Someone Saved My Life Tonight

This is a multiplayer support Calvin build. It is designed to keep everyone else from dying, potentially at the expense of your own life. To that end it is packed with cancels and ways to bail out your fellow investigators out of trouble. This deck matches really well with investigators who have a heightened vulnerability (example Finn Edwards' low willpower, Daisy Walker's low health, etc) since you can cancel or otherwise take the heat off them. When things are quiet, the deck has enough investigation tricks to pull its weight and perhaps a smidge more; it is not a dedicated clue build however, a role that should be allocated to someone else in a 3-4 player group or expected to some degree of a 2 player companion. The same applies to monster slaying. The decks first job is keeping people out of trouble and eating their losses.

Piloting Instructions

As aforementioned, your #1 priority is to keep everyone else from dying, hopefully spinning that into a positive via Calvin's constant abilities. "Let me handle this!" and Ward of Protection(2), in particular, can (possibly) turn a treachery into a skill bonus; A Test of Will(1) is a backup option. Try to save these cards for the treacheries most likely to ruin a specific investigators day (e.g. Frozen in Fear in "Skids" O'Toole). To that end, it will be to your teams benefit to having a decent grasp of the current contents of the encounter deck.

While this deck is far from being a monster slayer of the group, it does have a few tricks to deal with enemies in a sometimes... less conventional manner. The ideal combo is Heroic Rescue and Aquinnah(3), however you may have to content yourself with one or the other. If an enemy engages another investigator, have that investigator take an attack of opportunity and play Heroic Rescue. On your turn, you will have to deal with it via some combination of cards (or evasion). Your purpose is to get the enemy off their backs. If necessary, you may have to drag the enemy into a corner somewhere and eat the defeat.

Most of the time you will be discovering clues. It has all the usual Survivor tools to accomplish this. You should be prioritizing mental trauma/damage to assist in your endeavors, since you will often be using the basic investigate action. Because our kit isn't very big we should have lots of available actions to put towards it. Newspaper(2) and "Look what I found!"+Resourceful can of course go a long way to helping with investigating. Rise to the Occasion can also play a role, unless it's needed for combat. With that being said, because of how "disposable" Calvin is, you should also not be that afraid to stray from the pack and investigate the nooks and crannies most fear to tread; "Let me handle this!"/Ward of Protection(2) of course let you support the team from a distance.

Mulligan Guide

Overall, there aren't too many critical pieces to get yourself going. Consequently any combination of assets/events will be good to have. Nevertheless, if you had to choose, go with the following.

Early campaign you are primarily looking for:

1. Flashlight
2. Rabbit's Foot
3. "Let me handle this!"
4. Fire Axe

Mid to late campaign you are primarily looking for:

1. Aquinnah(3)
2. Stand Together(3)
3. Ward of Protection(2)
4. Newspaper(2)

Upgrade Guide

You can find a fully upgraded deck here

1. Fight or Flight x2 Stand Together(3) x2 (6XP)
2. Ward of Protection x2 Ward of Protection(2) x2 (4XP)
3. Fire Axe x2 Aquinnah(3) x2 (6XP)
4. Guts or Flashlight x2 Newspaper(2) x2 (4XP)
5. Unexpected Courage A Test of Will(2) x2 (2XP)
6. Lucky! x2 Lucky!(2) x2 (4XP)

Somewhere along the way pick up Scrapper(3) to help out with evasion.

Not much to it. Start with any teamwork-esque cards and work your way up. A Test of Will(1) can be a good card to pick up earlier, especially if someone else is packing Delve Too Deep, and Fight or Flight can be a good card to hang onto a little while longer.

Deck Alternatives

• Key of Ys(5): provides an additional horror soak and a solid skill booster. I try to avoid using this card in part due to the reputation that comes with it, but considering this deck does not have much in the way of horror soaks it can be a great pick up when Calvin gets saddled with a touch too much horror trauma.
• Eidetic Memory(3): if the group (most likely a Seeker) is packing some great Insight cards then consider picking it up.
• Against All Odds(2): the card is practically tailor made for Calvin, but I am unsure where it fits in. Possibly replace Guts/Perception or, if you're brave, Leather Coat.
• Rabbit's Foot(3): Another card seemingly made for Calvin... but 3XP is a big price to swallow. A good low priority buy.
• Stroke of Luck(2): to auto-pass tests. 'nuff said.
• Say Your Prayers/Desperate Search: when I first tried this deck I used both of these in place of Guts/Perception, but I found the Desperate cards to be overkill and wanting for a little card draw. That being said, because you can commit them to other players skill tests they can be a huge boon. Pick your poison.
• "I'm outta here!": if the campaign has a number of scenarios where this card can be used, it can be a good option to bail out. Then again, trauma isn't necessarily the worst thing...

What's Not in the Deck

• "I'll see you in hell!": always a classic, however as this deck can't leverage the icons very well (which is the main benefit of the card) I would give it a pass in this deck
• Peter Sylvestre: the Big Man on Campus is left absent from this deck for a number of reasons. First, Aquinnah(3) works really well with Calvin/Heroic Rescue and provides us with a little offense (while still able to act as a Horror soak if things get dicey). Second, unless we are saddled with Horror we probably don't want to place it on Peter; even if we are saddled with horror, picking up a Key of Ys(5) may be a better investment. Third, it relieves our need to pick up Charisma(3) which allows us to focus on more immediately impactful upgrade options. Fourth, someone else can take Peter. Fifth, Peter's been putting his heart and soul into the game night after night, doesn't he deserve a night off?

Shameless Plug

If you liked this deck and want to read more of my musings on Arkham Horror: The Card Game, be sure to check out my blog The Strange Solution.