Event

Insight.

Cost: 1. XP: 1.

Survivor

Exile a level 0-5 card in your hand. Discover 2 clues at your location. If the exiled card was level 2 or higher, remove 1 doom from the current agenda. Exile Burn After Reading.

Card designed by the Council-in-Exile at Gen Con 2020

Romana Kendelic
Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion #76.

Latest Taboo

This card’s ability gains “(Max twice per game.)”

Burn After Reading

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

Fixing Decks with Exile cards is something I rather like doing, the few times it comes up it feels like cheating the system, spending 1xp to swap in a level 0 card you forgot sucks, but spending 1xp on flare and getting the swap for free is a good time all round.

Burn after reading removes two cards from your deck for 1xp and gives you testless clue gathering, it also allows something more interesting, the removal of high level cards, i don't think I have ever even considered swapping an XP card out for another one, I generally just ride it out even if the card seems to be close to worthless, but now you get to remove an XP card in your deck in exchange for the most powerful effect in the game, doom removal.

I think in a Deja Vu deck this card in a no brainer for easy clues and effectively adaptable (more than what Deja Vu already allows), if you have two Deja Vu's you could even run two of these and use them every game for 2 extra rounds and free clues, which may be worth the steep asking price. (12xp for the combo and another 4xp forany two level 2 cards)

As someone who adores gold pocket watch at its extreme cost I see myself having a lot of weird experimental fun with this.

Zerogrim · 284
Seeya, backup Chainsaw! — MrGoldbee · 1391
If it wins you the campaign then yea, zoom. — Zerogrim · 284

I am thinking about an interesting interaction between this card and all the new customizable cards. Please, follow my logic and tell me If I'm right.

  1. Each copy of customizable cards is considered to have the level which is equal to the half of marked checkboxes rounded up. So three marked checkboxes make every copy of that customizable card be level 2.
  2. You need to exile a level 2 card or higher to triger the 2nd part of the Burn After Reading effect (removing Doom). Therefore any customizable card with 3+ marked checkboxes is a valid target.
  3. Marking any checkbox on the customizable card upgrade sheet allows you to add that card to your deck (without paying any additional cost. It will be considered as purchasing a card). So if you mark at least one checkbox between the scenarios, you are allowed to add that exiled copy of the card back to your hand. Not as if it was something game changing, but may make some difference for the Déjà Vu archetype.
chrome · 52
Assuming 2 copies of a Customizable and 2 of Burn after Reading this is 8xp to remove 2 doom over a game. Eeeh... Not particularly game winning in my book — fiatluxia · 63
and 4 clues anywhere. — MrGoldbee · 1391
Assuming that Burn After Reading and the customizable are a good fit for your deck and worth including on their own, this is pure gravy. Not game winning, no, but a very nice bit of bonus value that could be the tipping point for including both cards instead of either. — Sorden · 1
You could max that out with 2x Deja vu and fotune or fate to remove 3 doom for only 1 xp for custom card (after initial xp cost). Though in my experience doom is rarely the limiting factor, rather damage/ horror from treacherys — Django · 4854
It doesn't matter if the customizable is good for your deck if the game plan is to exile it from your hand — fiatluxia · 63
The new taboos also mean you can burn Signum Crucis and get 2 clues, 1 doom for a grand total of 1 XP, which feels notable. — Lailah · 1
Also it does matter whether the customizable is good for your deck. Once you're getting to 8 XP for this combo you might as well just buy Deja Vu x2 and feel good torching whatever you find. — Lailah · 1
@Lailah hm, yes, indeed. An interesting interaction with the unchained Signum Crucis seems both legit and funny. — chrome · 52
Thank you for this trick! I'm finding Pocket Multi-Tool works very nicely for this trick; it has numerous cheap upgrades, you want both in your deck for consistency, but you can only hold 1, so once it's installed, the second copy is wholly Burnable. — HanoverFist · 660

This is a good buy for the last scenario of a campaign, even outside of a Déjà Vu deck. Survivors tend to have a lot XP by the end of campaigns, because their upgraded cards usually cost 1-3 XP. You should have no problem to play this card at maximum value and discard >= 2XP second copy of a card from your hand to also remove doom from agenda, which is very valuable expecially in final scenarios with Ancient Evils or similar effects. I would not run this card for scenarios 1 - 6 without Déjà Vu, but in a penultimate and ultimate scenario this is a strong card. Compare to Hallow or Fortune or Fate. I ran Burn After Reading in Yorick in Into the Maelstrom and got some value form it, because this scenario puts some pressure on doom clock through several cards.

SergSel · 327
using it to swap out 0xp cards is a use for it, you spend 1 xp to get a really good clue discovery card and swap two cards in your deck. little clunky but handy enough. — Zerogrim · 284

Let's say I'm Preston. What stops me from using this card to exile lodge debts? I cannot choose to discard a weakness card, but don't see any prohibitions against exile in either the exile or weakness sections of the rules...

Bloodw4ke · 59
Lodge Debts isn't level 0-5. — Thatwasademo · 52
To be more specific, you can't use Burn After Reading to exile any card which has a filled in wedge rather than dots below its resource cost. — Thatwasademo · 52
Ah, subtle. Thank you. It does look like the original text of the card did exclude weaknesses but was modified to this version. — Bloodw4ke · 59
I guess they didn't want us exiling story and signature cards, so they changed non-weakness to just level 0-5 as a catch-em-all. — Nenananas · 242