I think the other review of this card is a little harsh. While it is true that Hot Streak and its ilk do gain you more total resources, the main advantage of this card is that it is always active from the get-go, and doesn't have to be drawn or played. Using Versatile to grab an Astounding Revelation with Stick to the Plan is a tried and true combo (on Guardians not named Roland, Carolyn or Zoe) despite the drawbacks of extra deck size precisely because of the initial boost (in a class that is much more starved of resources, to be fair). But having 7-9 resources to start shouldn't be slept on, it gets assets down faster, or provides a bigger starting base for core pieces of certain "pay-to-win" combos, most notably Lola Santiago and Delilah O'Rourke. Sometimes you will be in tight situations where spending actions for big resource gains is simply not feasible. The fact they're permanent and don't take a deck slot is also nice, as it means your deck potentially has more space to support your combo, than needing to contribute slots to resource generation for additional set up. Obviously these are always nice as a luxury late game upgrade, but I think they have a substantial amount to offer in the middle of a campaign if the conceit of your deck requires expensive pieces such as the aforementioned duo, Leo De Luca, or Double, Double (one copy of this card in particular is great for a doubled big money Sefina deck, as it allows you to play Double Double and Hot Streak from the get go). Don't sleep on ADAD, they don't look high impact, but they can really smooth over early game set up bumps.

Hey, it looks like Mary's weapon was in fact a 2-piece kit !

I mean since the beginning it was weird for Blessed Blade NOT to have the Relic trait and now it's done. Plus it gives Mary the possibility to have a potential once per turn 3 damages attack almost always successful.

I assume this card will also be helpful for decks with a 2-handed primary weapon which can have simultaneously this primary weapon and a secondary one to deal with Poltergeist, Wraith, ... Now Mark Harrigan can burn all the Wraith he encounters with his Relic Flamethrower with no fear of seeing them raising again due to their haunted effect. Plus once per turn he can perform an attack with a skill of ... 13 !

You can also play it on a Sawed-Off Shotgun used by a rogue (ideally Tony Morgan). The added willpower is only 2 but you can increase that dependant on who played Enchant weapon on the Shotgun (4 - 5 I assume) and you still have the +1 damage.

And last thing I have for now: as you add 2 skills you could as well increase both, right ? For example making your new Relic Reliable or committing Steadfast (if you need Tony to succeed by 6).

EDIT: A WATCHFUL PEACE IS GONE (CRAB EMOJI)

Taboo, please.

How to ruin the game: Pick Stella or Silas.

Upgrade into 2x Quick Learner, 2x Drawing Thin, Grisly Totem, Signum Crucis, 2x A Watchful Peace.

Add even more draw to set up faster.

When the drawing thins and totem are down and you have a signum and peace in hand: do the hardest possible test on your first action, increasing its difficulty by 6, adding 8-10 . You fail, so Signum Crucis comes back to hand, and you have an infinite bless generator. Use survivor BS (Resourceful, True Survivor, Eucatastrophe for Silas) to recur A Watchful Peace nearly every round.

Already tested this personally with Stella, and around the halfway point in the scenario we just stop drawing encounter cards, only faltering once or twice when my recursion is exhausted - but I draw through my deck so fast that I get the pieces back quickly. It gets quite boring. Compare this to Hallow - that card wants 10 just to pause the clock, but this card eliminates threats completely, so doom doesn't even matter because nothing comes to slow your progress on objectives.

I had this in play and drew the last card of the encounter deck, which was also Evil Past.

I resolved it this way: Forced Effect of the Evil Past in play triggers first, I take the horror and make the test and passed it, discarding Evil Past. Then I shuffled the discaed pile back into the encounter deck and afterwards the second Evil Past resolves and enters my threat area.

Please let me know if that is correct.

This card is unfortunately severely overcosted in my view. An asset that allows me, for an action, to do 1-3 testless damage against a non-Elite only, is useful in some circumstances. Big beefy non-Elites like Mindless Dancer, Eater of the Depths, or Deep One Bull can be taken down more easily with this pickup. But is this honestly the best choice of tech for those situations?

Let's go through all the negatives. First, it's exceptional, meaning you're paying 8 XP for a one of in your deck. With enough draw, this isn't inherently too much of a problem. You need curses to Seal. This is more of a problem as Mystics don't have much in the way of either Bless or Curse gen. Tides of Fate paired with a Bless investigator might be the way to go here. Now it is worth noting that part of the benefit of this card, presumably, is that it can seal curses for you in the short term. Unfortunately, this is hampered by the additional resource cost, where if you want to seal lots of curses, you need to pay a heavy upfront fee, and that too is another major negative as Mystics are one of the most resource starved classes. I think worst of all is that this exhausts. I would love the opportunity to spend several actions trying to manipulate enemy placement to get the best damage numbers possible, but the exhaust clause severely hampers this, and I genuinely don't understand why it's even on the card. Flute's uses are already severely limited by three(!) other things: resources, curses, and actions.

I would love to be proven wrong by this card. I think the movement opportunity and the ability to have enemies hit one another, or themselves, can be useful. But honestly, this card is severely hampered by one other element, which is the hand-slot. Traditionally, not a big deal in Mystic. But we just got Sword Cane this cycle, which costs 2 resources, doesn't require any curses, and gives you an immediate use when you play it. It also exhausts, but it allows you to evade an enemy or ping an enemy for one damage using willpower (not testless, but still your highest stat in Mystic most of the time). If you like directing where enemies are on the board, evading one and then running will have the hunters enter in and group together with the evaded enemy. If you want to do damage, 1 is not far off from the amount Flute would normally do, and it's perfectly fine to follow that up with a few Shrivelling charges for 3/5 health enemies. They're not exactly the same, but in practice I do think Sword Cane is a much more flexible card that has similar functions with significantly less investment. Now you do have two hands, so there's no reason you couldn't run both, but hand slots are at a higher premium than they used to be thanks to the taboo'd version of Scroll of Secrets being pretty good draw.

It's a bit of a shame, as I think this was meant to be the big Curse payoff for Mystics this cycle, but it misses the mark pretty badly in my opinion. But again, I would love to be proven wrong. There may be way more situations than I'm able to realize where this card just overperforms anything else.