Power Word

The key to this deck is Power Word & Soul Sanctification Once you get your Power words out, using Mercy & Cower you can likely heal 3-6 Health/Horror using 1 , giving you total of +6 to +12 spread across a few test using Soul Sanctification ability, in practice turning Carolyn's base stats of

3 4 2 2

into

7 8 6 6

And that's not to mention the clue and damage you can do with Betray & Confess

Piloting

Hand Mulligan Priority:

1. Power Word
2. Mr. "Rook"

Mulligan Hard for these 2 cards, dump the rest, you can always use Mr. "Rook" to get the other cards later, the ones below are nice to have.

3. Hallowed Mirror
4. Hypnotic Therapy
5. Ancient Stone
6. On the Hunt

Combos

1. Hallowed Mirror, while Mr. "Rook" has charges, you can almost always find one Soothing Melody for 2 healing (3 with Ancient Stone) and a card draw each turn. Always Shuffle it back in when possible

2. Breach the Door Allows you to more easily get clues in hard locations using your Minions, with 2+4 on 1 + Steadfast/Promise of Power you should be able to guarantee a -4 to shroud

3. Ancient Stone Auto healing on Upkeep, Mr. "Rook" & Soothing Melody

4. On the Hunt + Power Word to (Hopefully) get a strong enemy to control

Deck Build Path

This deck will only come online after 1-3 scenarios Check out 0xp Deck down below

1. 6xp Soul Sanctification

2. 2xp Book of Psalms x2 --> Ancient Stone x2

3. 3xp Hallowed Mirror --> Hallowed Mirror

4. 3xp Ancient Stone x2 --> Ancient Stone You upgrade both with using 3xp with Shrewd Analysis

*With Soul Sanctification and Promise of Power you can reliably get a shroud 6 for Ancient Stone

Ideally you would use Arcane Research to do all the upgrading for Power Word, but for some campaigns you might want to spend some normal xp to expedite the upgrade path, here's the order I would take:

1. 1xp Mercy (You need this to get further upgrades due to Carolyn's Deck Requirements)

2. 1+2xp Thrice Spoken (After Getting this add in the extra 2 copies, you can remove Read the Signs)

3. 1xp Confess (Consider spending the 1xp after taking Thrice Spoken)

4. 2+1xp Tonguetwister (Consider spending the 1xp on top of the 2 free xp to get it)

5. 2xp Betray & Distract

Future Upgrades

1. 2xp On the Hunt & Voice of Ra --> Blood Eclipse x2 gives you some nice extra burst damage in case you need it, you can get the upgraded version through Arcane Research when you've finished upgrading Power Word

2. Stick to the Plan is a nice card to take if you have the 6xp to spare since it ensures you have a On the Hunt first turn when you need it, it also allows you to take Breach the Door, which is nice to have on had. Finally it thins your deck for more Soothing Melody occurrences.

3. Keen Eye is a nice card too since you tend to get a lot of money once you have your setup.

4. Finally you can always get the upgraded First Aid & Vicious Blow

Additional Notes

Consider taking Arcane Initiate if another investigator really needs to use Mr. "Rook" since it also allows you to loop Soothing Melody and tutor Power Word

19xp standalone deck doesn't include Ancient Stone due to xp constraints

0xp deck 19xp deck