Amina Zidane
The Operator

Investigator

Chosen. Cursed.

Mystic
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
  • 3
Health: 5. Sanity: 9.

When you play an asset: Reduce its resource cost by 3. It enters play with 1 doom on it. (Limit once per round.)

effect: +2. You may move all doom from a card at your location to another card at your location.

"What is it trying to tell me?"
Aleksander Karcz
The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion #11.

Amina Zidane - Back

Investigator

Deck Size: 30.

Deckbuilding Options: Mystic cards () level 0-5, Neutral cards level 0-5, Charm cards level 0-4.

Deckbuilding Requirements (do not count toward deck size): Word of Woe, Word of Weal, Deafening Silence, 1 random basic weakness.

A refugee from French-occupied Algeria, Amina arrived in Arkham with nothing more than she could carry. Six years later, Amina's sharp mind and technical skill placed her at the switchboard for the Miskatonic Valley Telephone Company. Soon after, she began to catch snippets of something strange while at work - distorted words in an unrecognizable language, out-of-place noises, calls that connected to nowhere at all and dropped almost immediately. As the phantom calls grew in frequency, Amina sought answers. She found the right extension, connected to the line, and listened in. Despite not understanding a word of the alien language on the other side, she could tell the eldritch words held real power.
Amina Zidane
Amina Zidane
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FAQs

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Reviews

This Review is only focused on the inclusion of "Charm cards level 0-4".

Charm cards level 0-4 includes (at the time of writing) every Charm card in the game... Except of course Zoey's Cross.

Some of the more interesting options this gives her include:

-Upgrading from Holy Rosary into Holy Rosary.

-Being able to Research Dream Diary.

-Every variant of Grisly Totem.

-"Lucky" Penny

-Nightmare Bauble

Given the large amount of Accessory Charm cards, I don't think access to off-class Charm cards is of much use without running Relic Hunter or The Hierophant.

The only Charm cards that are both off-class and not Accessories are Obsidian Bracelet and Dream Diary (at time of writing).

Although this does allow for upgrading Lucky Cigarette Case, Dream Diary, Grisly Totem, Cherished Keepsake, Rabbit's Foot, and Holy Rosary via Down the Rabbit Hole.

NorainJS · 59
While it doesn't particularly play with her ability, Dream Diary allows her to take any test at 5+ once per turn. Pretty excellent use of a handslot if you aren't determined to use all the new Doom assets. — housh · 176

Tldr Amina is a bad version of Marie.

Full review...

Base stats Taking a squared stat line of her (square all stats and add together, which imo is a more accurate estimation of min/max potential) she's a 36, whereas Marie is at a 43. Marie is hence the winner.

Playstyle They both play a high risk game with doom on investigator assets. Amina reduces card cost, while Marie gets bonus actions for having any card with doom. Since you can take blood pact at level zero, Marie wins and her passive will see far more use.

Deckbuilding Amina takes charms, which are rather useless. Mystics already have contested spots for charms, and this just adds off class options to her that ultimately don't improve her basic abilities... spells.

Signature Assets

Marie can force stop doom from advancing the agenda at any point. If you mess up your doom manipulation, Marie can pardon this. Or you can go heavy doom in a witching hour, and then play her signature go give you another witching hour turn, risk free.

Amina's signatures just add doom to play all the time. Since she can't really cast meaningful spells with a 3 in charisma, it's not clear these assets do her any favors.

Weakness

Baron Samedi is actually an asset for Marie in that he can proc her passive at any time. He can force the agenda to advance, but only if you mess the math up.

Deafening Silence on the other hand can make all the accumulated doom add up, immediately. It's like Cursed Memory, but worse.

Overall Rank: C.

