A Carcosa starter deck that healing matters. More tanky than aggressive, this Mark has True Grit, First Aid with even more supplies on Emergency Cache on Stick to the Plan, complete with Elder Sign Amulet to catch stray horrors. Everything is to be put down with Ever Vigilant.

He is able to help out the team with True Grit or Heroic Rescue more often, and make more Sophie plays to make it even possible to work on tests sometimes.

In exchange, his offensive options are limited to starting 2x .32 Colt with only 1x Shotgun joining in the middle of campaign.

► About "2 Packs Deck Guide"
　A series of decks made with the new distribution model in mind, requiring a Revised Core Set box + just 1 more Investigator Expansion box. ☻ character on the deck's name means the additional box it uses is The Path to Carcosa Investigator Expansion.
　It maximizes the chance of newcomers being able to build and learn to play the game, enjoying the story on Standard difficulty ASAP. They can then get into deck-building later if they wished to do so. See other decks in the "2 Packs Deck Guide" series here.

Upgrade guide

(View at arkham-starter.com)

✯ : See Stick to the Plan section below.

Extra is unlikely to reach unless you do really well, I added them just in case!

How to play

• 2x Ever Vigilant are the first thing in the upgrade because this deck is full of clunky assets that could exist together : .32 Colt, First Aid (take no slot), True Grit (take no slot), and later on Elder Sign Amulet. You may occassionally have Flashlight to put down together as well. (See how to investigate below.)
• Ongoing challenge is to find your rhythm when to use on the First Aid. Remember that each time you take damage you can draw, so preparing enough health may lead to better hand later on and more Sophie. Note that if you have 4 damage counters, using Sophie will get +2 then immediately -1 from the flip. So try keeping your damage counter 3 or lower.
• Save your health for Sophie +2 for passing or treachery too, especially Rotting Remains.
• There is only 1 more high XP weapon added in upgrade : 1x Shotgun. Therefore you mainly fight with vanilla .32 Colt til the end. This is for synergy with "Eat lead!" + Stick to the Plan. Therefore to make it accurate enough for late game enemies you will need Combat Training down and use Sophie. (There is no Beat Cop to give either.)

How to investigate

The other highlight of this deck is that he is unexpectedly investigation-conscious!

• 2x Flashlight are never removed from the deck.
• Use Sophie's flexible +2 to get 4 and help out the main clue finder when things are quiet. Then heal back with First Aid. This looks like huge action sink, but when there is no enemy, helping out with clues is probably better than try your luck drawing.
• Emergency Cache (3) can refill Flashlight. It is on Stick to the Plan as well.
• After you managed to get Elder Sign Amulet in play, you can take some horror to enable Desperate Search use.
• Ever Vigilant is commit when you have run out of things to play with.
• Evidence! of course but it is replaced in the upgrade.

Stick to the Plan

Once you got it, stick these cards which we purchased 1x each :

"Eat lead!" ••

Normally this card is hard to use because not only you need to pair with the gun, to improve pairing rate you will spend 4 XP for 2 copies.

Now with Stick to the Plan not only you can buy 1 copy, you also don't have to manually pair with .32 Colt. If you grab 1 of 2 available .32 Colt, one high accuracy hit is ready to go when you need it.

It also save your hand space since usually "Eat lead!" stays on hand for the right moment for very long time. (Even when you have a gun ready, you still want to save it for the crucial hit.)

It is also usable with Shotgun but it has only 2 ammo. (Sometimes still worth it to get the right number of fatal damage.)

Ambush •

When you think you need to heal multiple times with First Aid (e.g. to flip Sophie ASAP) but need an another round, it may help to use your last action for Ambush so if enemy spawns you can get rid of it faster and can continue healing.

Emergency Cache •••

This is actually purchased a bit later than Stick to the Plan. Before then, try sticking either Heroic Rescue or Hiding Spot instead.

Importantly it gives enough cash to let you play Shotgun in emergency.

Refills First Aid or Flashlight. You can also inject resources if Ever Vigilant is not quite working out and you must swallow 3 cost of True Grit, .32 Colt, Guard Dog, ... sequentially.

Card tips

Ever Vigilant •

It is possible to play 2x True Grit and 2x First Aid since they take no slot. Spare Ever Vigilant is a good way to get an another copy in play together with the other stuff, to make use of all allowed 3 things to play.

Don't forget about Combat Training also, though it is Fast, playing it with Ever Vigilant reduces the cost to 0.

"I'll see you in hell!"

This is not a meme card. In the Upgrade Guide this card is strategically replaced with Elder Sign Amulet. Before then, it is likely to die by horror and that's horrible!

Instead, use this card and take physical trauma. Likely situation is that Elite is going to hit you for 2 horrors with no way out, it is too far away to hit Resign, and you want to die by damage. So even without trying to kill many non-Elite enemies together with you, this card is still valuable.

First Aid can heal back the starting damage in the next scenario as well, so it is not that bad here. Or maybe it could allow you to use The Home Front right from the start.

First Aid

I get it why this card is not getting played and you may not used to its effect so let me remind you : IT CAN HEAL HORROR. (Despite thematically nothing in that box could possibly to that.) So also useful if you are trying to keep Desperate Search usable but you overshoot a bit to 3 horror.

First Aid •••

"Or" changes to "and", and also enables healing allies. Guard Dog cannot take any horror, so it is important to heal off horror before you have Elder Sign Amulet which comes late in the upgrade plan.

If you want to refill supplies with Emergency Cache (3), you can use it up to only 3 times, because the 4th time will automatically discard it.

If you have got 1 mental trauma, "I'll see you in hell!" can help get a matching physical trauma to heal out together at the start of the next game.

(Trivia : The repackaged The Path to Carcosa Investigator Expansion actually has non-gore art of the pill box like the Revised Core Set one.)

Combat Training •

Only horror breaks the composure. Damage go through to you and Mark get a bit of benefit too. In this deck we have Elder Sign Amulet to keep this running longer.

We need this card because the .32 Colt has no accuracy bonus and we have no plan to replace them. Having a way to +1 to 6 will be much handier for 4 enemies.

Desperate Search

In Standard difficulty, it allows you to try out 3-4 shroud location. Also campaign occasionally has Parley that tests instead of . He could become quite a convincing wise man!

Elder Sign Amulet •••

Can also take horrors from Shell Shock, since it is not direct.

Guard Dog

The decision to use the dog instead of Beat Cop (2) is because of XP saving. Without the Stick to the Plan suite he probably could, but this deck decided to play with as many shiny Carcosa cards as possible.

You do gain benefit of the upgraded cop, which is to willingly take damage to attack and get Mark a card draw. The 0 XP cop is worse in this aspect as the ability is a discard, not placing damage.

Shotgun ••••

Yes, one of the long-forgotten power weapon, and only 1 copy. We don't have Extra Ammunition, so this gun is designed to be gone in a flash, then replace with .32 Colt ASAP to continue fighting long term.

In that situation, often an injection of 4 resources from Emergency Cache (3) is urgently needed, luckily we have that on Stick to the Plan. In the Upgrade Plan, it is right after Emergency Cache (3)'s inclusion. So you are guaranteed to be happy once you draw a Shotgun.

Mark has the signature The Home Front that allows hitting at high damage with minimal preparation, along with "Eat lead!" + Stick to the Plan for an extra difficult to hit enemy.

If you must connect 2 shots for higher damage, instead of "Eat lead!", budget your health for Sophie or budget your resources for Combat Training.

Sophie does not exhaust on the ability, so it is even possible to get +4 for the shot if you are healthy enough. (But Mark's card draw is once per phase.)