Rousseau's Model

Card draw simulator

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Roscoe1891 · 156

This is my first take at a solo Sefina deck, which I'll be using for The Path To Carcosa campaign. Here's a bit of spiel about the thinking behind it - hope to post some updates as the deck gets upgraded!

While Sefina's ability is really strong, her stats don't directly support the two main activities necessary to win most scenarios - discovering clues and fighting enemies. Luckily though her / class type gives her a few tricks that get around that :D

Rite of Seeking allows her to use her strong for investigating, while Shrivelling does the same for fighting. Holy Rosary supports both, while Arcane Initiate helps to get to those spells faster.

Now that Sefina has the tools she needs to complete objectives, let's look at the events that her ability will be leveraging:

The most obvious combo is Blinding Light / Sneak Attack, giving an alternative method of dealing damage to Shrivelling. Likewise with Backstab, making use of Sefina's high to damage enemies.

Elusive, Think on Your Feet and Ward of Protection are all there as defence against surprises from the Encounter or Agenda deck. Playing solo I've found that quite often a game is over before it starts due to being unluckily attacked by an enemy before getting the cards to be able to deal with it, so these should buy some time in those situations!

The skill cards add minimal support to Sefina's strengths. Lone Wolf seems like a no-brainer for a solo rogue deck ;), while Painkillers are there to mitigate her low health.

10 comments

Sep 17, 2017 CecilAlucardX · 10

Why not lockpicks instead of rite of seeking? They have the same or better of the amount of uses, use +6 instead of just +4, and don't screw your whole turn on a bad draw.

Sep 17, 2017 Roscoe1891 · 156

@CecilAlucardX that's a good call, it'd only be 2XP to upgrade both Rite of Seeking to Lockpicks as well so I should be able to get those in for the second scenario - thanks!

Sep 18, 2017 Bronze · 181

I don't know. I think Blinding Light is sort of a waste with her since it doesn't improve your stats for the evasion and it costs resources just for that 1 damage. Getting Song of the Dead to fill that spot would likely be better later. For me I would get Cat Burglar anyway, so likely am l better off evading with dexterity.

Early on those two slots would probably be best with situational spells like Astral Travel and Hypnotic Gaze for instance. I prefer going a bit more lateral since having 3 copies of The Painted World broadens your card pool a bit allowing for a bit more flexibility.

Sep 18, 2017 Roscoe1891 · 156

@Bronze I've actually found Blinding Light really useful, mainly because it pairs so well with Sneak Attack (you have to exhaust the enemy to do the damage with Sneak Attack, might as well do some extra damage while you're at it!). Upgraded Blinding Light gets that extra point of damage too so it's worthwhile I think.

Song of the Dead didn't stand out too much for me as it's an arcane slot I don't have, plus it's not an event so doesn't benefit from Sefina's ability. I'd be interested to hear how you get on if you try the substitution though!

I really wanted to get Hypnotic Gaze into this deck - the 3 cost though just seemed a bit steep since most of the times you play it you'll only be cancelling an enemy attack.

Cat Burglar would also work well with Sefina - I think there's maybe an alternative build to this deck where you lean more into the Rogue cards - swapping out Arcane Initiate for Cat Burglar, and Rite of Seeking for Lockpicks as @CecilAlucardX suggested.

Sep 22, 2017 mellchia · 106

@Roscoe1891 Your deck is similar to the one I have played solo with (and one I'm waiting to publish since I just registered on). I understand the point about a really bad enemy attack since that nearly knocked Sefina out one scenario but I really dislike Elusive. There may not always be a location to move and since it is not a true evade and you are unable to move, you just immediately re-engage all those enemies.

I found Hypnotic Gaze to be more reliable, especially with the mix of Uncage the Soul. However I agree with your point about the resource cost of Hypnotic Gaze - all the more reason why Uncage the Soul is wanted. For me, Elusive was replaced by Hypnotic Gaze and Emergency Cache was replaced by Uncage the Soul. There are other differences in the Asset mix but I think given the limited card pool the Event mix is spot on.

@CecilAlucardX The argument against going heavy into Cat Burglar and Lockpicks that I may suggest is that so far a larger majority of encounter treachery cards use Willpower to resolve. Since so many of Sefina's spells require Willpower anyway, it is natural to load up on cards that bump that stat. With that said, I am going to try it in my play through, although Lockpicks will be replacing Flashlight for me (although replacing Leo De Luca for Leo De Luca and Blinding Light for Blinding Light takes first priority.

Sep 22, 2017 Roscoe1891 · 156

@mellchia I like the Uncage the Soul / Hypnotic Gaze combo! Replacing Emergency Cache for Uncage The Soul makes sense – Uncage The Soul saves you an action as well (for the discount vs Emergency Cache) as long as you’ve got a spell to play off it :).

You’re right that Elusive is useless if there’s nowhere to move to! I’ve never had that problem with this deck and so far I’ve found Elusive to be a lifesaver. Then again I ran it in my Jenny deck for a while in the Dunwich Legacy campaign and rarely played it so I suppose mileage may vary. I think the reason I’d be reluctant to drop it from this deck is that Sefina’s health is so low that if you’re in trouble, the best way to avoid it is just to be elsewhere. I’d be worried that using Hypnotic Gaze as an alternative might just end up delaying the inevitable but I’ll look out for your deck as I’m interested to hear how it works out!

Sep 22, 2017 Bronze · 181

Yeah I'm on the other side of the fence I think this deck is actually pretty bad; not good at all. But since you're pretty much can't screw up the majority of events that you going to include in her deck it really can't end up being too far off from most others. It's just not thought out.

Sep 22, 2017 Roscoe1891 · 156

@Bronze well you're entitled to your opinion. We might just have to agree to disagree on that ;)

Sep 22, 2017 0bs · 850

Just to clear something up, you cannot play Uncage the Soul with Hypnotic Gaze in response to an enemy attack because Uncage is not fast. It does not take on the traits of the Spell you are playing (unlike The Painted World which creates an exact replica of the set aside spell); Uncage is an action/event in and of itself which tells you to then play a spell from your hand.

For instance, if you use Uncage with Shrivelling, you do not get to play Shrivelling as fast action, you just get to play it at a discount. You have used 1 action and 2 cards to play Shrivelling for free (this obviously still better than playing Shrivelling with 1 action and then using a second action to play Emergency Cache and recoup your resources).

I believe this was discussed on the reddit channel as well recently.

Sep 22, 2017 mellchia · 106

@0bsYou are right. I played that wrong and now I feel bad about my play through. I had yet to combine the two but wrongly assumed Uncage the Soul carried the "Fast" trait. Which means when I did use it, I incorrectly counted out actions.

So much for that idea! I may have flip Hypnotic Gaze then to a one-of...