Faceplant Calvin (Standard/Hard Mode)

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Let me handle this! (Standard/Hard Mode) 7 4 0 1.0
Calvin Wright on the Road 0 0 0 1.0
First Try Calvin 0 0 0 1.0
First Try Calvin 2 0 0 0 2.0
First Try Calvin 3 0 0 0 3.0
First Try Calvin 4 0 0 0 4.0
First Try Calvin 5 0 0 0 5.0
First Try Calvin 6 0 0 0 6.0
First Try Calvin 7 0 0 0 7.0
First Try Calvin 8 0 0 0 8.0
First Try Calvin 9 0 0 0 9.0
Calvin Wright: Stand Against the Void 0 0 0 1.0

StartWithTheName · 63551

This is a deck ive been testing and refining over a handful of TFA hard mode runs paired with a few different other decks im also developing. I havent taken it far into a campaign so I dont consider it to be a finished job per se, but i dont plan to tweak it further until we have seen quite a bit more of the campaign so i thought i would share now.

Happy to hear thoughts or experiences.

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OVERVIEW

This is what im calling a 'horror route' Calvin (as opposed to a 'damage route' if there is such a thing) . Here we're aiming to take 3 or 4 horror early. Explore hard to dig out encounter cards voluntarily. This takes the harm out of the deck for others and sets you up for later on. Feel free to scream the name of a god of your choice as you literally apply your face to some plants! and take mental trauma like you saw a cool kid doing it. Painkillers allow us to transfer damage to horror if you took the wrong sort of harm. The allies and Until the End of Time then cover us for any future san hits, particularly Peter Sylvestre who also lets you use any left over Painkiller charges to heal off damage later in the scenario if weve taken a little more than planned. Once we have the horror, it enables Fight or Flight and desperate cards which let us go high on tough/important tests as needed.

Fire Axe lets us pay to boost on even if we have yet to take the damage. Madame Labranche or Fight or Flight offer us additional swings if needed. It can be swung neat if weve reached 5 or 6 base late game. Dark Horse is not treated as a keystone card. Play it asap if it turns up, but anytime you have Ward of Protection or Fight or Flight in hand be prepared to float 1 resource unless youve managed to get Madame Labranche down. With xp we add Scrapper later on to let you pitch that penny during any test (you can boost the wrong stat, it just doesnt benefit you to do so normally). Or we swap Dark Horse for the Key of ease if instead if you like.

Muligan away any card that isnt an asset or has a duplicate. Early game Madame Labranche is better than The Big Man, late game the opposite is true. Anytime you have a spare action and nothing more important to do, draw.

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UPGRADES

Priorities:

  1. Charisma x1 - no ally dilema.
  2. (2a) Dark Horse Key of Ys. Discuss with your group if you want anyone to take this it is somewhat OP and can warp your experience. Then again Calvin isnt a bad char to have taken this in. He has other issues to compensate, for example it almost entirely shuts down taking horror on your ID before it’s lost (ie further / expansion), and he doesnt get much in the way of action compression to abuse the key the way others can, OR
  3. (2b) Scrapper - Lets you activate Dark Horse as described in the overview if you didnt swap it out for the Key of Ease.

Later (Order of choice):

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MORE DETAILED PILOTING ... SORT OF

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In truth i normally have more to write in these sections, but if im honest there isnt much more to say than was said in the overview. The only warning i guess is that Calvin is very much an ID designed for experienced players, newcomers will have enough to learn. Please dont scare them off!

TAKE 3 or 4 HORROR EARLY

  • Not 5. 5 is scary. 5 is dangerous. Put your soaks down asap, but take the horror on your ID upto 3 or 4. With Dark Horse down this gets you to upt 5 and which is plenty to clue well, and minimise encounter deck horror. We dont go to 5 by choice. It will probably happen at somepoint, but you want that 1 horror grace for any surprises or cards that do things like reduce your hp/san by 1.

  • EXPLORE ASAP - Easy ways to take early horror in Untamed Wilds: (SPOILERS IN TEXT). Ideally get an ally and/or Painkillers down, then just draw explore cards. Several of these give physical damage (Painkiller-able over to horror) and or horror. The ally just protects from potential poison, though if you have Ward of Protection you can both cancel it and get that juicy horror. If you are unlucky enough to find an actual location, do not fear! two of these give options for self harm. Throw yourself willingly off the bridge or into some thorns. Sorted! The other bad thing that can happen is overgrowth. At which point you may need another player to clear it unless you get (un)lucky with an encounter card next mythos phase. While you're doing this just thematically imagine him screaming at the top of his voice and running madly into the thicket as his comrades look on bewildered. Thats what i do. It also clears all the risk out of the explore deck for them essentially letting them just move to a location safe in the knowledge they wont get harmed doing so.

