Patrice Hathaway in HEXBREAKER

Staring sadly at her violin, Patrice knew she could not risk playing it again, or else the Watcher might find her.

This is the Patrice Hathaway deck which stars alongside Jenny Barnes in HEXBREAKER, a video playthrough of The Circle Undone on YouTube. The first episode is located here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l71l1rcuw38

The deck is a collaboration with @StartWithTheName, and though the deck size is a gigantic 42 cards, the decklist is tighter than it would seem. Patrice is focused on using a large number of events and assets to pass skill tests, while relying on a minimal suite of assets. We can divide the decklist into several parts:

Willpower Assets:

• Shrivelling
• Sixth Sense
• Holy Rosary
• David Renfield

These assets let Patrice leverage her Willpower of 4, boosted by David Renfield and Holy Rosary, instead of her Intellect, Combat, or Agility of 2. Shrivelling also provides some all-important 2-damage attacks.

Skill Boosts:

• Dark Horse
• Able Bodied
• Defiance
• Guts
• Last Chance
• Prophesy
• Unexpected Courage
• Live and Learn
• Lucky!
• Premonition

This is the real foundation of the deck, composing 19 out of Patrice's 42 cards. They are useful to boost a wide variety of skill tests, and sometimes have beneficial effects tacked onto them. Dark Horse is a "bonus" asset that isn't necessary for the deck to function, but is nice if drawn at a convenient time.

Soak and Healing:

• David Renfield
• Holy Rosary
• Peter Sylvestre
• Fearless

These eight cards serve to extend Patrice's Health and Sanity beyond her base of 7 and 7. Even though David Renfield is an important source of Willpower and resources, do not hesitate to use his 2 health to soak damage. In fact, it's most often best to let him be discarded before the Doom on him would advance the agenda.

Instant Resource Gain:

• Patrice's Violin
• David Renfield

These three cards are what let Patrice pay for her assets and events. She doesn't have the staple Emergency Cache because once she's got a couple of assets in play, she doesn't need that many resources, but the steady drip from Renfield and her Violin will keep her afloat.

This the third time that David Renfield has come up, because he's such a strong and versatile ally for Patrice, providing resources, Willpower, and a damage soak.

Extra Clue Gathering:

• "Look what I found!"
• Drawn to the Flame
• Winging It

These six cards are used to accelerate Patrice's clue gathering beyond Sixth Sense. Note that "Look what I found!" can be played after a failed Sixth Sense test.

Excellent Staples:

• Ward of Protection

It's Ward of Protection, and it's excellent. Spending a resource and taking a horror is often better for conserving momentum than suffering from most Treacheries.

Which leaves us with The Extras:

• Improvised Weapon
• Resourceful

These three cards serve as extra abilities for either fighting an enemy when Shrivelling isn't available or for retrieving a useful Survivor card from the discard pile. They aren't super-important, though.

General Play Advice:

Patrice is running very few assets, making playing her relatively straightforward. She's going to draw a lot of cards every turn, so the basic strategy is to play an asset when it comes up and use the events and skills to help her pass whichever skill checks she needs to make to deal with the current situation. The Watcher from Another Dimension is going to come up sooner or later, but don't panic when it does. It will sit in her hand forcing her to draw a mere four cards a turn, which is still plenty to live on while she waits for an opportunity to fight, Shrivel, or evade the Watcher. And if she doesn't get a chance to, an Elder Sign may pop up to save her during the game.

Potential Upgrades:

Peter Sylvestre is one of the best cards in the whole game. Take him.

Charisma is great for allowing Patrice to have David Renfield and Peter Sylvestre on the board at the same time, both of whom can boost her Willpower!

Rise to the Occasion is a very versatile skill card for all sorts of skill checks.

Ward of Protection is a pretty excellent upgrade to take in general.

A Test of Will can let Patrice double up on the Treachery cancellation.

Stargazing is a virtual Ward, and Patrice only really needs one copy since she can potentially play the same copy twice after drawing through her whole deck.

Recall the Future is a great universal pseudo-booster that can apply itself to multiple skill checks per round.

Rite of Seeking can provide some additional cards for the Extra Clue Gathering category, and the +2 to Willpower it provides is a welcome bonus.

Blinding Light is a cheap Event for helping Patrice deal with enemies, and it provides action compression in both evading and damaging the target.

Banish is a another tool for helping Patrice deal with monsters.

And finally, once she has a suite of Event spells, De Vermis Mysteriis is a great way to virtually extend her hand size to include spells in the discard pile. It's also useful for slimming her deck to be more efficient after her deck runs out or when she draws and Elder Sign and she flips over her discard pile.

So, if you're looking for a very fast deck that relies on events and skill cards to survive the Mythos, give this Patrice deck a try!