Pathfinding Sleepwalker

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Dreams of a master assassin, theorycrafting a pure fighter 70 54 1 2.0
The Cluefinding Sleepwalker 1 1 0 1.0
luke on 0 0 0 1.0

Charles Dexter Ward · 536

This is a Lukebuild, which i found to be absolutly fun and amazing right from the beginning. On the one hand i want to share this wonderful build, but on the other hand it is the aim to give a universal buildguide on Luke afterwards. (this will be added later)

So lets dive right into the build first:

It is created for normal play but can be easily adjusted for hard. You basically only need more boosts. Addin Death • XIII 2x and perhaps Perception 1x or Alyssa Graham or Dr. Milan Christopher and you are good to go. You need to decide what to cut for this for yourself ;)

I chose the build to fullfill 2 different main roles: Clue gatherer and Support. There is a little third role hidden, which i call Partisan. All 3 roles will abuse the fantastic and superfun Gate Box in different ways and all 3 roles are about action efficiancy.

For this reason the first crucial decision was how to recharge Gate Box. i decided to use Enraptured, and there is only one card which does enhance it: Practice Makes Perfect, which allows us to play Enraptured 3-4 times a scenario and also happens to combo with the alltime classic and most elegant Investigationtool Deduction.

Rechargemethod: Enraptured

As both Enraptured and Deduction come with i decided to build Luke as a classic seeker using to investigate. For this purpose Hawk-Eye Folding Camera, Magnifying Glass and St. Hubert's Key and later Hemispheric Map are used.

using cluegatherer

As cluegatherer you have one absolutly great combo right from the start:

Gate Box, Read the Signs with your special ability and Deduction! This allows you to get 3 clues (4 with Deduction ) from any location in the game without moving there in just one action almost for sure!

To enhance the chance of this wonderful combo you have Practice Makes Perfect. To support this combo further more i chose to play Mr. "Rook" as my ally, which is universally useful, by supporting any combo in the deck actualy as well as your basic cluefinder role by getting your assets earlier. Together with Practice Makes Perfect, Mr. "Rook" is the draw engine of the deck, which is also recharged by Enraptured should you have enough charges on Gate Box

Draw Engine: Practice Makes Perfect and Mr. "Rook"

Another nice little combo with gatebox is provided by Vantage Point, which is particulary good at the start, when you are not setup and fills your Hawk-Eye Folding Camera and is a second way besides Read the Signs to nearly guarantee the recharge of Gate Box with Enraptured, as it lets you investigate on Dream-Gate against 0.

Supportrole: movement action efficiancy and protection

it consist in 8 cards: Open Gate, Shortcut, Clarity of Mind and after the first scenario Ward of Protection

Open Gate is very effective and only 2 copies of it often spare your tank 3 or more movement. It snergizes wonderfully with Gate Box, as you can reach every place and setup a wormhole anytime needed with just one action, 2 cards and 2 ressources:

Gate Box Open Gate on any location with your special ability Movement to any other location Open Gate.

To support this Pathfinder will be used to setup a wormhole between any 2 locations without using an action at all and of course Mr. "Rook" to get your second copy of Open Gate

I played this in a 2 investigator return to carcosa campaign together with Tony and it really proofed to be worth it. I opened a wormhole in 2/3 of the scenarios and some of them were crucial for our effort and spared a lot of actions for both of us. Apart from beeing very efficient Open Gate provides a thematicaly unique strategic option and therfore is very fun to use! But of Course it only gets more powerful the more teamates you have.

Shortcut is just great for Luke himself, as it basicaly lets you move 2 locations without any action or counterattack with Lukes special ability. But it also works greatly as supportcard for your fellow teammates if u use it together with Gate Box and your specialability to move a teammate anywhere in the game.

Clarity of Mind and Clarity of Mind serves as an emercency healing tool. Together with Gate Box and Pathfinder you can reach any Teammate with no action to heal them.

Ward of Protection is just an alltime great emergency tool for your team. Clarity of Mind is also there to offset the horrorcost.

Hidden Role: Partisan Storm of Spirits and Shortcut and to a lesser extend Open Gate

one great use of Shortcut is that you can collect nonhunter monsters in one space, without loosing actions or getting attacks. Its awesome already to just park them on a space you dont need to go anymore.

Lets imagine you are at the same location as your tank, which is engaged with a tough monster and out of ammo or in a hurry to reach the boss or protect some other. In the mythosphase you draw an enemy too and there is some cultist 2 spaces away.
You play before your tank and do the following:

Engage the monster from your tank, so that you are engaged with 2 monsters now Shortcut with your special ability to the cultist 2 spaces away Gate Box to disengage all 3 of them. Congratulations you have just parked 3 monsters on one location with just 1 action! Now addin Storm of Spirits or Storm of Spirits for a massdestructive ambush

You can bomb them the same round you collected them or you can park them and bomb them later.The partisan lures his enemies where he needs them to be for the perfect ambush. If you manage to do this or similiar only every third game it provides great great fun and powerful action efficiancy! The collection of enemies also snergizes with Open Gate in some way, which lets you reach the parking or ambush location more easily.

