Sefina|Paintbrush dexterity|Deck Guide

Card draw simulator

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Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
[EXPERT SOLO] Paintbrush agility to campaign breaking FullXP 17 16 5 1.0
Sefina the Tarot-bull 4 4 0 1.0

Valentin1331 · 55059

Do it all Sefina, Expert campaign breaker for True Solo

This is a deck for Sefina that can be used both in True Solo and Multiplayer, that can make it through Expert while considering the latest Taboo List.

I created this deck because I was always surprised to see that most of popular Sefina decks are orientated, using her high , but almost no deck was using the good range of events and her great .

The theme is based on Sefina's flavor text.

Fight:

Well, first of all, why killing one enemy when you can evade it in one turn, get all the clues and move? You were made to hold paintbrushes, not shotguns. If it's not a hunter, save time, energy, and don't make a poor beast suffering for no reason, especially as some of them tend to seek vengeance in some places...

But some bad boys out there are following you around, and these you need to take care of. Being a woman in a patriarchal society taught you to Backstab when necessary, or aim for the eyes and right after that a Sneak Attack in the crotch is really effective. If that poor blind and impotent thing is still whining, it's time for a Coup de Grâce or leave the dirty job to Delilah O'Rourke. All of these being events, they are The Painted World friendly and will be fast and free when the Driver arrives!

Clueing:

The atelier of an artist is always full of dark dusty places and to make a living out of the art of forgery, you need to steal some models to copy. You know how to use a flashlight to find whatever is hidden in easily reachable corners (<2 shroud). For more sophisticated places, pray not to lose your Lockpicks too early and it should be fine. As you will gain experience, you will be much better using your upgraded Lockpicks and you'll even feel confident enough to Pilfer high-value art pieces in world-known places.

If there is someone guarding that piece of art you're looking after, feel free to Break and Enter by the back door and you can then investigate freely before leaving as fast as you can with your extra action.

Encounter Deck Management:

Life is full of surprises, but you've been through stuff already. You have a high , you know what you're here for, and you learnt at a young age that being will prevent you from most challenges life can bring a woman.

And when you have that one thing that falls on you at the very worst moment possible, the type of thing that will kill you instantly if you don't act accordingly, you can always count on your one Ward of Protection.

Damage / horror:

Unfortunately, Sefina does not have the best immune system and coming from Tahiti can lead her to fast hypothermia living in temperate climate. But her friend Winni taught her how to pull out her Leather Jacket real fast.

As soon as summer arrives, she trades her jacket for friends that will be able to support her, her best friend Delilah for example. When she get too bruised, we can always Call in Favors to get Someone Else to help over and give a little break to Delilah.

On the other hand, she has a strong mental and everyone knows she's a solid mind.

Money making:

Sefina, as a good artist is making enough to live off, but is not crazy rich. Being a Lone Wolf gives her time to work on her own projects and "Watch this!" teases her art good enough to make a decent living.

And when she needs a free drink, she knows that she can easily Sneak By an opening and if someone does not really think the way she does, after a little bit of experience, she'll be able to Pickpocket them... you know, to teach them a lesson.

Soon enough she'll be offered the help of her O'Bannion childhood friend Chuck Fergus who makes most of her events fast and free. Yep, he's an even better Driver than Ryan Gosling.

Besides that, she's not a big spender as she learned what it is to live on a penny during her art studies.

Tutoring:

At level 0, tutoring is lacking especially to manage her weakness: our usual best friend Arcane Initiate is useless as most of our Events are not Spells. So we live with Scrying every time there's an extra action you're not so sure what to do with. And yep, witches used to be artists in many cases, so it's no wonder that Sefina is also interested in Scrying to see the future, even though she knows inside her that it's not going to save her.

But wait for the XP to come and it becomes funny, when your Lucky Cigarette Case (lucky because it's empty, you know it's bad for your already low health) helps you to overkill a Lockpicks for example, you can dig the cards you need in your deck, working around that feared weakness.

If by any chance you didn't succeed to avoid it, don't worry, Deny Existence is here to save your butt, because you need it to sit on that stool all day to paint.

In parallel, to get all your crew up and running as fast as possible, you know everyone's number by heart and you know you can always Calling in Favors.

