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This is one half of my entry to the [Drawn To The Flame (podcast)'s][Add link] competition to make pick two investigators, swap their investigator card backs, and say why you think this would be an interesting pairing. Note that you also get their signature cards. Here I am using Sefina Rousseau's Front with Diana Stanley's back.

• The accompanying Diana with Seffy`s back deck can be found here.

Neither of these decks have been tested/played or necessarily balanced in any way. They are really just conceptual pieces written to highlight the posibilities. Though on paper they actually look playable to me. Not OP and not ... er... under P? (if thats a thing?) either. They just look to be an interesting flavour of well established archetypes.

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COMPETITION DETAILS:

Just to say I am not involved in the competition in any way, I just thought it would be nice to give credit and plugs to the kind folk who are.

• Full details can be found here: DttF Ep 194: Visions of Futures Past XVII

Note that as far as i can tell you dont have to send an actual deck. I guess I just wanted to. Anyway - Im not going to tell you how to enter a) in case i get it wrong and b) to encourage you to listen to their show. Not least because they also tease a very tasty looking upcoming card. I will at least point out that there are prizes up for grabs courtesy of the very generous:

• Twisted Tentacle Inn (youtube).

Namely:

• The new Gloria Goldberg novela,
• a copy of the Innsmouth conspiracy box,
• and In too Deep Mythos pack.

So please be encouraged to both submit your own entries and watch/listen to these wonderful content producers in general.

(Finally just to say, I am happy to be included in the competition, but if i win anything I want it passing on to whoever is the next runner up. I already have copies of those so they would be better given to someone else, and I consider peter and frank both to be friends and I wouldn't want to put them in any conflict of interest. I just wanted to support the endeavour and I am at least happy for potential to force Peter to repeat one of my puns on air)

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OK! ONTO THE DECK!

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The pairing was initially interesting to me partly because the pun amused me and worked for both decks (Fail Mary will have to wait!), but also because the signature cards and "cards under your character card" mechanics have some particularly interesting interactions. The card pools however also open up some sets/suites of cards which have some neat synergy with each investigators statline and playstyle not currently available to them.

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Those Signatures Are The Real Deal:

Lets start with those signatures. There are two ways you can use them.

• Technically the text on Twilight Blade and Terrible Secret refer to the cards under Diana Stanley rather than Sefina Rousseau. Theoretically allow you to play cards beneath diana, while facing higher risk if she has been adding stacking those cards aggressively when you draw Terrible Secret. Diana would then also have seffies signatures with similar implications like their fates are somehow cosmically entwined.

1. You could also assume that the signatures refer to cards under Sefina instead of Diana since thats the deck they are in. Now Twilight Blade gives Sefina a way to play one of her tucked away events per turn without spending an action to draw it a bit like The Painted World did, but you can no longer repeat a given event over and over again. You are also encouraged to take actions to draw these events and play faster since Terrible Secret could hurt much more if you dont. Though with a 13 card opening hand finding that Deny Existence early will be a lot easier! Thematically this is quite satifying if we are to consider the cards under Sefina to be forgeries. Having a bit of time pressure to spend them fast before you get caught out feels appropriate, and plays into sefina`s big start event rush meta design.

In either case, Dark Insight starting in your hand in addition to your 13 card opening draw guarentees at least 1 event in hand to tuck under your investigator card.

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Forging a New Path - Rushy Spell Event Slinger.

In the early days, Sefina was often more associated with her 0-2 mystic access than her 0-5 rogue as exemplified by this fantastic deck by @Fbones back in the day. its an archetype which still stands up in the modern card pool.

Meanwhile, the last few cycles have given us a whole spell event support suite presumably intended for Luke Robinson or Agnes Baker. Notably in this list:

• Dayana Esperence
• Shining Trapezohedron
• Robes of Endless Night
• as well as few 3+ xp spell events like Storm of Spirits (3) or Deny Existence (5).

Sadly our premier pioneering spell event slinger Sefina Rousseau cannot usually take a lot of these. But ofc Diana can... Further more, the Shining Trapezohedron and Robes of Endless Night are reusable economy cards relieving us of the need for sefina's usual rogue event money. With a 13 card opening hand, you should fairly reliably hit at least one of these 4 cards. If not Tetsuo Mori can help dig them out. Note that you can really make that Trapezohedron shine when it is Reliable giving you +1 to all those mini checks to get free spells.

Guardian access offers us some protection for our 5 hp via some solid soak, "I've had worse…", and Our new spell traited Holy Dodge. Daring can be used on ANY fight action including those bases spell ones since it is wild. Or it can be a one shot evade using our 4 base . There are also a smattering of other guardian spell events these days, like Blood Eclipse and Radiant Smite that could be subbed if wanted.

All these combos are ofc also available to diana, but she usually wants more cancels in those slots to get her high enough to justify these spells, meaning it she may take a couple of turns to become active if she leans into this too much whereas Sefina probably hits the ground running in this build.

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