Preface

I would like to say my hard mode true solo playthrough of Dunwich ended poorly. HOWEVER, I blame that failure on Olive Mcbride and Dark prophecy not turning up a curse token when the bag had 8 of them in it…twice (Rex's Curse has nothing on me).

As such, Arcane Initiate could very easily substitute for Mcbride, Providing more consistency with draw, spells and economy but less consistency on disturbingly powerful actions.

Deck Breakdown

This entire deck is about showing that bar NONE Luke is the most cursed investigator there is, eat your heart out Calvin Wright/Rex Murphy.

1) To accomplish this we run the full standard curse suite; Armageddon, Eye of Chaos, Dark Prophecy, Voice of Ra, Deep Knowledge, Tempt Fate, Ritual Candles, Analysis, and Promise of Power.

2) Prescient is there to be a handy "oh no I ran out of charges/need more cash/I miss skipping Mythos cards ward. Plan of Action is there for card draw via Practice Makes Perfect. Ward of Protection is present because of course it is.

Paths

Now the actual fun part, this deck has 2-3 paths you can run it with, which will dramatically alter your upgrade paths and how you play it.

1. Route 1 You can sub out Olive McBride for Arcane Initiate, and Dark Prophecy for Astounding Revelation. This makes you a money machine, getting your core spells up ASAP with the funds to instantly play all both copies. The Drawback is the lack of consistency in your curse generation for your major spells, negligible for Eye of Chaos, but damning for Armageddon.

2. Route 2 You make every action really count. This means keeping in Mcbride, replacing prescient with Living Ink, throwing away Practice makes perfect for 2 copies of Guts, replacing plan of action with Eureka!, swapping out Fearless for Premonition and finally swapping out prescient for Eldritch Inspiration. While this lowers the draw and tutor it also means when we do have cards in hand we can make very well-informed and powerful actions. i.e. premonition a curse token, good we can investigate, pull an auto fail? ok let's voice of Ra. Have to investigate or fight with -4/6? living ink and guts for +4/6 success & draw.

3. Route 3 is the weird one. We ride or die. Get in the thick of it, drop prescient, pick up fey, get favour of the moon, drop dark prophecy. Pick up Down the Rabbit Hole and Arcane Research (5/5 this Luke is got it), drop practice makes perfect, grab guts. Drop fearless we want deny existence (5/5 Luke doesn't have it), drop plan of action pick up euerka FINALLY drop analysis were getting eldritch inspiration. Now UPGRADE EVERYTHINGGGGG. You will either become an absolute monster or die scenario 2 to a swarm of rats.

So you’ve chosen your route and your ready to go, but your nervous. What happens if my cards don’t pan out well? What If I miss my curses? That’s the curse deck kiddo…high highs low lows.

Upgrades

What I would strongly recommend is the opening 8 exp upgrade path.

You need in order -> Blasphemous Covenant -> Stirring Up Trouble -> Favor of the Moon - > Fey (if you have living ink that goes here with (Macabre and Subtle). You're now 8-12 exp in. Edit: You can grab Eldritch Inspiration here for some absolutely bonkers actions.

This sounds lame, but I would also strongly recommend re-rolling scenario two if you find yourself sub 8 exp (or tech In the Thick of It), as prior to those first 7 cards your game will be a crap shoot. Now you have your foundational deck built with 6-7 glorious scenarios to go…What do I do now?

Upgrade your main curse spells with priority being 1 copy of Eye of Chaos. If you are finding yourself getting into trouble with the local monster population, tech in 2 copies of Gaze of Ouraxsh instead of upgrading Armageddon (Luke Prefers events as does Prescient). With Luke fighting is often relatively unimportant. Once you have either 2 eyes and EITHER 2 Gaze of Ouraxsh or 2 Armageddon's go ahead and grab whatever your little heart desires.

Piloting

Mulligan for Stirring up trouble or if you have her Arcane Initiate. I know I know but what about eye? Eye is cool and all but you NEED curses in the deck, with just the covenant it’s adding 4 +1 tokens to the pool and taking out a huge shroud location testlessly.

Remember, Luke would rather move than sit idle turn one to enable his busted gate box. Once your initiate is up, or you play eye/stirring up trouble/deep knowledge you can begin pushing acts. As with any Luke deck your first turn should be playing 1 key card (Initiate, eye, stirring up trouble, deep knowledge) and moving twice (barring wonky scenarios). If you get zero key cards then move twice and draw once.

PS: I would GLADY sacrifice 3 actions for a turn 1 arcane initiate DO NOT feel obligated to wait for doom clock unless its 3 or less.

Substitutions

You can make some substitutions based on your preferences as follows

• Ritual Candle -> Hawk-Eye Folding Camera (does less on non-will tests, but can help with -4)
• Ward of protection -> Deny Existence (doesn't ping you, and is imo better at level 5)
• Voice of Ra -> Uncage the Soul (this is nice as it saves an action but is bad with arcane initiate).

*if playing with a blessed survivor

• Ward of protection -> Ward of Radiance
• Blasphemous covenant -> Paradoxical Covenant
• Practice makes perfect -> Tides of Fate
• Plan of action -> Eureka!
• Fearless -> Guts
• Gaze -> Favor of the Sun

Closing

In closing a curse deck is exactly that, trading fantastic power for the potential to be absolutely obliterated by it yourself. This deck will not win you every scenario but can be an absolute blast to shake up your standard mystic playthrough. The deck also has a ton of potential if paired with a fighty cursed rogue or blessed survivor.