Artistic Ascetic Antikytheric Harvey | HC 7.5k Guide

Artistic Ascetic Antikytheric Harvey

I'm continuing my series with a deck each Sunday using the new Drowned City cards. Here an Ascetic high-tempo Harvey uses his big card draw to fuel Artistic Inspiration and so manipulate Antikythera...

Overview

• Antikythera plus Harvey plus Artistic Inspiration is a great combo. If you hit a 2 or a 4 on any test, then with Antikythera you can gain a resource and draw a card (two with Harvey's ability, so long as it's in the investigation phase). This means you can re-fuel Artistic Inspiration by discarding a card, then use it to hit a 2 or 4 for net +1 card. In addition, Antikythera offers persistent reliable clue compression with a success of 1 or 3.

• Pairing to the above, you have Steady-Handed and Fine Tuning. This allows you to trigger Antikythera twice per round, and either get a ±2 on one test or two ±1s on two tests (and if you don't need these because your natural bag pulls are good, then more card advantage for you). The flexibility of the ±2 is great for when you're only going to be triggering one test on your turn (e.g. moving twice and then performing a test).

• With Grim Memoir and Vault of Knowledge in play it's easy to get 4 cards per turn (one from Memoir, one from investigation using Vault, one from Harvey's ability and the fourth from upkeep). Antikythera and Whitton Greene give even more on top - there's a 96% chance to draw at least one card-drawing asset with a hard mulligan. Beyond Antikythera, Whitton is useful to find Grim Memoirs when you cycle these through your deck. Mulligans are generally very simple: get one resource-providing card and aim for any of the mentioned card-drawing assets and Magnifying Glass.

• Thrice-Damned Curiosity is handled by Whitton Greene's physical soak and Bizarre Diagnosis, which can fully heal its bad effects (although you often won't have a hand of 9+ anyway). Two copies of Bizarre Diagnosis in hand mitigate against a double whammy - i.e. you get Thrice-Damned and recover with one Diagnosis, and then you cycle soon after and Thrice-Damned is towards the top of the deck. Steady-Handed provides a mechanism to heal horror from cycling and from In the Thick of It mental trauma. For treacheries, there's Forewarned plus Logical Reasoning.

• Enemy management is Occult Invocation, which works well with your high card draw, and then single copies of "I've got a plan!" and Mind over Matter. For a big damage turn, you can get away with two Occult Invocation and just two other cards with 3 resources: do your first Invocation test and discard your two cards for a max boost, use Artistic Inspiration and/or Steady-Handed to get a 2 or 4 success, draw two cards with Harvey's ability plus Antikythera and gain a resource, then play your second Invocation while discarding two again. Resource economy is action-efficient, with Burning the Midnight Oil, Cryptic Writings and Crack the Case. On the tempo side there's Working a Hunch, Deduction and Shortcut. As this deck cycles a lot (8 cards in play with a hand of 10 gives a 14 card deck, and your draw rate per turn is usually 4+) you'll see these tempo cards often.

What didn't make the cut

At first I was going to make a Railshooter Hyperphysical Shotcaster deck with Miskatonic Archaeology Funding and Dr. Milan Christopher plus Alton O'Connell (and one copy of Antikythera). However, with so many assets to play that it really kills your tempo. Unearth the Ancients •• could solve your tempo problem to an extent, but it's more XP. Heavily pruning back the number of ally assets and using events for damage flex was a much better choice, with two copies of Antikythera making it much more consistent. You don't need a permanent enemy management asset when you're very good at drawing cards to find a temporary solution (though more enemy management in a second investigator is appreciated).

Concerning additional card draw (e.g. Empirical Hypothesis), I think what you have here is enough. If you cycle too often then you'll spend too much time playing Bizarre Diagnosis to heal yourself from Thrice-Damned Curiosity which kills tempo, so cycling at a rate of every three to four turns (when you've got all your assets out) feels right to me. Higher Education is worth a mention, but I'd say it's usually anti-synergistic - as you're trying to succeed by specific amounts rather than over-succeed. A lot of standard Seeker XP purchases (e.g. Pathfinder) are replaced by their corresponding events and deck cycling (e.g. Shortcut), which Harvey has room for unlike most Seekers as he doesn't dedicate much deck space to card-drawing.

Final thoughts

Personally I think Harvey makes for a great pairing to Ascetic because his naturally high card draw helps you find high XP purchases like Antikythera. He also functions well at low XP, as much of the time other Seekers will use experience for things like Cryptic Research or Perception •• which Harvey doesn't need (and in fact they can be dangerous with Thrice-Damned Curiosity). What makes Harvey cool with Antikythera specifically is the interaction with Artistic Inspiration, where due to the Prof's ability successes of 2 or 4 give two cards and a resource - and so if you need to discard for Inspiration you're still up a card. You will hit natural 2s and 4s often enough however that card advantage is slanted heavily in your favor.

Something to consider with this deck is going full "story mode" and pairing to another Ascetic investigator. I'm currently midway through TDC doing this exact thing - using my previous Ascetic Kymani deck (adding in a couple of Sneak Attacks given there's plenty of enemies). This allows you to prioritise outcomes which are good for the campaign and ignore victory points entirely, plus it eliminates down time spent upgrading cards, so I've found this style of play a refreshing change of pace. Let me know your thoughts below.