*UPDATED* Jim Culver’s “Maddening Will”

DECK THEORY

This is a pretty simplistic beginner deck that utilizes Jim’s willpower for most skill tests. Mainly attacks and investigations. I also focused on Jim’s ability to minipulate the skull chaos token. A few spells cause extra damage when that token is pulled, so I figured it would be nice to centralize around that idea. However, most spells that do hefty damage can only be used a few times before they are all spent up and eventually be discarded. This is where Book of Shadows is a nice card (specially if you don’t have doubles of some spells from having two core sets, which this deck is configured of off having). It allows you to exhaust it, and in return add another charge to the spell card you are using. Keeping spells charged up and in play. That way you don’t need to go searching through your deck, wasting actions, just to find a second copy of the spell you just used up. If you even have a second copy that is. So two copy’s of Book of Shadows is perhaps recommended. Of course that would require two core sets (which isn’t a bad idea for optimal deck builds anyway). I, myself am only using one copy of it since I do have doubles of most my spells. So do take that into concideration while looking at this deck build. Adjust it as you see fit. The deck is also loaded with “evade” and “knowledge” skill icons for committing to any test that might need an extra boosts. Some of those cards also come with extra bonuses like draw cards if the test is successful. Action economy is always important. Since Jim relys on cards like “shriveling” and “Holy Rosery” (just to name a couple strong openers) to really get his deck pumping for a willpower build, it’s obviously going to be a fantastic idea having some extra card draw and scribbing abilities mixed into his deck to get it beefed up ASAP!

UPDATE I have, if you’ve noticed spent xp throughout my campaign to obtain “Blood pact”, as well as, “Charisma” and a few others. I find that these two though really make a difference in the play style of Jim. They give him a more tank like ability with a devilish attitude. Charsma for instance. Being able to soak damage by having two ally’s in play at once is massively aggressive. It allows Jim to attack with little care or candor. not to mention occasionally not having to worry about being engaged with an enemy that’s not egsausted at his location by the end of the player phase. That’s big! Just let the ally’s take the horror and damage and move on to refresh phase. suffering little or no consequences for their sacrifice. Now “Blood Pact” requires a bit more enginuit. It gives great power to both strength and willpower tests but at a price. 1 doom per skill check!!! Not something to be taken litly. However, once the doom is about to set the agenda off by the next round, you can pretty much go full blown dooms day mode on any skill test that requires thoughts to skill sets. giving you a +3 to either one. now add that to your “Arcan Studies”, “Holy Rosary”, or any spell/wepion attack that grants a bonus to the skill tests in mention and you can only be taken down by an Auto Fail token. For the most part anyway.

That’s how I’ve come to put my deck together this far. Jim is the tank. still can investigate well, but shines when it comes to taking down those indescribable horrors we must face!

SOLO & MULTI-PLAYER MODE

Since this deck focuses on attacking and clue gathering, I would say solo play should be fairly easy as long as you don’t get to many bad chaos token pulls (which Jim can minipulate anyway to an extent). Don’t linger in one spot to long, keep moving, and be sure to take out enemy’s as you go. Jim’s base evade of 2 isn’t the best, so be sure to avoid getting location locked due to enemies flooding your engadment zone. Remember, Jim’s spells and attacks are strong. Even the passive spells he has access to like “Hypnotic Gaze” and “Blinding Light” are extreamly powerful and can even finish off an enemy in a clinch during their attack phase.

For multi-player sessions I would say partner up with someone that has a strong evade ability and can get a lot of action economy out of a single investigation phase. Possibly someone like Skids, who can evade an enemy with ease and then spend 2 recorses for an extra action. Or, perhaps Ashcan and Duke could be of assistance. Duke being able to freely move to an adjacent spot for investigating tends to help cover more ground and reveal locations for Jim to focus on. Thus optimizing his strengths at locations where they are needed most and not having him waste precious actions on moving to what could potentially be an undesired location. Rex as well would be a fantastic partner! He is incredibl at clue gathering. Darn near the best in the game (in my humble opinion). Since Rex can pick up multiple clues from locations he’s not even in, why not just let Rex get the clues while Jim clears the way and keeps the unspeakable horrors away! once again though, this is only my persanal opinion based off of what I’ve played through thus far. obviously resaults can very. However, these partnerships seem to sink up pretty well. They each play off of one another in a manor that keeps everything fluid and equalized. which in a game like this is fairly hard to do from time to time.

WRAPPING UP

This all of course is just a deck I’m working on and have been using through single plays as well as my campaigns. It’s had up’s and down’s, but for the most part has been treating me very well. It sinergizes well with other players and isn’t overly cumbersome. I always appreseate simplisty in a deck build. Something anyone could be handed and play without feeling overwhelmed. I feel this deck is a great opener to that play style. Of course, that’s just my opinion.

Hopefully this deck build inspires someone to give Jim a go.

If anyone has any opinions or suggestions on my deck, I always appreciate a good critique!