#CPA-TFA Harvey "Buried in the Vault"

Spoilers for The Forgotten Age below.

My final deck for the Mythos Busters discord Community Playalong. For those not familiar, the concept is to play through a campaign simultaneously with multiple other community members, using a card pool limited to player cards from Night of the Zealot, the campaign being played, return to boxes for both, and the Investigator starter decks. Investigators themselves, however, are not limited to this cardpool, and any may be used.

This deck was partnered with a soon-to-be-published William Yorick deck, both played two-handed by me, team name: "Buried in the Vault". It was played through regular Forgotten Age, on standard difficulty and with the second most recent taboo list (the latest was posted two or three levels into the playalong, and didn’t hit many cards in the playalong pool that my characters could take).

There’s a slight experience disparity between them, which should hopefully be explained by Shrewd Analysis and different choices with the experience from Threads of Fate. If the maths on that doesn’t work out, well oops.

Why Harvey Walters?

Harvey is, in my opinion, the most underrated Investigator in the game. While his weakness means he cannot simply hold 15 cards in hand and cycle his deck every turn, making him generally unsuited for big hand decks (despite the cards printed with him), it can also be looked at similar to Mark's - if you play around it, it can often deal no more than one or two damage, or even less. And if his hand is empty, Harvey has absolutely no problem refilling it. Couple that with his stats - arguably the best in the game for his role - and the abundance of cards that allow you to draw, and I believe he can outperform any Seeker at level 0, though might struggle a little on higher exp counts.

He is also absolutely exceptional within the limited card pool that this format offers. Every other Seeker, with the possible exception of Rex Murphy, is missing cards essential to their playstyle. Daisy has a much lower pool of tomes to choose from, and no Abigail. Ursula, though generally good in the Forgotten Age, is missing Shortcut, Pathfinder and Fieldwork. Minh does decently, but lacks upgraded skills. Joe struggles with the mythos phase. Amanda has a similar problem to both Joe and Minh. Mandy's good search cards are scattered to the four winds - no Eureka!, no Practice Makes Perfect, no Rook, only the base level version of Old Book of Lore, and only her signatures for research cards at all.

By contrast, all Harvey needs to be a draw demon is contained within his deck and the core set - all 4 cantrip skills, Cryptic Research, levelled Mind over Matter and Perception. He’s also amazing with the Forgotten Age translatable cards, the Ancient Stones, which all trigger from drawing cards.

Now, one potential objection is that Harvey is bad for the Forgotten Age specifically, because of his lack of . But actually, that isn’t true at all. The Forgotten Age’s treacheries test far more often than Agility (at least in non-return, which I’m playing), and the Willpower treacheries are often more punishing. Evasion’s importance is also very much overstated for the Forgotten Age - once Pit Vipers begin to vanish (they appear only in the first level), and Brotherhood Cultists begin to show up (in the third level) evasion becomes largely irrelevant, and you start to want ways of killing things instead.

Initial Build

Laboratory Assistants and Teeth of Eztli were included early for a little extra draw and dealing with certain treacheries. I intended to cut both early but ended up keeping both for much longer than I thought. While the hand size was next to useless, the initial draw and soak were fairly good, and the Teeth even managed to save me from a couple of treacheries I thought I had no business passing.

Including all the cantrip skills was a method of deck cycling. Overpower is fairly useless on Harvey himself, but is easy enough to commit to others. It was the first cut, but Manual Dexterity stuck around a while. Mind over Matter (2) did most of its job, but also synergised with it.

Vantage Point and Preposterous Sketches were the most cuttable deck filler. I wanted to keep Vantage Point at least through Doom of the Etzli due to some particularly irritating locations, and Preposterous Sketches was only there to potentially refill my hand after dumping it all on a rough turn. Not particularly essential, and likely the worst card in the deck.

Burning the Midnight Oil is an excellent card, and one I usually include. After rolling Offer You Cannot Refuse as my weakness, there was no way I could cut it - except going into the very last level, where I still had only upgraded it once into Fine Print, and didn’t need to keep a resource buffer any more. It did upgrade into its final form during the level, but I ended the game with one card left in my deck, so it wasn't an issue.

The only level 0 cards never to be upgraded or replaced were Milan Christopher, Working a Hunch, Guts, and Deduction. Milan could never leave the deck, for obvious reasons - indisputably the strongest Seeker ally in the pool, offering both consistent resources and a permanent boost. Working a Hunch and Deduction were my only real clue acceleration, and while Harvey rarely failed to investigate they were still very much essential. Guts was useful for the general ways it usually is.

Upgrade Path

Harvey’s upgrade path was relatively simple. With his limited deck building, there weren’t many questions over what to take, but mostly a matter of when to take it.

Mind over Matter (2) was one of my biggest priorities, and the first 4 experience spent. Its one downside of not switching the test to an test and therefore limiting commits was irrelevant early due to the inclusion of Overpower and Manual Dexterity in the first place. Even with this, testing at 7 to evade, 8 with Milan in play, was generally enough to do the job, allowing Harvey to do more than just sit there and wait for Yorick to take enemies from him. In addition, the fast draw was excellent for Harvey.

Magnifying Glass (1) and Perception (2) were mostly just efficiency bumpers that I bought when I had exp spare. Considering the competition for hand slots later, I rated Magnifying Glass’s ability to bounce to hand highly, but didn’t really end up using it.

