Harvey's IMPROVED Miskatonic group trip to Dunwich

Credits: Fantasy Fly Games

TL;DR: Flex / cluever Harvey deck for 2-player hard mode Dunwich abusing busted cards.

POOL : Core, Starter decks, Dunwich, Carcossa, TFA, TCU, EotE, TsK.

THIS IS ANOTHER VERSION OF A DECK I POSTED SOME DAYS AGO. To sum up, the changes I made are if you read that deck are this:

• NO Forewarned. It does not work as I say in the last post. I did not read the card at all! I thought it worked like a sort of Alter Fate, but it does NOT. Instead I run Dr. William T. Maelstrom to avoid Beyond the Veil if needed.
• NO Laboratory Assistant. More hand size is nice, but playing Vault of Knowledge is enough and I am not playing Forbidden Tome. I can draw two cards towards the hand size during my turn using trigger of Mr. "Rook" + trigger of Harvey Walters and then play Extensive Research for free. Or even paying 2 resources for 2 clues testeless. In any difficulty mode this is good enough.
• NO EXP on Empirical Hypothesis to buy the trait Empirical Truth. Testless clues are nice, but I found out since I tested this deck that Harvey won't have that much trouble getting clues when needed with his massive 5 and the whole ton of icons in the deck. Dunwich scenarios aren't really that long, so it is kinda hard to build up that many evidences you could use to draw cards fast and trigger some in this deck. Instead, I decided to buy level 4 Eon Chart since I love this version so much and using Truth from Fiction in this card grants a lot of actions.

Mid-term exams just ended, and Harvey has to go through a lot of exams from his students, but Dr. Henry Armitage needs helps finding some colleagues after having a really bad feeling. Along his students and his very VERY good friends William Webb and William T. Maleson, using a bit a cash of the grant they received last years, they'll face some nameless horrors far from any relic or book they have studied before.

He's old, some battle scars may burden him, and because of the end of the mid term exams he may need to rush the correction of the exams during the investigation. Even then, with his experience and sharp mind, Harvey may survive the horrors of Dunwich. Maybe.

Harvey's study group is not alone. He called a friend, Roland Banks, who implemented new directives to improve his duties as fed. He is now supported by a lot of cops and field agents.

Just for measure, Harvey has contacted an old colleague, who happens to know a lot of secrets, some of them useful for this investigation.

Will they be able to protect humanity from horrors beyond time and space or will they perish? No one knows.

This is the deck I hope I'll end up running at the end of The Dunwich Legacy campaign in Hard Mode. The idea of the deck is to abuse hard of busted cards like The Necronomicon and Ancient Stone alongside Professor William Webb to reuse them as many times as neccesary to win.

I wanted to try Forced Learning since it can trigger Harvey's , the Ancient Stone and because of deck acceleration. Using the heightened card draw and Mr. "Rook", the goal is to fish Thrice-Damned Curiosity fast to mitigate the damage and to find the busted cards fast. It may not be optimal, but it can be fun at least.

Since Harvey wants to play Dr. William T. Maleson to avoid some BS this campaign packs and Professor William Webb at the same time, Miskatonic Archaeology Funding is a great card for this deck. This enables playing all your Miskatonic allies and Mr. "Rook" at the same time. You can even use Dr. Henry Armitage if you manage to save him since he can get you a lot of resources thanks to your massive card draw.

This is Hard Mode, so there are some cards that can get clues testless on this deck, some defensive events to survive the worst this campaign has to offer, a boat-load of cash events to do busted-card recursion and not be broke and some skills that synergize well with Harvey and/or allow to face hard tests against the daunting chaos bag.

• Hard mulligan for Mr. "Rook". Use him to fish Thrice-Damned Curiosity, Professor William Webb and/or your busted cards. Don't worry if you can't find him, this deck has enough card draw to find the cards needed relatibly fast. If Sorcery is among the encounter sets, rush to find Dr. William T. Maleson during the mulligan or by Rook's .

• Get clues! You want to get as many testless clues as possible with The Necronomicon, Working a Hunch and Extensive Research. With 5 , the chaos bag is not that dangerous, even in Hard, so use Magnifying Glass, Grim Memoir, some skills and maybe commit some cards you'll draw that you won't need to play just to be around +4 or +5 above the veil during the tests to get easy clues.

• Get money with Cryptic Writings, Burning the Midnight Oil and Crack the Case doing what Harvey does best, investigating and drawing cards. This deck even allows you to play Dr. Henry Armitage during this campaign, and he can get you a lot of resources using his .

