[Le Potager] Jim Culver, street musician - TDL Normal COMPLE

This deck is meant for a 4 investigators party. Jim is played as a sanity healer support. He plays alongside with Roland Banks (tank), Rex Murphy (clue oriented) and Skid'o'Toole (ressource oriented). Thematically, I wanted to play Jim as a poor musician, raised by the street laws.


Deckbuilding

The starting idea was to use Jim's Trumpet ability to support the party by healing sanity. Indeed, the probability to draw a token is great with 4 players. So to support this idea I looked for 2x Clarity of Mind to set the healer concept and help my crew.

Then, I wanted to go straight for a Dark Horse deck to get 5 4 4 3 most of the time. This should be good for pratically 2/3 of the skill tests. I put 2x Dark Horse and 1x No Stone Unturned to get it rapidly (around 65% chance to get it in my starting hand this way Mulligan included).

To manage resources, I finally opted for 1x Madame Labranche, 1x Lone Wolf, 2x Forbidden Knowledge. This is the most versatile combo to manage my resources/phase problems.

Because I have no resources most of the time I needed 2x Uncage the Soul to unleash 2x Shrivelling or 1x Storm of Spirits

I tried the knife or the fireaxe, but finally decided to go without weapon only relying on my bare hands or my spells. My hands need to be free for 1x Jim's Trumpet or the 1x Ritual Candles. Later for the Grotesque Statue.

2x Arcane Initiate are here to get rapidly the spells in hand and to stand Jim's sanity loss on Forbidden Knowledge. 2x Fearless / 2x Holy Rosary have the same goal. 1x Painkillers are here to sustain damages in emergency cases. Both Roland and Skid have First Aid.

This Jim Culver deck should be a Mario deck, no real weakness, no real strength, but a solid and consistent deck for almost all circumstances.


Upgrading

I first went for the 2x Grotesque Statue to have a chance to succeed in any task I could be useful for.

Then I went to get 2x Ward of Protection because the encounter deck can hurt really bad sometimes and to help me manage my resources (see below).

Later, as the monsters come stronger and numerous I upgraded my 2x Shrivelling and added a Song of the Dead replacing my painkillers.

Last thing I did was to get someway to escape monsters putting my hands on Blinding Light. Indeed is the weak point of this deck.


Coming back from the Dunwich Campaign

This deck was indeed an all-round deck. Jim was able to do almost everything with a decent chance on passing the skill tests, especially with the Grotesque Statue. So Jim was used like some sort of handyman, making things people aren't specialized for. He was able to heal sanity some times, get some isolated clues or kill weak monsters, later elite monsters thanks to Shrivelling or passing tests nobody wanted to.

Roland acted more like a monster killer than a tank due to some persistent sanity loss. Rex was an insane clue vacuum cleaner and Skid was more or less a monster evader with bullet time included (The Gold Pocket Watch). We manage to succeed the campaign but Roland stayed in another dimension

I love it when a plan comes together

On the 8 missions of the DL campaign, I could manage to start with the Dark Horse 7 times thanks to mulligan and No Stone Unturned. Managing the resources went also pretty well. Having 2x Ward of Protection is a must have: this way you can always get your resource in the Upkeep phase and spend it quickly in the Encounter phase if necessary to get the bonus. Madame Labranche and Lone Wolf didn't have the impact i imagined but were more like some side bonus. Forbidden Knowledge was also a little side kick to ready some powerful stuff. Finally I was lucky enough to have Dr. Henry Armitage to improve my managment on the last missions.

Arkham Asylum

Because most of the time I focused on readying the Dark Horse, the sanity healing concept was a bit put aside. In the early missions this role was not really necessary, but with some persistent injuries coming to Roland's brain I had to be more vigilent.

On the 8 missions only 1 time Jim's Trumpet was used in an effective way (about 5-6 sanity healed). This is mainly because my priority was on getting my hands on the Dark Horse card and not Jim's Trumpet. Clarity of Mind was used in 3 missions to heal more or less 2 sanity each time.

I must say, the healing concept of this deck is more like a side feature. The core mechanic is the Dark Horse. That said, the idea of a sanity healer using the trumpet in a 4 players party is really interesting. comes at least 3-4 times/game. Clarity of Mind is effective but a bit action consuming. I really could appreciate an evolved version of this card for some XP's.


Improving the deck

Some cards were totally useless for me. Arcane Studies, Arcane Initiate. I don't know if it's my way of driving this deck but I didn't need them. Arcane Initiate card was never played as an ally, fearing the doom counter and not needing more spells. Arcane Studies was mostly packed to get more to search for clues. But having the Dark Horse bonus and Rex Murphy aside make this card pretty useless. Also, having to spend carefully my resources, this 2 resources card is way too expensive for what it has to offer.

Holy Rosary although I think it is a good card, was pretty useless in my case. Again, having the Dark Horse bonus plus the Grotesque Statue for the important skill tests is sufficient. Casting the Shrivelling can be made easily without this artefact.

I think I would definitely replace Arcane Studies, Arcane Initiate and 1 Holy Rosary for some more skill cards like Manual Dexterity or Perception to improve the versatility of this deck. I think it was defintely it's best aspect for this 4 players campaign.