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Where playing card displays pips, seemingly? (2,3,4,2,2)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

on the face of it

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'seemingly?' is the definition.
(synonyms)

'where playing card displays pips' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'playing' could be 'on' (on can mean playing or performing) and 'on' is found in the answer.
'card' could be 'face' (face card is a kind of card) and 'face' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for on the face of it that I've seen before include "Where climbers may scale a mountain" , "Apparently (2,3,4,2,2)" , "From appearances alone" , "where are the chronometer's hands?" , "Ostensibly (2,3,4,2,2)" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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