Sugar Granny has gotten a lot more tempting with Cornered being part of the Survivor cardpool. In Yorick, who likes to pitch assets to Cornered and then replay them a lot, he can often run low on both cards and resources. Madame Labranche is very versatile in such a build, helping you replenish whatever you're short on. As a bonus, she's fairly inexpensive herself and has decent soak, so she fits well into a Yorick tank build.
The only question that this card needs to address is the situation in which (spoilers: After reaching to Act 3 and Agenda 3, how do you activate this ability?). The text reads to Move 1 doom from one agenda to the other, but if the second agenda does not exist, how can you use this ability, see "Then" keyword in rules reference. It is possible for you to never enter an additional location by spending the requisite clues if you cannot use this ability later on in the game. This card may need to be errata otherwise you will never be able to receive the necessary amount of clues to advance the act deck.
I think people get the wrong impression of Stella. Her abilities reward failure, but there are really two ways to go: failure with success, and failure with “not caring about success ”.
What makes her so special is that there are so, so many survivor cards that reward failure. Predestination, take heart, rabbit's foot, “look what I found“, Live and learn... So if you’re going for partial success, you have the option to fail in your first and second action and set up your third and fourth. What’s great is, even in campaigns like the dream eaters where there aren’t many skill test on your encounter cards, you can slot the new level zero “test of will” to either get rid of a treachery or gain an extra action (and probably a card, because rabbit's foot is the best fit for an accessory.)
Permanents like a quick learner, which would be poisonous for most other survivors, let you fail early and succeed later. In fact, a -1 to future difficulty test means that you’re going to face automatic successes, especially if you’re dodging a low agility enemy, hitting an acolyte or group of rats, or using your old key ring to investigate a three shroud location. (Vital to appreciating this card: knowing that it doesn’t apply to the mythos phase. Your stats are safe there.)
In solo games, you’ll be able to persevere/bungle your way through skill test and fights with “neither rain nor snow”, getting these amazing +3 bennies, recurring with resourceful, and later True Survivor. Or you can rely on the Mysterious Raven to attack your sanity in exchange for one action clues, and heal with Grimm's fairytales.
In a group, you’re likely to get in a flex role: you’re great at agility, and with dark horse or the right skill cards, can be good at a few other things. Sometimes, with Peter S by your side, it’s soaking fear or dodging enemies. But Stella has a surprising role that is harder for other survivors to play: support. "Neither rain nor snow" allows you to give +3 wild skill icons to fellow investigators. Plus, it gets rid of the sting of failure. Some scenarios have cruel effects that, when resolved, can defeat you, take rounds off the scenario, or drive you insane. Not anymore.
You’ll have a lot of options to pick through as you gain experience, because the chainsaw and your .18 derringer both reward a failure first style. True survivor and drawing thin, while expensive in terms of XP, make an amazing late-campaign engine.
Playing Stella will have you saying weird things though. Things like “darn, I succeeded all of my actions!”, or bragging about how only the grit of the Postal Service can take on the horrors of the universe. So watch out for that.
You need this card only you're playing with a campaign with high Will test.
Pay-out
Benefit
However, survivor can use Cherished Keepsake, the cheapest horror soak or Nothing Left to Lose to prepare for incoming treachery with 5 Card and 5 Resource
"Ashcan" Pete can play Moonstone with the same price.
It's hard to squeeze this card for the full-potential because you need to play it before the treachery appeared. Then wait for 3 another treachery card.
Verdict
EDIT:
Thanks everyone for the comments! Let me outline the discussion on top for anyone revisiting this card in the future.
If you fail this skill test and would like to choose option #1, then as Zinjanthropus in the comments clarified, the damage is dealt to "an ally" rather than "allies", "you", or "your investigator". And since it specifies one ally, this means (as StyxTBeuford notes) the card is effectively telling you to discard one ally. However, the card does NOT specifically say "discard" even though that's exactly what it wants (although because it is damage, as Hylianpuffball notes, this means you can trigger reaction effects upon death such as Brother Xavier). Do note that you cannot have multiple allies absorb the hit in order to keep them alive either (this is largely impossible anyways). It tripped me up at first because ordinarily, treacheries tell you when they want you to discard (e.g. Crypt Chill). In this case it does not because it sounds scarier, but more importantly, it is more thematically consistent. Someone is getting killed (or severely wounded) from a snake bite. This ally must be able to receive damage though so the incorporeal Guiding Spirit cannot take the blow as SGPrometheus brought up. Django and others point out that in short, when an encounter or other card effect requires you to do something, you can only choose to do it if you are able to meet the request in part. In other words, it has to effect the game state. If it says to lose 3 resources, and you only have 2, you may still choose this option. In our case, when it says to deal 5 damage to an ally, as long as you have an ally with any amount of health, they can take the hit even though the rest of the effect will not amount to much.
I maybe wasn't clear in my original "review" but my intent was to ask the community so that I know to make sure I play the card correctly, and so that others with the same question can now find an answer. As an aside, yes, Agency Backup and Trusted x2 is about the only combination that could have an ally survive this hit, but not for untamed wilds (unless you start with bonus exp somehow). If anyone has dealt 5 damage to an ally and the ally survived, I'd love to hear about it because it sounds epic.
ORIGINAL:
I'm not sure I understand why this card pretends to offer you a choice should you fail.
Dealing 5 damage to an ally means the ally must be able to receive 5 damage (during the assign damage step). If the total incoming damage exceeds the card's maximum health threshold, then the rest needs to be dealt to your investigator (or any other card that can take damage). So my question is, can I choose this first option even if I only have one ally up, say William T. Maleson or Jake Williams, and then stomach the rest on my investigator?
If you can, it's a lot of damage but at least poison can be averted. If you can't, then you'd be forced to choose the second option and suffer poison. But frankly, you'll never be able to choose the first option without having at least 2 allies in play. Why? Because the only allies who offer 4 HP are Agency Backup and Red-Gloved Man, and that still isn't enough to satisfy the requirement. It may not be as big a deal in later scenarios, but if we're talking about Untamed Wilds (which this card is in), then the only investigator who can effectively tank this is Leo Anderson, AFTER he has Mitch Brown AND one or two other allies in play. There is Trusted but it won't be enough. Mateo could soak it in theory since he can spend his bonus EXP on Charisma and two Summoned Hounds, but sheesh. I do feel like the severity for avoiding poison should have some bite, but this is impossible at lvl 0 for anyone but Leo (beyond protecting himself, he can sort of protect someone else with Tetsuo Mori but he didn't release until well after FA) and Mateo (again, only with hounds who did not release until much later). You can buff yourself with some armor, but most lvl 0 options are too minimal to help much.
In short, this card is scary.