Lola's Therapy Session

I call it Lola's Therapy Session because the deck attempts to attack Crisis of Identity and free Lola Hayes to be able to use her multiple classes. The idea is to use Alyssa Graham and Scrying to track the location of Crisis of Identity, which lets you spend more time in a role without risk of losing assets. Then you play assets and allies with passive effects such as Dark Horse and Magnifying Glass which are usable from any class. This results in a Lola that can focus on one or two roles while being good at well, everything.

This deck is currently tuned towards team play, but can easily be modified to play solo as well. It's a lot of text; I've spent a lot of time analyzing this but this is my first deck so there's a lot I may have glossed over. I like pairing her with a fighter, a character with more punch for Elites and the tougher enemies.

Note: When I was playing with William Yorick, he took Fight or Flight and Cherished Keepsake while I took Lucky!. I took Fearless and Manual Dexterity in its place. Replace skill cards with the aforementioned if you can't get the survivor cards, maybe even some Desperate Search/low sanity linup cards. I also took Delve Too Deep as a greedy choice. This deck is currently doing very well in terms of speed with about 5-7 turns before the last agenda passing. However, I've noticed that Lola Hayes takes a lot of damage and horror, often on the cusp of being defeated; so I've added cards for survivability.

Analysis

Crisis of Identity

To extend, Crisis of Identity tends you screw you over of your assets, so you want to find it and avoid it, or mitigate its damage as much as possible. Alyssa Graham allows you to look at it and place it at the bottom of the deck (which is fine for 1 doom because it'll only happen once per card). You can kill off Alyssa Graham when the agenda is about to switch to remove the doom.

Scrying

I think that Scrying is a very underrated card. It has the large and obvious downside of expending an action (the card and resource are negligible), but I've found that you almost always make up that tempo in manipulating the encounter deck, and then some. I think that it actually gets better the more players there are, as you can customize encounter cards for more players and be more efficient. With solo, the action you spend is much more pronounced.

Now the additional use of Scrying is allow you to manipulate and time Crisis of Identity so you're in a safe role and the card you discard is not valuable (discard a weakness if you're lucky?). Scrying is naturally decent versus the encounter deck, but really slow if you're just using it to peer through your deck. If you upgrade to Scrying III, then it's not as good versus the encounter deck (because you take so much horror), but it's great for your own, because it operates very fast. So far, I find the card to be very solid. Of course, this is harder to pull off in scenarios like Essex County Express, for example. The Dunwich Legacy has felt much more pressed for time than Dim Carcosa, or maybe that's just me.

Role of the Actress

For a standard Lola deck, you want to use as few classes as possible (3) so you don't have to switch between them.

is an obvious first pick to build the deck around because of Alyssa Graham. I ended up dropping Shrivelling/Holy Rosary throughout the run because Yorick was more than enough for a primary damage source, and Fire Axe is pretty good as well. Holy Rosary/Shrivelling are also really expensive in a Dark Horse deck, you'll typically not have the resources to play them if you draw them. Holy Rosary is better replaced by Cherished Keepsake. Without Shrivelling, is then only used for encounter cards, and this deck has a lot of ways to fight them anyways. Besides, I'm not particularly a fan of pumping just for Shrivelling, which has a good chance to send horror right back at you.

The second class is , and it's a fairly basic decision because Magnifying Glass is a great card, and the class is easy to populate with good cards and requires less of your attention. As in, you don't have to switch to as often, because you don't have to use weapons or ally abilities in . This allows you to sit between two classes and maximize the cards you're actually able to play.

The last class is a toss-up between and . Both end up with a weapon and has Beat Cop. but I went with for a few reasons:

• Fire Axe is cheaper than Machete, which is very important in a Dark Horse deck.
• allies tend to be better than for Lola Hayes, Peter Sylvestre alone is a godsend for Lola Hayes, a character with low sanity and pushes it even farther with the cards she has.
• Easier to fill deck requirements because Dark Horse is already in it.
• events and skills are cheaper and more versatile than . Vicious Blow alone is a great card, but the combination of Lucky!, Fight or Flight and the more expensive A Test of Will and Stroke of Luck is really good.

The aforementioned means that cards are better for Lola in general, as a generalist/clue finder, however, is better if you need Lola to take more of a fighting role. This Lola only has 2 weapons, which isn't dependable as a primary damage dealer. So, you switch out the cards except Dark Horse with cards, stick in a bunch of quality weapons and allies and have at them. This means that a lot of the allies and upgrades in this deck make less sense, but that's for another guide! So use your best judgment when considering cards such as Prepared for the Worst, Beat Cop, Guard Dog, etc. Stick to the Plan for example, doesn't work with Lola!

Note that I haven't found good reasons to pick cards over or . The main issue is just that cards want to work in conjunction with other cards or skill tests, and Lola can't switch roles fast enough to take advantage of it. Ace in the Hole + Will to Survive perhaps?

Madame Labranche

This card has been working out better than I expected. First, she's cheap and can soak damage. Also, but more importantly, Madame Labranche's abilities synergize with your lack of resources. The primary combination is with Fire Axe as if you start a turn with 1 resource from upkeep, you can use a +2 Fire Axe attack on your first turn, then use Madame Labranche and get another +2 Fire Axe on your second turn. It also gives you the +1 on the times when you chose not to take any resources from Dark Horse and come up short (it happens a lot!).

