Skill test?! PFFT, what skill test? v2.0 (see link)

UPDATED: April 20, 2017

VERSION 2.0: https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/1139/skill-test-pfft-what-skill-test-2.0

The deck list on the left is from my 1.0 version of this deck. Please click the link above to be taken to the latest published version, with the most up to date cards.

This 2.0 version includes different cards in a Level 0 deck when starting out a campaign and has new card recommendations as your gain XP. I wanted to clean up the description section of this deck as well. I hope everyone enjoys running this deck.

This deck is meant for a 2 player game and is all about CONSISTENCY and passing on 75%+ of your skill tests while providing SUPPORT for the other player. After having played with it, it works very, very well and has a low cost curve.

DECK GOALS & CARDS

1.) Very consistent skill checks

• Jim Culver - His ability to treat symbols as "0" is amazing by itself (and underrated in my opinion), but combined with some of the other cards in this deck, it makes Jim an absolute powerhouse when it comes to skill checks of all sorts

• Holy Rosary - Just a solid card that can take some horror in a pinch and makes Shrivelling and Rite of Seeking much better. Also helps with a plethora of Treachery encounter cards, as a lot of them test . Mulligan hard to get this in your opening hand.

• Lucky! - Helps you push through those really tight skill tests when you just couldn't quite get there on your own. Having this card helps to round out the consistency of the deck. Great, all-around card

• Guts, Perception, Unexpected Courage - 6 total double pip Skill cards help you pass those tougher skill checks. Didn't grab Overpower, since Shrivelling will be doing most of the combat (the odd time I take part in it). I originally had Manual Dexterity instead of Unexpected Courage, in order to maximize card draw from skill tests, but I found that just a little too often Manual Dexterity would end up sitting in my hand. Unexpected Courage, while not offering the same card cycling, offers enough flexibility to rise above that shortcoming.

• Defiance - Adds further consistency into the deck on two fronts. First, having more wild pip skill cards is great, allowing you to remain flexible and remain confident attempting skill checks of all kinds. And secondly, with the ability on this card, you can ignore both the modifier number and effect on the , , , and . So, if you're ever in a tough situation, where a specific one of those symbols can wreck you, whether it's based on having a high negative modifier or powerful effect, choose and ignore that symbol. Love this card.

2.) Rapid clue collection

• Rite of Seeking - As mentioned above, combined with Holy Rosary, it makes investigating most locations a breeze and it gives you a second clue if you pass, making your turns much more efficient and allowing the other investigator/player you're playing with to focus on other tasks, such as killing monsters and discovering highly valuable locations (NOTE: look at the PILOTING section below to see how to best play this in order to minimize the downside of drawing a , , , , )

• "Look what I found!" - Similar to Rite of Seeking above, but executed differently, if you fail a search due to: a) not having Rite of Seeking in play, b) not having a Flashlight in play, or c) having to resort to a natural Intellect test without synergy from other cards, "Look what I found!" will help push you over the top and pass the test, and provide you with a second clue. Awesome card

• Drawn to the Flame - Again, just like Rite of Seeking above, this will get you 2 clues (do you see what I'm trying to go for here :P), except this card allows you to get it 100% of the time. Costs you no resources, with the cost being in the Encounter card you draw. But, if you set yourself up well in the early game, you should have no trouble managing whatever the Encounter deck throws at you

• Flashlight - Great to play this early if you don't draw the other cards above, making Investigation easier and keeping up your tempo during the game, until you find the other cards that help you grab clues

3.) Ability to occasionally dish out damage

• Shrivelling - While better suited for Agnes Baker, due to her ping ability whenever she takes a horror, Shrivelling is still an incredibly powerful combat spell that can be used to destroy middling enemies and to help the other investigator you are playing with. Combining this spell with the cards in the first section, you won't be missing often. Upgrade to the 3XP version (Shrivelling) as soon as you have some spare XP, the added +2 is incredible for combat consistency. But since I recommend piloting this deck as a support/clue gatherer/secondary damage dealer, this is not a priority right away.

• Guard Dog - I added in Guard Dog to act as a bit of a tank for me while I go around the map, and it helps me hit back at the enemies without committing an entire action. Allows me to move when engaged with an enemy, transfer the damage onto good ol' Rover here, and ping the enemy back. Originally I was debating between First Aid, Liquid Courage and Emergency Aid, but figured an ally to mitigate the damage is just as good as those, without having me to waste actions to heal myself, while also helping me damage enemies.

