|| Rex Murphy - The Key to Success

The idea of the deck is to use Rex's ability to balance out Press Pass/Research Notes and The Key of Solomon. There are several cards in the deck that let us drop clues or add curses for extra benefits, and Rex lets us choose which of those best fit our current situation. This build will not be able to handle enemies very well (until you get Dr. William T. Maleson out and can just not draw them), so it needs to be in a group with someone who can fight.

Curses -> Clues

Generally we want to avoid putting curses into the bag, which is why there are almost no cards that give us bonuses for drawing curses (such as Rod of Carnamagos). Instead, we would rather drop clues while holding our Research Notes, put evidence on notes, then spend a single action to scoop all of those clues back up. This means getting our research notes out so we can start getting evidence on them is crucial. Whitton Greene and Research Librarian help us find them. Plus we have plenty of card draw from Search for the Truth, Deep Knowledge and Captivating Discovery.

Clues -> Curses

While adding in a curse to the bag is easier than dropping a clue, a bag full of curses is obviously not ideal. But with The Key of Solomon(also a tome) out, we can turn a curse into a fast 2 resources. This means you may want to add a curse into the bag, which might mean turning a clue drop into a curse add (keep a clue and get 2 resources? Awesome!). Blasphemous Covenant is also fairly easy to slot in for 2XP as a permanent after we get our essential cards that makes a few curses in the bag less punishing (and actually a +1), and Diabolical Luck gives us a one time reversal on a curse token.

Upgrade Order

(4) Key of Solomon is one of the few ways to eat up some of the curses we add to the bag, and also gives us extra resources. Pick this up first. Replace a Connect the Dots or Faustian Bargain as this should generate plenty of resources.

(2) x2 Press Pass is a great pay off for dropping clues, so we are going to want at least one after we get the Key. Replace the chemistry sets.

(6) The Raven Quill - See below. Note that Raven Quill upgrades itself if you attach it during the scenario and since research notes does not have an upgrade, this should slowly upgrade itself.

Now we want to upgrade our allies. Both Dr. William T. Maleson and Whitton Greene have great upgrades, but I think Whitton is more important as it lets us dig deeper into our deck for our tomes and gives +1. That also means we can upgrade our Research Librarian into Gabriel Carillo, for more card draw and curse generation. With all these great allies, you will definitely want a Charisma (or 2).

After this it comes down to preference, Quick Study is great to boost up any skill test, Spirit of Humanity is healing/bless generation, Forewarned is treachery negation, and of course Deduction and Perception are freebies. Blasphemous Covenant can also be picked up whenever you feel the moment is right.

Raven Quill Upgrades

Unfortunately, we can only get 6 checks on it with our new limit of 0-3 Seeker cards, so we have to make the best of it.

(1) Spectral Binding. Attached asset does not take up any slots.

(2) Mystic Vane. You get +2 skill value while performing skill tests on attached asset.

(3) Interwoven Ink. After you resolve an ability on attached asset, you may exhaust The Raven Quill to ready another asset you control.

Name research notes. This means it does not take up a slot, we get +2 to the check to pick up clues for when we really accumulated a lot of research, and lets us double dip on our Key of Solomon or Press Pass by readying it.