When you know that there is not much value in the deck anymore, feel free to paint the Magellan Cloud or some weird Quantum Flux and here you start again, a fresh deck full of Events!

Tempo:

We all like these moments when things are all falling into place and when life seems so easy.

The Louisiana Lion gives you an extra action per turn, your Driver makes one event per turn fast, "Watch this!" gives you cash without spending an action other than drawing it (Pickpocketing it is better of course), Breaking and Entering gives you 2 action in one, Delilah O'Rourke allows you to kill an annoying enemy without spending an action.

But when the things are becoming fun for real is when you go to this art performance where you learn the Ritual of Double, Double. From that day on doing your shenanigans from the backseat of your Driver's car can be done twice for one and the price of one. Sounds like a dream.

And knowing things about fashion taught you to be Versatile especially when it comes to Shoes. All those fancy openings in high heels are not so interesting for you, neither for your toes. These ones are not only funky, but they also bring you places twice as fast!

Long story short, life as a Mythos investigator is like the art of forgery, it seems complex at first, but with experience, things go muuuuch faster. This will allow you to put the increasing number of helpful assets down in each scenario.

Updates:

Here is the link to the fully updated version of that girl.

Charon's Obol x1 - 2xp, total 2xp

Lockpicks x2 Lockpicks x2 - 2xp, total 4xp

Flashlight x1 Chuck Fergus x1 - 5xp, total 9xp

Charisma - 3 xp, total 12xp

Flashlight x1 + Scrying x1 Lucky Cigarette Casex2 - 6xp, total 18xp

Relic Hunter x1 - 3xp, total 21xp

Versatile x1 Added cards: Calling in Favors x2, Pilfer x2, Track Shoes x1 - 2xp, total 23xp

Scrying x1 + Leather Jacket x1 Delilah O'Rourke x2 - 6xp, total 29xp

Charisma - 3 xp, total 32xp

Leather Jacket x1 Pickpocketing - 2 xp, total 34xp

Double, Double x1 - 8xp, total 42xp

Manual Dexterity x2 The Moon • XVIII - 2 xp, total 44xp

PS: with Sefina's opening hand technique, the Tarot cards are much more likely to happen, so feel free to get them earlier if you have 1 or 2 extra XP to spend before the big Double, Double.

The total of XP in this deck is over 44xp, it is explained by Charon's Obol that gives 2xp per scenario. On a base of 30xp per campaign and +2 XP during 7 campaigns, the total is 44.

If you have more XP because of some single scenarios, buy the recurring Backstab and Pilfer, why not 2 cheaper Leo De Luca.

20 comments

Mar 12, 2021 Lord Triloth · 1890

Definitely a great deck. Seems very powerful, even without trying it out. I'm not super sure if it suits the requirements of expert though. Being only on a 6 with things like Lockpicks or Cheap Shot doesn't feel good enough for expert difficulty, especially if you're trying to succeed by two.

What's your play experience with that?

Mar 12, 2021 Valentin1331 · 55059

Thanks for the feedback @Lord Triloth :)

TL;DR: The deck builds up in intensity so as the Mythos does during the course of a campaign.

My experience is the same with every deck: in Expert, you are surprised when you pass, not when you fail ahah. And basically, you consider that there are 2 auto-fail in the bag: -8 and . So the objective becomes to try to pass each skill test that you can't fail with +6, every other +3 for 2 chances out of 3 (67%), +4 for about 4 out of 5 (78%) - Source.

Other than that, the game difficulty (i.e. level of skill checks) increases generally progressively with the scenarios. When the Flashlight is enough to bring the shroud to 0 early on, little by little you need to beef up.

So yeah, in the first scenario, when you're praying not to loose your Lockpicks, definitely throw in your Manual Dexterity and use your Crystallizer of Dreams as most of your events bring you at least 1 or .

As soon as you have Chuck Fergus, you already have a +2 skill once a turn, Crystallizer of Dreams to bring a lot of skill icons from all the events you play, and the Track Shoes, Delilah O'Rourke, The Moon • XVIII to bring you to 7 and 9 on Lockpicks

Finally, let's not forget some test-less damages with Coup de Grâce/Delilah O'Rourke and to a certain extent Sneak Attack.

