Wow, I didn't realize I was playing Mystics and Jackie wrong all this time. Glad to read up on how people choose to pilot their investigators. +1

so thorough <3

Thanks for the writeup, learning a lot. Can you explain how you would use Jacqueline's ability? Do you use it earlier or later? I'm having trouble figuring out when I should be using her ability since you can't use it on the 5 actions a round.

PS. The way to elude attacks of opportunity is simply inspired!!!

You marked this deck as playable solo, but how are you gathering clues? It's also marked as Multiplayer with 36XP, so why not upgrade Ward of Protection so you can help your entire team? What actual role does this build fill?

There's more but, I'll stop there so it doesn't sound like I'm picking on you. Thanks making the deck and sharing it. ~regards.

I see Sixth Sense - that's your investigate. I'll leave the rest of what I'm thinking about to the ether. Good luck!

@Lotharun Did you bother to read? The author does a good job explaining it is a versatile generalist as one would typically expect of Mystics. They also explained how to spend excess experience (which includes Ward of Protection).

@Rohanna I'm going to assume that is situational. If you are fighting an enemy, probably use your token manipulation effects earlier because you kill enemies faster and swap to other objectives/priorities as well as make fights easier for yourself. If you are investigating with Sixth Sense, I wouldn't use my ability until my last 2 investigates of the round because if you naturally draw symbols, you might end up with extra uses of your ability that you can save for your teammates or something.

@Lotharun Mystics generally get flack for being one of the more hit-or-miss "solo" factions because of the over-reliance of Spell assets. That is certainly true, but you I think your criticism comes off somewhat in bad faith. You first question the playability of the deck in solo , and then suggest I include Ward of Protection(2) in the decklist for the multiplayers. Had I included that, would you have said how it doesn't have any uses in solo? I will, however, breakdown general some adjustments that can be made for solo.

For Solo: You can consider Drawn to the Flame, Read the Signs, Flashlight, and Unexpected Courage as well as playing more Sword Cane for cover your basis. You may even consider Word of Command to maximize your ability to find your Sixth Sense / and eventually Wither.

Should you have any questions regarding the build, I'm happy to answer them if they aren't already answered in the guide above.

@darkseid , @yeojin, @Rohanna thank you the interest and reading. I think what @sweetpumpkinboy said regarding when to use Jacqueline's ability is pretty on par with the advice I would give. Don't be afraid to use them during mythos phase for some very critical tests to pass. Crypt Chill and Frozen in Fear are some that you might consider saving your ability to help you pass. You can actually play around Frozen in Fear in the same way you would play around attacks of opportunity. Start with an investigation with Sixth Sense, then use Sign Magick(s) to proc your Withers without the action penalty. It's like how Pathfinder's move (because its not an action), lets you move without the limitations of Frozen in Fear.

tl;dr When Fighting:

1. Wither: Jacqueline ability.
2. Wither: Jacqueline ability (if Arbiter of Fate is up).
3. Wither: Olive ability. (the enemy should be more or less dead by then).
4. Wither: Dark Prophecy etc ...

When Investigating if you don't have any other thing that requires your attention:

1. Sixth Sense: Save ability
2. Sixth Sense: Save ability
3. Sixth Sense: Jacqueline ability.
4. Sixth Sense: Jacqueline ability. (with Arbiter)
5. Sixth Sense: Olive ability.

This is a very good guide for Jacqueline Fine and it's on par with what I'm currently running in an Expert 4-player campaign. I've played most Mystics in this game on Hard/Expert and economy is always an issue at one point or another.

You mentioned it in the economy section of your guide under Uncage the Soul, but I think Voice of Ra should be an auto-include in Jacqueline Fine decks. It's an Emergency Cache most of the times, but a potential Hot Streak at its best. It can potentially shoulder the economy for your entire scenario, making sure you never have to take resource actions. It's even better because you're running Olive McBride and Dark Prophecy. Personally, I would cut Spectral Razor in this current iteration of the deck-list, because Wither should be able to carry most of the load for fighting, but it always depends on the context of your campaign (who the investigators are, how many others are you playing with, etc).

Uncage the Soul only hitting 3 targets in the decklist for max value (2x Sixth Sense and 1x Astral Travel) is an issue for me. I don't count Sign Magick because you lose the fast. I also don't count Prescient because recurring Uncage the Soul when you only have 3 value targets feels really bad.

