Blursed Frat Bro "Cold Narly" Trips Through Life

Lore:

After a messed up childhood tug-of-war between his harsh religious upbringing and his frequent encounters with the horrifically supernatural, Kohaku left Tokyo to study abroad in Arkham. He embraced the teachings of his new frosh friends and set out on a mission to forget the nightmarish sights of his past by getting royally fucked up on any and all manner of psychotropics, psychedelics, pills and liquids: if you can name it, odds are 'Cold Narly' has done it, and done it hardcore. Naturally this lead to pursuit of an anthro major to allow for maximum frattitude with local collegiate cult. Now Cold Narly wanders, adrift in a world of acid flashbacks and staring into space. What is real? What is the meaning of reality? Cold Narly seeks these answers and the path to them through any occult nicknack or drug that can make the curtain of reality draw back slightly. Hearing of strange or unnatural occurrences draws him like a moth to free-base vapor. He slaps his knees and groans upright with a 'whelllpp' before putting on his trusty old book-bag from university and walking out the door on his latest adventure...

Overview:

This deck seeks to take advantage of Paradoxical covenant by flooding the bag with curse and bless tokens via Kohaku's investigator ability, increase the likelihood of encountering both token types with cards like Favor of the Sun/Moon and Book of Living Myths, and passively get bonuses for having curses in the bag to counteract their negative effects. It always has options for dealing with his signature weakness from the get-go via Occult Lexicon. Of note, rather than control the bag's curses and blesses on a tight leash, this deck saturates the bag and then leans on Paradoxical Covenant and other cards to mitigate the high density of curses. Cold Narly rides high.

This deck is a flex designed to be passable in true solo, but has some awkwardness in setup time and tutoring requirements. in Multiplayer, having teammates to pick up some slack early on and then allowing them auto passing tests later on just by being near you is also very nice. What you truly lose in multiplayer is control over the bag, since your 'friends' may draw all your curse/bless tokens before your next turn.

While I could make a long write-up here, i think just reading through the upgrade discussion below should give an idea of how the deck plays and the idea behind how it develops.

Is this deck good? Haven't played it enough times to say for sure. But goddamn it's fun, and you cant beat that theme that will hit your ribs as you watch poor Cold Narly trip the fuck out in front of some monsters. Is that magic hes using in the middle of day on a crowded Arkham street? Is it the acid starting to hit? Guess it's in the eye of the beer-holder.

The following upgrade path is more of a suggested order within each section, though an upgrade section should probably be finished before moving on.

Core setup upgrades [9 XP]:

• Scrimshaw Charm x 2 -> Prismatic Spectacles x 2
• Olive McBride x 2 -> Gabriel Carillo x 2
• Delve Too Deep -> Favor of the Moon
• Dark Prophecy x 2 -> Favor of the Sun x 2

The first thing to do is to get cluing online while still providing a curse engine via Prismatic Spectacles. You still have other options for economy with Faustian Bargain and Rite of Sanctification, so Scrimshaw Charm wont be missed.

Next, raw-drawing it comes in the form of Gabriel Carillo. Soon you wont care as much about The loss of Olive McBride (and similarly Dark Prophecy), because we will then be getting Favor of the Sun and Favor of the Moon finished off, which will allow for more controlled execution of Paradoxical Covenant and general reduction of curses in the bag and improving your curse spells.

Secondary setup upgrades [9 XP]:

• Holy Rosary x 2 -> Token of Faith x 2
• Occult Reliquary

Next comes the spike in our blessing production in the form of Token of Faith. Nothing much to say here, except that in multiplayer this helps make your friends less salty. Note that we are moving away from solid baseline will. The idea is to move away from strict will reliance through Spectacles, Rod of Carnamagos, and use our skill cards, Cat Mask, and our blursed-tutors with Paradoxical Covenant to pass key tests .

Now we have two accessories we really want, so we use Occult Reliquary for flexibility, Arguably you could upgrade this first.

If you want to bend more toward fighter, this would be a good time to switch your Guided by Faith for something like Dawn Star or Gaze of Ouraxsh. The former is cheaper, and we will eventually replace these anyway with Seal of the Elders.

Shoring-Up upgrades [9 XP]:

• Eye of Chaos x 1 -> The Key of Solomon x 1
• Promise of Power x 2 -> Fey x 2
• Relic Hunter

We are adding The Key of Solomon a bit late for some people probably. The resources are nice of course, but at this point in a campaign xp-wise the healing is very nice to counteract that trauma provided by In the Thick of It.

Now we have 3 hands and two accessories we want, so picking up Relic Hunter is nice. This is arguably unnecessary along with Occult Reliquary, but I found it was nice when fully set up.

Slam Dunk upgrades [25 XP]:

• Guided by Faith x 2 -> Seal of the Elders x 2
• Cat Mask -> Broken Diadem
• Tempt Fate x 2 -> Rite Of Equilibrium x 2
• Backpack x 2 -> Backpack x 2

Both Seal of the Elders and Broken Diadem are amazing cards which provide a) a massive option for both flex roles, and b) a second Paradoxical Covenant. They are incredible in this deck because of blursed saturation/control.

If you feel that you still aren't setting up fast enough, upgrade to Backpack. You can of course do this way earlier as well.

Finally, I thought I would mention Rite of Equilibrium. This card can be a very fast way to blurse the bag, true, but this isn't really necessary in this deck. The real use for it is to heal Keeper of the Key and Servant of Brass provided by Seal of the Elders, keeping them around the whole scenario. Again, not entirely necessary but great upgrades right before the final big-bad-boy if you have the XP.