Vincent Puts on His Robe and Wizard Hat

Vincent Lee is one of the more intriguing new investigators, as his flexible statline and deckbuilding give him a ton of different build options. This is a fun Vincent Lee deck I’ve been playing that uses Power Word to support the team and generate Soul Sanctification charges. It can be adjusted to work at any player count and is intended for a flex and support role.

Power Word

This card is the core of this deck, using Power Word upgraded with 'mercy' (heal damage / horror), 'tonguetwister' (give 2 commands), and 'thrice spoken' (give commands to 3 copies of Power word). The idea is to try and get multiple copies of Power Word on the board quickly, and then parley once per turn with the ‘cower’ and ‘mercy’ commands to exhaust the enemies and heal from them. This gives you one of the most action efficient forms of healing. In a 3 or 4 player game, with 3 copies of Power Word out, a single action can exhaust 3 enemies, heal 3-6 damage, and give out 3 copies of On the Mend. Soul Sanctification is used to turn excess healing into on-demand stat boosts.

As long as you keep one power-worded enemy engaged with you, thrice spoken allows you to also command your other power-worded enemies regardless of their location. When you command them to ‘cower’ they exhaust but do not disengage, so the exhausted enemy will move with an investigator when they move. You will be able to give out a constant stream of healing and ‘On the Mends’ every turn.

Enemies that deal 2 damage or horror are strong Power Word targets, but even enemies that deal 1 of each are good candidates as they offer flexibility. Don’t be shy about power-wording VP enemies; you can keep them around all scenario and kill them near the end.

On the Hunt is useful for finding enemies that deal a lot of damage and / or horror. I recommend playing On the Hunt as soon as you can after you get one enemy under control. Using the parley action each turn on just a single enemy is very inefficient, so you want to minimize the turns when you are doing this by jumping from zero enemies controlled to two enemies as fast as possible.

The scenarios this deck will struggle with the most are ones with doom-centric enemies, as it will be more difficult to find good Power Word targets.

The Other Cards

The rest of the deck is built around card draw and action efficiency. A lot of draw is vital to try and get Power Words out quickly to fire up the Soul Sanctification engine early on. Needing to designate one action every turn to parleying is an action tax, so the rest of the deck packs action compression to compensate. ‘Inscription of the Hunt’ on the Runic Axe is great for this, saving you move or engage actions when you need to fight. The deck does not really need backup weapons, as Power Word can deal with enemies in the early game and buy you time to find an Axe.

Archaic Glyphs (guiding stones) and The Raven Quill form a nice combo for action compression. Between On the Mend and Soul Sanctification, you can easily add +6 to your intellect for glyph tests. The Raven Quill can add an additional +2 with Mystic Vane, and Energy Sap can take charges from your Runic Axe to keep the Glyphs fueled.

Two Paths

There are two paths you can take with this deck, and your deck and piloting will change depending on which side you focus more on. You could play this deck in a ‘selfish’ way where you focus on using Power Word to overheal – you won’t protect your teammates as much but you’ll quickly power up Soul Sanctification in order to boost your Archaic Glyphs tests. With this route you could run 2x copies of Glyphs and Quill.

Alternatively, you could use this deck in a heavy support role, where you focus on healing your teammates and handing out as many On the Mends as possible. You will want to work to get your healing minions engaged with different teammates in order to spread your healing and skill cards as much as possible. This form will not overheal as much, and you may consider leaving out Glyphs and Quill. Either path is viable, depending on your preferences and group needs.

Future Upgrades

Fickle Fortune is a great card for this deck. You can get unlucky and draw it during the first turn, but otherwise the doom removal is well worth the damage and horror to your team as you should be able to heal them up efficiently. Alternatively, this is kind of a wild idea, but if you’re running the ‘selfish’ version of this deck and you see Fickle Fortune early, it may be worth it to add the doom for the healing. You will likely gain a good amount of Soul Sanctification offerings, and the tempo boost you gain from getting the Glyphs powered up very early may actually be worth the lost round.

As for other upgrades, Runic Axe can be upgraded further – I’d recommend Heirloom and Scriptweaver. Power Word can be enhanced for additional commands. I’d consider adding Confess and Betray for some occasional testless clues or damage pings. Gang Up deserves consideration for burst damage as you’ll often have all 5 classes represented on the board.

Solo Variant

With some tweaks, this deck should work at any player count. I tested it a couple of times for true solo, and it works well. I would cut glyphs and quill, as the locations have so few clues. Late in the game, once you’ve built up a nice store of Soul Sanctification charges, you can use the ‘go’ and ‘cower’ commands to send the enemies away at an opportune time, freeing your actions up for the rest of scenario.

Combos and Nonbos

With this deck, you and your teammates will have power-worded enemies engaged with you for most of the scenario, so there are some notable synergies and anti-synergies as a result. Machete and Pathfinder will be very tough for your party to use, but other cards love having enemies around, like Damning Testimony, Trish Scarborough, Clean Sneak, and Scene of the Crime.

Upgrade Path

• 3xp version to start
• Power Word to 7xp – Add tonguetwister and thrice spoken (add 2 copies)
• Soul Sanctification
• 1x Unrelenting and 1x Preposterous Sketches (2)
• From here it’s dealer’s choice. I’d recommend Axe for fighting help or Glyphs for clue compression.

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  Note: There is currently some debate if Soul Sanctification allows you to heal an investigator that is at full health. This requires clarification, but right now I am assuming it allows healing at full heath.