Event

Spell.

Cost: 1.

Mystic

Parley. Choose a non-Elite enemy at your location and either (choose one):

- Automatically evade that enemy and place 1 doom on it. It cannot take damage for the remainder of the round. Discover 1 clue at your location.

- If that enemy has 1 or more doom on it, defeat it. Gain 1 resource for each doom that was on it.

Brian Valenzuela
The Scarlet Keys Investigator Expansion #88.
String of Curses

FAQs

No faqs yet for this card.

Reviews

This card.

Holy moly. Golly gee. Horsefeathers. Applesauce. Bushwa. Hooey. Swell.
...F*ck.

First just some quick analysis on the card itself:

  • It's dirt cheap to play. Run it with Robes of Endless Night and it's free.
  • It's a Parley action. Since those are few and far between, here's your obligatory reminder that taking one does not provoke opportunity attacks.
  • Option 1 gives you a testless clue and a testless evade at the cost of placing a doom and not being able to damage the enemy that round. That last part kinda bites, but it's good value, especially if played during the "witching hour", moreso on an enemy you can just sweep under the rug and move away from.
  • With option 2, the resource cost of the spell is, at minimum, refunded right back to you. Nice! Any doom after the first is profit, which means this card can turn pressure into opportunity. Mysterious Chanting is a card that often translates to "kill this enemy now or lose", but if you've got String of Curses in hand, now there's a nice bounty to collect on that high value target, and it's a guaranteed kill.
  • Note as well that option 1 only precludes damaging the enemy. You can still defeat it if you have a way to do that without dealing damage, like, say, playing String of Curses again. More on that later. (Other cards can do this too, and Waylay could be a decent combo. Or leave it to your friend playing Kymani Jones if they don't have VP.)
  • The testlessness of both options makes this card worthy of consideration in Expert mode. I have no experience there personally, but going off the theory of wanting to touch the expert chaos bag as little as possible, this seems a decent choice.

Focusing on option 2, this seems like great tech for any scenario that uses the Dark Cult encounter set (quick tip: to date, you'll see it at least once in all but one campaign) to have a way to quickly deal with spiking doom placements. Many campaigns also have their own encounter sets with similar themes of cultists or other doom-oriented enemies (for brevity let's call them "doomers"), often featuring treacheries that place even more doom on enemies. If you've played Midnight Masks, Echoes of the Past, or Threads of Fate, you can probably guess what the peak performance of this card might look like.

Many doomers are weak, like your standard Acolyte, where having a value answer is nice but might be overkill when a simple Fight action would suffice (unless there's profit to be gained). But other doomers can be particularly nasty, and having a way to defeat them automatically in a single action might be just what the doctor ordered. You'll be surprised what you can cuss out, even in the furthest reaches of time and space.

This all comes with the solemn acknowledgment that as an event card, you're limited in the number of times you can actually play it. If you, like me, would like a way to play String of Curses more than once or twice in a game, you've got a few combos to consider:

  • Dayana Esperence can cuss on tap, until she runs out of secrets. If you have a way to recharge her, and perhaps also a way to ready her, she's an unstoppable cultist cussing machine.
  • If you're leaning into other doom tech, De Vermis Mysteriis allows you to cuss one last time after discarding.
  • Recursion options in-faction include Prescient and Quantum Flux. Out-of-faction options include Scrounge for Supplies, Shrine of the Moirai, and I guess also The Council's Coffer.
  • The new upgraded Uncage the Soul also allows you to play it from discard, but it will provoke opportunity attacks and the discount is mostly wasted.
  • You can use Double, Double and one-two cuss a single target--evade and defeat an enemy AND discover a clue for 1 resource and 1 action! This sounds like the coolest combo to me, but outside of Versatile, the only investigators who can pull this off are Sefina Rousseau and Jenny Barnes.

...and so's your old man!

