Learning True Solo #6 Research Reuse Recycle Minh

This time, We're going to discuss planning your build to match the campaign. There are minor spoilers for Path to Carcosa in this guide (no story spoilers, but some gameplay, like expected XP and some gameplay elements)

Similar to (#5 Sefina Rousseau) this deck deviates from a 10asset/10event/10skill baseline to emphasize a particular style of build - a high-asset deck.

If you don't play Taboo, replace the Laboratory Assistant with Scavenging for the first scenario.

Mulligan

In the first Scenario:

• Dig for: Scrounge for Supplies, Whitton Greene, "I've got a Plan!"
• Keep: Archaic Glyphs, Dream Diary, Strange Solution, Schoffner's Catalogue
• Pitch: Pretty much the rest of it.

if playing without taboo, also keep Scavenging in the first scenario.

Subsequently:

• Dig for: Scavenging, Scrounge for Supplies, Dream Diary, "I've got a Plan!"
• Keep: Non-item assets like Whitton Greene, Archaic Glyphs
• Pitch: Items, Glimmer of Hope, skills.

Planning your Build

When you're not playing blind it benefits your win rate to plan ahead your build, not just what you plan to take, but also why and when.

For Path to Carcosa up to 50XP by the end of the 7th scenario is possible, but since 12XP or so are subject to random setup or encounter draws, and several more are on elite monsters we'd prefer to avoid, I budgeted for 33XP. If you get more, check the optional upgrades below

The specific order of upgrades is pretty flexible, but:

Scenario 2 has a large number of hunters - If you're playing taboo your first scenario XP probably went to Scavenging but if it didn't, consider upgrading either Archaic Glyphs: Prophecy Foretold or Strange Solution: Acidic Ichor

Scenarios 4 & 5 both stress action economy, and involve a lot of movement, so getting two copies of Eon Chart (1) by the end of scenario 3, and possibly Shortcut (2) will help. (Pathfinder is also an option but Shortcut (2) will let you move even with an enemy on you which can matter in these two scenarios where every action counts.)

Scenario 6 Archaic Glyphs: Prophecy Foretold will make it much easier to deal with hunters in this cramped map.

Scenario 8 If you are on Conviction-path make sure you've got both copies of Strange Solution: Acidic Ichor and try to save the Scrounge for Supplies to recycle "I've got a Plan!".

Research

One of the quirks of Carcosa is that the first scenario is extremely forgiving on time (you have infinite time, if you can defeat the Agenda 2 elite on demand, which conveniently takes exactly the damage "I've got a Plan!" can deal.) The first six turns are also very low pressure.

Using this time wisely it's feasible to accomplish all 3 research sub-tasks in the first scenario. If you can't get everything done, you'll have another low time pressure scenario in scenario 3 to finish up.

Carcosa also has at least one (and often multiple) Hunter Elite enemy in every scenario, so "evade and ignore" solo strategies are less effective.

Archaic Glyphs: Prophecy Foretold gives us the option to evade even Elite Enemies(!) using while still getting clues.

Strange Solution: Acidic Ichor combined with "I've got a Plan!" give us potentially 20 damage at high skill, and we don't mind that the Ichor uses because most of our committs are -icon anyway.

Truth From Fiction helps us research Archaic Glyphs when played for its secrets or reloads a partially used up Eon Chart, and the also helps with the Strange Solution test. You'll probably upgrade out of them eventually.

Reuse

Minh Thi Phan wants to commit at least one card every round. one way to ensure a commit every round is to use a researched Dream Diary to get Essence of the Dream added to our hand every turn. I like Dreams of An Explorer but any of them will do, so pick your favorite.

Hopefully between Short Supply and Scroll of Secrets (3) The King In Yellow just goes right to your discard; if you do draw it though, keep the diary and replace whatever is in your other hand. Essence in combination with Glimmer of Hope, will satisfy the 3+ commit, 6+ -icons requirement to clear it without hassle.

Recycle

Scavenging recovers items from our discard. Short Supply lets us do this from turn 1 (and gives us an extra 10 cards to see turn 1 for finding key items like Dream Diary).

Scrounge for Supplies can recur juicy 0-cost events like "I've got a Plan!", or recover a level 0 asset like Scavenging (0) if both copies wound up in the discard.

recursion makes Schoffner's Catalogue a reusable Emergency Cache, which pays for repeat plays of Eon Chart and Ice Pick.

Ice Pick (3) is a very strong card if you can recur it, Scavenging does exactly that. because Ice Pick is fast, we don't need to buy Scavenging (2) early, but the upgrade does help since several of our recurring targets (the two Eon Chart (1) for example) are not themselves fast. However, Scavenging cannot recover committed cards or spent Ice Pick in the same test, so keep that in mind (see the FAQ page on scavenging for more details).

Remember you can investigate a location without clues.

Variations

If you want to be gutsy you can take Shrewd Analysis, which reduces the XP requirements of the full build down to 24XP or so.

• For Dream Diary we're indifferent.
• For Archaic Glyphs we prefer Prophecy Foretold but each has utility.
• For Strange Solution it's gambling for at least one Acidic Ichor. If we don't, definitely pack a second Ice Pick, you'll be reliant on them for killing monsters. Freezing Variant is ok, the other 2 are bad here.

Researching Ancient Stone (1) for Ancient Stone: Knowledge of the Elders and Ancient Stone: Transient Thoughts could instead replace either Archaic Glyph or Strange Solution, but would require adding Arcane Enlightenment. In the end this just didn't fit into the 35-or-less XP Budget I planned, but it's certainly worth considering. Drawing Thin (note: taboo makes it cost 3xp) and a fast test trigger like Track Shoes make these more consistent. If you're playing a campaign that is richer in XP (like TFA) consider trying to find room for Ancient Stone.

If you don't like Short Supply you can try a variation involving Forced Learning Which will give you some card selection as you build up your discard, but I prefer to hit the ground running.

Lantern is really good at killing 1 health aloof enemies - but that isn't relevant in Path to Carcosa. In other campaigns this is worth considering.

Dr. Milan - would replace Whitton Greene, but doesn't actually search for the one card you really want which is the dream diary though. If you look at this list and wonder how to afford playing cards, run Dr. Milan instead.

If playing a blind campaign consider cutting one or more research cards, Dream Diary is the only one that is core to the build.

An Example Upgrade path

(View at arkham-starter.com)

Whether you run 1 or 2 copies of the various researched cards is up to personal taste: I found 1 copy of Dream Diary sufficient (it's an item, you get a virtual 20 shots at it in the opening hand + short supply discard, and Whitton Greene digs 6 more); In the playtest I ended up running just 1 copy of Prophecy Foretold to take 1 copy of shortcut instead, Maybe you cut a Schoffner's Catalogue (since the single copy does discard itself) to make room for shortcut instead, etc.

Remarks

There, one of every class. And we'll be moving on to TFA, both the investigators and the campaign next.

This deck is more for a large collection, with key cards from Dunwich (e.g. all our damage), Carcosa (e.g. Minh herself), Dream-Eaters (the Diary), and Edge (Short Supply, Ice Pick) there isn't really any way to cut this one down and leave the core concept intact.

You can play a version of Research True Solo Minh without Edge of the Earth cards, I'd probably cut the whole scavenging package and run more traditional action compression like Pathfinder (1) - That probably ends up looking something like Magnificate's Solo Dunwich Minh.