In 1924, MGM was founded with the slogan “ars gratia artis.” (By 1932, it also had the slogan “more stars than there are in the heavens”). The signature card of Rousseau is the opposite: art that can stand for anything.

The painted world is an intriguing card because unlike most signatures, it gets directly more powerful with every release. It doesn’t have to combo with anything because it becomes Rogue, Mystic or neutral events.

It also allows ridiculousness, like playing “ You owe me one” four to nine different times and building a deck entirely out of other peoples' stuff. (One time from your deck, three times from underneath Sefina, one time when you draw it from underneath, and then Quantum Flux so you can get both back, twice.) And it allows you to become the second richest character, edging out Preston with repeats of Faustian bargain and hot streak.

The trade-off is that you’re building a larger deck with Sefina, so you’ll need to find a way to your paintings out. Arcane initiate is a good one, and can be Sacrificed to get more cards. That’s gratitude in the art world.

But the belle of the ball might be double double. It’s what separates the painter from all the other level five capable mystics. Unfortunately, it cost 8XP, four bucks, takes an arcane slot, and you only get one of them in your deck because it’s exceptional. It’s worth it. With it, your sneak attacks do two damage, twice. Your contraband can quadruple an ally’s ammo or supplies. (Infinite chainsaws become a possibility.) Gain $14 with one action and hot streak...Up to six times, assuming you use your painted world only for that combo.

With ridiculous amounts of money, anything is possible. Have an ally give you Charles Ross and fund the team’s Everything. (Although frankly this is easier to do with Jenny Barnes; She can take him as part of her five wildcards.) Run Lola and get a clue a turn for the rest of the game, Or crush foes with Delilah O’Rourke.

Double storm of souls to clear out rooms, even ridiculously crowded ones. But even before that, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the painted world. It gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility, between evasion, economy, attacks, team actions, or dealing with the encounter deck.

Ars longa, vita brevis.

Having tested this card, it’s nice but not as game-breaking as initially thought. The three cost, the exhaust, and the fact you constantly have to be broke mean that you’re going to not be adding much to your tableau every turn. And it’s a hand slot, which means you can’t have two magnifying glass out with it.

For Minh, this serves as a fun piece of clue acceleration before you get the big-ticket seeker items. And combos well with deduction in larger player games: Theoretically, you can combine this with practice makes perfect to add a deduction, get three clues, and keep the deduction.

This is probably more useful for people with Survivor splash: Stella, Yorick, Calvin, Rita and Ashcan don’t have tons of Direct clue finding power. Wendy’s only slightly better, and she probably wants lockpicks instead.

Preston will have fun here, as well as anyone who can scheme to get this in the hands of a five lore seeker. (Joe diamond can request it with teamwork.) And if you’re sailing as a team, anyone can enjoy this at a skeleton key location.

I am excited to try this card in a Dark Horse deck. It is another event that can get you up from 0 to a lot at the start of the turn, to then be able to play some important assets or dump money into a Fire Axe or the new Mariner's Compass.

Many people will compare this card to the Rotting Remains card from the Core Set. However, a veteran player will readily notice there a few subtle differences.

The first difference of course is that the card doesn't come from the Core Set, but rather from the Blood On The Altar Mythos pack. This means that it will has a different encounter set icon , cycle set icon on the bottom, and different numbers. You will note that this doesn't have impact on the gameplay though, although it might become important in the setup and teardown phase. Putting a card away in the wrong encounter set is annoying, and is known to cause severe mental trauma.

The other difference is in the flair text. While the Core Set Rotting Remains has the text firmly split by the sentence, the Blood On The Altar version decides to shake things up by putting the words "You're" in the first row. This ups the ante significantly, since while reading the flair text you are effectively left with a blood curling cliffhanger referencing directly you, and it only gets resolved when you finally reach the second row, allowing you to breathe a sigh of relief.

Overall, a nice change and a fine improvement on the original design. Good work FFG.

I’ve played this game for a hell of a long time with many many different people, and nobody seems to pick Marie Lambeau.

Maybe she’s not designed for multiplayer; the risk/reward ratio for her as much different. Solo, risking an extra doom might lose your three actions to gain an additional one every turn; in a group, the trade-off is one action for 12.

It’s also because there aren't lot of cards that let you manipulate doom; Arcane initiate, Alyssa Graham, David Renfield, blood pact, and De Vermis Mysteriis. With the latter, you get tons of event compression; one action from the book turns into two.

She’s also a 4/4/1/3 Mystic with a tremendous weakness. She loses an ally slot, and amplifies damage for several turns while adding doom to the board.

Still, with access to spells instead of Mystic cards specifically, she gets some oddities from other classes. Blood eclipse or arcane insight, feed the mind for card draw, Alter fate and suggestion, but as of press time, there are 18 non-mystic spells in the game out of almost 100 spell cards.

The only place Marie might fit is in dream eaters A, where doom totals can reach the double digits without advancing the agenda. Perhaps with more doom cards, but even after six expansions, Marie is still best as a solo act.