"Just another day at the office..."

... he sighs. "Bonnie, would you please cancel all my meetings this afternoon?" he asks as he puts his gloves on, scanning the scene of the crime in all detail, just like he learned in the detective manuals this lady from the library recommended him. "And please call the Doktor and our friend from Mississippi. I will need their advice on some... unsettling matters." After a brief moment of contemplating the situation, he whistles, summoning his trusty dogs Claire and Sally to look for traces left behind by the perpetrator. A few hours later he sits down in his office chair, exhausted and tired. He sips on his drink before finally pulling out his trusted quill. "Bonnie, my dear. Please tell Sergeant Moore I will update him on what happened tomorrow." As he sinks back into his chair, thinking about the paperwork to be done, he sighs once again. "You can go home now. I can do the rest by myself."

Intro

Hello and welcome to my deck idea for Charlie Kane. Charlie is a really interesting and versatile Character and I am sure there will be plenty of ways to play him. I once tried him as a fighter using Abyssal Tome, Joey "The Rat" Vigil and Scavenging - it was alot of fun (and that was beofre Sin-Eater was spoilered, so it might get even better!).

This deck though is all about investigating and (ab)using The Raven Quill. Summoned Hound are pretty much a staple for Charlie the way I play him. It let's him get clues as free actions and also boosts his statline and enables him to defend himself a bit. You can always "cheat" them in with [A Chance Encounter to avoid their attached weakness. While trying him out the first few times it always felt odd to me to have "wasted actions" because all allys were exhausted so i just drew cards or took resources, which often felt... suboptimal atleast.

Deck Idea

But then The Raven Quill got spoilered and got me super excited! The ability to ready an asset? Sounds awesome! So I used it together with Encyclopedia. The idea behind this deck is the following: Once set up, you can initiate your turn using Summoned Hound for a free fight or investigation with 6 (due to Milan) or 5. Afterwards, the first action to take is using Encyclopedia and Abigail Foreman to boost any stat by +4. Because we attached The Raven Quill to it (and invested 4xp into it to get the "Living Quill" and "Interwoven Ink" upgrades), this does not provoke attacks of opportunity and allows us to ready our dog. We can now use another 3 free investigate or fight actions (because Bonnie Walsh also readys a dog) with a value of 10/9 (without boosting sthats through exhausting allies!) due to Encyclopedia. We then still have 3 actions thanks to Leo De Luca and a base value of 6/5! Thats a lot of stuff in one turn. No wonder Mr. Kane always looks so tired...

Choosing classes

For me it was no doubt that was the main choice all the time. First of all, I wanted to play A Chance Encounter. Secondly, level 0 cards are just insanely good!

I also thought a lot about using Short Supply, because it usually gives a lot of consistenc and "fake carddraw" with Resourceful, but I really disliked the idea of discarding Bonnie and decided to go for "normal" carddraw instead.

I went second because it has easy acces to -boosts, good carddraw and good allies for investigating. I think these are by far the best options for a clue gatherer Charlie, but there might still be some other really fun and interesting ways to play him I have never thought of!

Getting started

I personally would always start with 1/1 trauma on Charlie, just to get a dog and A Chance Encounter early to be able to do stuff. My starting version of the deck would probably look something like this: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/2382668

Upgrade path

From there on getting A Chance Encounter and Summoned Hound are the main priority. Afterwards I would go for the "Interwoven Ink" Upgrade on Raven Quill, then get Abigail and upgrade Encyclopedia last. After that I would add more carddraw like At a Crossroads (whicht I think is great!), Unrelenting instead of Plan of Action, and upgrade Perception. Remember that The Raven Quill also upgrades itself!

Conclusion

There you go, thanks for reading and I hope this is as fun for you as it was for me. I am sooo excited to play the Scarlet Key cards with my friends and wish you all a ton of fun!