Other than that, this is a TEXTBOOK Jacqueline Fine deck that can probably be played in any campaign and any difficulty.

@kinzuuu thank you for saying so. This build definitely requires MORE investment into setup than other Mystic/Jacqueline builds for sure. I definitely don't undervalue Voice of Ra. I think I mention that only consider cutting that card from the 0 exp after you have gotten Jewel. Even then, you lose the searchability of the card off Arcane. In more Item-heavy decks with Scrying Mirror, Scroll of Secrets, and Ritual Candles, playing Backpack2 to search Jewel is more preferential. However, because the Sign Magicks in this build reduce the use of hand slot Items, and the deck space is really really tight, playing Backpack2 is much harder to realize making your Jewel much more inconsistent and just a luck of the mulligan. In these situations, yes Voice of Ra should be kept in the deck as long as possible until you're absolutely certain that you do not need the economy of that card.

As for the maximization of Uncage, I don't necessarily agree with that viewpoint. Firstly, I do mention that depending on the situation, you may end up running a combination of 1 Spectral and 1 Storm instead of 2 Spectrals. If you end up recurring Storm with Prescient, there are more "maxed" out targets for the card. Also, I don't think that you need to max out of Uncage value. If your core engine consists of 2 cost spells like Wither, the difference in value is more binary and more about whether I can play the card with my given resources or not. Plus, its no surprise Uncage sometimes gets pitched as +2 skill value.

But really overall, very very similar opinions on where a finalized Jacqueline build should end up, with very minor differences based on playstyle/preference.

@chirubime I like what you're trying to do - setup a build framework more so than to say this is -the- build. I misunderstood that at first. Clearly the build cornerstone is Sign Magick, and you've given your thoughts on how to leverage it, wrapped in a framework. Kudo's for that.

I like Alchemical Transmutation paired with Sign Magick since you won't always have enough attack/investigate targets. I think I'd give the Hierophant V a slight nod over Relic Hunter. Although - I get it, Relic Hunter is always on, whereas you have to find, play and pay for Hierophat V. Makes it a very personal choice even when you add that Hiero has an added benefit.

I struggle with the value of Jewel of Aureolus - 3 cost to play and 2 successes to break even. In a group session it sounds nice but solo... I don't know. You need to see it early or it gets bleak fast.

Again... this is all personal choice stuff. The build hinges on Sign Magick. Get Sign Magick going, don't blow your economy, and anyone should be fine

What should I do if I took this deck plan but I drew Dendromorphosis as my basic weakness? Stick to the plan or retool completely?

@Yenreb :') ROFL. Errr I would reroll or retool. I guess you can just settle for a medium where you only commit 1 Sign Magick to your board state and save the other for after the Dendro hand-nuke.

The deck could just run Ikiaq over Olive. Or bring extra Scrolls or something. What did you end up doing?

Great write up!

With multiple token pulls, have you considered a curse suite of spells instead of god awful wither?

1 damage, unless you are absolutely killing the enemy that turn. Yuck. You're not out damaging any dedicated fighter with that spell. If wither did "for each" symbol pulled, I'd agree the damage output pretty good. Since it doesn't, boss monsters are gonna be super tough.

I guess you'd need to revamp too much to fit in enough curse tokens to make armageddon worth it. Plus, you can trigger wither quite a few times, so yea, cool idea.

Thanks for the great deck!

Sign Magic exhausts when used, so you only get 2 extra actions per turn.

Are you sure Eldritch Inspiration works with Jacqueline/Olive ability? Because these trigger when the token WOULD BE revealed and EI can be played when they are revealed

I believe the article is talking about EI level 1, which has additional timing options

I was talking about level 1 aswell. :)

Revisiting this. I played in a four player Carcosa campaign using Sign Magick as the cornerstone card. I took Agnes Baker paired with her Peter Sylvestre and Olive McBride. It's a slowish starter. Once you have Sign Magick level 2, then Peter Sylvestre up to level 2, and a Charisma in play it starts to roll. To my taste, Agnes was the better choice, but there is nothing wrong with using Jackie instead. Both work well.