4.) Other

• Arcane Initiate - Card draw to help me find the right spell when needed. Toolboxy. If I need to search for clues, use this to dig for Rite of Seeking. If I need to fight or prepare for a boss encounter, use this to dig for Shrivelling. And more than likely, while searching for this, I'll hit a Ward of Protection or two, so bonus. As we upgrade the deck, more spells could get added, which will make this card more consistent when searching. Depending on the number of spells added later on, you could possibly cut this if you want maximum spell concentration in the deck, at the cost of not being able to search for what you need. Also it's a meat shield, so that's cool (NOTE: Read the PILOTING section below to see how to minimize the impact of the 1 addition doom being put into play)

• Delve Too Deep - As the campaign has progressed, the game begins to give out less XP, making upgrading a more difficult task. This card is here is help alleviate that issue. Including 2 in the deck gives us, on average, 1.5 XP per scenario, which will quickly help out the investigators get to their better card upgrades. This card, I think, gets weaker the more players you play with, as you begin going through more and more of the encounter deck. See the PILOTING section below to see how to effectively play this card. NOTE: I'd say this is a flexible slot in the deck. If you don't want to worry about gaining extra XP through this card, you can definitely swap it out for another pair of cards

• Emergency Cache - Because having more resources is never a bad thing. Great to have in your opening hand to dump all your assets into play

• Ward of Protection - Just a catch-all spell that stops something really bad from coming up, especially if I'm not equipped to deal with the encounter card draw at that moment. I often use it on Ancient Evils, as that card is just crushing, causing players to effectively miss an entire round.

• Jim's Trumpet - Heals my horror I take from enemies and from cards like Shrivelling and Ward of Protection. Also has the benefit of targeting other investigators at my location or connecting location, so I can help my tanks reduce their horror (since they usually have low sanity stats) without having to move to their location.

PILOTING

Just wanted to write down a few key points here on how to get the most out of this deck

• This deck has a relatively low average cost curve, at about 1.76 cost per non-skill card. So you can quickly get your assets into play without being strangled by low resources amounts

• This deck is not meant for SINGLE PLAYER. It banks on having a second Investigator playing with you (ideally a Guardian I think) in order for them to be able to focus on the enemies and finding/revealing high value locations, while you support them by finding clues, damaging enemies here and there, and tilting the game in your favour with consistent skill checks.

• Rite of Seeking has the inherent negative attached to it that when you reveal a , , , , or , you miss the remainder of your actions for the turn. So, to mitigate this, you may want to use Rite of Seeking as your 3rd action. Just be sure you set yourself up with the proper cards in play and/or in hand that you pass the test to get the 2 clues. If you whiff or hit one of those symbols, it's ok because you already had two other actions beforehand to do stuff

• Ideally, play Arcane Initiate on the turn right before the Agenda deck will advance. That way, the doom that Arcane Initiate brings with it doesn't actually do anything, as the agenda would advance anyways, and the doom will be taken off during the next Mythos Phase. But I have played it Turn 1 or 2 as well to help dig for the important spells when my mulligan didn't help me, just be sure to kill her off before she helps the Agenda deck advance (engage an enemy, let him hit you, and assign the damage to her). Ultimately, you have to judge if you can afford the extra doom, and feel out the current state of the game

• For Delve Too Deep, you want to play this when you and your partner are in complete control of the game, so drawing the 2+ encounter cards, no matter what they are, can't hurt you too much. I also think, playing this early on, in the first round or two, can work as well, since there probably isn't too much on the board yet to overwhelm you. Or just save them for the end of the scenario, when you know you are about to win it. Then, the encounter cards probably won't do much to you, regardless of what you draw (just make sure they don't kill you if you have low health or sanity). Once you repeat scenarios and campaigns, and you know what cards are going to be in encounter decks, this card becomes stronger as you can use this knowledge to your advantage and play around potential encounter card draws. All in all, it's definitely a card you have to "feel out" when to play it effectively.

• I usually stick to being close to the other investigator (usually within 1 location) who acts as my tank and can come engage any difficult enemies that I draw. Usually the tanky investigators the other player uses have low Sanity, so being close to them makes Jim's Trumpet very powerful.

CARD UPGRADES

Definitely look at using your XP to buy these cards to make the deck even better:

• Grotesque Statue - This card is insane. Drawing 2 chaos tokens and picking the better one is so incredibly powerful. High XP cost but this just puts the deck over the top in terms of consistency. Make getting 2 of these cards in your deck your top priority

• Blood Pact - Don't know how early I want to upgrade to this as the downside of using this card is huge. However, it has two things going for it. First, it's a permanent card, so each scenario it starts in play, not costing your resources. Plays nicely into the theme of consistency featured in this deck. And secondly, getting +3 or +3 is so useful when you are faced with a skill test you NEED to pass, such as a final hit on the boss. However, don't use this more than ONCE, maybe TWICE in a scenario, otherwise you'll speed up the agenda too much. Also, playing it right when the agenda is about to advance in the following round will give you the most mileage out of the card. Another card you have to "feel out" to know when to utilize it. Use with caution. Works great with Grotesque Statue.

