Finally, Shrivelling has more competition for offensive options on new investigators. Azure Flame matches Shrivelling in a lot of ways - It's a 3-Cost, 4-Charge Spell which uses Willpower and deals +1 damage. Shrivelling remains a mainstay in Mystic decks for a reason, and that identical core functionality means this can compete with it. The only question is, how does it stack up?

The immediately notable difference is the downside - while Shriveling hits your sanity on , , , , or , Azure Flame instead hits your health on +1, 0, or . How does that compare?

In terms of how often you hit the downside, Azure Flame comes out ahead. At first, on Normal difficulty, it looks relatively even - there tends to be a 1 token difference between the two, one way or another. However, most campaigns will muck around with the bag, and do so by adding negative tokens - tokens that always add to Shrivelling's set. This means that over a normal campaign, you will tend to hit Azure Flame less and less, and Shrivelling more and more. That's also discounting the fact that Azure Flame becomes even less problematic at harder difficulties, where +1s and 0s fade and negative tokens increase.

This also impacts its synergies to some degree. It's the middle-of-the-road option if you're messing with token effects. Dark Prophecy won't help like with Wither, but neither will it hurt like with Shrivelling. Eldritch Inspiration won't be of any use at all, and Counterspell and Defiance can only be used in their more general 'prevent a modifier' effects. There's a small amount of synergy available with the unusual seals (Shards of the Void if you're running both, Crystalline Elder Sign, and The Codex of Ages for Father Mateo). These are worth keeping an eye on if you're low on slots and need to pick between one and the other.

The other main question is if you can deal with the downside when it hits. Shrivelling hits for horror, which Mystics tend to have a higher tolerance for, and which they and may have more measures for. With Holy Rosary, Arcane Initiate and Fearless as common picks, sanity damage is something Mystics can usually take. On the flip side, regular damage is harder to mitigate, with David Renfield as the only Mystic ally with more than one.

The final item for comparison is a deck-building consideration, and will depend on what else is available when Azure Flame is eventually released. One major part of a Mystic's consideration is Arcane Research, and the bonus XP it can provide. Shrivelling has a large opportunity for upgrades, allowing you to go to Shrivelling (3) or Shrivelling (5) over two different sessions. Until we find out if Azure Flame has upgrade options, it will not be able to take that XP, which may result in some waste over a campaign.

To summarize: If you have more health to spare and are trying to pull the classic token modifiers, Azure Flame probably wins. If you have the horror to spare, are already trying to avoid the classic token modifiers, or are using Arcane Research, Shrivelling takes it.

Of course, if you're looking to have consistency with your attack spells, there's also a good chance that you'll just want to run both. Azure Flame's consistency is comparable enough to Shrivelling that it may take the place of Wither for any mages who simply needed one more attack option.

This card will be insane with the Harvey, I'm not sure how big his hand size finally be but the potential is there for this card to finally shine. Specially if there are more cards that trigger upon being drawn.

Insane. It’s very easy to trigger her reaction 2 times in a turn, and to succeed by a lot besides.

Winifred’s biggest drawback is that it can be difficult to find tests to over-succeed with. In a group setting she therefore excels in a similar role to Finn, by engaging that one most problematic enemy and keeping them occupied Wini can turn a poorly located enemy into a repeatable source of cards such that evasion isn’t as big a sink of actions as it might be for other characters. In a solo setting Wini needs Lockpicks up right away so that she can reasonably commit her Opportunists to a number of tests without losing them. The end result of this is a draw machine that rivals even Minh.

Of the Mono-color investigators she is quite easily the best, with access to a card pool which complements her strengths, but she does struggle with Willpower tests. For this you will probably want to hold onto a couple guts and maintain a healthy respect for which tests you can fail without major problem.

Take her for a spin, you won’t regret it.

I think this card is ridiculous. Seems to me like some serious power creep has been introduced with the investigator decks, and this is a prime example of it. All previous survivor weapons have followed an archetype. They're potentially powerful but all come with major drawbacks. Baseball Bat takes two hand slots and can break at any time, Fire Axe only gives extra damage when you burn through all your resources, Meat Cleaver requires you to take horror to trigger the extra damage and only gives a meaningful fight boost when you're already riding the sanity line, Old Hunting Rifle can jam. They're all good, but you need to take the rough with the smooth. This is nothing like any of those weapons. There is no rough. It's insanely overpowered for 2xp.

2 resources to put it into play, +2 fight for +1 damage and not only do you get your bullet back if you miss, doing so also makes it easier to hit next time. So this is 2xp and 2 resources for a guarantee of 6 damage. No other card in the game offers that kind of value. Oh, and this comes in the survivor class where it can easily be recovered from the discard pile and played again. I honestly don't see why any survivor except maaaybe Wendy would ever leave this out of their decks. It's the ultimate auto-include.

I think it will prove to have been a mistake to start releasing obviously OP cards like this. It smacks of an attempt to cash in. The starter decks are pitched as being aimed at new players but I'm willing to bet it'll mostly be experienced players who buy them so they can their hands on cards like this one.

Protip: enemies exhaust after attacking during the enemy phase. As such, you may want to trigger her during the player windows that occur before the readying of the enemies, namely between steps 3.3 and 3.4, and between 4.1 and 4.2