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One for All
Using a single set of cards, I've created partial deck templates for (nearly) every single investigator in my collection. Find the rest by searching the deck title "One for All". In order to publish the decks, I'm required to have all 30+ cards, so any of the higher level cards are only included as filler and aren't actually intended for use. If going through the amount of setup required to organize these decks isn't your thing, I hope they'll still serve as a showcase of some of the most effective cards for each investigator!
Why?
Deck building takes time. This allows you to do a lot of the work in advance so you and your group can get playing the game faster!
Choosing cards can be intimidating, especially for newer players. This setup helps showcase effective card synergies for newbies, and gives experienced players who still want some control over their deck a solid starting point they can quickly build from.
By utilizing a lot of cards that don't normally see play, each investigator feels more unique. Some "bad" cards still haven't made the cut, but leveraging each investigator's strengths instead of relying heavily on having universally strong cards gives each investigator a more distinct flavour.
This setup can help ease some of the burden of having a lot of your staple cards locked down into a few of your decks while running multiple players across multiple simultaneous campaigns. This gives players more options even after a few decks have already been made.
It gives you the flexibility to complete decks based on varying team compositions and campaigns, which is harder to do with full pre-made decks.
Why not?
You want a maximally optimized, hyper-synergistic deck. I play these decks true solo on hard mode, and it is challenging but possible. They're great for standard and easy, but most of these templates will struggle in expert.
You don't care much for organizing. Getting things organized in advance, and then post-campaign can be more of a chore depending on how you normally set things up.
Your collection is wildly different than mine. Odds are very good your collection will differ from mine. I've included some considerations to take when modifying these templates to suit your own collection, but for some whose card pools are quite different, it may not be worth the additional tinkering.
Making the Templates Your Own
Every template was designed with 17 level 0, non-permanent cards in mind. This was calculated to utilize as many cards as possible with my own collection while still managing to keep my sanity above zero. The rules and numbers listed on these decks are only a rough guideline. There's no reason to stress over things lining up perfectly and results will vary based on what's in your collection and how much tinkering you want to do.
If you simply wanted to dedicate a handful of key cards to each investigator they could be very small. I wouldn't recommend going higher than 17 cards though - unless you're a masochist. Lola Hayes was also left out of the equation to avoid over-complicating things. For reference: if you had every player card player card released for standard retail by FFG (with a Revised Core set) you'd be looking at roughly 1000 level 0 player cards spread out amongst 55 (non-neutral) investigators, which equates to approximately 18 cards per investigator.
You could easily just slot in the cards that match your own card pool and leave it at that. You'll want to double up on some of the cards in each deck if you have a smaller collection. If you do want to get more in depth, the first thing you'll want to do is figure out which card sets we have in common. I currently own every card set in chronological release up to and including The Forgotten Age, as well as The Edge of the Earth, and Investigator Packs for Jacqueline Fine and Stella Clark (Jacqueline is particularly useful for fleshing out the mystic decks as she comes with a lot of basic level 0 spells, which are sorely lacking from the standard investigator expansions).
To begin, you'll want to create your own copy of each "One for All" deck I've created, and go through each - removing any cards that don't match your collection. If you have cards not in the sets listed above, or you're missing investigators (which frees up cards from their respective templates), you'll need to either write up a list of these, or more simply you could put together all the actual unused cards in your collection.
Next, if you have any investigators I haven't featured, you'll likely want to flesh their decks out by scouring my existing decks for obvious synergy choices (horror healing in Carolyn Fern, for example), ideally without removing any cards that already fit well in their respective deck. Then you can start adding leftover cards until you hit the desired deck size for each investigator. I've tried to make each card unique for nearly every investigators; but with smaller collections you'll find that having 2 copies of key cards is necessary for most decks.
Depending on how many cards you need to re-assign and how intense your process is, this can get complicated pretty quickly. A few pointers:
- Get the obvious cards out of the way first. (Tome Synergy for Daisy, damage soak for Mark, etc.)
- I'll attempt to lay out some effective archetypes for each character further down. These should help dictate the not-so obvious card decisions.
- There are only so many of each card type, so distribution matters. The numbers I used should stay fairly consistent between collections and they are as follows:
- Hands - 2-3
- Accessory - 1
- Body - 1
- Arcane (Almost exclusively for Mystics) - 2
- Ally - 2
- Unslotted - 2
- Events - 5-6
- Skills - 3
- These numbers will fluctuate for each investigator and class (i.e. Guardians use more hand slots, Mystics less)
- I like cards with stat buffs in investigators who need them most (those with 3 or 4 in an important stat). It's not necessary, but I think it's a good guideline.
- Cards like Unexpected Courage or Emergency Cache that apply generally to a wide range of investigators make great filler to pad out deck sizes at the end of the process.