• Blinding Light - The 0 XP version of this card simply isn't good enough. However, this upgraded version cuts the cost in half and it allows you to do 2 damage while evading. It is also a Spell Card, so it can be searched with Arcane Initiate in a pinch, without taking up precious Arcane slots like your other key spells in the deck. It help you evade tough monsters quite easily since you are using instead of .

• Shrivelling - Replaces your Level 0 Shriveling. Gives you +2 to the combat test. As I nearly always have Holy Rosary in play when I use Shriveling, this upgraded version will allow you to go into combat with 7 , easily surpassing most enemies by 2 or 3 combat points. The ultimate way to increase your combat consistency.

• Emergency Cache - A low priority upgrade but a good one nonetheless. Adds in card draw to your 3 resources you get with this card, turning it into a solid cantrip.

CARD CONSIDERATIONS

Here are some cards I might consider swapping in if I feel this deck is weak in some areas:

• Liquid Courage
• First Aid
• Emergency Aid

I would still probably take Liquid Courage over First Aid, due to lower cost, potential to heal multiple times in 1 action, and it doesn't get discarded when it doesn't have supplies on it, so it could be useful if a Treachery asks you to discard an asset you control

• Fearless - Might swap this in for Guts if I feel my ability to cope with horror is inadequate.

• Clarity of Mind - I thought about this one but my Arcane slots are already pretty crowded, so I dropped it. Might swap in the future.

• Book of Shadows - I'm not too sure about this one. Costs a lot to both purchase in XP and to play with resources but provides an extra arcane slot. However, spending an action to add 1 charge to 1 spell you control seems like an inefficient use of actions, especially when I can just draw a second copy of a spell to effectively recharge it. I don't know. I may try it at some point but I don't have high hopes.

• Song of the Dead - Obviously designed with Jim Culver in mind. With that being said, within the context of this deck, I don't think it works. While the +1 is nice for the test, decreasing the need to draw Holy Rosary, and the 3 damage you can potentially do is amazing, it simply isn't consistent enough for my tastes. Often, you'll just be hitting for 1 damage. I guess you can combine this card with Grotesque Statue to increase your odds of hitting a , but now you're looking at 2 card to combo together for, still, not that great of a shot to do 1 more damage over just using Shrivelling. With the way I pilot the deck, I don't get involved in combat too often (the other player is usually the tank/damage dealer), so the odd time that I do, I need to be able to CONSISTENTLY dish out damage, one-shotting weaker enemies in order to maximize turn efficiency or weaken them enough so the other player can finish off stronger enemies before the enemy phase begins.

tl;dr - It's just not consistent enough to warrant a spot in this deck, one that is built specifically to BE consistent.

• Hypnotic Gaze - Solid card but I don't think I would run more than 1 in this deck. Based on how I pilot this deck, combat is not your priority, so avoiding damage is not as big a deal that it would warrant having 2 copies of this. I'd say, if you can squeeze it in at some point, add 1 to help your tank, in dire situations, survive a turn to finish off enemies, with the possibility of finishing off the enemy yourself with the token effect on this card.

• Bind Monster - Not sure where this would fit in the deck, but jeez, you can absolutely lock down a troublesome monster for ages for a measly test of (3), almost no trouble at all with this deck's consistency. However, most non-elite enemies don't trouble the tank that I play with. I'd rather just kill off the enemy, since some scenarios check the number of enemies of a certain type in play. Kill them vs. locking them down just seems like a smarter solution. Permanent removal is better than temporary lockdown. Still, I might mess around with it in the future.

CARDS TO CUT

Here are the cards I'd consider to cut first in order to make room for upgrades:

• 1x Perception - Since we already have plenty of cards to help us gather clues, cutting 1 or 2 of these over time could be ok I think

• 1x Flashlight - Same reasoning as Perception above

• 1-2x Delve Too Deep - If you can get enough XP to purchase the upgrades you want, you can slowly begin cutting these. Or you might even choose not to use these in the starting Level 0 deck as I described in the DECK GOALS & CARDS - Other section above; this is a flexible slot.

• 1x Arcane Initiate - If mulligan hard and get at least 1 of the spells you need in the early going, I think cutting one of her 1 is ok. I haven't ever played more than 1 copy during a scenario anyways.

Thank you for reading my long post. I hope you understand my reasoning for choosing each card. Please comment below with thoughts and suggestion. Hopefully you give this one a shot and find the same success it's give me.

Enjoy!