Card draw simulator
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None. Self-made deck here. |
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Calprinicus · 5669
I've spent months perfecting this parallel Jim deck. Please give this build a like (and favorite) if you read this. I've ran him through a bunch of scenarios both solo & multiplayer to hone the deck.
Summary
This is a 5 of 5 complexity build. You play a flex role of support, fighter, and cluer while also managing the curses in the chaos bag & your spirit deck. You will get lots of extra actions and choose the best time to play a large selection of $fast abilities. When it gets going, it's one of the most rewarding investigators I've played & am totally addicted to them.
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Boost Jim's to 8 with Living Ink, Holy Rosary, and Four of Cups.
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Get free stuff by adding curses to the chaos bag with Faustian Bargain, Stirring Up Trouble, Gabriel Carillo, and Deep Knowledge.
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Overcome the curse tokens with: 8 + Sparrow Mask, Blasphemous Covenant, & Ritual Candles.
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Store Curse tokens with Favor of the Moon, then unleash them for huge bonuses with Dawn Star, Rod of Carnamagos, Armageddon, Control Variable, and Jim Culver .
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Use Jim Culver add charges to Living Ink, Close the Circle, & Armageddon.
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In a pinch, Close the Circle allows you to use that 8 to perform a basic action to investigate, evade, fight, or do a test on an encounter card.
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Jim's spirit deck consists of Leo De Luca and an assortment of utility allies: Mysterious Raven, Stray Cat, Priest of Two Faiths, Medical Student to keep Leo out longer.
Blessed Team-up
This deck can be even more potent when you Team-up with a blessed character like Sister Mary.
- Swap Blasphemous Covenant with Paradoxical Covenant.
- Swap Tempt Fate with Tides of Fate (have the blessed character run Tempt Fate).
Starting Deck
- 2x Ritual Candles
- 1x Rod of Carnamagos
- 2x Armageddon
- 2x Holy Rosary
- 1x Sparrow Mask
- 1x Painkillers
- 2x Favor of the Moon (1)
- 2x Living Ink
- 1x Gabriel Carillo (1)
- 2x Faustian Bargain
- 1x Deep Knowledge
- 2x Control Variable
- 2x Tempt Fate
- 2x Refine
- 2x Drawn to the Flame
- 2x Delve Too Deep
- 1x Promise of Power
- 2x Read the Signs
Starting Spirit Deck
- 1x Leo De Luca
- 2x Stray Cat
- 2x Mysterious Raven
- 2x Medical Student
- 2x Laboratory Assistant
UPGRADE PRIORITY
This build is listed as 29xp, but that's not exactly accurate.
- You start with 3xp from In the Thick of It. Take 1 mental & 1 physical trauma. (The amount a Medical Student from your spirit deck can heal!)
- One Refine per scenario should reduce the XP cost of Living Ink (vibrancy) & (Macabre Depiction) by 1-2xp by the time you reach it on the priority list below.
- You'll also run Delve Too Deep for the first few scenarios until you get all your critical 1xp cards.
- You'll spend 2xp upgrading your spirit deck, which is not accounted for.
- 1XP - 1x Promise of Power 1x Four of Cups
- 2XP - 2x Read the Signs 2x Close the Circle
- 2XP - 2x Drawn to the Flame 2x Stirring Up Trouble
- 2XP - (Spirit Deck) 2x Laboratory Assistant 2x Priest of Two Faiths
- 1XP - 1x Refine 1x Gabriel Carillo
- 3XP* - Living Ink (Vibrancy)
- 2XP - 1x Blasphemous Covenant.
- 2XP - 2x Delve Too Deep 2x Dawn Star
- 2XP - Rod of Carnamagos Rod of Carnamagos
- 8XP - Armageddon Armageddon
- 3XP* - Living Ink (Macabre Depiction)
- ?XP - 1x Refine Anything you want.
JIM'S DECK BREAKDOWN
- This gives you 1x Gabriel Carillo & 2x Favor of the Moon from the start. These are crucial to enable your deck.
- Take 1 physical & 1 mental trauma. A Medical Student from your spirit deck will patch you up.
- Easily the best sanity heal in the entire game. Easy to trigger & it triggers often.
- Exchange the extra sanity for health with Painkillers.
- In multiplayer, this is bonkers with Field Agent or Agency Backup.
- These trigger EACH time you pull a !! Having 2 ritual candles negates completely. Having just one candle is usually enough to succeed most tests with a .
