The Heretic Priest

The cult that had kidnapped Isabelle Barnes had a major operation in London, where the right greased palms enabled them to transport artifacts and weapons under the radar of any potentially-irritating authorities. Although it was more of a warehouse than anything else, it was well-guarded and staffed with a small army of cultists ordered to "protect the organization's investments."

Two-thirds of the staff died in the first ten minutes after he walked through the door. Many were ripped apart by unlucky ricochets from their allies' bullets, which couldn't seem to strike home on the intruder. As soon as they realized bullets weren't working so well, the sorcerers in the ranks of the defenders switched to magic. They mustered all the dark powers they could call upon, filling the room with unwholesome, alien energy.

That went much worse than the bullets had.

Stepping over several mutilated bodies, the man in the torn cloak that might have once been a cassock opened his eyes, and found someone had left a keyring on a nearby table. He guessed which key worked on the vault. He guessed correctly.

Inside, an emaciated and bound young woman stared up at him with horror in her eyes. She had heard the gunshots, and then the screams, and then the silence. Hoping to assuage her fears, the man in the cloak removed his hood and managed to muster a smile through the weariness and the matted hair and the unshaven chin. From her response he could tell he was not at his most charming.

He knelt and somebody had happened to leave a key to her cuffs lying on the floor nearby, so he picked that up and unlocked them. When he reached to undo her bonds, they came away in his hands, since they were apparently quite old and worn nearly to dust.

The young woman shoved herself away from him, but he held up his hands gently and offered her help in standing. She accepted, and they stood facing one another in the ruins of the prison she had expected to be her tomb.

As she cast her gaze over her strange-looking savior, Isabelle Barnes noticed the glint of a small cross tucked into his shirt.

"Did God send you?" she asked, almost without thinking.

The man froze, straightened, then quietly smiled–and it was a smile that spoke of terrible sadness and agonizing hope.

"I hope so, Izzie. I truly do."

And he turned and strode away.

Hello everyone and welcome back to another thematic deckbuild! This deck occupies a special place in my heart, as it is inspired by my primary character from a year-long Eldritch Horror campaign I was a part of some time ago: Father Mateo, the Heretic Priest, agent of Bast and Knathid.

Mateo wields mighty powers of both darkness and light, sending the chaos bag into, well, chaos–but granting him and his allies great power. He is able to command the very fabric of reality, casting spells with merely a thought, and miracles crop up wherever he goes.

The deck's primary goal is to reveal a large number of curses while using one of the Cursed Spells (Armageddon, Eye of Chaos, and Shroud of Shadows) via True Magick. The extra triggers granted by these Curses can then be used to pile charges on True Magick, allowing you to activate charge-based spells multiple times a turn without ever having to spend actions or resources to play them. Or you could use the triggers to compress damage, pull clues from nearby locations, or move swiftly across the map.

A number of additional synergies are contained in the deck for those major curse-revealing tests. If the test has Eye of the Djinn active on it, Mateo recoups the action (and with a Bless, also gives him another opportunity to use the Eye). If he reveals a Bless during the test, he can use Favor of the Sun and Blessing of Isis to guarantee an Elder Sign, which allows him to pass no matter how many Curses or negative tokens he revealed–plus the other amazing benefits of his Elder Sign. Eucatastrophe can also serve the same purpose, while also serving as a 2-3 wild icon commit.

In order to fill the bag with the blesses necessary to trigger Blessing of Isis, Mateo uses Grisly Totem with Signum Crucis on tests he has no hope of passing, pouring blesses into the bag on a very repeatable basis. Curses for the Curse Spells are slightly harder for him to produce, but with Tempt Fate, Promise of Power, and my lucky weakness draw of Dread Curse, as well as the control offered by Favor of the Moon, he can manage it pretty well. Then on the tests themselves, Mateo relies on the Favors and his trusty ally Olive McBride to hunt for those little cosmic chaos tokens.

One of the great things about this deck is how customizable it is. In the side deck I've included a few cards that could be slotted in depending on how you want to personalize your strategy:

• If you weren't as lucky as me with your weakness, Priest of Two Faiths can be swapped for Olive in order to produce more curses. You could also include Tides of Fate to convert your Signum Crucis blesses into Curses, at a slower but quite effective rate.

• If you're responsible for all of the blurse generation at a table, which you might be because you've claimed both Favors, you could also consider slotting in The Hierophant • V and two copies of Spirit of Humanity. Mateo is still human, despite his doubts, and although this would make the deck (even more) setup-intensive, it would allow him to produce two blesses and two curses every turn, while also offering him healing.

• If Olive McBride is too classic for your tastes, you could swap her out for the newer and shinier Nkosi Mabati. Choosing Bless or Curse and then drawing a symbol without the "reveal another token" effect could give you the chance to continue your strings of either token, leading to more spell effects or Elder Signs.

• If Events are more your speed than assets, you could switch Prescient into your skill suite and use Grisly Totem to repeatedly play it on tests you're going to fail, recurring spell events like Deny Existence, Ward of Radiance, and Tides of Fate as much as you want.

• Finally, but perhaps most importantly, what is the payoff for all the charges you'll be storing on True Magick? For this build, I chose Blur, as it fits into the extra actions theme and helps me evade even if I don't want the move effects of Shroud of Shadows. But if you'd rather use the awesome Enchanted Bow to snipe targets from far away, Earthly Serenity in order to wield incredible healing potential, or any of the level 5 compression spells like Azure Flame and Rite of Seeking, they're all on the table. There's even an interesting build to be made with both Shards of the Void and Shield of Faith, allowing you to seal 0 tokens on True Magick and then release them to serve as free copies of Dodge.

I hope you've enjoyed this deck breakdown! I've been wanting to create an AHLCG version of my Eldritch Horror Mateo for a very long time now, and the moment True Magick released I knew I had found the way. I've really enjoyed using this deck so far in testing, and I hope it brings joy and excitement to some folks out there too!

If you'd like to read more about the adventures of the Heretic Priest, you can check those out here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2283361/eldritch-adventures-prologue-through-mists-time-ch

Thanks for reading!