Token-Seal Father Mateo

Overview

Father Mateo is one of those investigators that really intrigues me. In my opinion, experience points are very, very valuable, so starting with 5 right out of the gate is pretty significant. That having been said, at the time of his release his card pool is the most restricted out of any other investigator, limited to mostly Mystic cards. The previous holder of this title is Mark Harrigan with mostly Guardian cards, but Mark Harrigan has a much more defined presence with his power and Sophie.

I think that the intention with Father Mateo is that he be a token seal character. His signature asset (The Codex of Ages) and weakness (Serpents of Yig) both seal the elder sign token. His ability, once per game, lets you ignore the ordinarily-immutable tentacle token. Played right, that could be pretty powerful, and I think it can change the way that you think about your token draws (since it allows you to guarantee one success with proper planning).

Mateo was introduced at the same time as the Protective Incantation cards, and I think he was given the extra experience so he can take them from the beginning. I think he's also meant to take the The Chthonian Stone cards as well. He shouldn't try to run these all at the same time, but if he runs one Protective Incantation and one The Chthonian Stone at the same time, he's normally taking two of the worst tokens out of the bag for every test. That's got to make a difference, especially in multiplayer.

For the rest of Father Mateo's experience, I spent it on Relic Hunter. It gives him some flexibility to stack multiple copies of Holy Rosary and St. Hubert's Key which can make him into a formidable spellcaster.

Specific Card Inclusions

-Protective Incantation and The Chthonian Stone: These are included to help take out the worst Chaos Tokens. They form the crux of the build. Ideally Father Mateo will eventually get out one of each of these into play, making tests easier for the entire group.

-Shrivelling and Mists of R'lyeh: These are the self-defense cards. They make sure you can either fight or run away. With relics and sealed tokens, Father Mateo should be able to use these effectively. The goal is for the build to end up with one of these spells in one arcane slot and one Protective Incantation in the other arcane slot.

-Relic Hunter, Holy Rosary, and St. Hubert's Key: This is where we sink most of our experience. It lets Father Mateo use two relics, and Mystics love relics. Having two of the Holy Rosary gives him a total of 6 willpower. If you can get both into play, the Holy Rosary's extra sanity soak balances out the sanity penalty from St. Hubert's Key.

-Forbidden Knowledge and Emergency Cache: We use these to pay for the Protective Incantation.

-Flashlight: This should be occupying Father Mateo's free hand (since The Chthonian Stone is unique, we can't carry two at once). Father Mateo has passable intelligence which is improved by St. Hubert's Key. When he's not casting spells, gathering clues is his secondary function.

-Arcane Initiate: Included to help find spells as insurance against bad draws. Because of the doom requirement they need to be used with care.

-Ward of Protection: Father Mateo struggles with agility-based treacheries or treacheries that cause damage, so these are to help with that.

Fearless, Guts, Perception, and Unexpected Courage: Skill cards that will cover the majority of the tests that Father Mateo will face.

Specific Card Exclusions

-Arcane Research: This one was a tough one. I almost wanted to just take two of them. But, mental trauma is actually pretty significant and it hurts Father Mateo's ability to use St. Hubert's Key. Additionally, besides Shrivelling and Ward of Protection, there aren't a lot of targets for the experience upgrade discount. Father Mateo starts off with 5 extra experience, so he shouldn't need to cut corners to try and afford higher-level cards.

-Uncage the Soul: Just not enough good candidates for it to target in this deck.

-Drawn to the Flame: Clue-gathering isn't the focus of this particular deck. Also, between the token-sealing cards and flashlight, clue-gathering should be easier without having to tap into the encounter deck.

-Delve Too Deep: Similarly to Arcane Research, Father Mateo doesn't need a lot of extra experience and should probably focus on being more immediately useful. I could see these being included instead of the two copies of Arcane Initiate, though.

Why Father Mateo?

One thing I think that Father Mateo suffers from is that he's restricted entirely to Mystic and Neutral cards with only a few Blessed cards on the horizon. This means that any deck that could be played out of him could be played out of a different Investigator instead.

Here's why I think this type of deck should be run out of Father Mateo versus different investigators:

-Agnes Baker: Because of her ability, Agnes typically has more of a responsibility to be a damage-dealer. Trying to have her do token sealing splits her focus - and token sealing is expensive. She needs her resources for other things. Father Mateo also makes Token sealing viable right out of the gate whereas Agnes would have to level into it and then divert experience points into it.

-Akachi Onyele: Akachi also has a pretty restricted card pool. However, she's going to want to get more cards with charges on them (and she's probably not going to be investigating much without Rite of Seeking). Her arcane slots are going to want to go towards those types of spells. Father Mateo's experience bump also makes him a better fit for a token sealing build as a build like this would mostly waste Akachi's ability.

-Jim Culver: Much like Father Mateo's ability, Jim's ability is hard to build around and relies on the chaos bag. Jim also has his splash cards. However, I think Father Mateo's 5 experience points are more helpful in putting together a build like this than Jim's ability and his 5 splash cards.

-Marie Lambeau: Overall, I think Marie's stat line is more favorable than Father Mateo. However, I think to make Marie effective, you need to have abilities that manage doom efficiently. You also want to have spells that have a lot of icons on them. Neither of these options really lend themselves to token sealing.

-The non-Mystic Mystics (Daisy Walker, Sefina Rousseau, and Carolyn Fern) normally want to specialize in something other than token sealing. For Daisy, that's clue gathering and tomes, For Sefina, that means lots of events and resources. Carolyn Fern is Father Mateo's nearest competition for being a token-sealing support investigator because she has the spare arcane slots for it and the economy to support 2 copies of Protective Incantation if she can get them into play. However, I still think that Father Mateo's extra experience boost at the start allows him to get going earlier in a campaign.

Playing The Deck

I should note that this deck is best done in Multiplayer. It might be possible to Solo with it - there are no Multiplayer-specific cards - but the effect of sealing tokens is greater with more investigators, so this deck is most efficient when more people are around to benefit from it.

The primary goal of the deck should be to seal bad tokens and keep them out of the bag. If you look at the initial setup for The Dunwich Legacy campaign, The big difference between Easy mode and Standard mode is one -4 token, and the big difference between Standard mode and Hard mode is one -5 token. By sealing the worst raw number modifier token, you are almost playing on the lower difficulty setting in most cases. Sealing another token with The Chthonian Stone should make it even easier. Sealing tokens will make everyone better at what they already do - your teammates will thank you. It will also make you able to succeed at tests at a slightly lower threshold, so it won't matter as much that you're not quite as good at clue finding or dealing with monsters.

The Mulligan

My recommended Mulligan is to look for Protective Incantation and The Chthonian Stone. Mulligan away cards until you get one of them. If you get one or both of them, then Mulligan for Holy Rosary or St. Hubert's Key since those are going to be the pieces that let you cast spells more effectively.

If you're going Solo, the Mulligan will look a little different. You're going to need to hard Mulligan for either Shrivelling or Mists of R'lyeh since those are your only answers to the monster problem. As soon as you get one of those, Mulligan for Holy Rosary and St. Hubert's Key, as those improve the effectiveness of your spells. Token sealing will have to wait until you've got your defenses up.

Final Thoughts

I think that Father Mateo is an investigator who has some untapped potential. He's got a very limited pool of cards, but he rewards you for specializing in his class. Sealing is a very interesting new mechanism and I think it could either be powerful or useless - so far it's a little too new for me to tell. I haven't had the chance to test out this deck, so any feedback is welcome.