Carson shoots lightning bolts at whoever stands between his cluever and him!

Credit: Magali Villeneuve

You want to play support but not be cornered in that role? You are tired of being a damage dealer with nothing else to bring when there are no enemies?
Here comes a primary fighter deck that can handle big foes while providing additional actions to his party for better efficiency!

It took me a long time to find a Carson concept that I liked enough to make a guide for it, and I am thrilled with the results of this deck. So a little while after all the others, here comes the last Scarlet Key Investigator deck guide from me!

After the 20k Series and its success, this 30k Series will focus on the investigators that are much harder to solve. Expect some jank, some outside-of-the-box thinking and hopefully some love for the underdogs of this game.

Click here to see all the previous decks. I will keep releasing a new standalone-ready deck concept every week on Friday, so stay tuned and keep pressing the ♥ button if you want to see more!

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• As Palpatine, shoot force lightning

• Prolonge your life expectancy

• Be the one people beg to join for a game

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Use the massive +5 of the Lightning Gun to anihilate enemies.

• Stay alive with Hallowed Mirror, the soak of empty Venturers and your ludicrous Hunter's Armor.

• Support your team by handing away actions, thus indirectly participating in your fair share of clues.

Who would have thought that after my own review explaining how the Lightning Gun was outdated at this stage of the game, it would turn out to be the key to cracking Carson's case?

• Lightning Gun gives +5 , bringing even Carson Sinclair's lame base stat to a reasonable 7 .

  • Custom Modifications's primary ability allows us to re-draw a bad token if needed, significantly increasing the chances of success.

• Speaking of Custom Modifications it helps in other situations:

  • Notched Sight cancels one major downside: friendly fire.

  • Finally, because 3 ammo is not enough to electrocute the whole Mythos, Extended Magazine comes with an appreciated bonus for One in the Chamber and Extra Ammunition.

• Venturer does not synergise with Custom Modifications, but it's still a valuable source of ammo on top of some appreciated soak.

Backup option:

Because 10xp is a lot early in a campaign, we only start with 1 Lightning Gun. This is compensated by some consistency:

• Backpack (2) is fantastic in this deck to find the gun, of course, but it also works for Runic Axe, Hallowed Mirror and Hunter's Armor.

• Prepared for the Worst, loose at first, then Stuck to the Plan adds another chance of finding your Lightning Gun as early as possible.

• We choose the Runic Axe as our backup weapon as it can, for 2 charges spent in one action, make us fight with a decent 5 and 2 damage. While not ideal, the +3 on a level 0 weapon is the best available.

• The other weapon at level 0 is .45 Thompson, not because it's any good, but because it allows you to shoot many times until you land the shot while being a target for Custom Modifications and Venturer.

The 6/6 on Carson Sinclair is one of the hardest parts to understand for me. He is already vulnerable to the Mythos; why make him even more fragile? Anyways, let's check how to keep that old man alive.

• Hunter's Armor is our main soak in this deck and our most significant experience sink after the 2 Lightning Guns.

  • Hexdrinker compensates for one of Carson's weakness: draw. It turns your low-base stats into pure value.

  • As your personal weakness Selfless to a Fault is also considered treachery, so Hexdrinker will also give a card when you fail to commit a card to a teammate.

  • Enchanted transfers the slot to Arcane, which is convenient to play it from a Backpack. And since it's not unique , why not use 2 Hunter's Armor at the same time?

  • Durable and Hallowed increase your survivability and the draw power from Hexdrinker.

  • If necessary, you can add Protective Runes to also benefit from your teammate's incompetence.

• Hallowed Mirror is a slower but reliable source of healing that can also be applied to your team.

• Venturer turns into pure soak once you've used all their precious supplies.

• Take the Initiative will possibly make you pass a few treacheries when the consequences are worse than just damage/horror.

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• Killing enemies should be enough to be hired, right?

• Carson's ability gives a 4th action to any team member.

  • While it may seem ok, at best, it is actually much better than it sounds. You can see it as if you had the chance to transform into the most helpful investigator at your location every turn. Need to fight like a Tony, investigate like a Daisy, evade like a Kymani, you're all of them at the same time, as long as they are close by.

  • A little bit late because I often postpone common upgrades, Safeguard (2) helps make sure that you stick to your cluever to protect them at all times and use your precious action to what pushes the game forward the most.

• Committing skills to their tests such as "As you wish", especially as you are being forced to by Selfless to a Fault.

  • For that matter, if your cluever is a , consider swapping Perception for Guts.

• Hallowed Mirror heals your party.

• Stand Together pays someone in need.

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• Daring is excellent here for multiple reasons: it works both for fighting and evading, making it a perfect candidate to be committed to someone else's test, and the 1 draw happens even if you fail the test.

• Take Heart is probably the only reason to choose as a subclass. It turns our inevitable treachery test failures into cards and cash.

Later Upgrades:

• Custom Ammunition is a good upgrade of One in the Chamber as it still brings the ammo but gives additional damage in case it's needed against monster enemies.

• Stand Together (3) is appreciated at all times.

• On the Hunt (3) increases the resource input while allowing you to dig for VP enemies when you can do so.

  • It shines particularly in Carson as a way to not draw any treachery for one turn.

• Stick to the Plan will receive Prepared for the Worst, Custom Modifications and Extra Ammunition at first, replaced by Custom Ammunition when we have it.

Link to the 0xp deck

(View at arkham-starter.com)

Link to the full xp deck

To create your own guides, find the template I have created here