We need to talk about your Flare.

Well, okay, 2 Flares is the minimum, okay?

Now, you know it's up to you whether or not you want to just do the bare minimum. Or... well, like Billy, for example, uses 14 Flares over a campaign, okay. And a terrific smile.

People can get an ally anywhere, okay? They come to Survivor decks for the atmosphere and the risk mitigation. Okay? That's what the Flare's about. It's about fun.

Look, we want you to express yourself, okay? Now if you feel that the bare minimum is enough, then okay. But some people choose to Flare more, and Deja Vu encourages that, okay? You do want to express yourself, don't you?

Okay, great, great. That's all I ask.

More Deja Vu weird questions.

Say I have Flare, I use Flare and it gets exiled.

Before the next scenario do I get to:

A: remove flare from my deck and replace it with a level 0 card, then repurchase flare for 0XP and replace another card in my deck or B: simple repurchase flare and effectively not alter my deck.

Given deja vu costs 5xp I think it having a subtle adaptable effect on the deck is intended, what are other peoples thoughts?

I would caution outright buying this on Yorick (unless you are using a boring Flare deck). At first this appears to be a great card for William as it makes Leather Coat(1) and Cherished Keepsake(1) seem like a no-brainer as the fear of them being used up and exiled goes away with Déjà Vu. However you're less likely to actually burn through an entire upgraded Coat(1) or Keepsake(1) and need Déjà Vu on Yorick than you think. You should totally buy the Coat(1)/Keepsake(1) upgrades, those cards are amazing, but hold off on Déjà Vu on Yorick unless needed. Let me explain:

If you have a basic 12xp drawing/cycling engine on Yorick with Emergency Cache(2) and Lucky(2), and Resourceful (to pull back Lucky) and use Cornered (2) to let you commit any item from hand into discard pile, then you will probably see two of either the 0xp Coat or Keepsake. At this point I would upgrade to Coat(1)/Keepsake(1). If you play smart asigning damage to your assets (like Guard Dog and Peter), you can easily cycle between each copy of your Keepsake/Coat by killing monsters and installing the other already discarded copy of Keepsake/Coat from your discard using Yorick's fast character ability. You would be surprised how long you can keep this loop going on Yorick. Sure, you are not getting the entire 4 soak out of the Coat(1)/Keepsake(1) upgrades doing this, but 3/4 aint bad for a 0 cost install item. You shouldn't need to soak more than 3points before you kill a monster anyway (unless it is an emergency).

So when should you buy Déjà Vu on Yorick?

Well, Déjà Vu can be bought after a scenario in which you just exiled cards (to free-buy them back), so you should only really buy Déjà Vu AFTER you exile cards. So Déjà Vu becomes a backup plan. However I've found on Yorick you don't actually get around to exiling cards that often (unless you have a Flare deck - then you'll need Déjà Vu!). If you are mid campaign and just exiled 2 soak cards, re-buying those exiles is still cheaper than outright buying Déjà Vu. For all you know the next 2 scenarios you might not exile any cards, so your total rebuy of exiled soak cards on Yorick can often work out cheaper than 5xp to buy Déjà Vu. Also exile cards can be sort of cheap gap filler cards to get through particular tricky scenarios - you may revert to the 0xp versions even, as 2 soak cards often do enough most of the time for Yorick anyway!

Things to ponder!

The card starts with "In between two scenarios of a campaign," That makes me wonder if, mid-campaign, I'm playing though a side-story, am I not allowed to repurchase exiled cards before starting the side story, after finishing it, or both? Or is it considered a 'scenario of the campaign' for this purpose?

From a math standpoint you're going to need to have exiled 5 level 1 cards to break even with this card. Your gains lessen the higher the exile level is too. Basically then, this helps keep Flare and the upgraded coat/keepsake from leaving play. But again, you're going to have to get 5 total uses of those cards to even break even, and I'm just not sure thats a scenario you are realistically going to see often.

