Marie uses the Power of her lyrics to tame enemies and rally to her cause Dogs and Fans.

Credit: Toni Foti

Introduction:

Marie Lambeau was the most asked investigator by the community for continuing this deck series, so here she is!

She was really well served by The Scarlet Keys expansion, so it was more than time time for a revisit of the least liked investigator of the game!

This series is a celebration of the 20k points on ArkhamDB to thank you all for all the support received.
I will release a new standalone-ready deck concept every week on Friday for the following months, so stay tuned and keep pressing the ♥ button if you want to see more!

Let me know which investigators you would like to see next in the comment!

Table of Contents:

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• The Power of Words

• Deal with the Doom

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Make Your Own Deck!

Overview:

Main Strategy:

• Use your ability's additional action on Power Word to manipulate enemies into some clues or some healing to feed Soul Sanctification.

• Manipulate doom and gain tempo with the Dowsing Rod to activate Marie's bonus action.

• Boost your score with the Dowsing Rod's bonus, St. Hubert's Key and the Hawk-Eye Folding Camera to investigate with 7 .

The Power of Words:

As Power Word is a Spell and has an , you can use Marie's ability to activate it.

Powerful Lyrics:

• Cower will be the most used command. While using it, enemies exhaust (so no AoO or attack during the enemy phase) but do not disengage from you, meaning that they will keep following you wherever you go.

  • The consequence of this is that as long as you keep your attached enemies at your location, you need to start each turn by giving the Cower command, to prevent AoO from any other action you'd take.

• Confess is our second favourite option. This will make Marie a strong cluever as long as she starts her turn on a location with clues or with a shroud lower or equal to most of the attached enemies' health.

• Mercy is our backup option for the following situations: you start your turn on a location without clues, or your puppets have a health value lower than the location's shroud.

  • We will purchase Soul Sanctification early to store all the overheal as Unexpected Courages, which is especially convenient for the situation when the shroud is high.

  • The heal is also very appreciated as compensation for the impact that Baron Samedi can have on your team.

• Betray is the last option that is possible. It is interesting to have 4 useful commands for the following situation: you start at a location with no clues/high shroud, you then give the 2 commands Cower and Mercy, and after moving to another location, you want to use the command Confess to collect clues. In this situation, Betray can be a nice second command to weaken the enemies in case you want to kill them at the end of the scenario (for instance to collect victory points).

Songs That Can Move Crowds:

• Tonguetwister will allow you to give commands 2 by 2. This is really what will enable the build as you will then be able to give both Cower and Confess or Mercy commands.

• Thrice Spoken is our second bigger upgrade. With it, you'll keep 3 enemies under your spell at all times, which will execute together whatever command you give to one. If the shroud allows it, this means that you can collect 3 clues testless using your ability's action.

  • This is even stronger in 3-4 as this means that the 3 enemies under your spell will not be re-shuffled, and this will lift some weight on your fighters, to focus on some clue support.

Deal with Doom:

To use your ability on Power Word, you need to maintain at least one doom in play most time.

Add Doom:

• Dowsing Rod gives you an boost for your investigations as well as some tempo gains when moving and investigating at the same time.

• Arcane Initiate helps you draw your Power Words primarily, but also Voice of Ra to pay for them, Ward of Protection, Alchemical Transmutation, Mystifying Song, Moonlight Ritual and Ghastly Possession.

• During all the time when The Lord of the Cemeretery is in the process of being doomed out (which takes 5 doom on the Agenda), he helps maintain Marie Lambeau's ability up.

  • There are 2 approaches to Baron Samedi:
    The aggressive one, trying to cancel him with Parallel Fates (2) and Foresight, or trying to doom him out ASAP with Seal of the Elder Sign;
    The passive one which consists of just adding Charisma and leave him in play until we have the opportunity to doom him out.

  • We chose here the passive at first, and we slowly evolve towards the second. Parallel Fates + Foresight is an amazing combo also to cancel Basic Weaknesses, scare away the Unbound Beast and overall increase deck consistency.

• Ghastly Possession can doom any asset with a test. This means here Alchemical Transmutation, Summoned Hound or Dowsing Rod.

  • If you already have a doomed asset in play and no Power Worded enemy yet, you can use it to add add a charge to Alchemical Transmutation.

  • If, on the other hand, you do not have a doom yet, you can add one to Alchemical Transmutation to secure 3 resources and benefit from the fast trigger for the last 2 charges.

Safety Nets:

• Ghastly Possession can help remove a doom from Dowsing Rod if need be.

• Moonlight Ritual can be played with Marie's ability and is here in case you are trying to doom out Baron Samedi and, for instance, Mysterious Chanting ruins your timing.

  • Later, we upgrade to Moonlight Ritual (2) to gain fast and, most importantly, clean whatever card was doomed instead (including locations), so you can keep proceeding with getting rid of Baron Samedi.

• Mystifying Song is another safety net in case you do not have other choices than advancing and you want to buy more time.

  • Having another round at the witching hour can be really interesting for a team. It gives 3 additional actions per investigator and helps benefit from every doom mechanic like Blood Pact, and Fickle Fortune for another round.

• Ward of Protection upgraded to level 2 to cover your team is your last safety net against unforeseen doom.

Other Cards:

• Hawk-Eye Folding Camera and St. Hubert's Key both come with static and that serve Alchemical Transmutation as well as investigating with the Dowsing Rod.

  • With the on Dowsing Rod, you are investigating with no less than 7 .

  • Don't forget that you can use the Dowsing Rod to investigate with the second ability, even when it is exhausted.

• Once Alchemical Transmutation is empty, and Arcane Initiate found your spells, you can use the arcane slots for Summoned Hound.

  • The dogs provide investigation and more chances to clean a location with Dowsing Rod at the same turn you moved there.

  • Some may see the Unbound Beast as an issue, but not Marie Lambeau. She can easily tame it and turn it into another part of her Power Word army. For that matter, as soon as you play Summoned Hound, keep 3 resources and a Power Word in your hand.

• Alchemical Transmutation, Crack the Case and Voice of Ra help with the rather expensive deck.

• Ethereal Form is good in case you still get the Unbound Beast or any other enemy and you do not have Power Word or your fighter available. This will allow you to use your ability to get out of danger and investigate as if nothing happened.

• Parallel Fates and Foresight will help filtering out weaknesses, including the Unbound Beast to keep the Summoned Hound as long as possible.

• In campaign mode, we also swap In the Thick of It for Arcane Research, which will, for the same 2 mental trauma, provide significantly more experience.

  • I edited the upgrade path to display how we could spend the experience from Arcane Research.

Upgrade Path:

Link to the 0xp deck

(View at arkham-starter.com)

Link to the full xp deck

To create your own guides, find the template I have created here