Jim investigates and Roland "by the Book" covers 2 cores+Dun

FBones · 6276

This deck shows how Jim can become a monster by recycling Grotesque Statue. Between Jim's special ability (to treat skulls as 0s) and the availability of Grotesque statue, you can quickly get to the point where you almost never fail a skill test.

Jim is really the ultimate scavenger:

Other than Agnes, he is the only investigator with access to Grotesque statue, which can be recycled, and Agnes has lower base intellect and no access to Milan. Note that Grotesque Statue automatically goes to discard pile when used up. You do not have to push it there by playing a hand-slot item. This means you can actually scavenge Grotesque Statue on the same skill test you used it on!
His special ability means that he is going to successfully scavenge more frequently than others. Essentially any skull is going to be an auto-scavenge.
He can defend himself better than Rex, and he can partner with Roland, who is a great companion for a scavenger because of his access to seeker cards.
Jim can recycle Jim's Trumpet for 3 freaking willpower!

The best companion for this deck is Roland, for a number of reasons:

He can do the heavy lifting so Jim does not run out of ammo.
He has access to seeker cards like Inquiring Mind and Working a Hunch to help Jim investigate before he gets his kit out.
He pitches in on clue finding with his own special ability.
You can generate a ton of resources with Dr. Milan Christopher and Jewel of Aureolus, and if Roland uses Teamwork, you can give him some dough to help him bring out his expensive allies. (Roland tends to have trouble with resources.)

Roland should be packing 2x Evidence as well, which can be used to help you on investigation if you do not have your kit out.

Note the synergy pairing Grotesque Statue with Jewel of Aureolus. With Jim's special ability, you have a very high chance of being able to trigger the Jewel [2 tries and elder sign can be converted to a skull, so it triggers the Jewel as well]

I've been running this deck through Dunwich on Hard and it is really doing well. I've presented here what the deck should look like after you've gotten your first 11 experience deck, but there is some flexibility:

If you grab Warren Rice, you probably want to grab an early Charisma so you can better use your great allies.
If you don't have Warren Rice, you should probably go for Relic Hunter (so you can have both Holy Rosary and Jewel of Aureolus out at the same time.

Another great thing about the Jim Grotesque Scavenging deck is that xp continues to get you fantastic stuff... it is not like some other investigators where after your first 10-15 xp is spent there is diminishing returns. There are many high-powered add-ons beyond the 11 pts shown here:

Bulletproof Vest (recycle this with scavenging to get infinite health, or use it as a recurring +2 combat to help Roland)
Relic Hunter (as described above)
Charisma (as described above, note that the ally that gives you +1 agility can be surprising good for Jim because with Grotesque Statue, Jim has a decent chance of evading once his agility gets to 3.
Obviously you can buy the more expensive Rite of Seeking and make better use of its bonus to triggers scavenging

This deck shows what Jim looks like after 11 xp. Early on, you will want to consider the following possibilities for your base deck:

Perhaps go with 2x Rite of Seeking so give you more investigation power before you get your kit out.
2x Delve too deep so you can accelerate xp... it takes a fair amount of xp for Jim to get off the ground since each grotesque statue is 4xp.
Early on you may wish to go only 1 Dr. Milan Christopher and 2x Magnifying Glass, especially if you are not going to pick up Professor Warren Rice and get Charisma. I did that, but found myself short of cash prior to Jewel of Aureolus getting in the deck.

A final thing to note about this deck is how consistent it is. There are 12 cards that are all great to have in your first hand, [I'm including the Ward of Protections here], so you are very unlikely to get a dry start.

Another thing that makes this deck so consistent is that many scenarios cause you to discard cards, and once scavenging is out that means you do not necessarily need to wait to draw your Grotesque Statue or Jewel of Aureolus or Jim's Trumpet, you can just pull it out of your discard pile!