Playing with your Decks!
- Pull all the other decks you've made that match your investigator's primary class and start populating your deck with suitable cards from those. Then you can do the same with any secondary/splash classes.
- Find duplicates of all the best cards that fit the archetype you're building for. If I'm setting up decks for new players, I'll have them start by simply hunting for doubles of cards already in their deck.
- Design for your team composition / campaign and prioritize cards to suit. For example: if you're playing a fighter on a team of 3 and only have one strong clue-getter, you'll probably want a few extra cards that help you find clues.
- Be mindful of your card types. The above listed distribution isn't perfect, but when in doubt, keep the ratios fairly similar, noting any differences your specific investigator or class might require (i.e: Mystics accounting for arcane slots, or oddballs like Sefina who love events)
- I've purposely tried to leave 1 or 2 splash slots ("Up to 5 of X class") on applicable investigators open for customization, so don't forget to fill those out!
- If you're more comfortable, and really want to optimize you can obviously replace cards from these presets as well.
How to Organize
Everybody is going to have their own system, but I've gone ahead and placed each class in its own stack, with the investigators at the head of each deck in order of release, and reversing investigator specific cards to keep them clearly separated. Colour coded card sleeves really help keep things organized, but they aren't necessary and can even be a nuisance when you're removing cards from off-class stacks to fill out your campaign-ready decks. You can also build dividers out of cardstock, cardboard, or whatever else you have handy and disperse them as liberally as you see fit.
Investigator Specific Tips
Lily offers a very unique and diverse deckbuilding experience. Her stats, cardpool, and signature disciplines all leave a lot open to interpretation. Her disciplines ARE her ability, and each one may radically affect how you play her. Each one is viable, as the less relevant stat boosts tend to have more impactful effects. The intellect boost for instance; may seem underwhelming, but it also has the potential to draw 5 cards every other turn! She'll likely average 3 of these disciplines by the end of a campaign, and even just having 2 turns her into a real powerhouse. She tends to do best in a combat role, but she has a lot of potential for either flexibility and specialization - able to perform well tanking damage, nabbing easy clues, supporting teammates, and efficiently dispatching enemies.
Lily can take a few scenarios to really get rolling though, and effectively wielding her is a tall order! Deckbuilding and gameplay can both be intimidating even for players with a bit of experience. Her disciplines are not particularly straightforward, and her cardpool is a bit awkward. Guardians typically want nice shiny guns, but you're rather limited on weapons here. All that said - if you enjoy the intricacy of a complex character, Lily will not disappoint.
These archetypes are more like guides for each discipline as they relate to this template:
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Spirit - The willpower discipline's biggest advantage is that it makes you very hard to kill. You can certainly take this with the intent of casting some staple (non-combat) arcane asset spells, as long as you take some cards to juice up your willpower further. The best reason though, is to enable tanking damage for other players or key allies, and improve your survivability - enabling you to easily play cards that trade your vitals for some benefit. You may also want cards that avoid damage entirely so you can "unbreak" your discipline more easily.
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Thought - The intellect here could potentially help you pick up some low hanging clue-fruit, but what you really want is the insane card draw. Pack your deck with easily playable low cost cards that you can quickly cycle through and you'll probably get at bare minimum 10 cards drawn from the thought ability in any given scenario! Skills, events, fast cards, and resource generation are all extremely valuable here, as you want to empty your hand as quickly as possible.
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Fate - The most straightforward - you're probably taking this for the fist. This brings us to the dragon pole, which begs to be built around. Focus on quickly increasing your arcane slots, and filling them with cheap assets (bonus points if they're actually useful). If / when you decide the dragon pole doesn't suit your weaponry needs, you can disregard the extra assets and slots. The +5 skill discipline ability should normally only be used on critical tests or powerful card combos.
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Body - Body (agility) is great if you grab a lot of assets and events that let you fight or evade enemies. You'll typically either want a toolbox of efficient options, or you can just use an arsenal of high damage spells, events, and weapons to blast big bads into oblivion. Cards that give you some breathing room (either by encounter deck manipulation or effective means of escape) will also help you flip the card back more easily.
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Cards in this template worth having duplicates of: Dragon Pole, Familiar Spirit, Scrying, Talisman of Protection, One-Two Punch, Delve Too Deep, Drawn to the Flame, Emergency Cache, Torrent of Power, Vicious Blow, Katana, Astral Travel
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Excluded cards worth adding: Machete, Survival Knife, mystic accessories, David Renfield, Alchemical Transmutation, basic mystic arcane assets, Backpack, Ethereal Slip, "Let me handle this!", Premonition, Prepared for the Worst, Storm of Spirits, Uncage the Soul, Ward of Protection, basic neutral skills, Take the Initiative, In the Thick of It, True Grit, Second Wind