James Culver, Purveyor of Oddities

Jim's come a long way. From playing the blues in a run down speak easy to becoming a collector of rare antiques, he's certainly learned a lot about the occult.

This deck is centered around collecting and using multiple Relics and Allies to buff Jim's chances of succeeding at a test. I tried two different versions of Jim, both of which perform quite well, this and a Ritual Candles/Future version. Getting buffs to his Willpower and Intellect early are key for early tests, and many of the cards included allow for him to get started right away by getting through a good portion of his deck through card draw and resource generation. To this end early on you like to see Jewel of Aureolus and David Renfield, the former being a bit more of a hassle and cutting down on the options by added unneeded doom to the Agenda.

Through usage of Jewel of Aureolis, Laboratory Assistant,Dr. Elli Horowitz, and Calling in Favors, you're able to get through a good part of your deck, to the other bonuses found in your Skill Cards, Spirit Athame, and Holy Rosary. Once set up, a combination of Scavenging along with Grotesque Statueand Dark Prophecy can highly mitigate most tests that you're unsure of succeeding on, another bonus being able to repeatedly toss Jim's Trumpetfor +3 Willpower or a Wild Icon to get it right back with Scavenging. Having a 4 in Intellect with Alyssa Graham nearby will also reserve many of the Rite of Seeking charges you otherwise wouldn't want to spend on 2-3 shroud locations. Jims a pretty tough guy, with his 3 Fight, 5 when used with Spirit Athame once per turn, which of course is not entirely necessary, but gives a bit more of added comfort.

All in all, it's a pretty straightforward deck, and not as full of tricks as it's counterpart Ritual Candle Deck version, but i think it feels a bit more solid, and being able to pick and choose which tests you require that added cushion to makes it feel a hell of a lot stronger. Using the The Chthonian Stone also goes a long way into getting rid of the -4 to further give you comfort knowing you'll at most need to succeed by 3 in most scenarios, and for those be all end all tests, you have the safety net of Dark Prophecy and Grotesque Statue to ensure success. All in all the name of the deck is comfort.. knowing you have a much better chance at success going into a test, and a good, comfortable way to get it to that point through it's resource generation and card draw.