It is a fair bit of random to get either or both Sign Magick cards in play unless you have the luck of the devil getting both. but... if you do it's glorious. If you don't, it can be painful spending your early turns drawing cards.

Arcane Initiate won't pull Sign Magick. Neither will Backpack, so pray to the god of RNG. I used Alchemical Transmutation paired with Sign Magick for income. No issues.

Overall, I'd say - Sign Magick works very well as a cornerstone card. It's fun; not over powered. It leaves you weak for evade if you were fond of Sword Cane but, I hate evading.

You will be better at clueing than at killing. There will be times where you are way too good at cluing - overkill in four player - where you finish too fast and miss some bonuses. Be mindful of that, allow others to shine and everything will work out fine.

Hi. This is a great deck and I'm going to have a go using it in a forthcoming campaign. The write up is also extremely helpful. thank you. I have just one stupid question really. In the write up you note that .... 'Eldritch Inspiration: Lets you grab 3 clues with Sixth Sense or deal 3 damage with Wither.' I see how sixth sense works as you resolve the whole effect over again when you draw a symbol and get the extra clues as a result. Wither isn't quite the same as you would not technically apply extra damage with a single wither action if you draw a symbol. However there is the ability to further reduce the enemies health for the remainder of the turn which I guess amounts to just about the same thing - although you can only drop the health to a minimum of 1, so they'd need another wither to finish them off. Is that how you see it working, or am i misunderstanding how it works in this context?

Addendum. Thinking about this - I now see that because health is the printed number on the enemy card, a 3 health enemy can be defeated with one upgraded wither attack as you would apply one damage, but the enemies overall health could also drop to 1 (as per the 'to a minimum of 1' restriction). Thus damage applied would equal remaining health. I didnt see this distinction before as it rarely is applied in this way. Another useful thing Ive learned. Thanks again!

Wither is a solid self defense spell. The -1 that Wither can possibly apply is after the attack damage is applied to a min of 1 so, you're not one-shotting a 2 health monster with it. It pairs well with Spectral Razor to cover that weakness. Chirubime has that right for sure.

Sixth Sense is situationally amazing for clueing, and often just okay where okay wins the race. If you get both copies of Sixth Sense out and two copies of Sign Magick(3) in play, you're going to overpower the mission -- probably finishing it way too fast - especially in 4 player.

Sign Magick(3) is so OP and so integral to this build, that I think it should be your first upgrade, then get one Charisma to be paired with Arcane Initiate(spell card draw) and Olive McBride(bag manipulation). After that... do whatever you want. It's going to be a fun ride.

"The -1 that Wither can possibly apply is after the attack damage is applied to a min of 1 so, you're not one-shotting a 2 health monster with it."

Not sure I follow this - if you deal one damage, and the health is reduced from 2 to 1, you have a 1 health enemy with 1 damage on it, which kills it.

Unless I'm missing something, the health (and fight/evade) reduction applies as soon as you reveal your chaos token, not after the attack damage is resolved. This means it's possible to (with existing damage on the enemy, and one health remaining) kill a retaliate enemy with a failed skill test, before the attack fails, without taking the retaliate attack. Highly unlikely to ever matter, but it's possible!

@Lotharun This is not correct. Wither(4)'s effect of "If a [token] is revealed" triggers immediately when the token is revealed, which is Step 7. It can immediately reduce an enemy's health down to 1 (and if they have 1 damage already on them, they are instantly defeated). The reduction is prior to checking if you succeed the test meaning you can reduce the difficulty of a fight during St. 3 before it gets checked whether you passed or failed in a later Step. Furthermore, the damage of a successful attack is applied in Step 7 so that damage comes after anyways.

Also Sign Magick(3) is absolutely incorrect as the first upgrade. Jacqueline's core compression comes from Sixth Sense(4) and Wither(4) in this build. Let's break down in 2 different ways:

• In order for you to get clue compression (clue or damage per action) you will need both Sign Magick(3) AND a lvl 0 Wither/Sixth Sense in order to compress 2 actions into 1. Since Sign Magick isn't searchable in this deck, you're spreading this 2 in 1 action compression over 6 resources and 2 cards. Sixth Sense(4) and Wither(4) are immediately online as a 3 resource singular searchable card via Arcane Initiate or even Word of Command. And if offers a 2 in 1 action compression by itself.

