Bloody Marie - Cluever/Bosskiller

This is a level zero version of an experimental deck I've been toying with that's specifically designed to take advantage of the fact that Marie is the only mystic investigator with the ability to take Blood Eclipse. This is a card that I don't see in use very much, for good reason. It's a 3xp event that's only available to guardians, Marie and Lola and while it does have the ability to inflict 4 damage in a single attack, that obviously requires you to take 3 damage as a cost for doing that. Guardians have much better uses for 3xp and while they can usually handle the damage, they generally have better ways of inflicting 4 damage on an enemy so why bother ?

It strikes me though that in the hands of Marie this largely ignored card could be turned into a game-winning weapon. There are no other weapons available to mystics that can do 4 damage in a single action except for the unicorn combination of Song of the Dead hitting a skull in combination with Eldritch Inspiration, but that's a very unreliable way of fighting and not really what you want to be counting on when you're about to face an endgame boss enemy, which is the idea behind this deck. In Marie's hands this card is likely to be firing at a minimum of 7, but the likelihood is that she'd have a will boost in play by the time it's necessary and mystics don't want for cards that can be pitched in for additional will boosts. Realistically she can pretty much guarantee that this attack succeeds except for drawing a tentacle.

There are a few other cards that have been released recently, or which have been spoiled, that would feed into this. I'm thinking in particular of De Vermis Mysteriis, which is a natural Marie card anyway and would allow for her to play Blood Eclipse once and then immediately flip round to play it again, inflicting up to 8 damage in 2 actions (or 1 really, since she's likely to be making use of her free spell action).

There are obvious drawbacks to this though, in particular the need to take 6 damage if you want to double dip on it. I think this rules out the idea of a predominantly combat focused build for the deck. It's going to be essential that Marie conserves her health as much as possible for that big splash when it's really needed, which means avoiding engaging enemies and having allies who can soak damage. I've set this deck up as a cluever focused one in the main. The only spell asset is Mists of R'lyeh, which should be liberally used to evade any enemies that come her way until the time arrives to unleash her torrent of blood.Eventually you'll also have Archaic Glyphs to maximise your clue-gathering mojo, or you may want to double down on the evasion potential with Archaic Glyphs instead (which probably works better). A later addition if you can afford the xp would be a copy or two of Dayana Esperence. This card isn't out yet but I've been trying it out with a proxy and it's a fantastic mystic ally that would work perfectly for this deck. Equip her with a copy of Deny Existence to make yourself all but invulnerable to taking damage, or maybe with Moonlight Ritual to let you really rock the doom effects while clearing it whenever you need. She also has 3 health so works as an excellent soak.

Upgrade path: Charisma, "I've got a plan!" --> Blood Eclipse, "I've got a plan!" --> De Vermis Mysteriis, Archaic Glyphs --> Archaic Glyphs

After that it's pick your poison. You may want a copy of Blood Pact for reliable doom addition and to complete the blood trifecta (along with the Blood-Rite cards that you get with Occult Lexicon ), you may want to upgrade Mists of R'lyeh into Suggestion for more reliable evasion combined with greater attack cancellation. I'm also intrigued to get hold of Deny Existence when it's available. I'd probably add Dayana over any of these though, and this deck is going to be very xp hungry.