Hey everyone, and welcome to my contribution to the FHV Intro Deck Cycle!

If you're not sure what that is, check out this accompanying article on my blog, Strength in Numbers, where you can find a short description of the collaboration and a LOT of extra thoughts about Kate that wouldn't fit into this decklist: https://strengthinnumbersarkham.wordpress.com/2024/02/20/an-introduction-to-kate-winthrop/

As for the other amazing content creators contributing to this project, you can check out their work here (thanks to Val for the markdown, in case it wasn't clear by my usual formatting I have no idea how to do this stuff):

• Wilson Richards
  • DerBK from the Ancient Evils Blog
  • The Article about this Wilson Deck
  • The ArkhamDB Deck Guide
• Alessandra Zorzi
  • dscarpac from the Quick Learner Youtube channel
  • The Youtube video presenting the Deck
  • The ArkhamDB Deck
• Kōhaku Narukami
  • Valentin1331
  • The ArkhamDB Deck Guide
• Hank Samson
  • Justin from PlayingBoardGames [Youtube & Twitch]
  • The Youtube video presenting the Deck
  • The ArkhamDB Deck

And now, without further ado, let's get experimental!

Intro

I've loved Kate as a character for many years and across a wide variety of Arkham Files games, but certain aspects of her design–namely the Flux Stabilizer–usually fell short of the power and interesting gameplay I wanted from her.

But no longer is that the case! Now, Kate is packing a fascinating gameplay loop, and quite a lot of power besides. I get into the specifics of her loop in the accompanying article, so if you're having trouble wrapping your brain around it (and it certainly took me a bit!) you can pop over there; in summary, she cycles through a pattern of activating her Stabilizer, using all her clues for temporary stat boosts to charge it up, then discharging it via her signature Aetheric Currents. Then the process begins again!

So for this list, I decided to focus almost entirely on maximizing that core loop, since it's (obviously) unique to her; other Seeker strategies, or ones offered by her deckbuilding, will be discussed in the Variants section.

In order to do this, you need three things: assets for Kate to put clues on, clues to put on those assets, and an absolutely enormous amount of card draw. For the first two parts, I chose a full spread of 8 Science/Tool assets; depending on your player count and how much the rest of your team is clueving, you may want to increase or decrease this number.

As for the third need, there's a perfect card draw card that also enables the first two: Empirical Hypothesis! This was the last piece that really fell into place to bring this deck to life.

Building around Empirical Hypothesis with Alternative Hypothesis (and the help of Fine Tuning to ready it without changing the hypothesis) really makes you feel like a scientist as you set hypotheses, warp your gameplay (or that of your Peers) around fulfilling them, and save up a huge pile of evidence you can use whenever an enemy pops up to draw rapidly through your deck and grab an Aetheric Current, or just spend as you get it to keep your deck moving fast and help with early setup. You can even trigger the oversuccess hypothesis while passing the test on the Current of Yoth, trigger Alternative Hypothesis to switch to the Independent Variable hypothesis, resolve the test's success to discard the targeted enemy, and immediately resolve the new hypothesis, for two evidence in one test and (more importantly) a feeling of absolute scientific badassery.

There, we've got all our core elements sorted! Let's meet the good doctor properly.

Deck Breakdown

The first thing Kate wants to do in any scenario is set up her equipment! She's got research to do, after all, and no cosmic evils are going to get in the way of that. Fortunately, she carries it all with her and is practiced at fieldwork.

Once she's set up with her scanners and detectors, and has begun to formulate her hypotheses, she'll want to collect some clues to study. She can then use these clues to initialize her Flux Stabilizer, and use it to pass any of the tests a scenario will throw at her. Obviously investigation tests are top of the list, but her ability doesn't discriminate based on stat so any location or treachery tests are equally fair game. Kate can do anything she puts her mind to, with enough clues, equipment, and the help of her loyal intern Delphinia Bell!

With setup complete, Kate can begin rapidly cycling (drawing through and reshuffling) her deck via Empirical Hypothesis, Dream-Enhancing Serum, Delphinia (who will also counter the horror taken by cycling so much), and Perception. As reality thins, her dimensional tech gets more effective, represented by End of the Road; and as a good scientist, she learns from each failure and phases those weaknesses out of her equipment and her own approach, represented via one of my favorite cards, "Fool me once...". You'll want to save at least one of those to remove Failed Experiment from your deck; the more you cycle, the worse that weakness gets. The severity of your RBW will determine if you also need to lock it out, or if you can spare the second FMO to lock or cancel encounter cards.

