Tempo Calvin (Hard Mode)

This deck attempts to focus on the "Tempo" aspect of survivor: That being the fact that you can just constantly do skill tests and not have to worry too much about failure. The cost curve is really low, in order to facilitate Plucky and Scrapper. Cherished Keepsake and Madame Labranche do a good job of keeping Plucky around if necessary, but it's also good to just let plucky die off if you're pretty sure you're gonna draw your other copy soon.

Don't waste your time trying to pass skill checks on early treachery cards, especially ones that give you horror or damage. Just focus on investigating and killing any monsters that sprout up.

The most important thing is to undercommit, based on your hand. If you have Lucky! or Live and Learn, you should only go 2 over the skill requirement. If you succeed, you saved resources. If you fail, who cares.

Other important cards to buy are Against All Odds (Removing "Not without a fight!" or something), Grisly Totem (Removing Keepsake), and the upgrades for Lucky! and Rise to the Occasion. I'm not a fan of Newspaper myself, mainly because it conflicts with Baseball bat.

As for why I'm using baseball bat: I hate fire axe, because of how it conflicts with the "Undercommit and just kinda scrape by on delivering" aspect of this deck, and dealing 2 damage with a single attack is way too important to use Improvised Weapon.

Madame Lebranche is mainly used for drawing cards and soaking horror/damage to protect Plucky. Some people might object to using Take Heart and Rabbit's Foot and Labranche in a deck with Voice of the Messenger, but the Trauma isn't that difficult to deal with.

I'd like to find room for the Exile suite, and probably cut a few of the assets. Might cut down on weapons and switch to just using meat cleaver, rabbit's foot, coat, and lebranche. Maybe with "Nothing Left to Lose," it'll be possible to build an improvised Calvin deck that goes even Leaner, but I'm not sure. Might cut "Not without a fight!" and just replace it with Overpower, since it's usually just a weaker version of that, but IDK.

As you get later into a campaign, don't forget that you can buy the desperate skills for only 1 xp once you have 3 mental trauma. I don't think they're too super important (except desperate prayer), but it's a bit of a bacon saver.