I haven't tried Exile survivor yet, so take my opinion with a grain of salt: I might be full of it and I'll edit this review if I change my mind

This card is hot garbage

Permanents that grant you exp or exp discounts are better bought at the start of a campaign: this usually does not actually come up because most cards that grant you that bonus usually MUST be added at the start (with a price attached to them): In the Thick of It, Arcane Studies, Down the Rabbit Hole. The only excpetions that I can think about is Charon's Obol, which can be bought whenever you have 2 exp to spare and Observed for 4 exp sometimes can grant you free exp; still, to get the most of these cards you must buy them as soon as you complete your first scenario if you can spare the exp

That means, you have to have 5 exp ready after you immediately complete the first level of a campaign to use Déjà Vu: I think it is possible to accumulate enough exp in every starting scenario of any campaign to purchase it, but the price is not cheap, that likely means you will not have enough exp to actually buy anything else but 1 or 2 cards. If you actually do not get enough exp to buy Deja Vu, you either must save what you got until you complete the next scenario (and get NO CARDS beside any story asset you won) or give up and just spend the exp on something else and forget about this permanent

But that's not the only problem Deja Vu has: like the high exp cost already is a deal breaker but it gets worse.

Almost every exile card (which is different from "remove from the game") is above level 0, which means it needs exp to be added to your deck, exp you just burnt buying this bloody cat

That means not only you spend A LOT of exp for something you cannot properly use until you get enough exp to actually buy some damn cards that exile, but it also means it takes forever for Deja Vu to actually pay itself in, because the exp discount does not stack, you cannot reduce the cost in exp of any card above level one further, like A Test of Will, Fire Extinguisher, Fortune or Fate, Stroke of Luck and Unscrupulous Loan (if you are unlucky to lose it). You would need to rebuy up to 3 exile cards between 3 scenarios to finally break even and reap some benefits!

Thankfully the majority of exile cards ARE level 1, so they are relatively cheap, but it does make harder to keep any card above that cost given you may have to also pay an 1 or 2 exp of your own pocket

But we are not done yet ladies and gentleman, because there is one obvious cavet that essentially leaves this card dead in the water.

It only works if a card gets exiled, of course, but sometimes you don't want or need to exile a card:

-You may just not get damage or horrified enough to lose Leather Coat or Cherished Keepsake.

-You may not find an ally with Flare

-You may not need to use Stroke of Luck effect to actually pass a skill check

-You may always pass the test of the level 2 version of A Test of Will to not need to rebuy it (or you may never need to use the level 1 version)

-You may never need to cancel that much damage or horror with Devil's Luck

-You may not take enough horror to lose Guiding Spirit

-You may not need to prevent doom with Fortune or Fate

-You may not need to use Burn After Reading (even though you DEFINETLY should use it if you purchased Deja Vu, because it synergises so well with it giving you another target for the exp discount)

-You may not need to use the exile effect of either Fire Extinguisher

-You may not have failed enough skill checks to justify using Lifeline or don't need the extra actions anyway

-You HOPEFULLY won't lose Unscrupulous Loan

Keep in mind, it's more likely for something to be exiled the more cards you put in your deck that can get exiled, but those cost exp you just spent for this guy who scratched your sofa and pissed in the living room

There is a reason why Charon's Obol is considered a staple for most rogue decks: I do not agree because the unpredictability of the campaign might catch you off guard and cause you to lose all your deck progress in one fell swop, but on a replay, once you know what the game is gonna throw at you, it's without a doubt one of the strongest cards in the game. Just pay itself out in the time frame of one scenario and scales so well. Sure unlike the Obol, you can stack Deja Vu twice, but that would be one of the biggest meme decks I ever seen to spend a total of 10 exp on permanents that do nothing until you get 6 more or so

About the only good thing I can say about this card, is that the visual joke with Stray Cat is actually quite subtle and clever

Not a review, but a question. If you exile 3x 1XP cards during scenario 2, and then purchase this between scenario 2 and 3, are you allowed to immediately buy back those cards without paying the XP cost?

EDIT: Another question - if you have two of these, will they reduce the cost of 6 cards by 1XP each, or also 3 cards by 2XP each?

I do feel that this card is possibly 1XP too expensive as it really relies on you having to go all-in with exile cards to get enough value from it, and you still have to pay 1XP for Fortune or Fate and Stroke of Luck.

This card appears to suck really bad in the Innsmouth Conspiracy Campaign. It has mechanics which prevent its use, and then when you want to next use it, you are no longer repurchasing so can't use it then either.