What's the reward of all this cycling? Chiefly constant access to the Aetheric Currents, which are extraordinarily powerful enemy management tools that can one-shot or control the positioning of non-Elites, and allow Kate to use her superior intellect to fight or evade bosses. But it also means more uses of Deduction for compression, and Emergency Cache to keep your dimensional analyzers topped off.

Variants

• The elephant in the room is probably Archaic Glyphs. While I left it out of the deck here in pursuit of a more general (and perhaps less predictable) overall build, Guiding Stones is almost certainly the most powerful strategy available to Kate, with her built-in (and incredibly strong) buffs to oversuccess. Easy synergies like The Raven Quill and Knowledge is Power can take you in a more parapsychological direction, to tie you over until Agatha gets added to the game. Also, don't sleep on Markings of Isis, an insane card especially in a cycler which often gets overlooked because of the power of Guiding Stones.

• Another elephant, and one that completely dispenses with Kate's normal pattern, is Clue Drop. Research Notes may have gotten tabooed but it's still quite powerful, and if you're playing without taboo, frankly a little terrifying. This will consume a big chunk of your deck but it comes with all the normal rewards of Clue Drop PLUS the fact that you can drop clues off assets Kate has already clued with her ability–meaning that when you pick them up again, you're free to use them for her ability yet again, without relying solely on the Aetheric Currents to reset.

• On the topic of oversuccess, there's another new challenger in the ring for Seeker–the Ravenous Myconids! If you'd like to take your Kate in a more xenobiologist direction, all three are very powerful, whether you prefer mythos defense (the Sentient Strain), even more instakill power (the Carnivorous Strain), or healing (the Nurturing Strain).

• And speaking of healing, lots of healing cards are Science-traited, including the slotless Surgical Kit and First Aid! So an MD-PhD Kate is absolutely possible, keeping her allies topped off and adding Soul Sanctification to her pool of flexible +2s.

• Survival Technique is an absolutely fascinating new card from FHV, and as well as being a slotless Science card for Kate's ability, it opens some really interesting play patterns up for her. From classic Seeker cards like Shortcut for short hops through other realities, Map the Area for a local difficulty reduction if you're setting up a field laboratory, and Barricade to become a mobile forcefield keeping enemies out; to crazier picks like Breach the Door, which combined with her ability can permanently reduce shrouds to zero.

• Breach the Door also has other interesting interactions even without Survival Technique, such as enabling Shed a Light, reducing the aforementioned Sentient Myconid's growth requirement to 0 (whoa!), or synergizing with Clue Drop.

• From the mentions of Breach, Barricade, and Map some of you may already have caught on to Kate's position as a very strong Command Center deck. Setting up your mobile lab in one location and remaining there all game, via In the Know, Pendant of the Queen, and other ranged interactions, is both thematic and entertaining. Kate can even use Survival Technique to raise and lower her Barricade forcefield to allow allies in and out of the location; while there, she could use some of the healing we discussed earlier, or the powerful Alchemical Distillation both to keep her In the Knows charged and to offer economy to visiting investigators.

• Finally, if you're limited solely to FHV and a core set, here are some quick changes I would make to keep this deck functioning. Microscope, especially its upgraded version, can sub in for Fingerprint Kit. Cryptic Research is obviously amazing (and if you have the spare XP, fits well in the full card pool deck too) and can cover your lack of Empirical Hypothesis. Dr. Milan Christopher is likely your best bet for ally, although both Dr. Charles West III and Gabriel Carillo could make a case for themselves. The last few slots and the event array can be fleshed out with other science assets and tech or economy events from the core and FHV without too much trouble.

Conclusion

And thus concludes my research into Kate–I hope yours, however, is only just beginning! Do you agree with my hypotheses? With my conclusions? I'd love to hear from you in the comments here or over on my blog.

And once again, please check out the other creators who explored the other new investigators from Hemlock Vale! They're brilliant and way better at this than I am, and you can find links to all their content on the blog page I linked above.

Thank you so much for reading, and always remember–magic isn't science we don't understand, science is magic that we do!