The Harvey's Miskatonic group trip to Dunwich (reduced pool)

Credits: Fantasy Fly Games

TL;DR: Flex / cluever Harvey deck for 2-player hard mode Dunwich abusing busted cards NOT TESTED YET.

POOL : Core, Starter decks, Dunwich, Carcossa, TFA, TCU, EotE, TsK.

Mid-term exams just ended, and Harvey has to go through a lot of exams from his students, but Dr. Henry Armitage needs helps finding some colleagues after having a really bad feeling. Along his students and his very VERY good friend William Webb using a bit a cash of the grant they received last years, they'll face some nameless horrors far from any relic or book they have studied before.

He's old, some battle scars may burden him, and because of the end of the mid term exams he may need to rush the correction of the exams during the investigation. Even then, with his experience and sharp mind, Harvey may survive the horrors of Dunwich. Maybe.

Harvey's study group is not alone. He called a friend, Roland Banks, who implemented new directives to improve his duties as fed. He is now supported by a lot of cops and field agents.

Just for measure, Harvey has contacted an old colleague, who happens to know a lot of secrets, some of them useful for this investigation.

Will they be able to protect humanity from horrors beyond time and space or will they perish? No one knows.

This is the deck I hope I'll end up running at the end of The Dunwich Legacy campaign in Hard Mode. The idea of the deck is to abuse hard of busted cards like The Necronomicon and Ancient Stone alongside Professor William Webb to reuse them as many times as neccesary to win.

I wanted to try Forced Learning since it can trigger Harvey's , the Ancient Stone and because of deck acceleration. Using the heightened card draw and Mr. "Rook", the goal is to fish Thrice-Damned Curiosity fast to mitigate the damage and to find the busted cards fast. It may not be optimal, but it can be fun at least.

Since Harvey wants to play Laboratory Assistant and Professor William Webb at the same time, Miskatonic Archaeology Funding is a great card for this deck. This enables playing another Laboratory Assistant or even Mr. "Rook" at the same time.

This is Hard Mode, so there are some cards that can get clues testless on this deck, some defensive events to survive the worst this campaign has to offer, a boat-load of cash events to do busted-card recursion and not be broke and some skills that synergize well with Harvey and/or allow to face hard tests against the daunting chaos bag.

• Hard mulligan for Mr. "Rook". Use him to fish Thrice-Damned Curiosity, Professor William Webb and/or your busted cards. Don't worry if you can't find him, this deck has enough card draw to find the cards needed relatibly fast.
• Get a big hand playing one or two Laboratory Assistant and Vault of Knowledge. If you get there, you'll get free 4 testless clues.
• Get clues! You want to get as many testless clues as possible with The Necronomicon, Empirical Hypothesis, Working a Hunch and Extensive Research. With 5 , the chaos bag is not that dangerous, even in Hard, so use Magnifying Glass, some skills and maybe commit some cards you'll draw that you won't need to play just to be around +4 or +5 above the veil during the tests to get easy clues.
• Get money with Cryptic Writings, Burning the Midnight Oil and Crack the Case doing what Harvey does best, investigating and drawing cards.
• If needed, protect yourself playing Bizarre Diagnosis to heal damage and Logical Reasoning to heal horror or deal with some annoying Terror treacheries that you or the other players can draw. At least one copy of Forewarned is a MUST in Dunwich since Beyond the Veil (worst designed card in the whole game) can KILL Harvey because of the turbo-nature of Harvey decks.
• Destroy your enemies with Occult Invocation and, the star of the "seeker weapons", Ancient Stone. The rocks triggers when Forced Learning is activated during upkeep phase, allowing you to deal 2-3 damage testless and actionless if Harvey's is triggered as well. If you have 3 evidences in Empirical Hypothesis and your stone has 7 secrets (I can do it, so you can do it), you can play Preposterous Sketches, use Harvey's to draw another card and spend 3 evidence to draw another 3 cards, then you can burn 7 secrets to deal 7 damage testless with only 1 action! Oh my! And NOW, imagine that you pull this plays while you have the two stones in play. Big numbers here.
• And the BIG stategy: Use Magnifying Glass to discard your empty busted cards and recycle them with Professor William Webb. Use Truth from Fiction to replenish secrets from Professor William Webb, therefore, oiling your deck-engine. If the secrets aren't needed for Webb, you may even replenish Eon Chart to get some accions.

Even if the engine of the deck is combo-focused, having 5 , 23 events, 8 skills and lots of draw shall allow Harvey to get clues while doing the whole setup.

1 copy of Forewarned is enough in Dunwich, since only one copy of Beyond the Veil can be played in your threat area at the same time and you only need to deal with it once before your deck is cycled. Just be aware of other Hex when you decide to play it. If you play TCU or Carcosa there are even more treacheries (and Terror cards) that are played in your threat area, so 2x Forewarned and Logical Reasoning gain a lot of value.

• This is a Secrets synergy deck, but unfortunatly I do miss some pool. Astounding Revelation, Eldritch Sophist and Ariadne's Twine enhance this kind of decks.
• I'm running Eon Chart because I like it and because of the secrets I can fill with Truth from Fiction. It may gain some actions during the game, but it is 1 exp. If you happen to have Dream Diary on your card pool it may be a better option, since more skills equal bigger numbers on tests where you need to be at a +4 to be really sure about your odds. You also may want to add Grisly Totem is also a good option.
• If you have the Innsmouth pool, the Curse builds on the seem powerful. In Hard mode cards like Gaze of Ouraxsh, Stirring Up Trouble and Cryptic Grimoire gain a lot of value since they give benefits testeless, and even then you can face the test without any fear thanks to Blasphemous Covenant.
• Henry's deck brings lots of goodies, so if you miss some cards don't worry, use some of them instead. Hell, I really advice playing his precon, it is quite good.
• Perception is a draw-card skill. If you don't like any of the skills I have proposed for this deck use it.
• Knowledge is Power can get you free clues while The Necronomicon is in your hand.
• Versatile gives you access to Scavenging, making Professor William Webb obsolete in this kind of deck, but it I'd drop Forced Learning since a 50 card deck can really slow you down since you are not Mandy.
• Research Librarian finds yoy The Necronomicon in your inmense deck. If you don't think the enhanced draw of this deck is enough, you may want to add a copy.

I hope I get 22 exp in Dunwich as the last time I played this campaign. Using In the Thick of It gets me to 25 exp, and it is a good card for Harvey since he is quite sturdy.

With the 3 exp from In the Thick of It buy 2x Ancient Stone. I had a spare point that I decided to use for Eon Chart because I like it but it may be a better option to buy Field Research from Empirical Hypothesis. Since in Extracurricular Activities (2º scenario) the Sorcery encounter set is present, you may want to buy Forewarned asap.

Then, aim for The Necronomicon and Ancient Stone as fast as you can. If you haven't yet, buy Forewarned before The Miskatonic Museum. Then buy 2x Magnifying Glass to complete the engine.

I'd buy Miskatonic Archaeology Funding next. After this, buy the rest of the upgrades I suggested in this deck whenever you like with the experience you get.

I posted this deck in Spanish before without Forewarned, thinking that Logical Reasoning helped me against Beyond the Veil. I'll delete the prior since this one is the one I hope I'll get.

I used some of the templates Valentin1331 created for making guides here.