Mar 13, 2021 dubcity566 · 108

I don't play this way, but rules as written don't allow you to commit cards without book or wild icons to lockpick tests. You don't have that many book commits so if you're playing that way, I'm surprised you're able to get your skill high enough to lockpick successfully.

Mar 13, 2021 Lord Triloth · 1890

Yeah, sadly only Hard Knocks works on Lockpicks. Ya can’t commit Agillity to it.

You can only add icons to the skill your testing

Mar 13, 2021 Valentin1331 · 55059

Oh wow, that's a good one that I've been playing wrong!

Indeed there are only 4 and some that you should use here and therefore give priority to on your Crystallizer of Dreams.

Mar 13, 2021 Valentin1331 · 55059

Then there could be a chance to add Daring Maneuver that combines also with "Watch this!", maybe instead of Sneak By, but this is the best card for the Crystallizer of Dreams...

Mar 13, 2021 suika · 9254

I was going to post the same concern as Lord Triloth, but I figured I've been hard enough on your Survivor decks already, heh. Landing those Backstabs and Pilfers before you get Chuck and Manual Dexterity is quite the unreliable proposition in Hard or Expert difficulty, though this would be fun deck to run in Standard.

Another concern I have on the full XP version is that I'm surprised you can get enough resources to play all your events, much less use Double Double. You have a single Lone Wolf, and two Watch This as your only resource-generating cards, and you need to fuel quite a lot of expensive events. This is already a problem at the 0xp version, but it's exacerbated by Double, Double and Delilah on the full XP version. If you want to double an event, you need to pay the resources again, and you can't discount the cost again with Chuck again either.

Mar 13, 2021 Valentin1331 · 55059

Yeah true, I didn't have time to run the full XP version yet as my girlfriend and I are still running through Carcosa, but the Pickpocketing (2) that you get right before Double, Double will help the finance, knowing that Lucky Cigarette Case (3) helps you to dig those economy cards early enough.

Also knowing that double double can be used on Sneak By but also will often not be relevant, unless you are fighting an Elite and you want to double Sneak Attack for example.

Mar 24, 2021 kinzuuu · 2973

I think suika hits the issues spot on, although you draw 13 cards in the opening hand, 1 copy of Lone Wolf, 2 copies of "Watch This!" and 2 Sneak By, in my opinion, isn't enough resource generation to play a deck this heavy in 2+ cost events. Especially in expert, where would you even get the breathing room to play Leo De Luca and then play 2 cost events? Sneak By is contingent on an enemy spawning, which is even less frequent in True Solo as there are less encounter draws overall.

Watch This! needs to succeed by 1 or more which is even less likely on Expert, so you would need to commit cards or spend extra resources to make sure it succeeds, so what is even the point? Just run Emergency Cache. You can't even commit it to Investigate actions that use because it doesn't have that icon. So its strictly only able to commit on tests and tests.

If you're ok with failing as you say "you are surprised when you pass, not when you fail", then consider running Faustian Bargain.

I get the idea, but I'm having doubts that this can clear a campaign True Solo on Expert difficulty. To say this is a campaign breaker on expert is quite far fetched in my opinion. I wouldn't say that a deck that relies this much on skill tests in Expert without being able to consistently combat the -6 token could be considered "campaign-breaking".

Even if you did manage to get Chuck Fergus into play, you're only playing 1 free event per turn. You'll still need to pay money for the rest of the events.

Why are you even running Hard Knocks? It doesn't work with Lockpicks, it costs another 2 resources and it only helps out on Cheap Shot, because there's 0% chance you're using it to pump a basic fight action. Streetwise on paper would just be a way better card. Costs 0 and it can help pump Lockpicks and Breaking and Entering.

Personally, I recommend going big money route on Sefina, upgrading to 2x Hot Streak almost immediately to curb all resource problems. She has access to potentially 5 copies of Hot Streak without discard shuffling, and if you grab Double, Double you will consistently be at 30+ resources each scenario.

