Boxing with Knives | HC 1K Series

I just noticed, you did not use any ally! :0 Are there any options here? What motivates such choice?

@Drostt There's always stuff like Beat Cop you can use (or Brother Xavier even, etc.). This deck has robust healing and soak with Holy Rosary, so I didn't see the need personally (especially as you get stat boosts from the Disciplines, Rosary and Boxing Gloves - the latter while fighting). A slimmed down set of assets means you have less to play and can do more to win a scenario (more important here with the events focus of the deck). It's also good to not include allies arbitrarily especially with their typically high resource cost.

In respect of allies. Early on, Acolyte can be your additioal source of deck-thinning, horror soak and card draw engine in general. Later on, Michael Leigh can be a nice luxiary upgrade, as you are doing both clueing and fighting.

Honestly, I don't think the deck needs them. I use allies for (a) soak if healing isn't adequate, (b) stat boosts, and (c) for an ability I can't get anywhere else. As mentioned above, (a) and (b) this deck has and when considering (c) the extra damage on Beat Cop isn't something this deck needs - as the recruitment of events already gives damage compression (and the cost of the Beat Cop is resources you could be using the play events). Beat Cop would be the only ally I would consider for this personally, as Blessed Blade •••• doesn't release easily for Nephthys and other allies don't have much synergy (e.g. Field Agent who boosts ). Then again, Beat Cop needs support to stay alive and get the most out of your XP investment.

For Michael Leigh he's absurdly costly in terms of XP (I would rather just upgrade into One-Two Punch •••••, and in fact I did do as Hemlock Vale was richer in XP than I thought). I only ever use Michael where I want to be investigating with and killing things with (which is usually just Joe). Even more deck thinning with Acolyte I don't think is worth it - Boxing Gloves does enough as it is. You could include Acolyte in the starter deck and upgrade out of it, but I like everything else in the deck better - all the events are very useful.

If you think the opportunity cost of an ally is worth it, then by all means fill your boots though! Discipline - Alignment of Spirit does such a good job of healing and flips back to unbroken often (and has zero opportunity cost) that for me it was very much surplus to requirement.

Yes, I understand that it it is a common prejudice that an ally slot is the strongest therefore it is a waste not to include anything there, while it is not the truth for every given case. And again, one can create a deck meaning some particular campaigns in mind where they can include a story ally and go with them exclusively. I've just suggested the allies for those who love playing through allies but at no point I meant that these allies will make this deck work better.

@chrome Thanks, understood! As you say I think there can be a bit of bias towards certain ways of playing which give tunnel vision sometimes. I definitely do see a bit of "X is missing, so this is sub-optimal" on many different people's decks - sometimes it's warranted, but equally a lot of the time it's not.

I'm sorry but who's the acolyte you're talking about? Is it arcane initiate?

@stephwhatever Yeah you're right, should be Arcane Initiate. I think as Chrome put Acolyte initially I knew what they meant and didn't pick up that this was incorrect!

I'm very new to this game (played only 1 game so far) so I still don't know all the cards in the game or what's good and bad, synergies, etc. But I used to play Eldritch Horror a lot, and Lily was my favorite character there. Looking forward to trying out this deck, thank you!

@MiroBrai Thanks, hope you like it! Generally Lily's Disciplines are great, and Discipline Balance of Body in particular makes her a very good combatant. Starting with Discipline Alignment of Spirit also gives you a pretty easy time as it provides healing and gets your to an acceptable level for clue-finding with spell assets.

This deck is a bit non-standard given it's designed around the Boxing Gloves plus Blessed Blade •••• combo with Occult Reliquary, but I found this to be a great way to power up for a big Balance of Body attack and the tokens give you a much easier time too. I think it's probably one of the decks I've liked most from this series - having both power but being quirky as well.

Hi nice deck. I’m going to trying this out tonight in a the circle undone campaign

@Dragomir Thanks, I thought this one was especially neat! Let me know if you have any further thoughts after giving a playtest.

Thank you very much for the great deck guide. I will use it as the main fighter in a 4-player blind run of Innsmouth.

Two things caught my eye while assembling the starting deck. Maybe you can help me with them? Firstly, the card costs seem quite high. Are the two Emergency Caches enough? Secondly, do I need four investigation spells as the main fighter, or should I swap one for more combat power?

@oOskyOo No problem at all, glad you like it!

I found the resource generation to be enough, as you're not firing off your events all the time as Blessed Blade does perfectly good damage by itself - and the usual combo of Ever Vigilant and one Emergency Cache sets your assets up. It's really only when you want to use Discipline - Balance of Body where the events are more needed, and that's more often than not mid to late scenario (where a few enemies have gathered, or there's a boss out). The easy fix if you are concerned is to move Stand Together further up the upgrade track - but for me it wasn't needed.

Re. more combat power, there's not really many level 0 cards that are convenient to swap in. Innsmouth can provide similar XP to Hemlock Vale, so I suppose you could buy Strong-Armed or Brand of Cthugha or Enchant Weapon if you feel the need. TBH the damage here is already good though so I think the better hit rate on your clue-finding spells is worth it, even if you will be one of the main damage dealers. 1 extra damage from time to time doesn't offset the utility you get from clue-finding persistently, for me at least.

Another really cool deck! I was a bit tired of guardians/monster busters having to juggle ammo/spell charges, well this is a fantastic answer. By scenario 7, I am all set up by end of turn 1 to hit anything that comes with 9 fist, casually throwing a couple of bless tokens in the bag every first attack. XPs have been good in my current campaign and I got the Ace of Swords, but frankly, I’ve never needed it!

Thanks for a great list!