Keep Those Clues in the Air

I haven't been excited to build my own deck in quite some time. For the last few campaigns, and replays of campaigns, I've exclusively netdecked, unable to concoct and conjure some concept around which I'd want to create a deck.

Perhaps it's because I'm a photographer by profession (alright, that's most likely why it is), but Darrell Simmons has finally inspired me to craft something of my own. And it's been a blast!

Because of his ability, the deck takes obvious advantage of evidence-based cards and the new customizable Empirical Hypothesis. But with the releases in the latest Scarlet Keys cycle, FFG appears to place additional emphasis on juggling clues—placing a clue on a location to achieve an effect—with Research Notes brining extra utility to that idea. So I did both.

Core Concepts

It's a pretty inexpensive deck, and one that takes advantage of a couple mechanisms and weaves them together: placing clues on locations and reducing the difficulty of skill tests by spending evidence. I started out with the whole "failing to succeed/failing forward" concept, but this one genuinely doesn't need those because we're not failing too often (at least, not intentionally). I don't think anything being done in this deck is groundbreaking by any means, but it's definitely enjoyable!

Clue Juggling

It feels counterintuitive to place your clues on your location and take a hit to your action economy, so the effects better be worth it, right? I'm not placing my hard-earned clues all willy-nilly; I'm only placing them down when the situation from the encounter card or chaos token is dire.

There are two aspects to focus on when it comes to juggling clues:

1. The card should have a meaningful effect.
2. You need to be able to discover more clues than you're placing.

Therefore, we've got Analysis, Dr. William T. Maleson, Forewarned, and Captivating Discovery to place clues. Three of those cards can help mitigate negative effects, including two to handle the worst one of them all—particularly when we don't have evidence to help reduce the difficulty on a treachery—and the other is to draw cards. And because we're placing clues on our location, Inquiring Mind is more likely to be triggerable (is that a word?).

After we place clues down, we need help to pick up more clues than we lost, and we have plenty. Shed a Light, Working a Hunch, Deduction, Winging It, and Professor William Webb (and later, Old Keyring) will provide.

Evidence + Difficulty Reduction

Darrell's ability allows you to spend an evidence to reduce the difficulty of the skill test by 2. This can help in many instances, but to really get the most out of it, we want to combine it with Old Keyring to get a 4-shroud location down to 0. This helps make any challenge a breeze, and combos with cards like Scavenging to return discarded keyrings back to hand (or into play) and Shed a Light to get three clues.

Research Notes provides added efficiency when you place clues by giving you evidence to use for keeping that shroud down, or giving you a chance to collect a massive number of clues.

Oh Yeah, and There's Typical Antics

A deck would be remiss without the recycling mechanism, right? Maybe? Especially since we'll be drawing two and discarding one due to Forced Learning. So, we've got Scrounge for Supplies to get clutch level 0 cards back to hand (or even Resourceful, if needed), Scavenging to help cycle the Old Keyring or even return a Cherished Keepsake, and Resourceful to bring back the fun events (or even Scrounge for Supplies, if needed). Recycle, reduce, reuse, right?

Upgrade Path (Roughly 32 XP)

• Eureka! Sharp Vision (1) – Just too good to not get it early and help with the clue-getting. Runner-up to replace would be Deduction because they do similar things, but I like multiple opportunities to get multiple clues.
• Burning the Midnight Oil Forewarned (1) - Pretty important card to get. Canceling those unwanted or treacheries, or when you don't have enough evidence to help you reduce the difficulty, is super useful.
  • Captivating Discovery could be switched out for Forewarned instead. However I personally like card draw, this deck's cost curve is kind of cost effective, and Captivating Discovery helps with the clue juggling mechanism.
• Scavenging Scavenging (2) – Being able to cycle Old Keyring (and later, Old Keyring) feels pretty good. (Keep in mind that the success on Old Keyring triggers after Scavenging's trigger allows you to search.)
• Empirical Hypothesis Upgrades mentioned in the section below. Note that you can only spend 4XP before it caps out for Darrell's deckbuilding requirement, so choose wisely.
• Old Keyring Old Keyring (3) – Keyring is recyclable (or recyclable).
• Lucky! Gumption – This helps with the shroud-reducing mechanism
• Cherished Keepsake Plucky (3) – It's free like the Keepsake, but gives you more: an extra sanity, +1 is a no brainer (see what I did there?) and the +1 to always helps, and you can spend a resource to boost even more.
• Professor William Webb Professor William Webb (2) — A nice-to-have/win-more card to help recover Item assets or get clues from pesky nearby locations.
• Dr. William T. Maleson Dr. William T. Maleson (2)
• Mind over Matter Mind over Matter (2) – Replaces itself and gives you +2 to /, which seems good.