I've done a run co-op as a pure cluever with a friend running a fighter deck, and I quite literally facerolled A Circle Undone on Hard with Big Money Sefina. Run Well Connected to basically auto-win a test every round. Use Lola Santiago to buy a clue every round. 2x Lucky Cigarette Case to tutor your entire deck because you're succeeding by 5+ on every test with cards like Streetwise and Money Talks. Lets you find Double, Double way more reliably if you don't get it in your opener. Having insane resource generation lets you do things like this and Sefina is one of the best, if not the best user of Hot Streak. Cards like Intel Report are insane when you have 30+ resources.

I tested The Geist-Trap at 25 to 20 because I used Money Talks and Well Connected. Didn't even have to spend clues to lower the difficulty of it. Pretty insane.

Mar 25, 2021 bluephoenix42 · 1

@kinzuuu: I think hard knocks actually works with lockpicks. But even then I agree that it might not be a good choice to play it....

Mar 26, 2021 kinzuuu · 2973

@bluephoenix42Ah sorry, you are correct, I was thinking those cards performed the same way as committing skill icons. My mistake.

Mar 28, 2021 Skas · 1

@kinzuuu Hey thanks for the feedback. Do you have the "big money sefina" deck by any chance ? I'd like to mix this idea into this deck (which is still pretty good and fun in standard for now I like it a lot)

Apr 09, 2021 Valentin1331 · 55059

@kinzuuu``@Skas @suika thanks for your feedback, There may be a more optimal deck indeed using Streetwise (0) instead of Hard Knocks, and Hot Streak instead of Delilah O'Rourkex2 and the 2nd Charisma. What would you think of this?

Apr 12, 2021 suika · 9254

@Valentin1331if you want my honest feedback, I think that a Chuck Fergus Sefina deck is unviable on Expert difficulty at the moment, and I'd be very surprised if you can actually build one. Winifred, Skids, and Trish to an extent can pull off Chuck on Expert due to having enough skill cards to commit to their checks. Sefina cannot run skill heavy and draw heavy enough to properly run a Chuck Fergus deck in Expert.

It'll eventually become viable once you sink a huge amount of XP into it, but at lower XP points (read: before you get like 30-40XP) you'll be performing so badly that you'll be a serious burden on any team.

Apr 12, 2021 suika · 9254

@Skas a sample Expert viable clue-focused big money deck: arkhamdb.com The side decks are alternative events you can swap in if you want.

Core of the deck as such: arkhamdb.com

Alternative build that uses Lola: arkhamdb.com

Apr 24, 2021 CATS · 2

This looks like there are too many expensive cards in the deck, while it might struggle on skill tests even in standard. Have you played with the deck? What where the results?

May 27, 2021 Roakana · 1

The math on Charons is a little more complex. you don't get XP the first round you have to spend 2. So in a normal 8 mission campaign, you are only getting 6 Charons bumps for spending XP. so if you subtract the 2 you spent to get the Charon's it really ends up being a 10xp advantage.

Jun 28, 2021 Rancord · 1616

Did this work on expert? Watch this on Expert seems to be not working to good and I think you lack the cash to pay for everything. How about Faustian Bargain?

Jun 29, 2021 Valentin1331 · 55059

@Rancord, I haven't made it to Innsmouth with my girlfriend yet, therefore I choose not to use Faustian Bargain or any cards that have / tokens, but this is obviously a great one :)

I have updated our version of the deck to indeed include more money, Emergency Cache first, instead of Coup de Grâce, that also works with Double, Double, and as I had more experience during my Carcosa campaign, I took Hot Streak for not having to having to worry about cash anymore at all.

Jun 29, 2021 Rancord · 1616

I do not think it works on expert, which campaign did you play it? Reasoning:

  • No Testless Clues
  • Breaking/Flash/Lock are rly hard to consistently use on 3/4 shroud locations, with Sefinas statline and are limited in uses.
  • Same with Evading and Fighting, you go to max 6 which is hard to pass 3/4 tests on expert.
  • Watch This on expert is a gamble
  • Your buffs to mitigate are hard knocks and Crystalizer, but you only have one Hardknocks and not a lot of cash, so you need xp in Streetwise probably and in getting enough cash, while you will have a hard time getting xp early AND crystalizer you have only few events with double icons and is a timing issue often
  • Scry is to resource intensive for expert (Actions and also cash). You will need to have more actions as a buffer for failed tests