SOAKS

  • Self explanatory. Get these down asap. Leather Coat and Painkillers cover us for damage, Peter Sylvestre, offers potentially limitless horror soak once we want to turn it off almost completely. Madame Labranche and Until the End of Time cover us for a little of both.
  • Let Labranche die. Shes here primarily as a double soak. The cash is a bonus and you`ll almost never use the draw unless something serious has happened.
  • Use Painkillers & Peter Sylvestre to heal yourself Once you have 3/4 horror, use the combo to keep yourself at 4 damage. Again dont go to 5. You ideally dont want to kill off the big man if you take 2 damage.

SKILL CARDS

  • Cantrips Use Perception and Guts liberally. These can compensate until you have the horror you need or just to self replace. Keep Manual Dexterity to evade or clear any potentially nasty encounters. This will still get used soon enough.

  • Go Big or Go Home The rest of the skill cards are just BIG one shot boosts. Rise to the Occasion should be saved for any crucial tests in this stage. Note that it is based off you base stats not your boosted stats. So essentially it can be played on any test of strength 2 or more no matter what your current stats are.

  • Wheres the ? skills? they were cut for Fire Axe and Fight or Flight which do a similar thing.

TRAUMA MANAGEMENT AND USE

  • Balance to 4/4/4/4 with . With TFAs slightly smaller chaos bag of only 14 starting tokens, we expect to see this at least once in the scenario. Basically use this to take horror/damage upto the target of 4 in each, Horror first ofc, or heal back if you've gone higher.

  • Aiming to get 3 and 3 trauma base, Horror first A little trauma for Calvin helps kick start that early 3 horror/damage. However lots of trauma is bad as it makes you vulnerable before youve had a chance to draw/play your soaks. Im still getting my head around it, but from what I have seen so far it looks like you dont go out of your way to get yourself defeated unless you are sure of what you are doing long term (more than happy to hear other peoples experiences on this). Voice of the Messenger and random campaign shocks look like they will offer you plenty over the campaign and you can only take at max 10 trauma (5/5) before being lost for good. There are also advantages to the team of wanting to faceplant that explore deck since it thins it out. You ideally want to use Voice of the Messenger on mental trauma for the first 3, but whether you are safe to do so or not will depend on game state at the time you draw it. Remember you can put the direct damage/horror that you take on Until the End of Time rather than putting yourself in a compromised position.

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YEP. THATS ALL IVE GOT

Thanks for reading

15 comments

May 29, 2018 solidoak · 1

Very helpful, thanks mate!

May 29, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

Very welcome @solidoak

May 29, 2018 veneretio · 339

Part of what I'm struggling with for this list is lack of action compression. It feels like the aim is just to be really good at skill tests. We only have Fire Axe to actually gain time. (and with a horror focused route, it could be a while to take advantage of it) So what's our team role.... support?

May 30, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

Thanks @veneretio. Yeah. Action compression is definitely something it would like to have more of. But other than "Look what I found!" or another weapon he doesn’t have much more he can add. Once he’s got his horror tho he does just pass tests with abandon. Which means he rarely wastes an action at least. But you aren’t wrong. I’d kill for a Leo here. His current card pool just doesn’t offer a lot of compression options. You’ll spend 4 to 6 ish actions over the game installing assets. Which is a little more than I’d like. But much less than a few other builds I’ve seen. So there’s a small efficiency there albeit relative to alternative Calvin builds.

His support style is interesting tho. He often has spare skill cards to offer the team and he’s surprisingly tanky given his 6/6. But taking the brunt of the explore deck is remarkably effective at a team level. There the ability to pass tests on demand or just take hits on the chin let’s others rush the clues with less setup. you sort of tank the explore deck if that makes sense. I’ve been running him with a cluey Finn or Ursula for example. Neither really want to risk that facecheck without protection. Much safer to move to a known location with that action. But ofc Calvin WANTS the harm.

He’s also just a bit of fun. You get really weird dilemmas like when (CARE SPOILERS) you get spoiler and get disappointed when you draw a location since it denies you the juicy horror you wanted, or great stories about grabbing an enemy and jumping off a bridge.

