The Overpower of Draw|Beginner Deck Guide|Revised+EotE+Dunwi

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
The Overpower of Draw|Beginner Deck Guide|Revised+EotE+Dunwi 1 1 0 1.0

Valentin1331 · 55083

Kirby Unearths the Ancient One letting him Draw you to victory.

Feel free to ♥ this deck, and let me know in the comments if you had any other success building a Harvey Deck!

Harvey.jpg

Credit: Aleksander Karcz


Introduction:

With just the Revised Suite (Core Set, the Dunwich Legacy, The Edge of the Earth) and the Harvey Walters Investigator Pack, here is a Deck that demonstrates the true power of the class.

This Deck is nearly as good as the S-Tier Amanda Sharpe regarding pace and clue efficiency, yet with a much smaller collection. I also wanted to give a viable alternative to the Big Hand Harvey, knowing that Harvey is the second least liked Investigator on ArkhamDB after Marie Lambeau (but she came at a weird spot).


Table of Content:

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Big Draw, Play

• Clue Acceleration

• Manage Horror and Damage

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Make your own Deck!


Overview:

Difficulty: ★★★★☆

Enemy Management: ★★☆☆☆

Clue-getting: ★★★★★

Encounter protection: ★★☆☆☆

Survivability: ★★★☆☆

Economy: ★★★★☆

Card Drawing: ★★★★★


Main Strategy:

Draw a lot of cards each turn with Cryptic Research, Jeremiah Kirby, Protecting the Anirniq, Vault of Knowledge, your and Perception.

Abuse Unearth the Ancients (2) to replace your empty Assets or call your meat shields for duty while getting a clue (or more with Deduction).

Accelerate the pace with Divination, Deduction, Working a Hunch, Eon Chart all bringing you more clues each turn.

Absorb the Damage of your Curiosity and the Horror of the Deck-Cycling with your Allies.


Big Draw, play:

Draw a lot of cards:

This Deck is packed with Draw engines:

• Cryptic Research has been a staple since day 1 for a good reason: 3 cards, fast and free, are definitely worth the 4xp. It draws you 10% of your Deck.

Harvey's and Vault of Knowledge should be triggered every single turn bringing you 2 cards.

• Jeremiah Kirby that you use to call for Even. Once Magnifying Glass, Vault of Knowledge, Divination and Dr. William T. Maleson are on the table; you will hit 15 cards out of 24, so on average 3 cards. Knowing your Deck well, you can also call for Odd if you are looking for a specific card such as Mind over Matter. Weaknesses being neither Odd nor Even, you will always shuffle them back with this effect.

• Perception x2 bring you an extra 2 cards and 4 when upgraded.

• Protecting the Anirniq that you will be able to play more or less once a turn.

Altogether, the drawing power per turn is between 15 and 23 cards out of 24 cards that are not in Play. In practice, you are reliably cycling your deck every other turn.

Playing :

The whole Deck aims at spending as few actions that are not directly generating clues.

Magnifying Glass is .

Divination, Jeremiah Kirby, Dr. William T. Maleson, Medical Student and Vault of Knowledge can be played via Unearth the Ancients (2) so while getting a clue.

• Eon Chart gives you 3 actions, including one the same turn as you play it, making it virtually fast.

• Cryptic Research, Mind over Matter, Protecting the Anirniq, Shortcut and Working a Hunch are all .

• Cryptic Writings are also fast as you are highly likely to draw them during your turn

Call for Backup gives you a Move, a Clue and a Horror-Healing, making it at least 2 actions for the cost of 1 you would be doing anyway.

So, in theory, you should not be spending a single action setting up or playing an event that does not bring you clues as everything is either fast or a target for Unearth the Ancients (2).


Clue Acceleration:

What is the point of all the Draw, especially knowing that it forces you to see your Weaknesses more often? The answer is clue acceleration.

• Drawing Working a Hunch and being able to play it roughly once a turn is an extra, testless deduction.

• More draw means more Deduction, meaning more clues for your investigation actions.

Divination (4) gives you up to 3 clues in one action and Eon Chart gives you 1 more investigation move per turn, making it virtually an additional clue each turn. These 2 are replaced with Unearth the Ancients (2) when empty.

• Another version of this Deck uses Art Student instead of Medical Student so that for +2 difficulty during the test on Unearth the Ancients (2), I get an additional clue coming with some soak. (I was also excited to find a home for that Ally finally!)


Manage Horror and Damage:

Cycling your Deck fast will mean taking a lot of Damage and Horror.

• Damage comes from Thrice-Damned Curiosity, one of the highly punishing Personal Weaknesses out there, which is one of the reasons why Harvey is often the least praised investigator from the sets.

