The Favored Father - 9(17)XP Standalone / Campaign

This a 9XP Standalone Deck plus 8 bonus XP (5 from Mateo's bonus and 3 from In the Thick of It). This gets Bless fully online and almost gives you a 19XP deck without the additional Basic Weakness.

I'm working on a similar concept (albeit without Bless) for Kymani Jones.

For a 19XP Standalone deck (27 really, but with only one additional Basic Weakness instead of two), make the following upgrades:

• Holy Rosary >> Holy Rosary (2) which adds more tokens.
• Guts >> Guts (2) for more and more draw
• Replace any one card (maybe Drawn to the Flame or one copy of Emergency Cache?) with Counterspell for additional token protection OR replace any two cards with Righteous Hunt for free movement and additional tokens.

This is an Ancient Covenant / Favor of the Sun deck which uses for Chaos Token protection, allowing you to pass most tests:

• One-time protection with Mateo's own ability.
• Protection from all tokens with Ancient Covenant and Favor of the Sun
• Protection from all but and tokens with Nkosi Mabati
• An auto- with The Codex of Ages.

Prophetic is a mulligan priority, as it will pay for or pump all of your spells:

• Earthly Serenity - This will heal the Horror from your In the Thick of It Trauma or Ward of Protection.
• Radiant Smite
• Read the Signs
• Spectral Razor
• Ward of Protection

Add tokens with:

• Blessed Blade - This is an enabler; Your payoff is not failing (many) tests and pumping the bag.
• Book of Psalms - This will heal horror (important because you're going to take two mental trauma with In the Thick of It) and add 2 .
• Priest of Two Faiths - Mulligan hard for him because you want to get bless tokens into the bag as quickly as possible and this is the quickest way to do so. You also want him out first because once Nkosi Mabati hits the table you want him there as long as possible. A priest and Calling in Favors in your opening hand is great even if you don't hit another ally because it returns him to hand so you can play him again. If you DO hit the second priest he'll come in for free and you'll STILL have the first one to play again!

Clues:

• 3 isn't terrible with all of the bless tech. Consider replacing Holy Rosary with St. Hubert's Key for a buff.
• Drawn to the Flame will grab two clues in a pinch, and you have a couple Ward of Protection if something bad comes out of the encounter deck.
• Read the Signs is your other tempo option, which adds and for the test (and costs 0 with Prophetic in play).

Combat:

• Blessed Blade is reliable once you have bless tech in place, and adds a to the bag as well
• Radiant Smite is your big attack spell, dealing up to 4 damage with one attack.
• Spectral Razor is another tempo option for combat, which adds and for the test (and costs 0 with Prophetic in play).

Buffs

• The Codex of Ages buffs and ensures an pull.
• Holy Rosary buffs and has a strong upgrade option either for a higher XP Standalone deck or in campaign play (see below)

Skills: Since you can do almost everything with , both of my skills are for :

• Guts is an obvious choice, with less worry about the card draw because you're whole deck only has two weaknesses.
• Prescient is pretty reliable at grabbing a spell from discard with the bless tech online. It will always depend on the situation, but my favorite target is Radiant Smite.

Economy and Draw:

• As previously mentioned, Prophetic pays for your spells. But if you have plenty of resources, pay for them with those and use this to buff them instead (You can pay for AND buff Radiant Smite by one with this).
• Emergency Cache is a reliable resource generator.
• Sacrifice's main target should be Earthly Serenity (after using most or all of it's charges) and unless you need the resources draw cards with it to dig through your deck. You only have your signature weakness and one Basic Weakness in the deck, so don't be afraid of card draw. This will also get Earthly Serenity into the discard pile to redraw after your reshuffle.
• Guts will draw you a card reliably because you should be passing your tests.

=== For campaign play ===

First 5 XP:

• Ancient Covenant
• 2X Favor of the Sun
• 1X Priest of Two Faiths
• Have place-holders for Earthly Serenity, Prophetic and Nkosi Mabati!

With In the Thick of It add:

• Second Priest of Two Faiths
• 2X Radiant Smite

Upgrade Priorities:

• Nkosi Mabati
• Prophetic

Secondary Upgrades:

• 2X Earthly Serenity
• Holy Rosary (2)
• Guts (2)