Resilient Jim

Jim Culver is well-suited to decks designed for staying power and flexibility; a standard spellcaster mystic is excellent when armed with their limited-use spell assets, but inherently vulnerable when they run out. To counter this, this build instead leverages Jim's broad statline and ability to use his intellect and combat skills, while using Ineffable Truth both to cover for his weak Agility and as an additional source of damage. This is not intended to be a super in-depth deck, just a little idea I've been throwing around. I feel like with the card pool we have now, Jim Culver is really going to become substantially more effective. Stay tuned for some more unusual Jim decks in the near future...!

Our underlying deck mechanics are relatively self-explanatory - Meat Cleaver and Overpower to take out enemies, St. Hubert's Key, Alyssa Graham and Arcane Studies for investigating with intellect and Empower Self for boosts to both. Scroll of Secrets rounds out the assets for some efficient card draw. The events are focused on economy, and A Test of Will and Ward of Protection help with the encounter deck and support. Drawn to the Flame was chosen because it costs no resources - again, in keeping with the idea of being viable in spite of possible unfortunate circumstances. Depending on the circumstances, Jim's Trumpet should either be pitched for its skill icons, or saved up to be played once Scroll of Secrets has done its job, to help make up for the horror from Meat Cleaver.

Intrepid provides boosts to both Combat and Investigation, and Jim's solid willpower should give it a solid chance to go off. Additionally, Intrepid works well alongside A Test of Will (and indeed would also work well alongside A Test of Will (2), for those Yorick, Ashcan and Tommy players), allowing you to more easily manufacture a willpower test in the mythos phase so you can use Intrepid at a time when you will be able to get the most out of its boosts.

Naturally, Enraptured is likely to go off thanks to the range of Intellect boosts and can be used to refill either of Scroll of Secrets or Ineffable Truth as needed, further emphasising the flexibility and adaptability of the deck - either more enemy management or essentially a cantrip, depending on the board state.

Using Arcane Studies (4), we can get value out of economy cards even once we have purchased all our assets, while also providing refreshing boosts each round, making it a standout card for this deck - since the deck runs loads of economy cards to prevent the common Mystic issue of being unable to pay for all the expensive assets, this is an excellent way to ensure nothing goes to waste.

Simply put, 20 exp was chosen as a decent midpoint that should be achievable in any campaign; when starting out, I'd take Spectral Razor and Read the Signs initially and upgrade them to Empower Self and Arcane Studies. From this point, further upgrades would be a second Arcane Studies (4), Emergency Cache (2), Scroll of Secrets (3) and then whatever luxury cards you would like - 2x Hemispheric Map + Relic Hunter or Crystalline Elder Sign, Backpack (2), Ikiaq, Deny Existence (5), and so on; in solo, Ward of Protection (2) is obviously redundant but Ward of Protection (5) is a solid investment.