A Witch and her Shrink: Carolyn Deck SUPER FUN!

Great deck idea! I just started this pair in a new TCU campaign and I was surprised by how much I prefer Alice Luxley over the Mutated version of Milan. With the current cardpool, Carolyn continues to amaze me with how good she is. And, of course, paired with Agnes those two are dynamite. I will point out that, if you can get them both early, 2x Hawk-Eye Folding Cameras once the Fingerprint Kit is used combined with St. Hubert's Key can turn Carolyn into a Willpower/Intellect monster. I'm curious why you went only 1x Fingerprint Kit and suggest subbing it out later? It is a great way to double clue acquisition, so why no 2x Fingerprint Kit and use Death to replace the Mag Glasses? By the looks of the card cost I am guessing economy?

@TheBlackHorror, Yes, it is resource considerations, but it may also be another key difference between Standard and Hard. On Hard difficulty I really, really, really want Carolyn to get 2 intellect boosts early, and in bad situations that may require using a No Stone Unturned to find one of them. So in that bad-luck case of needing to use NSU I definitely need 1 of those 2 intellect boosters to be a magnifying glass (total cost = 7; 1 for mag, 2 for NSU, 4 for some other booster). That is much less of an early game hit than having to cough up 10 resources.

But there is another issue... Fingerprint kit is my list favorite of the options to get early (again, assuming Hard/Expert difficulty) because I'm more likely to waste a charge on it if I don't have other gear.

On Standard it would probably be less of a problem to only have 1 booster, and also less risk losing charges on Fingerprint kit.

What is the idea of having one Arcane Research in this deck? I myself have interpreted it only to have an effect with upgrading spell cards already in the deck, so with this build there would not be a single target for it.

@Carkey, Ah, I did not catch that! The idea here was twofold: 1) Cheapen Clarity of Mind and 2) give Carolyn a starting Trauma so she would have something to heal. In fact, I thought about going with 2 copies so she could take Thermos, but decided against it.

I believe you are completely right, though. Which means one should either start with Clarity of Mind or Arcane Research. I don't really like either of those options, but I would probably go with keeping Arcane Research and subbing Clarity of Mind in for Inspiring Presence, unless you were playing on Expert, in which case I would sub it for First Aid.

I was wondering about the ressource curve of the deck. Do you think it can support Thermos instead of Liquid Courage? I'm also planning to take with 2x Arcane Research to get 2 sanity each time with carolyn and agnes.

Hiya. Love the deck. Just picked up TCU, can't wait to play through it once I'm caught up on scenarios. Question: how necessary do you feel Agnes is to this combo? Would another Mystic fit? I know there's some major synergy between Agnes' ability and Carolyn's, but I would rather play with one of the newer investigators.

@alpha5099 I havent played TCU yet, but from my experience, run out of Shrivelling charges when they're primary fighters too quickly.

Agnes mitigates this with her own ability and horror healing (from carolyn).

For anyone else, Wither might be a solution but you'll run into trouble with high HP foes. You could also give carolyn 2x Meat Cleaver and 2x Physical Training, but i'm not sure if her ressources can support both and assets.

If the is Diana Stanley, start with Prepared for the Worst, Machete + Beat Cop and upgrade to Timeworn Brand ASAP, this solves all you needs on standard and maybe hard. Add Ace of Swords later.

Between your Carolyn Fern and Agnes Baker decks you have 4x Deny Existence. Any suggestions on replacements for one or the other since I've only got 2?

You could replace it with Ward of Protection (and upgrades) in Agnes for another use of her ability and potential horror to heal with carolyn.

Ward of Protection is already on FBone's Agnes

For a new campaign with agnes and carolyn, i'm currently planning to hand Ancient Stone to agnes using Teamwork including my ressources. Agnes will do the test using 2x Drawing Thin and boost her with Arcane Studies.

@mdffs, There is no prohibition against having 2 copies of Deny Existence in both decks. Just proxy by using an off-color card with the same casting cost.

@Django Interesting idea!! What is your Agnes deck for this? Trying to think what I'd remove for Drawing Thin,

Another player takes agnes, don't know how the final deck will look. We talked about each decks roles and some "mandatory" cards like fail to win combo and Arcane Studies. I guess i'd built the deck like this:

arkhamdb.com

Not sure if Uncage the Soul or Emergency Cache would be better with only 4 spells. But i like it for the 2 icons.

I’m new to the game. I want to start playing Carcosa path with this investigator combo. After reading these decklists, I found that I need 3 painkiller cards and 4 Deny Existence... so I need more 2 of the same packs that contain these cards. Which other cards could I use instead of the excess copy? Also, why these decks countain 34 cards instead of 33? The decks must countain 30 cards + 1 basic weakness, 1 personal weakness and 1 personal boon card... thanks

Permanent cards do not count toward deck size, like Arcane Research or Charisma. However they do occupy slots like carolyns 15 seeker/ mystic cards or lolas requirement of 7 cards from one class.

Have you ever played with proxies, like sleeving all cards while using a normal unused card as "back" so it looks the same while in your deck? Then printing those you're missing? Or taking a sheet of paper and writing the missing cards text and effect on it? Or use the upgraded version as replacement, it's easy to remember the difference.

Hi, sorey to bother you @FBones, was wondering if it would be possible to get a detailed upgrade tree, like what to take out for clarity of mind, pathfinder, etc.

