Fugue in G Minor

This is my initial, "generic" Patrice deck, very similar to the one I have played and found a great deal of success with.

Opening night - Mulligan and setup

Mulligan priority is less important than for other decks, partly because your mulligans are weaker due to your larger deck and partly because you tear through your deck at such a high speed. I wouldn't mulligan away Patrice's Violin, Madame Labranche, Holy Rosary or either of the spells, unless I had several in my hand and no way to pay for them all turn 1, at which point I'd prioritise having Patrice's Violin, one of the spells, then Madame Labranche/Holy Rosary in that order. You want to get one of your spells set up ASAP so you can handle at least one of the main "jobs" regardless of what you pull from your deck in a given turn.

With the exception of Flashlight and maybe Leather Coat, the assets are all cards that you want to see as early as possible to set up a decent board state, hence why the deck includes two copies - you don't want your only copy of Shrivelling buried in your deck, even if you will definitely see it within 9 turns, and even 6 turns is a pretty long time to go without reliable combat or investigation options. Leather Coat is nice particularly because it can help you survive your weakness if drawn at the end of your deck, and once you upgrade to Peter Sylvestre it's nice to have both horror and damage soak.

Strings to your bow - Flex slots and possible replacements

In terms of events, Ward of Protection and Deny Existence are far weaker for Patrice than most investigators, since she can't keep them in hand - if you don't take something worth ignoring with Deny Existence and you don't draw an encounter card that you can and want to cancel with Ward of Protection, they're just a single wild icon. But that's fine, and you can feel free to aggressively cancel whatever comes up or commit them, they can still give you a solid tempo boost.

Same applies to Uncage the Soul only far moreso, you'll rarely have a spell event in hand at the same time as Uncage the Soul but it's mainly there for the icons. Same applies to Perseverance, and Premonition you just want to use at the end of the mythos phase the turn you draw it.

Most of those cards - Ward of Protection, Deny Existence, Uncage the Soul and Perseverance, as well as Flashlight - are cards you can happily omit from the deck and replace with something else. Options include Open Gate, at least for high player counts, as you can just throw down the gate the turn you pick it up; on the one hand you won't get as much ability to control placement but on the other hand you'll get a potentially helpful gate network set up very quickly. If you're playing a campaign that requires more evasion (TFA or certain ways to play TCU), you can happily pick up some evasion in the form of Impromptu Barrier, Manual Dexterity, Mists of R'lyeh, Stray Cat, etc. Any neutral skills could potentially be handy, and once Ethereal Form is released it could come in handy as well (though again the problem of not being able to save it until you need it will render it frequently useless). Rite of Seeking could be handy in place of Sixth Sense, so you can do whatever your hand happens to allow with your first 2 actions and investigate last. If you expect you'll need to do more than an average amount of fighting (e.g. if you're going 2-player alongside a seeker), Wither can be a good option alongside Shrivelling - same applies in reverse to taking both Sixth Sense and Rite of Seeking if you need to shoulder a lot of clue-gathering.

St. Hubert's Key is an option in place of Holy Rosary (or take both and go for Relic Hunter early), and if using it you could even lean into the Desperate suite of cards and upgrade to Yaotl, and probably include Fight or Flight, but it's a little too unreliable and requires too much setup for my taste.

Fine tuning - Upgrade priority and options

For the first scenario in the campaign, be prepared for a slightly rough ride as you're at the mercy of the draw. One you get 5 exp, you can pick up 2x Cornered and Miss Doyle, at which point this deck starts playing like a dream. Cornered is great - throw Improvised Weapon or Winging It away for boosts, find a use for any duplicate assets if you don't need to "reload" your Shrivelling yet, discard your second-to-last card then commit Last Chance for a cool +7 to your skill test. Miss Doyle is wonderful. You should wait to use the effect of whichever cat you start with (Hope, Augur or Zeal) until you draw at least one other cat, then discard any other cats you draw using Cornered in order to use the discard-and-shuffle abilities to cycle through them, covering your weak spots.

Once those core upgrades are in place, replacing Madame Labranche with Peter Sylvestre (2) is a nice willpower boost, as well as a Charisma to have him alongside Miss Doyle. I'd then pick up Stargazing, since the initial card disadvantage is far less of a problem for you and it's a very solid card - plus the art is astonishingly beautiful.

After that, there's a few different ways you can build. Recharge is good, especially if using Rite of Seeking, as it has great icons, and upgrading to Rite of Seeking (2) is a solid choice. Ward of Protection (2) is a good choice for higher player counts as you're far more likely to find a use for it the turn you draw it. Drawing Thin is also a solid option if you run into economy problems and can spare the 6 exp, as you will often be able to rock such high bonuses (e.g. Last Chance into a Rite of Seeking (2) test for a total skill of 13) that the difficulty increase is pretty irrelevant. I strongly rate 2 copies of Lantern (2) and possibly even 2 copies of Gravedigger's Shovel (2) - play them the turn you draw them, use them aggressively, always remove from game for the extra effect unless all you need is the single damage or clue, they're essentially slightly slow events (2 actions and 1 resource for 2 testless clues/damage) that you can actually save for when you need them.

After that, it's mainly luxury upgrades like Defiance (2), Fearless (2), Rise to the Occasion (3), or Exile cards like Stroke of Luck and Fortune or Fate.

Sweet melodies - Miscellaneous thoughts

I've tried out Grisly Totem and it has some merit due to its flexibility, but it offers less than Holy Rosary overall and for 1 extra resource. Grisly Totem (3) is more or less pointless, you'll rarely fail and then have another test to commit the same card to that round and you can't keep the card for the next round. Impromptu Barrier is a great card for investigators like Wendy or Rita with a high agility but unless you're in an evasion-heavy campaign (see above), you will rarely find a use for it on Patrice with her base 2 agility because it requires you to oversucceed significantly on the test - certainly you can boost your agility up high enough if you get the right cards in hand, but you need the right cards in a turn where you need to evade 2 enemies with the event already in discard - I'd rather try to get a kill in with Improvised Weapon in general.

I also cannot recommend "Look What I Found!" or Eucatastrophe, as they are too reliant on a specific set of circumstances coming up and you can't keep them in hand. You could try your damnedest to manufacture those circumstances but that is usually a waste of effort that might lead you to suboptimal play. Again, "Look What I Found!" might be handy if you really need to lean into investigating to cover a weakness in the team but generally, avoid.

Ultimately, Patrice is all about adaptibility and improvisation. One turn you might be investigating hard, moving, using Winging It from discard with a bunch of cards committed or thrown in with Cornered to get 2 clues, then finishing up with Rite of Seeking (2) for another two. Next turn you might be jumped by a big enemy, so you punch with Zeal, commit heavily for Improvised Weapon from the discard then Shrivelling.

And have fun. Patrice is amazing fun and in my opinion the most survivor-y Survivor in the game, as you're constantly improvising and throwing everything you have at whatever you need to do.