporter and clue-sniper. It's Seeker in a nutshell: able to do 95% of the game, and 50% of it well. — NightgauntTaxiService · 265
@Blood&gore It's literally taboo'd to not work like that anymore. Still a very powerful card, but it's not quite as easy to break as it used to be. — Soul_Turtle · 405

Since the errata, it's hard to work out who the real Queen to use this pendant is.

Currently I think it might be Amanda Sharpe.

Using Enraptured behind Amanda Sharpe, you can try to keep your pendant topped up with charges and preventing it from removing itself from the game. Also, with Amanda's additional card draw (or rather card filtering) from her ability, she can see those Segments of Onyx faster than other investigators, without even trying.

KakuRainbow · 66
Anyone who can run The Red Clock, Eldritch Sophist and the pendant is the best use of it, I think. — FarCryFromHuman · 1
While I agree with you, I think Amanda would much rather fill Eon Chart with Enraptured, no? — Valentin1331 · 54584
Trish is the true queen, for the reasons FarCryFromHuman gave. Along with the fact that it can trigger her investigator ability as well, 2 clues from a location with an enemy or get a clue and automatically evade an enemy at the same location — NarkasisBroon · 10
I think Winds of power is a great way to recharge it, especially if you play a fast-drawing deck. — AlexP · 243
Luke Robinson is a very strong home for this. He can run the Eldritch Sophist to move charges around, plus all of the usual Mystic tools to throw charges on things, with Eldritch Sophist then transfers over to the pendant. — clarionx · 231
I'm going to say Mandy. With her various search options, she can assemble it quickly, and with Sophist, Twine, and various sources of secrets she can keep it in play... — AndyB · 929
@AndyB, just letting you know that you can't move Secrets to an Asset that uses Charges. (Maybe you can but it still does not become a Charge, so it's the same for this case) — Sleben · 1
This works great in Luke - Whitton Greene (2) + Gate Box is a nice combo to assemble the pendant. Enraptured & Recharge keep it in the game. — loglady · 20