Calvin Wright: Living on the Edge

Calvin Wright walks a fine line between power and death. Embrace the battle scars and bleed your way to victory. This deck was primarily intended to be an enemy control deck with some clue gathering for a multiplayer group.

Also always know where Voice of the Messenger is. This card can really rain on your day if you are caught in a pinch. Of note (and I truly just learned this myself) trauma does not apply immediate horror/damage itself. So while this card hurts, it is only hitting you for 1 direct damage or horror.

Mulligan targets: You will want Meat Cleaver and Peter Sylvestre as your primary targets, in that order, and later Five of Pentacles

Regarding how close to death you want to be. This is truly the crux of playing Calvin. How close you want to be to death will depend greatly on how much trauma you expect to be exposed to in a given scenario as well as your hand (do you have Perseverance) and such. That said, here is a general guide to avoid unnecessary deaths and its corresponding trauma until you get a feel for the ebb and flow of Calvin:

1. Save soaks and get to your current health/horror threshold, taking the damage on Calvin directly. Exception here is to use a Mysterious Raven to get you closer to your horror threshold, especially if you need to get out a Peter Sylvestre.
2. Including your soaks, I recommend having the ability to absorb 3 health and 3 horror damage. 3 for both might be conservative but will help to avoid random hits you don't expect.
3. At a minimum, if Voice of the Messenger is not in your discard pile, you will need at least 2 health or 2 horror available on Calvin to ensure you don't die to a bad draw. Obviously with Until the End of Time in play, you can rely on it to soak your direct damage and really stretch yourself to the max.

Take Heart in the early game will help cushion when you fail tests but this will likely be one of your first cards to trade out. Remember Track Shoes does not require an enemy would engage you in order to trigger the extra move action, this card will get you to the right place at the right time.

Stand Together is an good economy card. Your cards are not terribly expensive and being able to boost some of your more resource hungry allies will be appreciated. Upgrading this to get both effects is more a "nice to have," but if you get it I promise you will not regret it.

Perseverance is here for insurance against death. This could be substituted with Talisman of Protection if you prefer to have the flexibility to play this for an alternate player in need. The benefit with going Perseverance is having the ability to redirect those resources to another card when you feel safe (or safe enough to roll the dice you won't need it). Keep in mind with Until the End of Time in play, you can still chose to assign direct damage to yourself, and if it would kill you prevent it with this card. Additionally, if you really decide you don't need these, they could be upgraded out. I would probably swap in something from the alternate upgrade list below.

Regarding In the Thick of it:
This card looks good on paper for Calvin. You have starting trauma to boost your stats at the get go. I would advise against this logic. Voice of the Messenger puts a clock on how many deck cycles Calvin will get before he dies, assuming you don't also take trauma from other sources. You will have these 2 trauma soon enough (I promise), but if you still want to roll those dice, for maybe a Dreameaters shorter cycle, for example, I would use it to get Charisma. I'd recommend taking 1 physical and 1 horror trauma.

Upgrade Notes:
Flashlight is really there for early scenarios until you can reliably have your intelligence high enough. In later scenarios, Rise to the Occasion or Trial by Fire will be useful if you need to reliably pick up clues in a time of need.

Spirit of Humanity is a great card for Calvin. This will give you control over your stats and in a pinch, late game can give you some well deserved room to breath.

Five of Pentacles is clutch for Calvin. This card raises your baseline threshold to 5/7 for health and horror, safely boosting your power even more.

There are plenty of upgrade options and you will want to be somewhat flexible in where you go based on how your group is performing but in general order of priority:

• 2x Take Heart -> 2x Five of Pentacles
• 2x Peter Sylvestre -> 2x Peter Sylvestre
• 2x Flashlight -> 2x Spirit of Humanity
• 2x Fight or Flight -> 2x Brute Force
• Charisma
• 2x Mysterious Raven -> 2x Jessica Hyde
• 2x Ward of Protection -> 2x Ward of Protection
• 2x Lucky! -> 2x Lucky!
• 2x Stand Together -> 2x Stand Together
• 2x Leather Coat -> 2x Leather Coat
• 2x Meat Cleaver -> 2x Timeworn Brand

Alernate Upgrade Notes:
Nightmare Bauble or Eucatastrophe can fit in nicely if you want some safety against . I would probably seriously consider this if both health and horror trauma are at 3+.

If you find you / your team struggles with clue acquisition, Sharp Vision could easily be grabbed rather than Brute Force in a pinch.

The Black Cat is a great card, but at a great cost. I wouldn't generally advise to take this, but if you are considering it I would weigh it vs Jessica Hyde as you are going to want Peter Sylvestre for his synergy with Meat Cleaver.