Calvin Wright is F tier, he can only get to 5/6 in each stat

Intro

The idea for this deck guide came to me while watching some investigator tier lists on youtube, where people mostly placed Calvin in the F tier.

Most critiques were about Calvin "not having an ability", and that the fantasy of having an all-5 stat ball was kinda pointless when you could simply play an investigator that starts with 5 in their important stat and does not have to live near death to achieve this simple goal.

While I don't disagree with the rating nor the rationale, I love Calvin's concept and I wanted to show a deck that I love playing and that makes use of his unique ability.

YES, Calvin DOES have an ability

Sometimes it seems that people read Calvin as "you have stat equal to damage/horror on you".

That is not what the card says.

Calvin instead gets PLUS X to each stat, where X is damage/horror on him.

The PLUS makes all the difference in the world: if your deck is doing 0+X=X then yes, you could have chosen any other investigator and be better from the start.

But that is because of your deck, not because of Calvin.

Let's change that: let's make Calvin's stats be a real number +X.

Setting the base for the deck

It all starts with making Calvin's ZEROES into a different number.

To achieve this objective with Calvin's card pool, he has 3 main options:

• A. Miss Doyle
• B. Trial by Fire
• C. The Red-Gloved Man

Option A is unreliable, so it is immediately discarded.

Option B and C are something Calvin can work with, but they last only one turn or one round.

Introducing: s' recursion tools.

Thankfully, Calvin is main class so he has access to the best recursion tools of the game.

This deck will use Shrine of the Moirai to recur cards, Survival Technique to bounce the Shrine back to the hand and Drawing Thin to fuel the loop.

What does Calvin want to loop?

As you may have noticed by looking at the list, a choice was made: this Calvin is looping The Red-Gloved Man and a bonus level 0 card.

Why? Well, simply because The Red-Gloved Man lasts until the next mythos phase, has health and sanity values that Calvin can use for the Meat Cleaver, Ward of Protection, and Toe to Toe when he is already at full capacity.

Trial by Fire cannot do any of that, and sincerely, the difference between testing at 7+X or 6+X is negligible.

Also, The Red-Gloved Man has another upside due to the dual stat choice, so that he can provide some more flexibility during Calvin's turn or make him more resilient to the mythos phase.

As for the level 0 card, Calvin has a more then a couple options:

• Ward of Protection to cancel a treachery drawn from the Shrine on the following turns;
• Predator or Prey if Calvin drew an enemy from the Shrine that cannot be dealt immediately;
• a previously discarded End of the Road if the our is nigh;
• Ready for Anything if an enemy was drawn (including the ones drawn from the Shrine);
• whatever else he could need (at worse, it is fodder for Idol of Xanatos or Nautical Charts).

Any survivor could do this, but since you have to naturally build Calvin with survivability in mind, he is the best suited to draw an additional encounter card.

Also, while other investigators' usage of The Red-Gloved Man may be limited to getting their stats to 8 or 9, Calvin can use his ability to reach 11 or 12 with relative safety. This 2 to 4 points difference can make the difference when using Drawing Thin to fuel the loop.

THE PLAN

This deck comes with a precise plan of action which is the following.

First, find your tools: RGM, Drawing Thin, Shrine of the Moirai. To do so, Calvin runs a lot of economy cards in the form of Take Heart, Drawing Thin and Ready for Anything.

Predator or Prey may seem like an odd inclusion. Anyway, while unreliable, it can thin Calvin's deck by replacing itself if there are no enemies on the board. At worse, it may free Calvin or another investigator from an enemy for a round providin room to breathe and time to set up, so it is rarely wasted.

Later, Predator or Prey can be comboed on demand with Resourceful or the Shrine of the Moirai when Calvin cannot deal with an enemy immediately, or needs to reach an enemy that spawned too far.

Second, power up your ability without dieing: to achieve this, Calvin runs Idol of Xanatos, Five of Pentacles, Toe to Toe and Ward of Protection.

Third, play RGM and profit from double digits stats and additional soak provided.

Fourth, recur RGM as many times as needed with Shrine of the Moirai together with an unleveled card, tanking the additional encounter card with Ward of Protection, another copy of The Red-Gloved Man, or just killing the enemy/running from it.

To pay for The Red-Gloved Man each round, all Calvin has to do is tap into Drawing Thin's power, granting him the 2 resources he needs (or the card draw if he is missing a piece). Drawing Thin has no real drawback if Calvin is testing at double digits, or if he does not really care about failing the test.

When the Shrine of the Moirai empties, or Calvin has to move away from it, he can just pick it up with Survival Technique to play it again with 3 more offering at a different place.

Deck list provided here is a standalone ready to play, already tested 19 exp example. Other options and more experienced useful cards that could be included can be found in the side deck.