- This has amazing utility!
- First, it's fast . If there is an enemy anywhere, there is very little reason not to use it.
- Secondly, it can hit enemies anywhere on the board including those engaged with your fellow investigators, but also those pesky aloof and evasive enemies.
- Finally, with the upgraded version you CHOOSE the rot you give them & can trigger multiple times. It's relatively easy to trigger with a bag full of curse tokens
- Favor of the Moon can guarantee a rot will be attached.
- Abyssal Rot - My favorite & easily the most powerful rot. Not being able to attack completely nullifies most monsters. However, there's only one, so choose your target wisely.
- Virescent Rot - Another popular rot. It's perfect at stopping hunters or elusive monsters. Essentially removes the threat if they're on a location your unlikely to return to.
- Scarlet Rot - Another popular pick especially if I get two triggers. It's great at dealing with enemies that spawn far away, accumulate doom, or locked with Virescent Rot.
- Putrescent Rot - Situational, but rarely my first choice. Good for enemies with victory you want to defeat anyways.
- Aember Rot - Rarely chosen. Normally only nets 2-3 resources.
- You'll be using the non-upgraded version for majority of the campaign, but that version is still very powerful with Jim. With Jim's a pulled during the FIGHT can replenish 2 charges. You'll often have this fully charged allowing you to use Jim's on Living Ink or Close the Circle instead. Again, Favor of the Moon can come in clutch when a lot of enemies show up.
- With Gabriel Carillo & Sparrow Mask, you get 3 charges which will last you a long while.
- Jim's can add more charges when empty.
- The ability is , thus giving you one additional action on turns it's used.
- Great for a Fight action that deals 1 damage to preserve charges on Armageddon.
- The best way to discard Vengeful Shade via a fight or evade. Pair this test with Sparrow Mask.
- Use sparing for any non- tests on encounter cards, a clutch investigation, fight, or evade. On average, each scenario has about 3-5 important non- tests Jim will need to make, this covers most of those tests.
- Since it specifies "Take a basic action." This cannot be used on skill tests on treacheries during the mythos phase. But it can be used during your turn on treacheries like Locked Door that have a skill test to remove them.
- Simple, cheap, and effective. It increases Jim's and gives some sanity soak for when Jim draws Final Rhapsody.
- IMPORTANT: This is Jim's primary target.
- A +2 stat booster!
- If you begin with this in your starting hand, you get the most out of it if you play it last after all other needed assets are in play.
- You'll use Refine to get the Vibrancy then Macabre Depiction perks with spending minimal xp.
- The best 4 resources you can spend. The extra tokens & card draw completely enable this deck.
- Potentially free +1 boost. Otherwise, worth the cost of 3.
- Gives you +2 on critical tests or when the bag has a bunch of tokens. Great when you're lacking some of your other boosts or when using Close the Circle.
- In a pinch, get 1 offering after using Painkillers
- Converts some of the healing from Jim's Trumpet to health instead sanity. 3 health for 1 resource is quite effective.
- Refills 1 offering on Sparrow Mask with every use.
- Make sure you only play Favor of the Moon when you get all 3 sealed tokens. You'll also only want to use sparingly on Armageddon & Rod of Carnamagos when the extra damage is needed.
- Otherwise keep the tokens sealed for the sanity of the other players. This deck functions perfectly fine with fewer curse tokens in the chaos bag.
- If Leo De Luca is attached to The Beyond, always keep 1 available. When you resolve The Beyond, a can keep Leo De Luca attached in exchange for 1 damage.
- It's 0-Cost, fast, & replaces itself with a draw. Ideally I play to ensure I'm sealing 3 on Favor of the Moon or before I activate Armageddon or Rod of Carnamagos. The tokens often a much needed respite in multiplayer.
- With the high & Ritual Candles you often don't need to use Blasphemous Covenant on yourself. I often reserve it for my allies unless I'm alone or things go sideways.
- A cheaper Working a Hunch. Works on any skill test! I Often play it when I'm already unsealing a from Favor of the Moon on Armageddon or it randomly occurs at a high shroud location.
- More testless clues! Ideally played on locations with 4+ shroud that may prove difficult for your team. Locations with victory are also prime targets!
- It cannot be played if you don't have enough tokens to add to the chaos bag.
