Big Spells, Big Costs! Jim hauls out the big daddy spells in the classic style, and he does not dodge! No wussy mystic he; He fights!

Summary

This Jim is a high burst player, he can do great things over 2 or 3 turns in investigating and fighting, if he lines all his expensive ducks up in a row. Now in a team this can work very well alongside a dedicated seeker and fighter. They can each perform better in their speciality than he can over the long haul, but the magic ingredient he adds is acceleration in the mid to end game. All deck builds are about making compromises, and the big one I have made is to abandon all evasion capacity whatsoever, and to accept the damage that may come from that.

Fight (20)

Up to 20! High and fast damage comes from Shrivelling III (4 x 2) 8 damage at 6 Will and Shrivelling V (4 x 3) 12 damage at 7 Will, plus Rosary with a bit of luck.

Slow damage comes from the Machete (constantly 2, but only at 4 fight).

Originally I had Fire Axe, which enables Jim to boost his fight very well, but at the cost of keeping him flat broke which doesn't meld at all well with also carrying expensive spells. Generally then the Machete, while a great weapon is only useful against weak foes because Jim doesn't have the skill to really hack away unless Overpower pops out of the deck, and we are depending upon Shrivelling to take down the bosses.

Clue Finding (17)

Flashlight to make it 2 easier, alongside Strong Magic from Rite of Seeking (3 x 2) 6 clues at 4 Will, and Rite of Seeking IV (3 x 3) 9 clues at 6 Will Drawn to the Flame 2 clues. Now this isn't necessarily fast clue finding because of the Rites downside, but it could be if we run the Grotesque Statue to force things along, which we probably should because never mind the glamour of killing things, Fast Clues are how we usually win.

Resources (17)

This is the initial 5, plus cards of Uncage the Soul 6 and Emergency Cache 6.

While costs in theory could reach double this, so we may well struggle for resources at times depending on the card draw order.

Managing the downside (20)

This is a deck that may generate a lot of horror (20!) if things go bad. Shrivelling V could be 8 horror and III could be 4 horror. Ward of Protection will be 2. If health goes south, painkillers could pile on another 6 while healing 6 health.

As Jim starts with 8 Sanity he may need a little boost. Arcane Initiate can take 2. Holy Rosary can take 2. Liquid Courage could heal up to 8. Fearless can heal 2. And Jim's Trumpet could heal once per turn, but in practise this depends on multiplayer and lots of tests, so is more likely healing of 4 or so, the plus side is that it's a free action, but not dependably so.

Pushing the odds

Grotesque Statue gives you 4 almost guaranteed wins. This sounds great, but when you review my hoped for results from the big spells, the best possible case has already been assumed, so like a golfer all we can do is try to avoid mistakes, the statue doesn't actually give us a gain as such.

If we have to throw cards into tests, and we will, oh yes have to do this, what do we have available: Will 22 Fight 9 Investigate 6 Any 3

Now, much of this is tied up in cards we want to use for their actual main purposes, but at a pinch we can throw away a lot into Will, and that is what this Jim is all about, pushing every test we can into the Will category and magic.