Also what are your thoughts on the Forbidden Knowledge + Pete Sylvestre combo?

I see that you have 2x Painkillers in Agnes's deck and 1 in Carolyn's. Do you have that many packs of Miskatonic? What would be some subs if I only have 1 copy of the card for both or either investigator?

Also why St. Hubert's Key in Carolyn's deck and not in Agnes's? Simply because of the heal horror aspect?

St. Hubert's Key is pretty expensive and reduces max sanity, so it's rather detrimental for agnes (reduces the times her ability can be used). Her is also too low to investigate with it, so Holy Rosary is beter for her relic slot.

On the other hand with carolyns higher , Magnifying Glass and Alice Luxley she can reliably investigate shroud 4+. Her higher base sanity also minimizes the chance of the key blowing up.

@OhTheHorror56, @crayne is right regarding St. Hubert's Key.

I forget what I used for proxies... any Rogue or Survivor card with a cost of 1 would work.

I seem to be having a bad day. She has 3 cards that do not count towards her total of 30 cards. But 34 cards are in the deck. 34-3 = 31. None of the cards are permanents. There are 31 other cards???? Which of those 31 cards do not count.

@buzard, the 4 surplus cards are: Rational Thought, Arcane Research, Random Basic Weakness, and Hypnotherapy.

Like I said, bad day. Thanks.

I think she needs a couple meat cleavers in this build. You can always take horror to boost attack and heal it with each kill, getting a resource. Rational thought can also be healed with cleaver kills since it “may be healed as if it were on Carolyn”.

@Spandrel53, meat cleaver is not very reliable on harder difficulties. I'd rather have the hands for other tools.

Thank you for taking the time to think about Wither. I kept looking it and feeling I was overlooking at something important. Then I realized this is one of very few mystic cards that can not backfire on you. Drawing an icon reduces the fight and evade of the enemy. Drawing an icon helps, when was the last time that happened? And you don't need any charges, it always fires off.

I was thinking about doing a Carolyn deck with Arcane Research myself. She has two targets with "Deny Existence" and "Clarity of Mind". Yet, you did not put the later in the deck, but talk about it. Are you aiming at first upgrading DE, then adding level 0 CoM with "Versatile"? Also, I'm a bit surprised, that none of the two ladies has something going with the football dude.

@Susumu, the reason the deck does not have CoM in it was that I misconstrued how the card worked. I mentioned this in an earlier, comment to be honest, I don't understand what I wrote in that comment...

Carolyn Fern cannot take Peter Sylvestre. Agnes might want to take the upgraded version, but note that it does not trigger Carolyn Fern's ability.

Thanks for the reply. Carolyn could definitely take Peter. It's the first entry in the official FAQ on her page: Q: How broad is "heals horror" meant to be interpreted? Cheat Death, Peter Sylvestre, are these intended to be attainable by Carolyn? Is it basically any card that uses "heals # horror"? A: Correct! If it heals horror, Carolyn can take it. It seems to me, he is really popular in Agnes as well as Carolyn decks, so it was a bit surprising for me, that you picked him in neither. But of course, he does not have to be in either.

@Susumu, right I forgot about Carolyn's special deck building options. I generally do not put Pete(0) into decks because---as good as healing horror is---there are generally better allies available. But Peter Sylvestre (2) is very good and I think he would be a good choice for either once you pick up Charisma.

But note that once Carolyn gets Hypnotic Therapy or Clarity of Mind you don't tend to really need much in the way of horror healing through Peter Sylvestre. That is why I prefer Alice Luxley for Carolyn Fern and David Renfield or Arcane Initiate for Agnes.

Awesome deck idea! My friend and I are about to try this combo out. I'm curious about your upgrade path. How much xp do you expect to earn throughout an average campaign? What do you swap in/out as you progress? Thanks!

Not sure it’s been covered already but to leverage Arcane Research, you have to have included the base level of CoM and then upgrade from the level zero cards to get the discount. Just realized this myself recently.

Pathfinder is affected by the taboo list. It now costs 3 instead of 1. It still seems like a worthwhile upgrade, because this deck is so action-dependent.

Thank you for this deck. I played it for Dream-Eaters (with the above clarity of mind correction) and it worked beautifully. I normally try to build my own decks, but I was having a very hard time with Carolyn. Using your deck made me realize I was over-using her healing ability and not giving her enough clue-finding power.

Doesn't this deck severely violate her "up to 15 other Seeker and/or Mystic cards level 0-1" building limitation? I count 19 for that total.

St. Hubert's Key and Logical Reasoning don't count, as they can heal horror.

Note that the two copies of Deny Existence, once upgraded, won't count as well. So the upgrades would free up 2 additional slots for potentially 2 additional "other" or cards.

Ah, I see. I needed to read her building requirements sequentially. Thanks!

The important factor is the word "other". It means, that this part of her card pool only counts cards, that are not covered in any other deckbuilding options. There is a clarification in recent FAQs. It reads:

If one of the categories of an investigator’s deckbuilding options contains the word "other" in it, cards only fall into this category if they fall into no other category. (For example, if an investigator’s deckbuilding options reads: "Guardian cards level 0–5, up to 10 other Weapon cards," then a Guardian card with the Weapon trait would not occupy one of those 10 limited slots, because it first falls into the unlimited Guardian category).