Patrice can use this to get rid of the watcher. (Trish too, with versatile) — Escalir · 1
It only occurred to me hours after writing this that Patrice can do serious work with that card, thanks for pointing out it's good for her signature weakness as well! — MiskatonicFrosh · 340
Actually Patrice can't use this to get rid of the watcher. it only discards if Patrice successfully evades/fights it. Automatic evasion is not a successful evasion. The Trish comment still stands though. — yayepicyay · 15
Painted World, baby. — MrGoldbee · 1449
Parallel Agnes Baker can recycle it into her deck, since it's a spell event. — andreasskovse · 13
"Swell! ... and so's your old man!" TROUBLE! Trouble, trouble, trouble... — HanoverFist · 718
For the record, Double Double actually let's you testlessly defeat ANY non-elite IN THE GAME for 1r, 1action, and one card and it gives you a free clue. — Sycopath · 1
This card is bonkers, I feel like it should be tabooed and cost some XP, the first effect is way too efficient and in pairs it kills any non-elite enemy without a test (and if you are lucky and the enemy gets doom on it from the encounter deck, you don't even need the pair).. — DakonBlackblade · 5
We got a third investigator, who can pair it with "Double, Double" in Alessandra. Besides, everybody, who can take this card, can take the XP-budget-version of this combo with "Eldritch Tongue". — Susumu · 366

Another investigator in Alessandra Zorzis team with access to this card can kill her weakness Zamacona with a single action after Alessandra Zorzi parlayed to add 1 doom to him. Depending on the doom threshold you could even wait a few turns to gain more than 1 resource. Remember that he gains only 1 doom per round from her parleys and she can't parley with him, so she can't use this strategy herself to get rid of him. I think this is very helpful so she doesn't need to add non-parley cards to her deck just to deal with him.

Django · 5070

I want to add a bit to the other review that you can choose enemy engaged with the other investigator to easily tear it off. Perhaps you can choose a better investigator to engage in the Upkeep Phase. It's a handy rescue card though you can't just gang on it yet this round. Parley ensure you can do it even if you are busy fighting something else, so having this card on hand gives the clue finder at the same location insurance that they will not have engagement and can continue working. (on top of 1 clue you just helped removing)

5argon · 9857
Can we use this card to expose Mini Concealed card by automatically evade it? — a12345vn · 2
Yes, the SK book specifically says that auto succeed cards work. Page 4. — Taevus · 760
Sorry but that's not quite right. String of Curses requires you to choose an enemy at your location when you play it. Concealed enemies are not actually at your location (they're in "the shadows"), and concealed mini-cards are not enemies. — MiskatonicFrosh · 340

With 42 cards to spare, this is barely a speedbump in Patrice's deck. It commits for agility, which might come in handy at times. It lets you handle pesky cultists quickly and efficiently to possibly offset an agenda flip. The best pay off for it though? It's an auto evade of the Watcher from Another Dimension. Sure, you place the doom on it, but that gets immediately discarded when the Watcher does. It's an easy button for your weakness.

scg · 1
Bad symbols tho. — MrGoldbee · 1449
'Automatic evasion' doesn't mean the same thing as 'successfully evade'; the latter requires a skill test that String (and Stray Cat, by common proxy) bypass, so it won't ditch the Watcher for you. — Teag · 51
Do we know for sure this works with watcher? Watcher says it can be evaded or attacked as if it were at your location, but I don't think it's "at your location" for any other purposes (like to be a target of the parley ability on string of curses). — FarCryFromHuman · 1
What Teag says. It had been confirmed in FAQ, that Patrice could evade the Watcher with Hope, even the discard ability to auto-succeed, but could not use the Stray Cat, because this is an auto-evade, not an auto-success on an evasion attempt. So "String of Curses" won't work either. — Susumu · 366
That said, as FarCryFromHuman notes, you cannot even play the card, while the Watcher is in your hand, as it is not Fight/Evade — Adny · 1
Yes, that's on top of that. "Your hand" is an out of play area, so not "at your location". Hidden cards can only be interacted with the way, that is printed on the card, in this case, it's fight or evade, and does not include a parley action. — Susumu · 366