• If needed, protect yourself playing Bizarre Diagnosis to heal damage and Logical Reasoning to heal horror or deal with some annoying Terror treacheries that you or the other players can draw. If you want to draw without any fear you NEED to play Dr. William T. Maleson since in this campaign Beyond the Veil can KILL Harvey.

• Destroy your enemies with Occult Invocation and, the star of the "seeker weapons", Ancient Stone. The rocks triggers when Forced Learning is activated during upkeep phase, allowing you to deal 2-3 damage testless and actionless if Harvey's is triggered as well. If you have 3 evidences in Empirical Hypothesis and your stone has 7 secrets (I can do it, so you can do it), you can play Preposterous Sketches, use Harvey's to draw another card and spend 3 evidence to draw another 3 cards, then you can burn 7 secrets to deal 7 damage testless with only 1 action! Oh my! And NOW, imagine that you pull this plays while you have the two stones in play. Big numbers here.

• And the BIG stategy: Use Magnifying Glass to discard your empty busted cards and recycle them with Professor William Webb. he can even recycle Grim Memoir if needed. Use Truth from Fiction to replenish secrets from Professor William Webb, therefore, oiling your deck-engine. If the secrets aren't needed for Webb, you may even replenish Eon Chart to get some accions.

Even if the engine of the deck is combo-focused, having 5 , 22 events, 8 skills and lots of draw shall allow Harvey to get clues while doing the whole setup. In some scenarios, since they are kinda short, you won't even have the time to build up the whole setup, so the deck needs to do its job decently even without all your assets.

• This is a Secrets synergy deck, but unfortunatly I do miss some pool. Astounding Revelation, Eldritch Sophist and Ariadne's Twine enhance this kind of decks.
• I'm running Eon Chart because I like it and because of the secrets I can fill with Truth from Fiction. It may gain some actions during the game, but in the level 0 deck it is 1 exp. If you happen to have the whole card pool and you don't consider to buy the Lv 4 Eon Chart, it may be a better option to run Dream Diary, since more skills equal bigger numbers on tests where you need to be at least at +4 to be really sure about your odds. Grisly Totem is also a good option.
• If you have the Innsmouth pool, the Curse builds on the seem powerful. In Hard mode cards like Gaze of Ouraxsh, Stirring Up Trouble and Cryptic Grimoire gain a lot of value since they give benefits testeless, and even then you can face the test without any fear thanks to Blasphemous Covenant.
• Henry's deck brings lots of goodies, so if you miss some cards don't worry, use some of them instead. Hell, I really advice playing his precon, it is quite good.
• Perception is a draw-card skill. If you don't like any of the skills I have proposed for this deck use it.
• Knowledge is Power can get you free clues while The Necronomicon is in your hand.
• Versatile gives you access to Scavenging, making Professor William Webb obsolete in this kind of deck, but it I'd drop Forced Learning since a 50 card deck can really slow you down since you are not Mandy.
• Research Librarian finds The Necronomicon and Grim Memoir in your inmense deck. If you don't think the enhanced draw of this deck is enough, you may want to add a copy.

I've tested the deck in a Standalone. With 29 exp you may want to buy some goodies like Deduction or Extensive Research. In the end, I only need 24 exp to get to the basis.

I hope I get 21 exp in Dunwich as the last time I played this campaign I got 22. Using In the Thick of It gets me to 24 exp, and it is a good card for Harvey since he is quite sturdy.

With the 3 exp from In the Thick of It buy 2x Ancient Stone. I had a spare point that I decided to use for Eon Chart because I want to use the Level 4 version of this card.

I got 5 exp in the first scenario, so, since in Extracurricular Activities (2º scenario) there are some thick enemies that give you Victory Points and the boss is kinda sturdy I bought the first improved Ancient Stone. With the 2 remaining EXP I bought Field Research trait from Empirical Hypothesis and the first Lv 1 Magnifying Glass taking taking 1 copy of "I've got a plan!" out of the deck.

I got another 5 exp in the second scenario. Since I want to play all my allies and because I had to rush the fuck out of this scenario because of Beyond the Veil, I decided to buy Miskatonic Archaeology Funding to play the allies I need + Dr. Henry Armitage while having Dr. William T. Maleson played as fast as possible because the next scenario is a bit longer and the three copies of Beyond the Veil make a appearance, again. I also bought the second Magnifying Glass.

From here, I will aim for The Necronomicon to accelerate the clue-getting and then for the latter scenarios, Ancient Stone will help me to beat ass. If I don't see my BF's Parallel Roland in need for damage, this could wait and I could buy the copy of the Lv 4 Eon Chart instead. The decision will be made evaluating our needs in the future scenarios.

I used some of the templates Valentin1331 created for making guides here.