Calv Maga

This Calvin eschews weapons, allies, and other static boosts but will be lethal from turn one.

You could pair him with a clue-oriented Carolyn or Vincent and include Safeguard in their deck to keep him healed-up, but with five healing/soak cards of his own he can get by with minimal support. Given how straightforward this deck is to pilot, it's a good choice for two-handed solo.

Start with two physical trauma from In the Thick of It.

Mulligan hard for The Five of Pentacles: You'd like to hover at 4/4/4/4 and doing so feels much better at 7/7 than 6/6. If you also start with a Toe to Toe or Heroic Rescue, you're off to the races.

Use your quiet turns to draw cards and hopefully hit Voice of the Messenger early. Or take a short breather to heal Calvin back down to a safe level. By mid-scenario you will likely be able to snag the odd clue here and there.

Use Resourceful to recur Earth Serenity (or, later, Brute Force).

Note that it is not mandatory to maximize the healing on an Earthy Serenity test: As long as you pass by enough, you don't need to worry about over-healing. (Not so with Second Wind and many other healing cards.)

Consider Prophetic for a first upgrade to boost Spirit events and Earthly Serenity tests. Bruce Force is a close second. Prioritize Victory Points over survival in the first scenario: With five to eight XP, you'll start the second scenario as a beast and Calvin is often happy to take an early point of trauma.

This build has a low experience build ceiling. By mid-campaign you can consider Exile events with or without Deja Vu. I like permanents in general but in a lower-draw deck like this they shine even more, so consider Quick Learner and Scrapper (3).

Dark Horse is tempting but then I'd want to run Madame Labranche, too. I built a variation of this deck that includes those cards plus Pitchfork...it's probably better but this one is a lot more elegant!