Seven ink is a big ask. Here's what you get for it.
Tiana - Party Hostess costs 7 ink to play from scratch, or 5 via Shift on any Tiana you already have on the table (rule 8.10.1). She's 4 strength, 5 willpower, 2 lore. On stats alone, that's a rough trade at seven ink. But her ability is why you're here.
IDEAL VENUE reads: "When you play this character, you may draw 2 cards, then choose and discard a card. If you discarded a location card this way, you may play it from your discard for free."
That's a lot of words. Let's pull them apart.
- She's a 7-ink Legendary with Shift 5. In most games you're playing her for five, not seven.
- IDEAL VENUE draws two, discards one. If that discard is a location, it enters play free.
- The free location is the whole point. She's a delivery system for expensive venues, not a questing body.
- Straight banish effects banish her cleanly. Goofy - Klutzy Skier does it at 3 ink, and there's nothing she can do about it.
The draw-two-discard-one is a net gain of one card regardless of what you pitch. That alone is useful. But the second sentence of IDEAL VENUE is where the real math lives: if the card you discard is a location, you put it into play free.
Not discounted. Free. A location that costs six or seven ink, in play, the same turn you played Tiana - Party Hostess. That's potentially twelve or thirteen ink of board development landing in one turn.
The obvious question is whether you can reliably hit the discard condition. You need a location in hand when IDEAL VENUE triggers. If you drew two and one of them is a location, you're set. If neither is, you're discarding something else and taking the consolation prize: a one-card draw advantage. Good, but not the reason you built around her.
This is speculation, but she looks like she wants a deck that holds locations in hand deliberately, treating them as fodder until she arrives. A location you can't afford to play this turn becomes free the turn you play her. That reframes the early game: locations you'd normally ink become threats you're banking.
What she actually is at the table
Two lore at seven ink, on its own, is not a good quest. There are sixteen other characters in the catalogue at 7 ink questing for 2 lore, including Yax - Concert Goer with 9 willpower and nothing else to pay for. Tiana - Party Hostess is not competing on stats.
She's a combo piece. The location is the payoff. The 5 willpower means she survives most challenges while you wait to quest. Her value is the turn she enters, not the turns after.
A location that costs six or seven ink, in play, the same turn you played Tiana. That's potentially twelve or thirteen ink of board development landing in one turn.
Where she stops working
The weakness is blunt. IDEAL VENUE only fires when you play her, and she's fragile to unconditional removal before she ever quests. Goofy - Klutzy Skier banishes any character outright for 3 ink. Full stop.
If She Doesn't Scare You does the same at 4 ink. Dragon Fire at 5 ink. None of them care about her 5 willpower, because they never deal damage (rule 1.9.2.1). They remove her outright.
Let It Go puts her into the inkwell at 5 ink, which is a different kind of problem. She leaves play, the location she placed stays, but you've lost a 7-ink Legendary to a 5-ink song.
The conditional removal is worth knowing too. Firefly Swarm banishes her at 3 ink if the condition is met. Jack-Jack Parr - Incredible Potential handles her at 4 ink under its own condition. These are less reliable answers, but they're cheap if they fire.
The damage immunity is real. Her 5 willpower means she clears every damage-based removal limit in the current catalogue. But that's context for you, not armour she's advertising: nobody was going to deal-damage her out of the game anyway. The straight banish is the answer, and it's available at 3 ink.
The Printing Warning matters here
The brief flags that an older printing of Tiana - Party Hostess reads differently. The text above is the current version. If you're buying a copy, check the printing. A different text means a different trigger, and any ruling issued under the old wording may not apply.
The Shift line is the actual cost
In a real game, you're not paying 7. You're paying 5 on top of a Tiana already in play (rule 8.10.1). That changes the calculus significantly. Five ink for a draw-two-discard-one that potentially drops a free location is a strong rate. The lower Tiana on the curve is doing real work just by existing.
Without Shift, she's a clunky 7 into a turn where you probably want to be doing something aggressive. With it, she's a payoff on a curve you've already committed to.
Play her this way
Build the locations in. Hold them in hand if the ink cost is too high to play early, then treat them as ammunition. When Tiana - Party Hostess enters via Shift 5, draw two, and if either is a location, it's free.
If you whiff, you still drew a card. The floor is real. The ceiling is a turn where you slam a venue that should cost half your ink budget and still have board presence.
If you're running Tiana on the lower end of the curve, the Shift package is the reason. Don't play Tiana - Party Hostess without a plan to hit the location discard. A 7-ink 4/5 for two lore with a draw-one is fine, but it's not a Legendary.
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