Investigator
Performer. Sorcerer.
While you have 1 or more doom among cards you control, you may take an additional action during your turn, which can only be used to play Spell cards or activate Spell abilities.
effect: +1. You may add 1 doom to or remove 1 doom from a card you control.
Deck Size: 30.
Deckbuilding Options: Spell cards level 0-5, Mystic cards () level 0-3, Neutral cards level 0-5, Occult cards level 0, up to five other level 0 Seeker and/or Survivor cards ( and/or ).
Deckbuilding Requirements (do not count toward deck size): Mystifying Song, Baron Samedi, 1 random basic weakness.
I’ve played this game for a hell of a long time with many many different people, and nobody seems to pick Marie Lambeau.
Maybe she’s not designed for multiplayer; the risk/reward ratio for her as much different. Solo, risking an extra doom might lose your three actions to gain an additional one every turn; in a group, the trade-off is one action for 12.
It’s also because there aren't lot of cards that let you manipulate doom; Arcane initiate, Alyssa Graham, David Renfield, blood pact, and De Vermis Mysteriis. With the latter, you get tons of event compression; one action from the book turns into two.
She’s also a 4/4/1/3 Mystic with a tremendous weakness. She loses an ally slot, and amplifies damage for several turns while adding doom to the board.
Still, with access to spells instead of Mystic cards specifically, she gets some oddities from other classes. Blood eclipse or arcane insight, feed the mind for card draw, Alter fate and suggestion, but as of press time, there are 18 non-mystic spells in the game out of almost 100 spell cards.
The only place Marie might fit is in dream eaters A, where doom totals can reach the double digits without advancing the agenda. Perhaps with more doom cards, but even after six expansions, Marie is still best as a solo act.
Like Father Mateo, Marie needs an updated review now that Scarlet Keys have been released. Elle Rubash mitigates her biggest drawback—needing doom on a card to get her that extra action. Now she's fine in multiplayer as long as Elle is out since she no longer accelerates the doom clock. The only drawback is that she also needs to take Charisma to prevent Baron Samedi from bumping Elle when drawn.
At level zero, she can take Ceremonial Sickle or Dowsing Rod to get that doom. Note the Rod gives a +1 when investigating, so when put under Elle you're up to 6 before other buffs. For combat, she probably wants to upgrade to Abyssal Tome as she can just keep the doom on there while under Elle for a +2 attack (choosing whichever or is higher) and 2 damage once a turn. It exhausts so she needs a backup weapon, but she'll have her extra action for the rest of the scenario. When the doom clock resets, she can "reload" by either swinging the Tome at an enemy or use the Rod to move and investigate. With a good stat line and card pool access, plus an extra action that you can proc for the entire scenario once you're set up with no extra risk, I think Marie is finally a fun investigator to play!