Back when I used to play Magic: the Gathering a lot, there were few things I loved more than decks that pulled shenanigans with the graveyard. It just feels really good to make your cards pull double- or triple-duty, recurring them from the discard pile over and over to wring maximum value out of them. So I was always going to love De Vermis Mysteriis. Events are my favorite card type in the game, and DVM lets me reuse them from the discard pile—what's not to love?

If you've ever tried to make DVM work yourself, you know the answer to that question. There's the usual problem that all doom-adding cards have, of course. Almost as bad is the fact that it doesn't let you ignore attacks of opportunity, so the already-small number of Spells and Insights that make sense to combine with it gets smaller because you can't recur your fighting spells without taking an AoO from the enemy engaged with you. Bummer!

Fortunately, there is one book-loving investigator who loves this tome just the way it is. Luke Robinson has plenty of time for reading while holed up in his Dream-Gate, and he knows just the way to get the most out of the blasphemous secrets contained in De Vermis Mysteriis.

Read 'em and weep

Luke loves his events. Over the course of a scenario, he's constantly teleporting all over the place, Reading the Signs and going pew-pew with Spectral Razors and Storm of Spirits. Thanks to his ability to play events as if he were at connecting location, he's the best-equipped to get around the AoO problem with De Vermis Mysteriis: use the Gate Box to pop into his pocket dimension, activate DVM, then play Razor from his discard as if he were at the location with an enemy. Presto! No attacks of opportunity.

Also, thanks to his Seeker access, Luke can fish out his favorite book with the help of his assistant librarian, Whitton Greene, who goes digging for Tomes (and also Relics—more on that in a sec). Luke also uses Forced Learning better than anyone else with this deck. Normally, the fact that you must discard one of the two cards you draw with Forced Learning is a pretty hefty drawback—what if you draw two vital cards, or you draw a weakness and have to discard the other card? No biggie, Luke can always use DVM to play a discarded event later if he really needs it. Luke just retains information from all that forced studying better than other people, I guess.

Finally, Luke is a well-read guy. He's studied up on all sorts of spells. Thanks to the magic of, er, True Magick (also fetchable by Whitton), Luke can have all sorts of sorcerous resources at his fingertips, ready to go.

By the time you've fully upgraded this deck, it feels a lot like a toolbox (for Magic veterans, just think of the old Recurring Nightmare/Survival of the Fittest deck from days gone by). Luke almost always has the answers he needs for any given situation, and nothing ever goes to waste.

Luke's library

Here is a detailed breakdown of the important cards in the deck (other than De Vermis Mysteriis, which has already been discussed). Note that you're spending the XP from In the Thick of It on the Segments of Onyx and one copy of DVM.

The Assets

• Whitton Greene—So good in this deck that she feels almost like cheating. Because Gate Box is a Relic, her stat boosts are online the second you play her, and wouldn't you know it, they're the perfect stats for Luke. Also, because Dream-Gate counts as a new location every time you put it into play with the Gate Box, you'll always get some searches with Whitton, even if you draw her late. If you have her in your opening hand, it's not unheard of to run out of search targets for her.
• Segment of Onyx / Pendant of the Queen—You don't want Whitton to get bored, do you? Have her help you assemble the Pendant when she's not fetching your books. Segment of Onyx is a Relic! (Bonus: the Pendant is a hard counter for Luke's signature weakness, so you'll always want to save at least one charge as a literal get-out-of-jail-free card if you haven't drawn Detached from Reality yet.)
• True Magick—Your first upgrade priority after Whitton and DVM. This card isn't worth the effort in most Mystics, IMO, because the 5-XP cost and the deck space you have to devote to a spell toolbox isn't worth the opportunity cost. But Forced Learning gives you the deck space, and most of Luke's best events are lvl-0. Start building out your spellbook as early as you can!
• David Renfield—Thanks to Forced Learning, your deck is huge, and sometimes you won't have Whitton. No sense in letting your ally slot go to waste! Renfield has read the De Vermis Mysteriis too (just look at those dark circles under his eyes), and he can help Luke fund his expensive book habit. Renfield also gives you a bit of health soak and a use for those Moonlight Rituals if you don't need to un-doom DVM.

• Spells—The great thing about this deck is that, unlike with most Mystics, you can build out your spell suite according to taste.

  The closest thing to a nonnegotiable here is Divination, which acts a lot like Sixth Sense in combination with True Magick, but it's easily replaced with Clairvoyance(3) or Rite of Seeking(2) at higher player counts or if you want better action compression.

  Blur doesn't use up the charge on True Magick unless you want the bonus action, so you can use the spellbook to evade and investigate on the same turn if necessary.