• With 2 Sign Magick out and your un-upgraded Wither/Sixth Sense, you're maxed out at 5 actions -> 5 clue/damage. Plus there is no added synergy with Eldritch Inspiration which requires the upgraded ones to combo off. The potential is much higher with Wither(4) or Sixth Sense(4) without Sign Magick as you can get up to 6 damage or 6 clues in 3 actions.

Hi! Sorry, but I’m new to the game. How can this Deck have 38 Cards when the Deck Size is 30 + 3?

Hi tig735. This deck has 5 permanent assets which do not count towards your deck size. 2 x arcane research, 1 x charisma, 2 x relic hunter

Ah! Thanks!

Don't see a point in upgrading EI when all relevant cards included are the symbol tokens?

@Erdjo classic erdjo. Author mentioned improving your means of dealing with dark future and by being able to use EI on Jacqueline herself

@mrsdoubles I don't see the interaction.

I keep rereading and trying to find where I'm wrong but I still cannot see a single card here that benefits from the upgraded EI (1) rather than keeping EI (0). EI cannot be used on Jacqueline, Dark Prophecy, or Olive.

Erdjo - I believe the idea is that the upgraded Elsrich Inspiration will allow you to trigger off the word ‘of’ rather than after the word ‘when’. This allows you to trigger the beneficial effects of the upgraded sixth sense and wither

That should read : ‘If’ , not ‘of’

EI (0) only triggers 'when' and a specific symbol is revealed, EI (1) triggers 'When, if or after' for any token. Jewel of Aureolus is 'after', so only level 1. Jacqueline is 'when', but not restricted by specific token, so only level 1 works. Same for Dark Prophesy and Olive

@jw24601 That has been errata'd. You can see the page for EI (0) that it has gained the same text.

The other 3 cards do not work at all because they are "when you would".

I think you cannot trigger another Sixth Sense when you trigger Sixth Sense and then trigger Sign Magick. Stick to the Plan and Winifred Habbamock state "different card". In both cases, cards with same title, same copies, are not considered as different card. I think there are no reason only Sign Magick could do.

Sign Magick says "different Spell or Ritual asset". Sure, both Sixth Senses are the same "card" (by title) but they are different assets.

To me the distinction lies in that "different" is redundant in SttP and Winifred if two copies of the same card are allowed. It is not redundant on Sign Magick: it means you cannot trigger the same copy you just triggered.

@Erdjo EI triggers off any chaos token, EI (0) triggers of symbols only.

Yes, and this deck uses only cards that interact with the symbol tokens. We've gone back to the initial reason I brought it up.

Hey, thanks for the great deck idea, I'm going to be running something based on this soon.
My initial question is something i haven't been able to really find an answer to yet.
I understand that I can't use eldritch inspiration directly on voice of ra, however it seems like I should be able to use eldritch inspiration on Olive Mcbride's ability while resolving voice of ra. How would that play out? for example (the in parenthesis stuff is what would happen but it gets interrupted and changed):

Start voice of ra action (would reveal 3 tokens) > trigger olive mcbride (would reveal 3 keep 2, then reveal 2 more) up to here seems pretty straight forward>

play eldritch inspiration (Not sure here, could be: reveal 3 keep 2, reveal 3 keep 2, reveal 2, totaling 6 kept tokens) in that situation the same initial token is the target and eldritch inspiration is just resolved twice on it.

It might be ( reveal 3 keep 2, then reveal 2 more and out of those 4 keep 2 then reveal 2 more, which leaves only 4 revealed tokens and a waste of eldritch inspiration)
This one targets the initial token then the first token drawn from the Olive ability for the target of the 2nd Olive ability.

I guess there is always (reveal 3 keep 2, reveal 3 keep 2, then reveal one last token to total 5).
While this one seems the most fair i just can't see any way the rules as written would result in this. I would probably house rule to this though.

However due to the natures of "when" in arkham it seems like everything should be in some way targeting that first token revealed. Olive's wording of "instead of" really complicates duplicating her ability.

I never really understood Jacquelines ability, or more general: How to cancel tokens? Maybe someone can help.

1) According to arkhamdb.com revealing and resolving of tokens are two different steps.

(...)

-ST.3 Reveal chaos token.

-ST.4 Resolve chaos symbol effect(s).