Amina tries to fill a niche other mystics have already perfected. Although she can be effective, pretty much everything she can do can be done by Marie, better.

drjones87 · 190
I think there's a couple points in your review that are unfair to her, but don't get wrong, I agree that she's pretty much useless. You can't try to play her like your average Mystic and just pump your Will, and I think that's what they were going for with her 1.) statline 2.) new doom-focused tools, and 3.) access to charms. All of those allow her to buff and test her NON-Will stats as needed. However, for all the doom she's constantly playing around with, she accomplishes disappointingly little. The resources she saves don't really have anywhere to go to give her the edge she needs (unlike Jenny Barnes whose card pool 100% enables that), and Marie Lambeau plays the same doom game with greater rewards, honestly (extra actions are nice). So yea, Amina feels like she may have worked if she was, like, one of the first five investigators of the game, but even then she would quickly be outclassed by gators who DON'T play with doom. — TheDoc37 · 468
They tried to make Amina more playable by including Elle in the set. Unfortunately it just makes Marie so much better. Stick a 1 Doom Abyssal Tome under Elle for a +3/+1 attack every round to proc her extra action for the rest of the game without affecting the Agenda. There's no comparison and with the recent Taboo boost for Lola, I think Marie is now the worst investigator in the game. — MindControlMouse · 41

Make way, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, there's a new (un)Holy Trinity in town.

Use Cat Mask offerings to turn Amina's miserable stats into respectable 5 or 5.

When you're out of offerings, add doom to Blood Pact for the same bonus... replenishing Cat Mask offerings.

Sin-Eater removes the icky doom that's lingering around (and incidentally can also refresh Cat Mask offerings).

With a bit of careful sequencing, this lets Amina test at base 7 and 7 for damn near every test. This opens up lots of options for Amina, including:

And on top of that, Amina can play assets at a 3-resource discount! (Be aware that Amina's ability causes the asset to enter play with the doom, and so doesn't trigger Cat Mask, but moving it onto a fresh Sin-Eater will).

Edit: Amina might trigger Cat Mask. Check the comments below!


...There's a downside though, which is that it's kind of tricky to assemble. There are two problems:

  1. Sin-Eater costs 6xp (and the permanent Blood Pact costs another 3xp)
  2. You need to find Cat Mask (and potentially Blood Pact)

Solving the second problem means card draw and tutoring. Scroll of Secrets and Scroll of Prophecies both draw quickly through the deck, and Backpack ties it all together. All of it discounted by Amina!

The experience problem isn't really solvable in deck-building. Needing to play the first scenario without Sin-Eater is... grim. There have been some suggestions floating around of "fixing" Amina by having her start with 5xp like some other investigators, or by having her start with Sin-Eater itself. You can figure out what your group enjoys!


I hope people will give Amina another go! I'm not going to lie, she's pretty bad, but with the new toys, she's no longer a deadweight and can hold her own, with a fun and unique doom-management mini-game.

Remember to pack your Wards of Protection! Always practice Ancient Evils safety!

Frost · 270
You can also add Sign Magic (3) to trigger the Sin Eater for free. — Tharzax · 1
FWIW there is an existing email ruling out there that amina's ability does trigger cat mask. but its one of those email rulings that you just have to decide if you're table is going to squint and believe because it doesn't really make sense and hasn't made it to a proper faq or anything yet — NarkasisBroon · 10
It was given on 24th January 2024, and I haven't seen it be corrected since, but I might have missed it. — NarkasisBroon · 10
That's a disgusting review. It's truly sad in this this hypocritical world, where people can be fined 150000+ Canadian dollars for not using the "correct" pronouns , and everyone wants to talk about love and inclusivity, yet the amount of slurs and dissing of my Heavenly Father YaHuWaH Elohiym Most High and anything related to the Bible is astounding. I hope you come to know the everlasting love of our Father YAH Most High and his only begotten son Messiah Yahushua. Shalom — Quantallar · 7

Seems unplayable, particularly on expert. Her sub seems almost useless. 3 stat line is horrific. Apart from extra resource generation, and some synergy with the new doom cards in scarlet keys, I think a she will only find play in normal campaigns.

AussieKSU · 1068
I'm sorry, her Sub? what does that mean? — Zerogrim · 292
Sub class? As in hee charm access. — Therealestize · 69
If that's, what Aussie meant: I think, Dream Diary might be really good in her. At least it would offset her weak stats by a good amount. — Susumu · 366
She also has access to some promissing power to translate it, should she not have help of a seeker. — Susumu · 366
There are new cards to let you manipulate doom — RexMars · 2
Haven't played with her but I agree she looks pretty awful to me. Her stat line and deck building is so bad, she can't make use of most mystic cards (since they focus on willpower). Her ability to reduce cost is mostly not useful since she can't actually make good use of the expensive cards (mostly spells). She doesn't get much benefit for having doom in play either which is inherently dangerous. — fates · 52