Ancient Stone was something I bought intending to translate on a location with Obscuring Fog in the Doom of the Etzli, but I missed my chance and it got shuffled into the deck. I ended up having to wait two more levels to translate it at a value of only 7 - which was enough, honestly. I decided to use Shrewd Analysis to get two random stones, which was a mistake. I ended up with more than enough exp to get two stones without missing out on anything, but I wasn’t actually sure which stone I wanted. The randomised versions - damage and movement - both ended up being very useful at one point or another, but two knowledge of the elders would probably have been superior.

With the glut of experience from Threads of Fate and no Stone to translate, I ended up spending 8 whole exp on The Necronomicon. It proved invaluable on Boundary Beyond, using its charges, getting shuffled into the deck by a treachery, then replaying it for a win, but I didn’t end up using it that much afterwards. In the final level, it was the very last card of the deck, the one card I didn’t draw. Still, it was nice security for Harvey.

Cryptic Writings (2) would have been much less of a priority if my weakness hadn’t been Offer you Can’t Refuse. It was good to have resource generation, but in any other deck, this card makes it good to draw when you need resources - but for this weakness, the reason I needed resources was to make drawing safe, so there was some lack of synergy there. Either way, it didn’t end up doing much, but the extra wild icon was nice enough.

Bulletproof Vest was something I wanted to make sure I had for City of Archives, since it forces a large hand to end the level, but I didn’t end up drawing Harvey’s weakness when that was an issue. Still, trauma was piling up and it was a very good purchase.

Cryptic Research was the last real non-luxury purchase. In Harvey it needs a little more timing consideration than simply throwing it down as soon as you draw it, but its combination with ancient stones and ability to refill a completely empty hand were both amazing.

Expose Weakness (3) was a card I took to experiment with. There was a moment it would have been very useful in Depths of Yoth, but I forgot I had it in hand. Later, in Turn Back Time, I had a moment where I used it on Yig to secure the final Chainsaw hit against it… and pulled the tentacle on the Expose Weakness check. It didn’t end up being an issue, but still very disappointing.

I considered taking Hemispheric Map over Elder Sign Amulet, but soak was more important than stats, since Harvey rarely failed tests, and I realised the Map actually offers very little in basically any level that focuses on exploration. Mental trauma was starting to pile up at this point, too.

For my final upgrade, the choice was the hardest. There was very little left to buy, and I was going into the one level of the Forgotten Age that I hadn’t played before. I considered Barricade (3), with the possibility it might be a useful gimmick, but in the end went for a pair of Truth from Fictions and a single Seeking Answers. While Barricade would have been decent at creating a good last stand against Yig, I didn’t actually end up drawing many serpents while fighting him, and the biggest hurdle, the Harbinger, would have ignored the Barricade anyway. As it was, the two Truth from Fictions were essentially 6 free damage on Yig, which was more useful in the end.

Cards I Missed

Ancestral Knowledge was the biggest card I missed. Just increasing my deck size would have been good, since Harvey was starting to run out of deck space by the end. Even without big impactful skills, this would have been great, allowing niche skills to stick onto it until needed, or help refill a hand after dumping it all.

Higher Education (3)also would have served a good purpose. Building around money for Offer you Can’t Refuse meant that I could easily afford the occasional dip into my savings, and while I very rarely needed extra on investigations, it would have been somewhat useful on the non-investigate tests, as well as any willpower treachery.

Deduction (2) is another big hole in the deck, and would have offered an enormous amount of clue acceleration.

Finally, Pathfinder and Shortcut (2) would have offered a lot of efficiency throughout the campaign. As it was, the closest thing I had to this was the Expedition Journal, which admittedly was very good at action compression.

Performance

Harvey was a monster throughout this campaign. On some turns, he easily dealt more damage than Yorick, and had to bail him out of tough situations on multiple occasions. Without actions or tests, he dealt with a third of the final boss’s health - and would have done two thirds if the quirk of Turn Back Time hadn’t (arguably) wiped away the number recorded next to the Ancient Stones.

He remained a consistent investigator across every level, handily picking up basically every single clue between the pair. Though that’s probably what’s expected of a Seeker, he wasn’t entirely limited to that role.

Harvey was also the main explorer. One particular interesting tech on Heart of the Elders-A - the one level with consistent Agility treacheries - was casting Mind over Matter 2 before taking a full turn of exploring, casually blowing away every one of those treacheries at a skill value of 7+. This would have been less effective in return, with the possibility of enemies in the exploration deck.

Over the course of the campaign, I did make a number of misplays, playing two-handed and fast. Most were fairly minor, but most were in my favour too. Little things like forgetting one or two extra fight value on enemies I might have succeeded against anyway, perhaps some damage here or there. The biggest misplay was forgetting to take into account the effects of ‘Ichtaca’s Prey’ in Threads of Fate, which, played correctly, could have lost me the game (though most likely would not have). The biggest misplay against me was forgetting that the big enemy of Heart of the Elders-A couldn’t make attacks of opportunity. Oops. I also slightly lost track of who was poisoned and when since I forgot to actually add the card to the decks, but I don’t think I accidentally cured anyone. So while I can’t call this an absolute win, I’m happy to call it a win nonetheless.