(...)

2) According to FAQ canceling tokens is specified as:

"""When a token is 'cancelled' or 'ignored' in its entirety (such as through Wendy Adams's ability, playing Counterspell or revealing two tokens with Grotesque Statue's ability), treat the token as if it had never been revealed at all. All of the token's effects are cancelled or ignored, and any effects that would trigger off that type of chaos token (like Baseball Bat with and ) do not trigger. However, when a token is only partially ignored or cancelled, as with Defiance, the token is still considered to have been revealed, and effects that trigger off it being revealed do trigger."""

3) So i assume Jacquelines ability triggers after/at the end of ST.3 and before ST.4. But definitely after revealing the tokens. But that implies that the "on reveal" effects are triggered in ST.3 (and then might be reverted by Jacquelines ability, as "treat the token as if it had never been revealed at all.").

So if i am right Jacquelines ability gets more powerful, as you can do stuff like that: Assume Jacqueline has an excess skill value of 2 (so she would succeed with a "-2"). Assume she reveals: "Curse token", "Curse Token", "0". Because of the two Curse tokens she draws two more tokens: "0", "-4". No she can cancel the "0" and the second Curse token (this also cancels the "-4", since the Curse token is "treat(ed) as if it had never been revealed"). This might be the better option than canceling both curse tokens, as the test is still successful and one curse token gets removed from the bag.

That feels a bit complex. It would feel much more natural to just draw 3 token, put some back in the bag, and then handle the remaining token(s).

So which interpretation is correct?

@Yenreb We sent a question to the rules team at FFG and they responded that the premise behind some of the sign magick uses in this deck is not allowed due to the word "different." They stated the next FAQ will have dedicated info regarding the word "different." I also asked about Lily's foot discipline and got the same answer. Two installed assets with the same name are not different for Sign Magick or Discipline: Balance of Body.

Yeah the new FAQ hurt the decklist a bit since you can't chain Sixth Sense off Sixth Sense nor Wither off Wither. That being said, the Ritual Candles buffs would probably put Jacqueline where she is pre-Sign Magick(3). (Which was already really good.)

We'll have to see the rest of the Scarlet Keys to see how her deck develops.

I played this deck in my recent campaign. Very dependable and solid but I found it a bit lackluster and basic. I get that Jackqueline is a rather simple investigator but I felt there was more power and value to be acquired. Since the only key upgrades for this build are relic hunter + jewel of aureolous and Wither, I felt that with arcane research it was a great opportunity to try power word and I have to say, it was awesome. Instead of upgrading sixth sense I simply used power word for the extra clues and a bunch of other things like healing and overall monster control. And with upgraded Sign Magick... lets just say the abuse, value and efficiency were off the charts. However the core strategy of the deck which is Jackie's dependable outcome and extra value from symbols was still key for the decks functionality. Ritual candles was especially useful. It's easy to underestimate how much a free +1 can contribute, even to a psychic.

Given the FAQ that clarifies Sign Magick (ie, can’t chain two of the same-named spell), what do you suggest as alternatives?

I am testing out the addition of Shards of the Void in a true solo deck.

Due to the way that card seals tokens I think I might lean towards Song of the Dead for multiplayer.

Just wanted to drop by and say this deck looks awesome! Of all classes, I'm mostly unfamiliar with Mystics. But I want to try it out in the new Hemlock Vale campaign and your deck looks so clean that I'm confident in trying it.

Also: the new investigator expansion for Hemlock Vale gave us Olive McBride(2) and Spectral Razor(2) so this deck has been given even more potential now!

I just finished 2-player Dream Eaters campaign where I played modified version of this deck (I added Power Word which was great). It was very powerful but it needs a long warmup to find, draw and play all the assets. It often happened that the doom clock went too fast and I didn't manage to play even half of them. I.e. I pulled out the Sign Magick combo only once, which is pretty disappointing... Maybe I was just unlucky or it was rarely a case where it was worth it to really push for it.

Eldritch Inspiration and Dark Prophecy were a great combo with the spells and Jacqueline's ability.

As usual in my games with Arcane Initiate, Charisma proved to be useless (as you also pointed out). I would definitely prioritise Relic Hunter higher.

In the end we've won the campaign and the last scenario was a breeze. Thanks for the deck!