My Hypothesis on Empirical Hypothesis

I focused spending XP on customizations that gave me more options to trigger Empirical Hypothesis and get that sweet, sweet evidence. Getting both of these out (since it's non-unique) for multiple triggering instances is the dream. The other customization options require you spending evidence to do things, which defeats the purpose with Darrell's ability. I spent four 4 XP at once when upgrading this card, so take that into account, I guess. However, here are the upgrades I made when I used it:

1. Field Research (1 XP) – A little tricky to do early in the scenario, but once locations are revealed, it's easy to trigger.
2. Independent Variable (1 XP) – Not so much for the enemy part, but sometimes you know you're going to deal with a Treachery—especially when you draw your Random Basic Weakness—and it's predictable you're going to discard it. Heck, even with the enemy, you could get all mind over matter on it and defeat it with some Occult Invocation.
3. Trial and Error (1 XP) – If you're doing things right, and your is adequately watching your six, you're not going to need this one. But sometimes, the scenario leaves you no choice and you know you're taking a damage/horror to the face. Might as well get some evidence for it!
4. Pessimistic Outlook (1 XP) – Admittedly a little tough to do with cards available to you, but at this point, what else are you gonna spend the XP on? If you want, you can save this XP for other upgrades and only customize the card three times—I won't judge you for it.

Honorable Mention: Peer Review (2 XP) – Your chosen criteria gets met by any investigator at your location, which increases your chances of adding evidence to the card. However, it costs 2 XP, which means two of the above criteria are no longer options. So if you're confident you won't be separating the party, and your other investigators are going to reliably protect you with their "Get over heres" and "Let me handle this-es", then buy Peer Review and drop Pessimistic Outlook and Trial and Error.

Win-More Upgrades (If You Have XP to Burn)

• Deduction Deduction (2) – Always nice to get extra clues, right?

Deckbuilding Honorable Mentions

• Exploit Weakness – For your fighty cards, Exploit Weakness costs 1 more than Mind over Matter, but doesn't require discarding cards from hand like Occult Invocation and can automatically succeed if the enemy's / is 2 or less. And it counts for discarding an enemy in play for the Empirical Hypothesis criteria, if you picked that one.
  • You could also throw in a Quick Learner (4) to better guarantee this and Shed a Light hitting.
  • I would probably put these in place of Mind over Matter, and as a tiny added bonus, Exploit Weakness would replace cards, so you could find them with Resourceful.
• Mr. "Rook" could help you search for what you need in a big deck like this, if you would like more card draw—he can replace either ally, as far as I'm concerned.
• Schoffner's Catalogue – You've certainly got a lot of items to play, but they're all pretty inexpensive, and I opted for Arcane Enlightenment for the increased hand size and extra hand slot for the Research Notes while I'm cycling keyrings or holding multiple cameras.
• Quick Study – Although Lucky is free, replaces itself, and gives you +3, Quick Study helps with the clue juggling and also gives you +3, which you can combo with Deduction or Scavenging/Professor William Webb to cycle in Item assets. A bit niche, but that's why it's in this section.
• Short Supply – I saw a few decks declare this an "auto-include" if you're doing the whole Scavenging/Resourceful/Scrounge thing, but I found it frustrating. It tended to discard a lot of the cards I wanted, and if you're in an environment where you deal with 5+ discard treacheries (like in Dunwich Legacy), it hurts that much more and could be a death sentence paired with Forced Learning. But you're probably braver than I am, so you can seed the discard with this if that matters to you.
• You could include 2x Backpack somewhere to find Item assets. However, there is some search in the deck with Eureka! and Captivating Discovery (which also helps the clue juggling mechanic), and Forced Learning letting you draw 2 (and discard 1) gets through the deck quick enough. If you go with Mr. "Rook", then you'll definitely be fine.
• Once Plucky is added to replace the Cherished Keepsake: Eon Chart (1) or Eon Chart (4) are fun win-more adds to the now-vacant Accessory slot.

A Less-Fun Darrell Deck

Unless you're Mandy, most people would cringe at playing a 45-card deck, but I believe every card has its place and really helps make the entire concept sing, and the added discard by Forced Learning helps seed the discard for antics. However, I can hear the boobirds lamenting the clue juggling concept because they find Research Notes to be too niche. If that's you, hello! You're kind of a downer, but I get where you're coming from. You could probably remove the ten cards built around that mechanism and find five more to make this a normal-sized, boring-sized deck:

• 2x Research Notes
• 2x Arcane Enlightenment
• 2x Dr. William T. Maleson
• 2x Captivating Discovery
• 2x Analysis
• 1x Forced Learning

Then you could probably remove 2x Cherished Keepsake, 2x Eureka!, and I guess 1x Lucky!. I'd also maybe remove 2x Burning the Midnight Oil and add 2x Mr. "Rook". Just know that you're breaking my heart, but I will survive.

Thanks for taking a look at my deck, and don't forget to keep those clues in the air!