If you get Madame Labranche and some draw, then holding onto Madame Labranche is alright. Without immediate draw, you may want to expend cards more liberally to use Madame Labranche's abilities to fish for better cards.

This card is generally just quality of life because of the allies you'll want before her, so it's not too important to focus on getting early on.

Mulligan

Everything for Dark Horse, Alyssa Graham and Scrying. The only thing is to swap Scrying if you already have Alyssa Graham, you'll then be looking for Fire Axe, Improvisation and Peter Sylvestre, followed by Magnifying Glass and everything else.

Playing Lola

If you see those critical cards in your opening hand, start in that class, get them out and then swap to whatever class you expect to use next turn.

You want to get out Scrying or Alyssa Graham ASAP, then use Alyssa Graham to peer into the top card of your deck. If it's not Crisis of Identity, you can then switch to to play cards from there. The round after, you have to switch to at some point to recheck the deck. This is typically how you play the roles, and this means you'll generally always see Crisis of Identity before you draw it. Note that your skill cards that draw cards mess with this, so you have to be careful around them. If you get Scrying, you get limited searches but they last longer than Alyssa Graham. If you see Crisis of Identity with Scrying it's best to move the cards around so you discard something you don't really need, like your second Alyssa Graham or a weakness.

Ideally, you want to stay one step ahead of yourself by swapping to the class you think you're going to use next round, so there's a buffer in case you need a class switch midway. For example, say you start in , but you think you're going to investigate round 2. Switch to before round 1 ends. Then if an encounter card throws an enemy at you, you have the option between your three classes (//) for the next turn.

In regards to your special cards, Improvisation, this allows you to safely switch to or to put out your key assets cheaply and switch back to safety. You can also choose to use this as another Unexpected Courage, although be a bit more conservative with this card if you ever need a role switch.

Note that the core of the this deck is cheap, and it should be with Dark Horse. The cards that cost more than 1 resource are Dark Horse, Alyssa Graham, Madame Labranche, and Peter Sylvestre. That's it, everything else costs 1 or 0. This makes the deck very easy to play and reliable to execute.

Most Important Upgrades

1. 1 Charisma.
2. Cherished Keepsake -> 2x Peter Sylvestre. These are the first and most important upgrades.
3. 1/2 Adaptable. This card is kinda meta and is one of the best cards in the deck haha. You have so many options as Lola Hayes you can really tailor cards to scenarios. For example, Cherished Keepsake is better in A Phantom of Truth, and Leather Coat is better in The Pallid Mask. Swap in different skill cards depending on your needs, I swap a lot just to test out different combinations. Flashlight, Fine Clothes, Emergency Cache, etc. The options are great.

More Upgrades

1. Blood Pact. Blood Pact is a pretty good card on its own, making the turn before agenda progression really efficient. Perhaps consider adding Moonlight Ritual if you want to use Blood Pact more since Alyssa Graham also adds doom. I'm debating as to whether to put this before or after Scrying, but I think this card is a great one-of, and easy to use.
2. Note on other permanents: Scrapper helps you dump off excess resources, but Fire Axe does that, so I don't consider it too much. Lola isn't so good with Higher Education because Dark Horse.
3. Scrying -> Scrying III. The biggest drawback to this card is that it costs a lot of exp, so the priority is low. But it has a ton of utility and is very easy to play. This card is also fantastic with Peter Sylvestre but of course, a lot are.
4. Perception -> Madame Labranche + Charisma. Not large priority, but I've found that I don't need much in Carcosa since Alyssa Graham, Magnifying Glass and Dark Horse all boost to good levels.

Extra Upgrades

1. Stroke of Luck, A Test of Will. These are the best of the rest. Just powerful cards, it should be around 21 exp before you get to here which actually isn't that much, you can keep recurring them.
2. Magnifying Glass I, Deduction II, Lucky! II, Shortcut II. Skill upgrades. From here you can get stuff you want or prefer, these are fairly low impact.

Upcoming Cards

There are some newer cards that came out after I released this so I'll just list them here for future reference.

• Key of Ys: Just seems absolutely perfect on Lola. It really excels on classes because they have easier access to safe sanity soak (Peter Sylvestre, Cherished Keepsake) but a lot of classes can begin to turn it on with Elder Sign Amulet. Playable from any class, flat out better than Dark Horse, this card may change a lot about deck, but I'm going to mull over the possibilities.
• Charon's Obol: Very risky card because Lola naturally doesn't have a lot of health or sanity. If she wants it though, it's easy to take. I just don't think Lola needs exp as much as other classes.

Deck Alterations/Considerations

This deck so far is reliable with this setup, but there are some general outlines to consider. When Lola has more access to her roles, here are some typical in role combinations:

1. Fire Axe, Madame Labranche. Dark Horse cards.
2. Alyssa Graham, Blood Pact, Moonlight Ritual. This is already slightly mentioned above, but now doom is manipulatable.
3. Dr. Milan Christopher, Magnifying Glass. A setup.
4. Beat Cop, Machete. setup.
5. Holy Rosary, Shrivelling. setup.

There are so many ways to build and play Lola Hayes, it's a game within a game. Honestly, the more time I spend with Lola, the less certain I am of the combinations. Of course, any suggestions/considerations are welcome and appreciated. Hope you all find something useful out of this!