- This is your boss killer. Like Control Variable this is best played when you're already unsealing a on Favor of the Moon for Armageddon. If you pull 2 tokens your dealing 6 damage for 1 action (4 from Armageddon & 2 from Dawn Star, that you can distribute) & the test is almost guaranteed to succeed since the tokens are negated.
- If for some reason things go sideways during an important test & you pull 3+ curses, this negates ALL those curses allowing it to succeed! As a bonus, your Ritual Candles still get grant the +1. It might also kill a hearty enemy by chance.
- Huge resource boost to help play Armageddon or Gabriel Carillo. You can share these resources with other investigators to help their setup.
- If I already have Gabriel Carillo, I often give most of this draw to my allies.
- Used mainly to reduce the XP of Living Ink. Most of the time I spend a single XP for both vibrancy & macabre Depiction perks, refine does the rest.
- Just pray for the best. I've been defeated a few times after drawing this card.
SPIRIT DECK BREAKDOWN
- After he's in play, you'll likely have 1 extra action for the remainder of the scenario.
- When The Beyond flips, you can save Leo from being discarded but spending a sealed on Favor of the Moon. You will however take 1 direct damage, a meager price.
- A fast free clue for 1 horror.
- Use on high shroud locations, if possible.
- Since this discards the spirit, it allows Leo De Luca to be out longer before The Beyond flips.
- A free enemy evade!
- Note: this cannot evade Vengeful Shade while attached to The Beyond.
- I can evade monsters engaged on allies (if you are in their location).
- Since you don't choose the monster before the ":" you can discard stray cat without a monster to evade.
- There are other tricks using the timing windows. You can find these in Arkhamdb's comments of that card.
- Since this discards the spirit, it allows Leo De Luca to be out longer before The Beyond flips.
- tokens are always welcomed by your allies.
- You can keep them out to add curse tokens or discard them to keep Leo De Luca out longer before The Beyond flips. (I honestly just just discard at the end of the turn he entered unless I'm short on curse tokens.)
- The 1 damage & 1 sanity healed matches the trauma received by In the Thick of It.
- Can heal friendly Investigators or their allies.
- If you are expecting Vengeful Shade to show up, keep 1 offering on Sparrow Mask & 1 charge on Close the Circle. This combination is your best shot at discarding it.
- If it does spawn & engage with you, Rod of Carnamagos can attach Abyssal Rot & Scarlet Rot.
- If it does spawn & engage with you, Stray Cat is a good way to buy some time until it can be dealt with.
- If it does spawn & engage with you & you have 2x Favor of the Moon, you can perform any test, unseal 2 tokens & kill it with Dawn Star
Thank you. Hope you enjoyed the write-up.
32 comments |
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May 22, 2024 |
May 22, 2024IMPORTANT DETAIL I MISSED. Q: Does using Rod of Carnamagos during the investigation when using Eye of Chaos count as "revealing a during the investigation". A: Yes; if you use Eye of Chaos to initiate an investigation, and then use the ability on Rod of Carnamagos during a player window in that skill test, those tokens are considered “revealed during this investigation” and you can resolve the effect on Eye of Chaos. (April 2024) This means you can activate the rod during any skill test to trigger Jim's or use during the FIGHT test of Armageddon to trigger Jim's & get a bunch of additional damage. |
May 22, 2024
The deck requirements has a soft limit. You can include 2x of any ally level 0-2, however if that ally is unique (they have a * in front of their name, like Leo De Luca), before the new copy attaches to the beyond, you have to discard the previous copy). I haven't given much thought to Occult Reliquary since it's 3xp and only Rod of Carnamagos can benefit, surprisingly neither Jim's Trumpet nor Ritual Candles have the traits Blessed or Cursed. |
May 22, 2024
Spirit Deck Restrictions:
On the back of The Beyond as Reminder text:
The "9 different ally assets" in the restrictions is contradicted in the reminder text on The Beyond, which suggests you can have allies with the same name. In the rules, the "unique" in "When a unique spirit is attached to The Beyond..." refers to the "*" infront of the asset's name. Meaning you can only have 1 unique Leo De Luca attached & multiple Stray Cats. This made sense to my interpretation, but I could be making incorrect assumption & playing the deck incorrectly. Unique rules: arkhamdb.com |
