All Skulls Jim

Upgrades (putting this here as people might not want to read the whole block):

2x Flashlight 2x Protective Incantation

2x Shrivelling 2x Song of the Dead

2x Guts 2x Seal of the Elder Sign (guaranteed ; fetchable with Arcane Initiate)

1x Mists of R'lyeh 1x Bind Monster

2x Ritual Candles 2x Grotesque Statue

2x Arcane Initiate 2x Arcane Initiate

You might want Jewel of Aureolus in there, but I'm not sure what to take out for it.

Emergency Cache and Ward of Protection can be upgraded as you see fit.

You can upgrade Leather Coat into Bulletproof Vest if you take a lot of physical trauma.

While the Seal mechanic was introduced with Father Mateo, and is considered by some to be "his thing," I think Jim makes far better use of it. This deck is designed around sealing as many non- tokens as you can (generally 2) to increase your odds of drawing a , and abusing his ability to pass tests that would make other investigators quail. Cards that benefit from s are a must, and cards that increase the odds of draws are also very helpful. Additionally, it's important to remember that his second ability makes the into a anytime he reveals it, not just during skill tests (especially important with Dark Prophecy).

So... how to leverage your odds? Since I made this deck in a vacuum, I simply put cards in that allow the deck to fight and investigate. The more I tweaked the deck, the more I realized that Arcane Studies is essential for putting you at 0 for any relevant tests, so a lot of economy is included. Jim's naturally average can be buffed to investigate, and Flashlights are also included to help with that. Shrivelling, the go-to Mystic combat option, is included even though it de-synergizes with Jim's abilities and desire to see s. Similarly, Mists of R'lyeh is included as an Evade option, but both of these will be switched out in pretty short order once we get some XP. Other cards, like Leather Coat and St. Hubert's Key, are there to shore up your health and sanity and buff your relevant stats, while Arcane Initiate will help you find your spells (remember that Hypnotic Gaze and Ward of Protection are Spells as well!). In multiplayer, you could probably be even greedier, with fewer investigate options and more ways to set up (econ cards, etc). Depending on team comp, you might want to adjust other aspects as well (there is great synergy with another Mystic running their own copies of Protective Incantation to spread the slot/resource cost to seal 3 tokens).

In execution, you'll want to look for your spells first, like any Mystic. Shrivelling is preferred, I would probably mulligan Mists from any starting hand. Since your only way to Seal tokens in the first scenario is The Chthonian Stone, that should be your second priority for an asset. Arcane Initiates are decent in your opening hand, but I would mulligan for spells. All your events require setup, so don't keep those, but you might keep Lone Wolf, since its impact is greatest if played first turn. Your second hand should either hold your Trumpet or a Flashlight, depending on what the scenario needs. Ritual Candles are really a placeholder until you get one of those and the Stone. If you need Arcane Studies to reliably hit 0 on tests, keep it in your hand; otherwise, mulligan.

Is it actually good? Maybe not. I've not actually played the deck yet; this is entirely theorycraft. It's possible that the rig to Seal tokens (2 cards, 1 Arcane slot, 1 hand slot, 1 resource/turn, actions/resources to draw/play them) is just too cumbersome to use reliably, but I haven't tested it. Also I feel like I haven't used my "flexible five" slots as well as I possibly could, except for Lone Wolf, but I always feel that way with Dunwich Investigators. While I think the idea is cool and fun, I wouldn't by any means call this deck competitive.

Below I did some math for Jim's odds in the various campaigns, depending on the different Chaos Bags. All these examples are on Hard and treat the token as a . If you're curious about lower difficulties, there are generally fewer tokens in the bag so your odds are better for drawing s (and you'd have to Seal fewer to reach 20%), while on higher difficulties there's usually 1 more token so your odds are lower.

Chaos Bag Math (percentages rounded for clarity):

NotZ: For the first two scenarios, there are 17 tokens in the bag, 3 of which are s. Our base chance to draw a is 17%. With 2 Sealed, we reach our target point of 20% saturation, which is important because if 1 in 5 tokens are s, we can reasonably expect Dark Prophecy to work. That being said, this campaign is the worst for this deck due to the massive amount of tokens in the bag and the fact that in Scenario III, you add a token to the bag, pushing you off that 20% mark.

Dunwich: For most of the campaign, depending on Investigator choices, there are 16 tokens in the bag, 3 of which are s. Our odds are about 19% to draw a . Each token we Seal increases our odds by >1%, reaching 20% with only a single Sealed token. With 3 Sealed tokens, the current maximum possible, we get up to 23%, which is pretty cool but requires 2 resources/turn and both your Arcane slots; not worth.

Carcosa: For most of the campaign, there are 18 tokens in the bag, 4(!!) of which are s. Your odds of drawing a are about 22% right off the bat! With only 2 tokens sealed (which is probably where the deck wants to sit), we get up to 25% to draw a , which is absolutely insane, frankly. Easily Jim's best campaign for this deck.

Forgotten Age: There are 14 tokens in the bag at the start of the campaign, and it looks like it will behave similar to Dunwich in terms of Investigator actions determining token additions. Assuming we add none, there are 3 s, giving us a 21% chance to draw a with no Seals; not quite Carcosa, but still great. With 2 tokens Sealed, we again reach 25%, a fantastic place to be. Of course, this may change as we see more of the campaign unfold.

In conclusion, when we consider the three 0s in the chaos bag, our base odds of success against a 0-sum test for each campaign are 35%, 38%, 39% and 43%, respectively, with no tokens Sealed. That's just Jim, baseline. This is why the pump from Arcane Studies and the Seals are so important, since the pump can get you up to 0 and the seals remove especially bad tokens.

Edit: Whoop, forgot Grotesque Statue exists; it's kind of a good card :p. Even without recursion from Scavenging it's well worth the xp. Also included a blurb about Jewel of Areolus, since its synergy with Jim is great.