Action efficiancy

As you might have noticed this deck is all about action efficancy: Apart from Read the Signs and Storm of Spirits every event you have is or an . Together with Magnifying Glass and the 4 skills this means 19 cards in your deck are fast! As Icing on the Cake using your Drawengine Mr. "Rook" is a too. This Combined with Gate Box, Pathfinder and the 3 discussed main combos (pronounced in the Text) of the 3 roles, which are in the deck right from the start and each create action efficiancy too, makes this deck extremly efficient.

So for summary: This is extremly fun and has a high impact on the game due to its incredible action efficancy.

Defense:

Your is high already and pushed by Hawk-Eye Folding Camera and Hemispheric Map to make for a very solid Defense against based encounters.

To deal with enemies just use Gate Box or a well placed Storm of Spirits

Clarity of Mind/Clarity of Mind and Ward of Protection/Ward of Protection is rounding your defense suite of cards and there is always an empty Mr. "Rook" to take some damage for you.

Finally lets have a short look on the upgrades i took:

Upgrades:

St. Hubert's Key >> Hemispheric Map 2X

Deduction >> Deduction 2x

Shortcut/Vantage Point >>Pathfinder 1x

Shortcut/Vantage Point /Crack the Case >>Seal of the Elder Sign 1x

Upgrades with Arcane Research:

Ward of Protection >>Ward of Protection 2x

Clarity of Mind >>Clarity of Mind

Storm of Spirits >>Storm of Spirits 2x

This way you trade 10xp for 2 mental traumata, which works for me, addin Rite of Seeking or Deny Existence if u like to get more use from Arcane Research

=19xp, which makes for a nice setup to play a standalone scenario!

In near future i plan to add a universal How to build a Luke deck guide here, using the decisions that let me to the Dreamwalker build as an example and presenting suites of basic cards and possible combos and upgrade paths for each possible role.

For now i want to thank you a lot for working through this textwall and point out that iam very interested in critics or ideas. This is the first build i posted, so sorry for my mediocre english and buildformat. I will improve and update this later on.

I just want to set this into motion for now...

Have some great fun,

Charles Dexter Drake

6 comments

Jan 23, 2020 Trinity_ · 197

I really like this list for Luke as a dedicated Seeker clue gatherer. I'm particularly a fan of the high tempo playstyle implied by having so many fast cards and abilities, and I think that really suits Luke with his built-in disengage from Gate Box.

Hemispheric Map is an interesting card for Luke given Dream Gate's connections. Was it particularly strong? How often did you test against the +2 bonuses for having at least 4 connections?

Jan 24, 2020 Charles Dexter Ward · 536

Hey aeongate, thx for your comment :)

An important factor is that Hemispheric Map is much cheaper then St. Hubert's Key. in fact you will spend actions to get ressources before upgrading.

I only played this deck in Return to Carcosa and Hemispheric Map was really worth it here. Locations with only one connection were actualy quite rare and you usualy can activate Hemispheric Map by going there with Gate Box and spare yourself 1-2 movement by doing so. Otherwise you can use Read the Signs or Vantage Point to get the clues from there. Locations with 3 connections were quite common, so you could get the +2 bonus with gatebox. You find Locations with 4 or more connections in nearly each scenario, if i remember correctly. Additionaly it has a defensive use, you can use Gate Box in your Drawphase or in the mythosphase to get +2 for defense, if u are planning ahead and want to use it at the start of the next round anyway, use it before for the defensebonus. It also happens to count double for your Read the Signs.

All this together is making Hemispheric Map not just a card with passive bonus but a strategic tool, you can utilize by clever movement. And this provides just much more fun, than a passive bonus you have and forget!

Feb 06, 2020 acotgreave · 782

OOh, I love this deck. I've been struggling to get my head round Luke. This could be the deck i need!

Feb 06, 2020 acotgreave · 782

Did you think about replacing the Magnifying Glasses with Otherworldly Compass?

Feb 06, 2020 Charles Dexter Ward · 536

Happy you like the deck! I had quite some fun playing it and just finished return to carcossa on normal with it accompanied by a pure fighter Tony. All in all i think Seal of the Elder Sign 2x is much better as Dayana Esperence, which failed me mainly as it was just too expensive for the deck and disrupted the action efficiancy. Seal of the Elder Sign ensures the success of crucial tests and pairs especially well with Storm of Spirits and Read the Signs together with Deduction. In fact i only managed to cast Storm of Spirits 2 times successfully in the whole campaign, as i did draw 4 times with it. I did not play Pathfinder once, so it may be overkill and seemed to be far less important, than i thought for this deck. Sometimes i had problems with my when i missed the right cards. So i would suggest to cut some support for Death • XIII and Drawn to the Flame

Otherworldly Compass is an interesting option and should work quite well thematically together with Hemispheric Map and Gate Box. I have some doubts about its usefulness though, as it is only usable once per turn and fails together with Hemispheric Map if there are no locations connected. Therefore i strongly recommend Death • XIII 2x together with it for the passive boost. If you are dedicated to go this road Dr. Elli Horowitz might be an interesting option. Maybe together with Calling in Favors Charisma and Astounding Revelation for a very powerful drawing engine. Maybe add Dr. Elli Horowitz later in the campaign with Versatile ?

Feb 06, 2020 acotgreave · 782

Great ideas! I hear what you say about the compass. I find myself so bored with the old cards (Magnifying Glass) that I look to play the newer cards even if it sacrifices efficiency :-)