May 22, 2024
Likewise, if your teammate William Yorick has Stray Cat in play, when your copy of Stray Cat in your spirit deck shows up, yorick can keep theirs in play, since it is not unique (there is no * before the name). |
May 22, 2024
Ok, that makes sense. I will have to redo this guide as I've been playing the spirit deck wrong. Luckily, I have tested a bunch of allies, so it shouldn't be hard to find the best 9. |
May 22, 2024The best Level 0 Spirit Deck is: Leo De Luca, Stray Cat, Mysterious Raven, Beat Cop, Granny Orne, David Renfield, Laboratory Assistant, Jeremiah Kirby, and probably Dario El-Amin, Medical Student, Dr. Elli Horowitz, or Arcane Initiate, depending on build. As soon as possible, you will want to change the final ally to Priest of Two Faiths and will probably want to upgrade one of the others to Whitton Greene (2) in short order also. If you’re really intent on keeping your core spirits in play as long as possible, you can also consider Treasure Hunter and Hired Muscle as 1 XP replacements for some of the Level 0 spirits, to ensure you can keep discarding and never flip The Beyond. For most builds though, that will be too much work. |
May 22, 2024I think the best 9 starting spirits are:
I would spend 3XP to:
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May 22, 2024I think you mean Brother Xavier and I believe the interaction is pretty straightforward. He only does damage when defeated. Defeated and Discarded are not the same. "After applying damage/horror, if an asset has damage equal to or higher than its health or horror equal to or higher than its sanity, it is defeated and placed in its owner's discard pile." Since he has no health or sanity as a spirit, he can never be defeated and all effects that get rid of spirits specifically say they are discarded. |
May 22, 2024I'm not sure if this is just an oversight but you're using the Advanced Trumpet but the basic Final Rhapsody. I couldn't find a great rule reference for "advanced" in the article for parallel Jim but in the Daisy article it does say "You can upgrade Daisy’s signature cards to the advanced version at any point in the campaign—but they must be upgraded as a set, so you can’t take the improved tote bag without the Necronomicon." Also, I remembered something else I wanted to say about your spirit deck and ally choices. Since Brother Xavier cannot deal damage, you might want to spend one additional experience and replace him with Whitton Greene. His stat buffs are only while you control a relic or tome but he may also allow you a few opportunities to search for a relic or tome to get your trumpet or rod out more quickly. |
May 22, 2024
Correct, it's Brother Xavier & he cannot deal damage when discarded. After I play Living Ink with the vibrancy perk, my stats are: 6 2 2 1 Boosting my other stats is not really worth the effort as Close the Circle fills that void. With Gabriel Carillo & Deep Knowledge I often find the trumpet by the second half which is where it's needed more. |
May 22, 2024
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May 22, 2024
While I agree Brother Xavier is a waste of an experience when Granny Orne gives the same passive benefit at level 0, I believe there is also something you're missing. You keep linking the 3 experience version of Granny Orne, which Jim cannot run, and the Granny Orne and Granny Orne(3) abilities are different. You may want to reread the level 0 card as it is rarely any benefit at all. Only really helps you with cards like "look what I found!" or maybe taking one less damage from Grasping Hands. |
May 22, 2024
Honestly, the comments for this "Perfected" Jim deck have been such a carnival ride that I hesitated to heap too much more on but I might as well say it. I noticed an omission in your write. Not sure if you're unaware of it or just didn't think it was worth mentioning. Spirits are cards under your control. hint hint *If an investigator attaches a player card to a player card he or she controls, he or she retains control of the attachment. |
May 22, 2024
I see where the confusion lies. Yes, there is no need to spend XP on Brother Xavier when Granny Orne exists at 0-Cost with a better ability. For some reason, I never saw Granny Orne. In my collection, those 0-cost cards were tucked under the 3-cost version. The reason Brother Xavier was chosen was because I thought he was the cheapest non-conditional +1 stat boost available. This is now fixed.
