Sefina Rousseau is Stacked (Geared Up Sefina)

Sefina Rousseau is an event based investigator. She's good at one thing, her deckbuilding is focused around it, and her powers all lead into using that effectively which means most builds around her tend to involve using the same powerful, high impact events and not doing a whole lot else.

But what if you could change her focus entirely?

By utilizing the absolute jankfest that is In the Thick of It/Versatile, Sefina can focus on a completely different aspect of her character: her enormous hand size. As the only character with a larger than 5 card hand (in fact, it is a 13 card hand) she can leverage Geared Up in a way that no other investigator can, dumping an entire hand out onto the board (and another 5 events under her character card) in a single turn while saving potentially dozens of actions and resources together. The result: well, the result is still pretty jank. But it works, and it's dang fun to play with. So far my typical hands have been dropping 4-5 items in a go, which is five resources and two actions saved on a starting turn of nonsense.

Item selection: It goes without saying that low cost items are the best options for dumping a Geared Up hand. We have one 4 cost item we want to play for 3, a 3 cost item we want to play for 2, and the rest should all be free. Scroll of Secrets and Ritual Candles are the most impactful 0 cost freebies but take up a hand slot, the former giving Sefina card draw and the opportunity to cleanse her deck of Stars of Hyades while the latter makes the token bag a lot less scary. Liquid Courage and Painkillers are slot free healing items that are great to have, especially when they don't cost actions or resources to play. Fine Clothes also gives a little soak and a lot of early boosts for the first 4, though you can also run Backpack or Leather Coat in that section if you want to approach it a little differently. Finally Lockpicks is your primary investigation tool and first upgrade, though Flashlight can be a good option until you get the XP to upgrade them.

While as a mystic secondary Sefina can go either way, I focused on making her a good clue-based investigator with some rounded stat bonuses from a mild cash matters subtheme that can be "cashed in" on her best spells . St. Hubert's Key is an expensive lynchpin card, helping Sefina shore up weaker stats and keep her Lockpicks while also putting her at 5 will, but Crystallizer of Dreams also functions to give her stat boosts when she needs them. Dario El-Amin secures the ally slot, doubling up the Key to a respectable 6 will and 4 Int, and then allowing cards like Money Talks and Well Connected to push that up still further for multiple investigate checks per turn instead of just one good Lockpicks or event test. And because there's one XP left over she even gets to start with Easy Mark, giving her great early options to balance around 10 resources and pass the majority of her encounter tests and evade attempts. Money isn't the only subtheme you can push with her but considering the head start she gets on setup I found it a really nice way to keep her rounded without dependence on skills, putting her into a position to capitalize when her upgrades start to give her extra actions and tools.

There are several ways to approach upgrading her and most are nice and greedy. Down the Rabbit Hole works well since most of the cards in this deck can be upgraded (many of them for 1 XP) and many of the cards you buy will upgrade later, so a Rabbit Hole build is very possible and can save you even in 0 XP scenarios. However, since Sefina's best item dreams focus around 2 Relic Hunter and a bevy of new toys, my current upgrade path eschews that and instead risks it all for bling: Charon's Obol to focus on greedy, high XP cards, Relic Hunter x2 for more amulet slots so Sefina can play even more cheap items, then decking her out in all the colors with The Red Clock, The Black Fan and The Gold Pocket Watch. The Red Clock or Eon Chart are both good priorities as these will give Sefina a lot more flexibility and speed, The Skeleton Key is an awesome choice for a slotless tool, and Eye of the Djinn can be a great hand upgrade from Candles or Scroll. (full Magical Christmas Land is Observed for the Tarot that grants an extra item slot, but considering how many other exceptional items there are to dump XP into this is maximum pipe dream).

Item Sefina's best card is Black Market, which can be played before your first turn starts, even multiple times off The Painted World, and allows you to extend your 13 card hand even deeper and even dig into other players decks. Another Day, Another Dollar combined with this means you can begin to get into some wild opening turns, digging twenty cards deep for every item under the sun and putting poor Bob Jenkins to shame.

On cards not included in this build: I passed on Tennessee Sour Mash despite its slot free nature since it's expensive and Sefina doesn't usually need the will bonus on encounters and can barely use the fight bonus. If you want to go for a Down the Rabbit Hole build it's a reasonable choice that also gives you better fight options later on. Breaking and Entering is often a good choice for extra investigate options and Backstab/Pilfer will work well if you're not going to take the resource route and instead want to grab an ally with a boot on it and a few skills to match (personally, I find these cards too expensive and too hard to effectively play with her boot score, particularly on hard or above). Keep in mind that every non-item, non-event card will dilute that opening hand, but a lot of them may still end up being staples (say you want to Double, Double that Read the Signs off a De Vermis Mysteriis...)

So yeah, the possibilities are pretty endless. Geared Up Sefina opens up a whole new avenue of interesting upgrades and a wildly different way to play one of my favorite investigators. Have fun, and don't fall off the back of the Dunwich train!