•• Playing cards as you draw them will keep your Hand quite small. It will consist of Mind over Matter, Protecting the Anirniq, Unearth the Ancients (2) waiting for a good target, and Divination/Eon Chart waiting for the previous one to be empty. With Encounter Cards, you will need to absorb around 3 damage each time you cycle your Deck.

•• Jeremiah Kirby can take 2 damage, and so does Dr. William T. Maleson. Medical Student can take over if you are going low on Health and want to get back into the safe zone.

•• The worst case for your Weakness is when you are power-drawing to look for a specific enabler. For instance, you need to replace your Divination, and you spend your 2 Cryptic Research at once to find the other copy, you want to use Shortcut to move instead of using one action, but the 2 copies are still in your Deck, etc... In this case, you may be surprised with 10+ cards. Nevertheless, you will typically still have enough soak online to absorb everything but 1 or 2 Damage.

• Damage can come from tests on Treachery Cards and enemies. You will not be able to protect yourself against Encounter Cards much except by using Dr. William T. Maleson or Inquiring Mind to evade enemies. This should already cover the most dangerous cases, though.

• Horror comes Cycling your Deck: shuffling your discard pile to reform your Deck costs 1 Horror. It is soaked by your high sanity as well as your Allies. From Experience, that was less of a trouble than the Damage and using the Medical Student later in the scenario for your Health will help your Sanity, too, anyways.


Other Cards:

• Arcane Enlightenment is here for 2 reasons:

•• As you have 2 Arcane Slots, and Spells do not discard when empty, you need to replace your empty Divinations to be able to cycle them.

•• I chose Arcane Enlightenment also because it is "Even" (for Kirby) and because if it is not needed, it is one of the rare Assets that commits for a double icon, here .

Dr. William T. Maleson is here for the soak, and as a side note, he is the best Resource/Soak available for this while also helping you get rid of potentially nasty Treacheries.

• Cryptic Writings instead of Crack the Case because of the limited card pool first of all, but it is also better here because it discards itself as you draw it, which decreases the risk taken with Thrice-Damned Curiosity.

Charisma instead of Miskatonic Archaeology Funding because the latter prevents you from assigning more than 1 damage at a time coming from Thrice-Damned Curiosity, which would send Harvey back underground, with no more Unearth for the Ancient.

Shortcut because Move actions are the biggest Tempo killer in high-speed Decks.

•• One of the latest options is Hiking Boots, which brings you a little boost against Encounter Tests and, most importantly, free Moves too. It is cheaper than Taboo Pathfinder both in XP and resource and, therefore, easier to play with Unearth the Ancients (2).


Upgrade Path:

Link to the 0xp Deck


• Burning the Midnight Oil x2 Unearth the Ancients (2) x2 - 4xp - Total 4xp


• Preposterous Sketches x2 Cryptic Research x2 - 8xp - Total 12xp


• Charisma x1 - 3xp - Total 15xp


• Occult Invocation x2 Divination (1) x2 - 2xp - Total 17xp


Unexpected Courage x2 Eon Chart x2 - 2xp - Total 19xp


Painkillers x1 + Mind over Matter x1 Protecting the Anirniq x2 - 4xp - Total 23xp


• Divination (1) x2 Divination (4) x2 - 6xp - Total 29xp


• Eon Chart x2 Eon Chart x2 - 6xp - Total 35xp


• Perception x2 Perception x2 - 4xp - Total 39xp


• Deduction x2 Deduction x2 - 4xp - Total 43xp


• Inquiring Mind x2 Call for Backup x2 - 4xp - Total 47xp


• Working a Hunch x1 Hiking Boots x1 - 1xp - Total 48xp


Link to the 49xp Deck


Make your own Deck!:

• For a beefier Deck, you can pack 2 Occult Invocation and a 2nd copy of Mind over Matter.

7 comments

May 02, 2022 drjones87 · 165

Always love reading your decks.

May 06, 2022 Serperucaz · 3

Hi, ¿what happened to the core set investigator decks?

May 10, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55083

Hi @Serperucaz, I unfortunately didn't work on any core set investigator Deck, because there is already a full series called Better Started Deck from Killbray.

May 15, 2023 Tsukeh · 1

Thc

Aug 29, 2023 lightspeed · 1

If I'm not playing with the taboo list, would you recommend getting Pathfinder? If so, when?

Jan 22, 2024 funkymonkeymonk · 1

I love the deck. Kirby feels so integral but has recently been capped with a taboo. What changes would you make to bring this to the latest taboo or would you keep Kirby as is?

Jan 22, 2024 Valentin1331 · 55083

@funkymonkeymonk just use the Laboratory Assistant instead, she won’t soak as much damage but she’ll do fine as well. You can also get a Miskatonic Archaeology Funding to have more than one at the same time.