Mary & Carolyn - The ultimate support (15 xp)

• This deck is meant to be played in a group of 3 players, the other 2 being the main cluever and main fighter.

• The main cluever would be Carolyn Fern using The Key of Solomon to heal Field Agents. Go check her deck for details.

• The choice for the main fighter is left open, as I mainly wanted to explore the synergy between Sister Mary and The Key of Solomon. I recommend to pick a fighter that has low , can use Radiant Smite and can flex into investigating at low level, until Carolyn gets to 11 xp. So Tony Morgan or Marion Tavares could fit. Bonus points if you pick Marion as you'd have a cool thematic team composition.

• Control the mythos phase
  • Play First Watch repeatedly with The Book of War
• Fill the bag with bless tokens
  • Consistently trigger Holy Rosary(2) by controlling the mythos phase
• Support the team's economy
  • Ever Vigilant(4) for the early setup
  • Rite of Sanctification for the long run
• Flexing
  • Fight/Investigate/Evade with your spells
  • Consistently trigger spell recursion with Katarina Sojka

Controlling the Mythos & Generating bless tokens

• First Watch Probably one of the best tactics you can recur with The Book of War. Give enemies to your fighter, testing treacheries to yourself, and cancel evil revelation effects.
• The Book of War The card is quite expensive, and guardians tend to struggle with economy, which is why I believe it is best suited in a support deck. Controlling the mythos phase multiple times with First Watch has immense value.
• "Let me handle this!" is here for redundancy in case you don't draw The Book of War early. You can upgrade out of it once the team has improved their economy.
• Holy Rosary With major control over the mythos phase, it should be possible to consistently test treacheries and fill the chaos bag with .
• Living Ink
  • Subtle Depiction lets you decide not to spend the charge during your turn and still benefit from the +1 during the mythos phase, which is your main concern.

Symbol token interactions

• Katarina Sojka Normally the 2 downsides of this card are increased odds of drawing and having to be able to deal with negative modifiers from ///.
  • Having a chaos bag filled with greatly reduces the odds of drawing .
  • The main use case for triggering Katarina is recurring the upgraded spell event suite, which adds your to your skill value, giving you high numbers. And you still get the card back if you draw .
• Upgraded spell event suite
  • Read the Signs Investigate with a base skill of 6, up to 8 with your assets. Should handle most locations, except maybe a combination of high shroud value & nasty symbol modifiers.
  • Spectral Razor Fight with a base skill of 7, up to 9. Should handle most enemies.
  • Ethereal Form Evade with a base skill of 7, up to 9. Should handle most enemies. I have included it as a one-off to help with boss fights, as it works on elite enemies.
  • Knowing the symbol modifiers in advance is beneficial as it lets you decide if you should spend the charge from Living Ink and commit the exact number of icons that you need, if any.
• Living Ink
  • Macabre Depiction is a guaranteed charge addition when you trigger Katarina Sojka. In combination with Subtle Depiction you can accumulate charges and spend them on Torrent of Power.
• Sacred Covenant Keep these tokens in the bag, the +2 modifier is unlikely to ever be relevant.

Economy

• Stick to the Plan with attached cards:
  • First Watch Core piece of this deck as explained before
  • Ever Vigilant I recommend that at least 3 assets from this card's effect are played by your teammates. Much of what this deck does is actionless (controlling the mythos is Fast, generating bless is ), so you don't mind spending actions to play your assets.
  • Emergency Cache makes sure you can always afford to play The Book of War
• Rite of Sanctification Starting resources, Emergency Cache and a couple of upkeep phases cover all your asset expenses. However, once the First Watch loop engin is on you no longer get resource income from the upkeep phase and still need to pay for your spell event suite. Rite of Sanctification conveniently provides the 2 resource cost reduction for these cards, in addition to helping your teammates.
• Scroll of Secrets The only card-drawing piece in this deck. Probably not sufficient, so one of your teammates will have to help with that. In this team composition (see introduction), Carolyn Fern provides card draw with Deep Knowledge, Thorough Inquiry, Hypnotic Therapy and Liquid Courage.

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• Although it says 28 experience required at the top of this page, its actually 15 xp with In the Thick of It and discounts from Arcane Research & Down the Rabbit Hole. This leaves plenty of room for further upgrades. I can see 3 roads you could take:
  • The safe road Replace "Let me handle this!" with 2 copies of True Awakening. Card draw and free clue or situational healing, this is probably the most efficient way to go.
  • The ultimate support road Replace "Let me handle this!" with 2 copies of Memories of Another Life. Give your team what they need for any given situation. I like this option because it makes the deck 12 assets / 10 events / 8 skills which is a good balance imo.
  • The funky/crazy road Replace "Let me handle this!" with 2 copies of Transfiguration. Become Nathaniel Cho and turn your Spectral Razors into 4 damage punches. Become Rex Murphy and turn your Read the Signs into 3 clue getting events. This is probably the least efficient option, but also the most funny.
• The upgrade path below is with option 1 and trying to optimize the xp discounts:

(View at arkham-starter.com)

Full xp deck