May 30, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

I may have missed a trick not bringing "Let me handle this!" now I say that.

May 30, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

Ive changed the intro to try to make it clearer @veneretio. Thanks for letting me know it wasnt as obvious as i`d hoped.

Jun 01, 2018 bigfomlof · 1

Beautiful write-up. Mind if I steal it for Standard mode? I'm most fascinated by Calvin and am looking for possible builds for him and this one is so cool. I don't play true solo so I'd prolly lose Dark Horse for "Let Me Handle This". Thanks again.

Jun 02, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

oh absolutely @bigfomlof. i dont think anyone posts things on here without intending that they be available for others to use. I definately think "Let me handle this!" will be a good include. it wither lets you snipe a little horror/damage that your looking for, or if you have the damage (and so the stat boosts) it means the test is as likely to pass as possible. The card honestly just didnt crossed my mind when building/testing the deck. I would possibly keep Dark Horse if possible and just cut a couple of the skill cards instead. maybe 1x Say Your Prayers and then either 1x Desperate Search or Run For Your Life for TFA. While the deck can manage without it, Dark Horse is a very strong card the times it turns up and it will turn up eventually in most games. Its more a question of when than if. Anyway good luck! and enjoy the most counter intuitive experience ive seen to date in arkham!

Jul 24, 2018 Saej · 2905

@StartWithTheName What's your thoughts on 2x Cherished Keepsake? I know you are trying to max out that horror, but it can also be a nice cushion. And I'm very willing to say that it could be upgraded away. When you have no Charisma, it's your Pete. Once you get Charisma (maybe x2?) you can upgrade it into Yaotl or Will To Survive.

Jul 24, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

Cheers @Saej.

The deck started with Keepsakes and Coats originally. I later swapped the teddies for Madame Labranche. Shes not free per se, but shes effectively 1 cost most times and covers HP as well as san so i never looked back basically. Essentially this way around is just a bit more slot efficient. you effectively have 4 (5 with Until the End of Time) cards with HP soak and 4 (5) cards with san at the cost of just 6 slots.

The other thing is that hes very action shy. You dont really want too many assets in him as the installs take too much momentum off you. Now Perseverance is out, I think if I was looking for more san soak i would take that before Keepsake. It does a similar thing but doesnt cost an action to play. Put it over Guts too then you dont lose the pip slot either.

Sep 23, 2018 Hivemind · 1

Congrats on the decklist and upgrade priority, it's the first Calvin list i can actually see working. I plan on playing him in 2-player mode, standard. And i can't fit him in any role. If you take him down the Willpower/Intelligence route i assume he will gather clues? But he only gets one clue at a time, not very efficient. The Key of Yass route speaks to me, he will win every test he will ever have to take. But he will be stuck at 1 damage/1 clue, no matter how huge he becomes.

Sep 25, 2018 Myriad · 1201

I think Calvin is just missing one killer weapon in order to be an effective main fighter. He does just fine as the secondary fighter though.

Sep 25, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

Thanks @CoreSeven and @Myriad. I need to get around to trying and refining this deck again now we have more content. Im happy to say I still think the principal is fine -Horror first through "reckless" exploration, but the feedback above has been great. Certainly i regret the lack of "Look what I found!" and "Let me handle this!". I agree, he's missing a strong +damage option just now. I think thats true of the survivor suite in general. I recently tried to build a combat Silas and had similar issues. But my bet is that survivors arnt meant to be top tier at combat. they look like theyre meant to have a flexible card pool high on defense and hedging/recursion if anything. I think unless theres an uncharacteristically reliably survivor weapon released I think he`ll always be a bit of a jack of all trades. His value in multiplayer is more as a flexible utility character I think.

Mar 16, 2019 kelann08 · 1

Any chance this will get updated and more fleshed out? There's a real dearth of solid Calvin piloting/deck guides and I love how you layout your other decks (like your recent Joe Diamond stuff).

Mar 17, 2019 StartWithTheName · 63551

Thanks @kelann08, im afraid ive not had another proper go at Calvin since i published this. Sadly some work commitments got in the way of me updating this. Im also not sure how to pilot Calvin when you dont have an encounter deck to deliberately take damage from.

This deck: arkhamdb.com at least seems to have a detailed guide on him. ive not tried it so i cant comment on how well it works, but on paper it looks decent.