Onee-sama Unshackled

Introduction

This grossly over-levelled deck spawned forth from a desire to experiment, primarily with our newest Support-, Sister Mary. After completing a quick Return to NotZ, however, I found myself glimpsing into Sister Mary's full potential... Could it be... An investigator to finally unlock the true power of THEMSELF???

No, Empower Self still kinda sucks, even in this deck.

However, I did manage to complete The Dream Quest on Hard after starting with some bonus exp from RtNotZ, and I will admit I am rather impressed with how well my fellow investigator and I demolished certain scenarios. (For clarification, my partner and I split up our bonus exp investigators from RtNotZ, pairing them with fresh, level 0 investigators to tackle the Dream-Eaters.)

Regardless though, I have found it fairly unique when compared to the many past Arkham investigator decks I've run, so here I am, sharing it. I'm usually an advocate for consistency being king in card games, however this particular build leverages taking advantage of whatever the deck throws at you, kind of like playing a roguelike. Here's the core build and how it plays:

Core Overview

Empower Self + Well Prepared x2 is the bread and butter of this build. Having this core out will allow you to test whichever Empower Self skill at +2 three times a turn or at +6 once per turn. Much more commonly thought of, Armor of Ardennes also combos nicely with Well Prepared for boosts to either Willpower or Combat, though it's far from necessary.

This alone is really the whole point of the deck. When trying it out for yourself, things like weapons, clue-gathering, etc are all customizable as you wish. This particular setup was something of a Flex role, with focus on enemy management and boss killing.

The core fantasy, however, of squeezing every drop of usefulness out of this inane setup does require some specific support to help you get enough of the pieces out quickly and cheaply. Namely: Rite of Sanctification, Ever Vigilant, Stand Together, and Stick to the Plan.

Ever Vigilant is the real star here, bringing out 3/13 potential assets at -3 resource cost for one action. In fact, it's so good, it's basically the entire reason we get SttP so early. Ensuring you begin a scenario with Ever Vigilant ready to play contributes to much-needed, guaranteed action compression.

The Shotgun Combo

The second brilliant discovery of this deck occurred when I realized the Shotgun could leverage that aforementioned absurd +6 boost.

With everything proccing together, you should be able to fight at 12 + whatever Blessed tokens you happen to grab. This will easily get you that 5 damage per shot cap the Shotgun offers, and can even be repeated for a total of 25 damage with just the lowly addition of one Extra Ammunition.

On an EXP Budget

Well, of course any investigator deck can crush campaigns when ending with 60 exp. That's just pure absurdity! What about at lower levels?

Your main core for this kind of build is: Empower Self, Well Prepared, Ever Vigilant, and SttP for a total of 14 exp. Everything else is absolutely interchangeable.

I personally ran Blessed Blade and Book of Psalms (partnered with that glutton for horror, Finn Edwards) much longer than I probably should have, didn't add the second copy of Armor of Ardennes until the final scenario, outgrew the need for a Sacred Covenant very quickly as I adapted my deck to its current form, and never actually got to play that Key of Ys.

You can also keep the boosted Shotgun combo with just one copy, as long as you have Prepared for the Worst and Extra Ammunition beneath Stick to the Plan.

Closing

This was a really fun build to run. I'd do a little something different every scenario based on which copy(ies) of Empower Self or Well Prepared got drawn, contributing to a play experience that highly rewarded adaptability and in-game decision-making.

Let me know if you try this out yourself or come up with any edits to make this run in a totally different direction. I'd be interested in seeing what other weird Empower Self builds y'all can craft up or, even better, optimize into a real ringer of a deck.