Paradoxical Covenant

Asset

Covenant. Blessed. Cursed.

Cost: –. XP: 2.

Mystic

Permanent. Limit 1 Covenant per deck.

After an investigator at your location performs the "reveal the chaos token" step of a skill test, if both a token and a token were revealed during that test, exhaust Paradoxical Covenant: This test automatically succeeds. (Remove each and token revealed from the chaos bag after this test ends.)

Tiziano Baracchi
In Too Deep #120.
Paradoxical Covenant

FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • Q: At which step of the skill test do the bless and curse tokens activate their effects, for the purposes of Sacred Covenant and Paradoxical Covenant? I assume step 4 like other chaos symbols effects. In this case, how does Sacred Covenant work? [Skill Test timing] A: Some effects may cause skill test timing to jump around a bit. In particular, whenever an effect causes you to reveal a new chaos token outside of Step 3 (reveal chaos tokens), it resets the timing back down to step 3. For example, if you were to reveal a token with the effect “+2. Reveal another token,” resolving that effect during step 4 would reset the timing back to step 3. (That way you can go through the standard motions of revealing that token and applying its effects and modifier.) The same is true for bless and curse tokens.

    Let’s say you drew 2 bless tokens and a +1 and wanted to use Sacred Covenant to put the unnecessary bless tokens back in the bag. It would go like this:

    St. 3 — reveal bless token.

    St. 4 — resolve its effect (reset back to step 3 to draw again).

    St. 3 — reveal another bless token.

    St. 4 — resolve its effect.

    St. 3 — reveal +1.

    After St. 3 — trigger Sacred Covenant to put the two bless tokens back in the chaos bag.

    St. 4+ resolve as normal.

Last updated

Reviews

Now with Favor of the Moon and/or Favor of the Sun, this covenant is incredible. Because you reset to step 3 after every token draw, you don't need to trigger the pact(s) when you initiate the test; you can draw normally, pull a bless, and in response tap favor of the moon to plug in a curse and auto-succeed. If you're using Moon, you even net a free dollar out of it. It's Father Mateo's best friend, who can use the combo to succeed on any test almost on-demand in spite of his mediocre stats.

As a bonus, it applies to everyone at your location, making it equally valuable to any Eye of the Djinn-specced rogues or Spirit of Humanity-wielding survivors. Preston Fairmont and Calvin Wright can throw themselves at impossible tests, drop a Signum Crucis and still succeed.

Finally, the combo further stacks with Tempt Fate. Anyone can take it to thin their deck, add 3 & 3 and someone with Favor of the Moon can immediately seal the curses. 3 blesses in the bag (and a full moon pact) for completely free, better even than Keep Faith.

CombStranger · 265
Mateo especially is better served with Ancient Covenant, simply because theres very few tests you can't pass with a +2. — suika · 9413
I also think Ancient Covenant is normally better, except two cases. First case is curse-spell; you can gain both curse bonus and test success. The other case is Olive; you should resolve 2 tokens with Olive, so that you should resolve one more token even with Ancient Covenant, but Paradoxical don't. — elkeinkrad · 486
Honestly, as far as combos with Mateo and Favor of the Sun go, I'd rather have Blessing of Isis just so I can get the additional action/upkeep. Then, of course, stick with Ancient Covenant to find successes while you're setting that up. — Thatwasademo · 58
There are two other cases where Paradoxical Covenant may be a better choice: (1) someone's already running Nephthys, in which case recycling bless is already taken care of, and (2) you can't take Ancient Covenant, because it's not allowed in your deck. — MrWeasely · 42

Best combo with Olive McBride. Olive helps to find both and and Covenant prevents Olive's penalty, resolving 2 tokens. Note that after you trigger Paradoxical Covenant, you don't need to reveal additional tokens for revealed & . Of course, you could trigger Paradoxical after you reveal all tokens; but, Paradoxical is auto-fail.

Here is probability table for Paradoxical Covenant. This table assumes that the bag has 16 tokens and no reveal another token effect. Row is the number of bless tokens, and column is the number of curse tokens (or vice versa).

Normal case (16 tokens) (%)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1 0.65 1.20 1.67 2.07 2.42 2.72 2.98 3.22 3.42 3.60
2 1.20 2.22 3.09 3.84 4.49 5.05 5.55 5.98 6.37 6.72
3 1.67 3.09 4.31 5.35 6.27 7.06 7.76 8.38 8.93 9.42
4 2.07 3.84 5.35 6.67 7.81 8.81 9.69 10.48 11.17 11.79
5 2.42 4.49 6.27 7.81 9.16 10.34 11.39 12.32 13.14 13.88
6 2.72 5.05 7.06 8.81 10.34 11.69 12.88 13.94 14.89 15.73
7 2.98 5.55 7.76 9.69 11.39 12.88 14.20 15.38 16.43 17.38
8 3.22 5.98 8.38 10.48 12.32 13.94 15.38 16.67 17.82 18.85
9 3.42 6.37 8.93 11.17 13.14 14.89 16.43 17.82 19.06 20.18
10 3.60 6.72 9.42 11.79 13.88 15.73 17.38 18.85 20.18 21.37