With these corrections, I believe the optimal spirit decks consists of:
Upgrades: Thanks for all the feedback! Once I run through another campaign I'll update this to a 2.0 guide to fix the spirit decks issues & misconceptions I used prior. Luckily, I don't think it changes much on how the deck run except The Beyond will flip a little more often. |
May 22, 2024Medical Student not Medical Texts. No edit button... |
May 24, 2024Very similar to a deck I've built (once you account for only singleton Ally cards in the Geist deck). So much fun! I found Olive McBride to be the ideal core Ally (not Geist), since she can help ensure the Rod goes off AND bring you more curses for Jim's ability. Wicked Athame is a great curse generator, and helps Jim almost automatically deal with Vengeful Shade. Occult Reliquary makes room for it while keeping a slot for 1 Ritual Candles or the trumpet. |
May 24, 2024
Wicked Athame is a great call. I played with it before, but forgot why I cut it... I was hesitant on Occult Reliquary before because only Rod of Carnamagos could use it, but if I replaced 1 Ritual Candles with Wicked Athame that guarantees 3 hand slots. The difficult is the +3xp. 32xp is pretty expensive for early campaigns, normally like to cap my builds at 30 or under. |
May 25, 2024What if I don't have the Scarlet Keys expansion and don't have access to Living Ink? Can the deck be played as efficiently with some kind of replacement for it? |
May 25, 2024
I think the best replacement would be Relic Hunter so you can wear a 2nd Holy Rosary. I would also take Backpack to help find both copies (+ your other items). |
May 26, 2024
This is wrong. You cannot initiate an ability if it would not change the game state, so you must have a monster to evade to discard stray cat. Otherwise, looks decent as a deck, if a little slow from having to play out so many assets. |
May 29, 2024Nice guide, i'm currently playing //Jim Culver and will see if i can add some of your ideas. Things that i noticed:
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May 29, 2024Hey, I've had some time to digest your deck and I like it! It's clear both the angle and the ally graveyard have had some thought put into them, and it's always nice to see cards like Sparrow Mask on a Mystic. For my thoughts as other have pointed out additional discardable allies are useful, I think level 0 Beat Cop, Mysterious Raven, Priest of Two Faiths and Stray Cat would be my picks. Whitton Greene •• I think would make a nice pick for a second non-discard ally with Rod of Carnamagos and Jim's Trumpet (again as suggested elsewhere), as it allows you to tutor it out (and then boosts when you do). I would also agree with adding Occult Reliquary to give you the option of running both candles with the Rod. Mr. "Rook" may be handy as a general tutor for all cards instead of Whitton (and then you could strip out card draw like Gabriel Carillo if you feel like it), even with the taboo it's a powerful tutor effect which Jim can use for free. He may also help you draw Final Rhapsody early before you've flooded the bag with curses. I would personally go with Eye of Chaos over Close the Circle, as you can't use Close the Circle on treacheries which need resolving in the Mythos phase IIRC and clue compression is more useful. Similarly I don't see much of a need for Living Ink - both Eye of Chaos and Armageddon allow you to test at an 8 with Holy Rosary and Four of Cups, so I think Living Ink may be surplus to requirement. You have very effective means of recharging both spells, so I think that's a big plus for Mystics. I would go for the tried and true Arcane Research to give you big XP cost breaks for both of these. Final Rhapsody is a merciless weakness too, so I'd be inclined to use Leather Coat as further soak (but only if dropping Living Ink due to the slot conflict). It wouldn't be out of the question to have even more mitigation. From experience I think the curse tech is enough even without Gabriel Carillo, Promise of Power never goes amiss on curse decks though so I would suggest making space for that. Anyway, good stuff! Even with the suggestions I've made I think the deck is good "as is" and uses P-Jim well. A like and a favorite from me! |
May 29, 2024
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Jun 01, 2024And I’d swap out “Perfected” for “Admirably Attempted” in the title. Just kidding, please forgive the tease. A bold title like this list has surely invites nitpicks, but the list really is solid. I agree with |
Jun 01, 2024
Deny Existence cannot stop Final Rhapsody. It is not an encounter card nor an enemy attack. |
Jun 02, 2024
Lol, this gets better and better. Unless something has changed recently, all treacheries and enemies are encounter cards. Deny Existence's arkhamdb page is full of FAQs about using Deny Existence against different signature weaknesses. |
Jun 02, 2024
Yup. Wrong again. |
Jun 02, 2024Hi, aren't the allies in the spirit deck supposed to be different? |
Jun 03, 2024
Yes, OP was informed of this a few weeks ago. |
Jun 05, 2024Just completed SK on hard with This Jim and an Parallel Zoey.
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Jun 05, 2024
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This deck looks very solid and every card is reasonable. Thanks for the work!
Btw allies in the spirit deck should be distinct so you cannot take 2x Stray Cat (or I made a wrong understanding of the deck building requirement?)
Will you consider Occult Reliquary so that Jim can hold an extra Ritual Candles?