  The rest of the 6-7 deck slots reserved for arcane assets can be pretty much any utility spells you want, depending on the campaign or your group's needs. I have Enchanted Bow (a Spell! apparently!) mostly because I think it's funny to snipe small enemies from the Dream-Gate (and also because it doesn't use up the charge on True Magick unless you're sniping), but there's nothing wrong with reliable old Shrivelling. I also found Scrying(3) to be nice to have. On a turn when you don't need your True Magick for anything else, check to see what's coming up in the mythos phase, or help an investigator dodge any weaknesses on top of their deck. It doesn't cost an action, so why not?

  (Note that you're not buying most of these spells until after you have a copy of True Magick, which is why I'm not bothering with Arcane Research or Down the Rabbit Hole. Clairvoyance(0) is the only arcane asset in the starting deck.)

The Events

The meat and potatoes of any Luke deck. Most of the events in here are Luke staples and don't need much discussion, so I'll highlight just a few.

• Moonlight Ritual—A necessary panic button in most doom-jockey decks. Interestingly, the Ritual is usually sent to the discard with Forced Learning, where it will happily wait until you need to play it with DVM.
• Knowledge is Power—This is a high-priority upgrade priority once Luke's library has been stocked up with important books. Play this card to get an activation out of DVM without adding a doom or to use True Magick twice in a turn. As a bonus, it's fast, which means that it can act as another copy of Shortcut if you have DVM and a Shortcut in the discard. Speaking of which...
• Shortcut—Another card that feels like cheating with Luke. The ruling on Shortcut's interaction with Luke's ability means that Luke can use it to leapfrog over a location without having to use a Gate Box charge, or he can use it to tractor-beam a far-away teammate toward his location. This card will do serious work for you no matter what your situation is.
• Word of Command—Another card that often doesn't make the cut for Mystics, but Luke really appreciates the extra consistency with his supersized Forced Learning deck. And again, thanks to his ability to disengage from enemies at will with Gate Box, Luke is uniquely good at using the Word to fish out a combat spell to kill an enemy that just spawned on top of him without taking an AoO.
• Astounding Revelation—Why not the full three copies? Unfortunately, you don't have the critical mass of search effects in a 45-card deck to make a third copy worthwhile. And because the Revelation is always getting 2 resources (you're not running any secret-using assets), you sometimes want the extra cash from a Crack the Case on a high-shroud location. Thus, Crack the Case takes the slot that might otherwise go to Revelation #3.
• Stirring Up Trouble—I play a fair-amount of two-handed solo, where events that discover two clues at a time are slightly higher-powered than at other player counts because they can clear a location completely and allow you to move on, maintaining tempo and velocity. This event can be replaced with another arcane asset or Spell / Insight if you play at a different player count and need to balance out your toolbox a bit more.

The Skills

Nothing much to remark on here. Enraptured is, of course, great for getting extra charges on the Gate Box or True Magick. If you have any spare XP lying around before the final scenario, Occult Theory can be a decent replacement for Guts.

Playing the deck

Once you've spent your first 15 XP or so, the deck really starts to hum. Even though De Vermis Mysteriis and True Magick are the flashy cards that push the deck into overdrive, the card you want the most is Whitton Greene, as she gives you some much-needed stat boosts and helps you fish out your best cards from your deck. The increased deck size from Forced Learning can lead to some inconsistent starts, but the nice thing about Luke is that he comes with some built-in enemy management (the Gate Box ) to help him stay alive while he digs for the cards he needs. The nice thing about this deck is that the clue-finding events (coupled with DVM's recycling ability) help make up for any lost tempo from a slow start, so the slight inconsistency from your large deck size isn't hard to mitigate. The biggest problem this deck runs into is running out of resources, so you never want to discard E-Caches or Crack the Case.

Once you're out of the early game, the deck is extremely flexible, if a bit skill-intensive. A lot of your gameplay depends on evaluating the current doom situation to determine how hard you can push DVM shenanigans and risky Drawn to the Flame plays. I've found that I typically use DVM 4-5 times in a scenario, mostly to reuse high-impact events like Read the Signs. Occasionally, though, with some judicious use of Moonlight Ritual, you'll have 8 or more events that are removed from the game because they were played from your discard. It's a lot of fun to feel like your discard pile is a second hand of cards!

Starting out

The side deck shows the various level-0 cards that are in the deck at the beginning of the campaign and that you'll eventually sub out as you upgrade. The deck plays a bit differently at the start of a campaign. Whitton Greene(0) isn't nearly the powerhouse that her lvl-2 version is, but she's still nice to have. The deck starts with more skills and testless (or near-testless) clue-gathering events to make up for the fact that you're less likely to draw De Vermis Mysteriis. Occult Lexicon is also nice to have in the deck, although it will eventually be replaced with True Magick simply because you often can't spare the resources for Blood-Rite damage.

Take a look, it's in a book

While it's not the sort of degenerate monster that's possible now with such a large card pool, this is one of the most fun decks I've ever built. I hope you enjoy using your big brains to triumph over the mythos. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle! (The other half is Spectral Razor.)