Olive case (16 tokens) (%)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1 3.92 6.81 8.96 10.59 11.83 12.79 13.53 14.11 14.56 14.91
2 6.81 11.85 15.65 18.54 20.76 22.49 23.84 24.90 25.74 26.40
3 8.96 15.65 20.71 24.60 27.61 29.96 31.81 33.28 34.44 35.37
4 10.59 18.54 24.60 29.27 32.91 35.77 38.04 39.85 41.30 42.46
5 11.83 20.76 27.61 32.91 37.07 40.35 42.96 45.06 46.75 48.11
6 12.79 22.49 29.96 35.77 40.35 43.98 46.89 49.23 51.12 52.66
7 13.53 23.84 31.81 38.04 42.96 46.89 50.04 52.59 54.66 56.36
8 14.11 24.90 33.28 39.85 45.06 49.23 52.59 55.32 57.55 59.38
9 14.56 25.74 34.44 41.30 46.75 51.12 54.66 57.55 59.91 61.86
10 14.91 26.40 35.37 42.46 48.11 52.66 56.36 59.38 61.86 63.91


J-Fine case (16 tokens) (%)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
1 2.08 3.71 4.99 6.01 6.83 7.49 8.02 8.46 8.81 9.10
2 3.71 6.31 8.54 10.34 11.81 13.01 14.00 14.81 15.49 16.05
3 4.99 8.54 11.11 13.49 15.48 17.12 18.49 19.64 20.60 21.41
4 6.01 10.34 13.49 15.86 18.20 20.21 21.90 23.33 24.54 25.57
5 6.83 11.81 15.48 18.20 20.32 22.55 24.51 26.18 27.60 28.83
6 7.49 13.01 17.12 20.21 22.55 24.43 26.51 28.38 30.00 31.39
7 8.02 14.00 18.49 21.90 24.51 26.51 28.17 30.10 31.87 33.42
8 8.46 14.81 19.64 23.33 26.18 28.38 30.10 31.58 33.35 35.03
9 8.81 15.49 20.60 24.54 27.60 30.00 31.87 33.35 34.67 36.31
10 9.10 16.05 21.41 25.57 28.83 31.39 33.42 35.03 36.31 37.50

Additional note: Unlike Olive, Jacqueline Fine has less effective. This is because both & have "reveal another token" effect, and Olive resolves two tokens, so that Olive could trigger Paradoxical if she reveal both from first 3 tokens, but Jacqueline doesnot.

elkeinkrad · 486
Math incl J-Fine? — MrGoldbee · 1451
I find that olive table is wrong. I fix it and add J-Fine ASAP — elkeinkrad · 486
I updated olive & jacquline table. I think both table is fine; I checked by Monte Carlo simulation with one case. I also update blessing of isis probability table, so that you could see if you want. — elkeinkrad · 486

I'll be honest; unless I'm just bad at math & probability - this card is almost impossible to resolve naturally. I guess it's expecting you to lean into cards like Premonition, Grotesque Statue, The Chthonian Stone etc - to manipulate your odds. I'm just not sure I would want to dump 2 XP and a load of other cards in order to make it work. Am I missing something here?

Othello · 2
I love the fact that this card is both blessed and cursed simultaneously — snacc · 982
so dunwich starts with 15 tokens, if you have 10 blessing and 10 curses you have a 20/35 chance to draw either a bless or a curse, then a 10/35 to draw the other type you need, sure not likely (hovering at what, 2/9 chance on any draw) and pretty hard to set up such a flooded bag but it is 2xp you didn't have to draw, only exhausts when you know for a fact you need it to and trigger on any token pull at your location, seems like without much support you'll have this trigger once a game (and 2xp to turn a failed test into a succesful test with no support seems fine) — Zerogrim · 292
realise I am mistaken above, the second pull is actually 10/25 in that example because drawing another curse token just means you keep drawing, so you can the odds up to 22% in dunwich, on any draw, though some of those draw are going to pass anyway, be nice to see how oftern it actually works in a real game. — Zerogrim · 292
Olive MacBride and Jacqueline Fine BFFs could get some use out of this. — LivefromBenefitSt · 1052
So does resolving a bless/curse token take you back to the reveal a chaos token step? If not, then this card will be near impossible to pull off. You have to trigger this during the "reveal chaos tokens" step, but this will usually be only 1 token, even if you draw a bless/curse token. That token won't resolve until the "apply chaos symbol effects" step, which is when you would draw an additional token. — eapfel · 6
Okay never mind, I finally dug up the answer. It does revert you back to the "reveal a chaos token" step. — eapfel · 6