Patrice Hathaway finding clues and ducking trouble

I've played Patrice quite a bit over the course of several campaigns (Return to Night of the Zealot, Dunwich Legacy, Return to Carcosa, and Forgotten Age) and found her wild, card draw/discard mechanic to be a lot of fun. While agreeing with some in the Arkham community that find her mechanic a bit off-putting, I nevertheless find that it works really well for my play style. I've built this as a starting deck for a campaign which leans more into a support, off-cluever style than anything else. Broadly speaking, the deck offers tools for a generalist type build that does a bit of everything, maybe shying away from damage dealing as that really is not Patrice's strong suit; having said that, however, I did build a run-and-gun Patrice deck for Carnivale and Rougarou that was a blast to play, so it can be done.

Let's talk first about the overall approach to this deck, then discuss card choices. First, it is critical to remember that Patrice literally dumps her whole hand every turn and redraws a fresh hand. This is going to regularly create situations where you are holding a hand of cards that you don't want at that exact moment. Patrice's Violin helps to limit this problem, but it is a factor to think about. With that in mind, I wanted cards that can be used in multiple different situations that also do not have a high resource cost since resources, too, can be unpredictable in this deck. Patrice's role here is generalist, but really wanting to avoid fights if possible, so that, too, informed my choices.

With all of that said, here are my rationales for the cards:

1. Dark Horse: this sets the tone for the build. I know that my resource generation is limited, Patrice's Violin notwithstanding, so I want to use that to my advantage. With so many zero cost cards, I might as well bump stats, making her solid with willpower and almost respectable in everything else.

2. Scavenging/Scrounge for Supplies/Resourceful: okay, yes, this definitely seems like overkill, but remember that (a) I am using 5 cards every turn either through playing them or by forced discard and (b) there is a good chance the cards that I want "right now" are going to be in my discard pile so I need to be able to consistently pull them.

3. Quantum Flux: I've had the very unfortunate experience of being "decked" multiple times with Patrice and not been able to handle the consequences. Quantum Flux is my "get out of jail free" card.

4. Drawn to the Flame: every mystic's best friend. There may be a mystic deck out there that does not include this card, but I have not yet stumbled upon it.

5. Deny Existence/Ward of Protection: basic self-defense against an uncooperative encounter deck. Most of my mystic decks include these two cards, in fact, I might just rate them as auto-includes.

6. Live and Learn: plays into the survivor mechanic of having a second chance to beat a skill test. ? icon also makes it useful for any type of skill test.

7. Defiance: another near auto-include for me. This helps to deal with an unfriendly chaos bag, plus the ? icon for skill tests.

8. Able Bodied: a weird card, but one that I like here since Patrice is running item-light in this build (she will more often than not have 2 or less items in play at any one time, so she gets the benefit of the additional icons).

9. Perception/Unexpected Courage: because picking up clues is part of winning the game and if Patrice isn't helping to fight, then she has to be able to help with clueing.

10. Last Chance/Promise of Power: different cards that feed into the same kind of idea: I need to pass this test, right here, right now. Five/four ? icons will usually get you over the hump of skill tests in normal or hard mode.

11. Predestined: adding bless tokens or subtracting curse tokens added by Promise of Power.

12. Prophesy: one of my favorite cards, both in terms of function and artwork. In a fair number of multi-player scenarios, doom acceleration is pretty fast. This usually means that by the time I pull a Prophesy, I'll get two, maybe even 3 ? icons out of it.

13. Take Heart: lucky number 13. This is one that is auto-include for me in most survivor decks. It plays into the overall "fail forward" mindset of the survivor class (which also powers House Martell decks in AGoT LCG 2nd edition). This gives Patrice access to even more card draw plus two resources which might be needed to play one of the few "expensive" cards (Dark Horse Gravedigger's Shovel, Lantern, Patrice's Violin).

And there you have it. By no means is this a perfect deck or even a particularly powerful deck, but it is a lot of fun to play given Patrice's style and generally gives you some kind of tool for most situations. Again, the deck is a bit weak for fighting, but that's not really Patrice's role. Ideally, this deck will be played as generalist/support in a three or four-player game. I can see it working with a walking chainsaw partner in two-player (maybe Zoey or Mark), but the deck will struggle a bit with 4 or higher shroud locations so that may not be the best option.

As far as upgrades go, here is a rough road-map that I followed for three campaigns:

Stray Cat (1) -> Miss Doyle[1 xp] and the cat army

Gravedigger's Shovel (2) -> Gravedigger's Shovel (2) [2 xp each]

Ward of Protection (2) -> Ward of Protection(2) [2 xp each]

Defiance (2) -> Defiance (2) (2 xp each]

Scavenging -> Scavenging [2 xp]

Unexpected Courage (2) -> Unexpected Courage (2) [2 xp each]

If taking too much damage then Leather Coat-> Leather Coat (1 xp). If taking too much horror, then Cherished Keepsake -> Cherished Keepsake (1 xp), although you could also replace Cherished Keepsake with St. Hubert's Key or Key of Ys (5 xp). I don't like St. Hubert's Key because of its expense (4 resources), but others might not mind so much. Key of Ys is a BIG xp drop, but the stat boost and horror soak is really nice.

Feel free to offer any suggestions on improvements as I'm always looking to hone this deck for future campaigns. I definitely like some of the other survivor ally cards and a few of the other mystic cards, but have found that this deck is just a good start for me in most campaigns.