The Accursed Academic: Joe Diamond, PhD.

In this deck, everyone's favorite gumshoe hangs up his famous Detective's Colt 1911s and goes back to school.

This deck revolves around using Joe Diamond's natural proclivity for (and guaranteed access to) insights to gain lots of free actions using Cryptic Grimoire. The basic engine is Favor of the Moon, which over 3 turns will net you 3 free actions (with 2 Grimoires), 2 resources and 3 super tests (with Blasphemous Covenant and x2 Fey). You sit on a very large hand to accommodate this, and guarantee you always have insights to play. Sitting on a large hand is also important to maintain your card draw with Dream-Enhancing Serum, so think hard before you drop down.

This deck puts a fair amount of curses in the bag, and uses testless actions and big tests to overcome this, with high icon skills like Daring, Perception, Fey and Plan of Action, as well as lots of resource generation with Favor of the Moon, Cryptic Writings, and Crack the Case.

It needs to be partnered with a deck that also has a way to accommodate curses in the bag, and handle enemies. Sister Mary, Combat Rogues like Leo Anderson and Tony Morgan, Survivors like Silas, Yorick, or Calvin, or cursed suite Mystics that don't mind not having access to Favor of the Moon all work well. I personally ran it with a Blursed Agnes combat deck, that I'll post shortly.

Below is a detailed list of cards in the deck--their purpose and uses.

THE DECK

Cryptic Grimoire: the engine that makes the whole deck work. Definitely keep this in an opening hand, but you don't need to put it out until there are curses in the bag. There are other cards that are higher priority on setup. I initially ran Research Librarian to find this bad boy, but the combo is too action and resource intensive, especially when you can accomplish the same thing by doing what you want to do anyways (drawing a lot of cards)

Dream-Enhancing Serum & Laboratory Assistant: These are your big hand enablers, and the ideal setup cards. Make sure to get your Serums out before you do anything that draws. Lab Assistant is also there for tanking--take her down to one sanity ASAP, then wait until you have another before killing her off.

Favor of the Moon: the big engine card, and one your allies will duly appreciate, liberating the bag from the curses you've been stocking it with. On important tests, I pull a token to immediately Covenant and Fey and get as high as possible as quickly as possible. This also earns you another resource to send towards Higher Education.

Blasphemous Covenant: Curse protection! Use aggressively with Favor of the Moon. If you're already big up, sometimes you can save it for the second curse.

Higher Education: With its chains newly loosened, this card is your key to passing tests. You have no natural skill boosts, so you're gonna rely on cycling skills and paying money to pass tests.

Practice Makes Perfect: I initially didn't run this, but on hard difficulty, passing tests can sometimes become challenging if your hand shrinks. The double use of Perception goes a long way, and doubling that and Plan of Action increases your card draw a lot. Deduction rounds out the suite, an obvious staple.

Tempt Fate: This card is surprisingly good in this deck. Until you have Cryptic Grimoire and Dream-Enhancing Serum, hold onto it. Use the cantrip draw when you haven't yet triggered the DES for another chance.

HUNCH DECK

The reason I chose Joe Diamond for this deck. Guaranteed Fast-able Insight events for the first 11 turns of the game.

Card Draw: Deep Knowledge, Preposterous Sketches, No Stone Unturned. Getting that easy access to free card draw is crucial. Deep Knowledge doesn't benefit from Joe's cost reduction but the draw is so good this doesn't matter.

Clues: Working a Hunch, Extensive Research, Stirring Up Trouble. Free clues is good. One little synergy that makes me happy is that since an Extensive Research in the deck doesn't take up a spot in your hand, you'll always have an extra card in hand compared to other investigators.

Flex Slot: Logical Reasoning, Stirring Up Trouble, No Stone Unturned. Working a Hunch, Extensive Research, Deep Knowledge and Preposterous Sketches are locked in for me. You have a choice for the final two: No Stone Unturned is a good default. Stirring Up Trouble will generate more clues and curses, but sometimes the curse cost can be too high, especially if you've got multiple people adding curses. In most Joe decks, Logical Reasoning stays in hand, but if you or an ally is accumulating trauma or if your ally's goal is to take as much horror as possible (Agnes, in my case), it can slot right into the hunch deck, especially because you'll play is fast.

NON-HUNCHES

Resource Generation: Cryptic Writings, Crack the Case, Burning the Midnight Oil. Since resources=good tests for this deck, its important that you produce a lot of them. The upgraded Cryptic Writings is actually quite good here, and should be a very high priority after Higher Education. Burning the Midnight Oil is a recent addition, because it also gives you a free investigate action in addition to 2 extra resources. If you're good on resources, you can upgrade it into Seeking Answers, which is never a card I thought I'd play.

Combat: "I've got a plan!", Daring. I've got a plan! as a fast is wonderful boss killer, and its upgrade is pretty good late campaign. I had originally started with Vicious Blow to kill 2 health enemies, but I wanted more card draw and sometimes you need to evade, so Daring went in and I've never regretted it.