Nun With a Gun (Post-Play)

NOTE: This is the final revision of "Nun With a Gun," having piloted her through most of a campaign and seeing the final cards released from The Innsmouth Conspiracy.

The Deck

This Sister Mary deck is being played alongside a support-focused parallel Daisy Walker, a damage-for-clues Roland Banks, and a clue-focused Dexter Drake in The Circle Undone on Hard, hoping to make an early exit by joining up with the Silver Twilight Lodge.

The deck is focused on combat, mostly using the combo of .35 Winchester post-taboo to draw blessings and do 3 damage. Olive McBride is key here, drawing 3 tokens and resolving 2, hoping that one of those 2 is a blessing. Adding Favor of the Sun replaces Olive's necessity, which allows us to replace her with Nephthys. As it stands, Sister Mary tests at a 5 using the Winchester, so she rides the line of effectiveness with this method a bit. Adding Recall the Future and targeting blessing and naming Blessing is the key here, as it gives a crucial additional boost when resolving a blessing among multiple tokens. Additionally adding Enchant Weapon to your Winchester gives Mary an additional 4-5 boost on her shots, plus an extra damage (meaning the gun shoots for 2 with no blessings, or 4 with blessings).

Additional blessings are added with cards like Guardian Angel, Book of Psalms, Hand of Fate and Tempt Fate, and potentially Blessed Blade which is a backup weapon that hopefully is not in use. Adding Righteous Hunt and Sacred Covenant help keep more blessings in the bag, and Favor of the Sun (unlisted as of this writing) helps keep the blessings reliable.

Additional combat comes from Azure Flame, and spell events like Spectral Razor and Storm of Spirits. Upgrading into other combat spells such as Blood Eclipse and Radiant Smite especially help with this too.

Deny Existence is mandatory for countering Crisis of Faith. As a reminder, weaknesses with an encounter card type like Treachery are considered encounter cards during their resolution (see the rules on weaknesses here).

Piloting

Initial mulligan should include either the .35 Winchester or Prepared for the Worst, as the crux of the deck. Trying for one of your consistency cards (Olive McBride, Favor of the Sun, Recall the Future is always strong too, as is Tempt Fate given that it replaces itself by drawing a card as fast. Save Deny Existence for Crisis of Faith.

Downsides

This is obviously a very setup-dependent deck, but it's a setup that can be built incrementally and doesn't require all of the cards at once to be functional. It's also not an inexpensive deck, with only Stand Together for additional resources. This hasn't been a problem yet, but can be a problem late-game when your enchanted winchester runs out of ammo and you find yourself in need of playing a second copy. I can see dropping something like Hand of Fate which is pricey and situational for an Emergency Cache or Voice of Ra (which is less effective with a bag full of blessings) to help. You can also use Rite of Sanctification, but given the once per turn tempo of it, I don't love how it holds blessings hostage.

Upgrade Path

Mandatory Upgrades (in order)

Sacred Covenant (2XP)

Sacred Covenant allows Mary to keep the bag relatively rich with , returning hopefully at least one token per turn. If Mary is able to use the convenant once per turn and passively adds one per turn, that tempo really snowballs into a full bag quickly. As a note, Sacred Covenant ignores the modifier of the token, not the token itself - this means that for effects that care whether or not a was revealed (for example, Recall the Future choosing ), you do still consider the token to have been revealed. However, for an effect like the .35 Winchester that looks for a "token with a non-negative modifier," the would no longer deal additional damage (unless a token with a non-negative modifier is additionally drawn).

Book of Psalms Recall the Future (4XP)

Spectral Razor or Storm of Spirits Radiant Smite (2XP)

Radiant Smite is an incredibly strong card, testing at a minimum of 7 and dealing likely 4 damage. This card has been a blast, and I'd love to see a combo with it and Dayana Esperence (perhaps in a blessed Father Mateo deck). Dropping either Spectral Razor or Storm of Spirits is your choice - I dropped Storm of Spirits personally, because the razor is a more reliable and less situational test.

Blessed Blade Favor of the Sun (2XP)

Blessed Blade is really only in the deck as a backup to the Winchester. Between the event spells and the Winchester along with not being the only fighter in the campaign, I've been successful running only one weapon and not worrying about dropping this. If you want the backup weapon, drop Hand of Fate instead.

Azure Flame Enchant Weapon (6XP)

OR

Azure Flame Enchant Weapon and Well-Maintained (4XP)

Enchant Weapon takes the blessed winchester from great to ridiculous. With the rest of the asset setup of Favor of the Sun and Recall the Future, Mary can reliably set herself up to swing with a minimum of 9 , expecting at least +4 on top of that from the initial and Recall the Future, and deal 4 damage per shot. It's an incredibly powerful combination. Enchant Weapon is pricey in XP though, and you have to dig for a second if you're replaying your gun - so Well-Maintained is a nice shortcut to being able to get both the weapon and its enchantment back in hand if you find a way to drop it. Same as above comment with the Blessed Blade, if you'd prefer to keep this spell for backup damage, drop Hand of Fate or Vicious Blow instead.

Olive McBride Nephthys (8XP)

Now that we have Favor of the Sun, we no longer need Olive McBride to fish for . Nephthys is just unbelievably good, giving Mary the choice to either keep the bag flush with or deal large amounts of testless damage. It also gives her a way to bank tokens when you're expecting Crisis of Faith in a thin deck.

All told, this deck peaks at 16 XP without Nephthys, which means you're reliably set up after 2-3 scenarios. With Nephthys this deck peaks at 24 XP, which isn't hard to achieve either.

Additional Upgrades

The below upgrades are all nice to have if your campaign is rich with XP. I would not prioritize many of them over the above upgrades though.

Holy Rosary Holy Rosary (4XP)

The upgraded Rosary is the same cost/boost/soak as the level 0, but gives an additional passive way to get blessings in the bag. This isn't a terribly exciting upgrade, but a nice one to have.

Vicious Blow Vicious Blow (4XP)

Vicious Blow is mostly in this deck as a hedge for when Mary doesn't have a way to guarantee a with her winchester but still needs the additional damage. Upgraded Vicious Blow continues to shore up that weakness while also giving her a way to really dumpster big enemies by committing it to an enchanted winchester with a guaranteed to do 7 damage in a shot.

Righteous Hunt is another cheap way for Mary to get blessings in the bag.

Custom Ammunition, Extra Ammunition, Reliable, Well-Maintained are all good enhancements for the Winchester as well, Custom Ammunition especially. I haven't felt the need for any of them given the efficacy of this deck so far, but I'd take any of these dropping Hand of Fate or Vicious Blow.