Marie the Velvet Detective

Introduction

Marie Lambeau deck intended for multiplayer (best at 2 players). The deck is still work in progress, but i wanted to share my basic idea and build after several hours of testing. Please note that this deck was tested mostly in pair with Diana Stanley deck but should work with no problem with any generalist or combat focused investigator. Deck tested at standard and hard difficulty over several Night of the Zealot/Dunwich/Carcosa scenarios.

General idea

Marie has very good and stats and access to up to 5 level 0 seeker cards. With addition of Fingerprint Kit she can have two assets that speed up clue gathering. And this is what this deck is built around - trying to set a tempo using Rite of Seeking and Fingerprint Kit.

Cards overview and piloting the deck

Clue gathering engine

As mentioned before Fingerprint Kit and Rite of Seeking are centrepieces of the deck, you should hard-mulligan for either of those cards. If Rite of Seeking is in opening hand it's also good to have one of the static willpower boosters - Holy Rosary or David Renfield.

Of those two David Renfield is much more useful and powerful in this deck. Provides damage soak, willpower boost and enables Marie's ability - an additonal action to play or use Spells. In all my games i used his ability to add another doom after the first once only oncer per install, one resource per turn was enough.

Testament to his importance was one crazy opening hand i had with Uncage the Soul, Rite of Seeking, Fingerprint Kit and Mr Renfield himself. After playing all those cards my turns were basically: Move, Investigate with Fingerprint Kit, Move, Investigate with Rite of Seeking. This is of course easiest achieveable in 2 player games where there is abundance of 2 clues location.

Of course in non-solo play doom on Renfield means one turn less for other players so do not hesitate to sacrifice him if that's what situation requires. Getting even a few extra actions out of him is already a big gain.

Supporting cards

Good old Magnifying Glass allows to investigate at 5 or 6 with Fingerprint Kit. Enraptured while not the most poweful card helps to get more mileage out of Rite of Seeking or Shrivelling if needed (more on combat with Marie later). Eldritch Inspiration is a great card when we don't have luxury of Rite of Seeking on the last action. Arcane Initiate - digs for whatever Spell is needed at the moment but also enables Marie's ability if we don't have David in play.

Combat

Being a mystic Maries has access to some offensive spells and why not take advantage of it? While she should focus on gathering clues take a opportunity to install Shrivelling as it allows Marie to be much more independent. With Holy Rosaryand David Renfield she has potential to fight at 6. To supplement this we also have Storm of Spirits in our arsenal. On a very rare occasion Marie can resort to her agility especially boosted with Unexpected Courage.

Rest of the deck

I'm still not 100% sold on Shortcut as a 5th Seeker/Survivour card. It has plus its effect is powerful but there are certainly other cards like Lucky! or Deduction that can make argument to be included.

Baron Samedi can be a real pain especially when agenda is short on doom. I hope we'll see more doom manipulating cards. In some games i managed to ignore him quite successfully in others i had to deal with him as soon as possible and sometimes he caused trouble. This deck is not really heavy on draw so there is a quite a big chance of not drawing him at all.

Skill boosters - i settled on 1 Guts, 2 Perception, 2 Unexpected Courage but apart from Unexpected Courage those cards could be replaced but anything you fancy.

Upgrades

This is my least tested part of the deck. So far i concerned and tested following cards.

• Emergency Cache - simply to get more usage out of Fingerprint Kit but as it's 6xp for a full set it should not be a highest priority upgrade.
• Recharge - Emergency Cache (3) for Rite of Seeking, a little less XP intensive, and also refills Shrivelling. Always use on an empty asset
• Rite of Seeking - +2 makes Marie less dependant on static boosts
• Recall the Future - card that i'm absolutely in love with, really helps passing tests and not worrying about that one token that could ruin the fun (apart from autofail)
• Sacrifice - helps get rid of David Renfield or Arcane Initiate, low XP cost and very flexible
• Arcane Studies - usually in my games Marie had a few free resources once she was setup. This can help pass tougher tests and double and icons are very useful
• Seal of the Elder Sign - i have yet to test this card but enabling Marie's elder sign ability on demand could be really powerful and helpful. Her elder sign allows her to either add or remove a doom token from a card she controls so with Seal of the Elder Sign she can control better doom on David/Arcane Initiate also it can add doom to Baron Samedi which means one less turn of dealing with him. The biggest downside of this card is very high XP cost.

Card omissions

• Ward of Protection and Delve Too Deep - as mentioned this deck mostly tested in pair with Diana so she ran both of those cards but feel free to include them, especially Ward of Protection as it further helps dealing with David Renfield
• Any seeker/surviour lvl 0 card - idea for the deck was to use Fingerprint Kit so that leaves 3 slots for out of faction cards, i chose Magnifying Glass over for example Dr. Milan Christopher as it's fast, cheap and Marie doesn't really need money from Milan plus with clue compression benefits of Milan are not that great.

Conclusion

This deck certainly requires some more testing especially with XP cards but in my opinion it has potential and is quite fun to use. Hopefully, in Circle Undone Marie will get some additional cards to flesh out doom aspect of her deck as that would make it even more fun.

Diana deck that i used needs more tweaking for sure but once i'm done i'll try to post her decks as well.

Looking forward to any comments and ideas how to improve the deck. Thank you if you managed to read that far.