Joe goes to see a play...

I don't really publish decks, but figured I'd see how this one does; it also feels unfair after having browsed other' deck ideas for so long to not share my ones.

This list was/is built for a run through Carcosa with my regular group. This is relevant due to the fact that my group is trying a deck-building challenge with this campaign; full details below. I have a variant of this deck currently going through a 2-player run of Circle Undone, where it is tearing it up. The small differences may in due course alter this list...

Joe sits nicely in that role between fighter and clue-grabber, making him a good choice for a third player looking for a flex role, or for Circle Undone campaigns. . Joe is an old hand, and there are a lot of obvious cards that he can use effectively. The Hunch Deck mechanic is always fun, and gives Joe a cool 'tool-box' feel. Since we're doing Carcosa, we've chucked a little horror healing in there from Psychoanalysis, as well as Delay the Inevitable to soak horror up. Then we have the usual Hunch staples: Working a Hunch, Preposterous Sketches and Scene of the Crime. Right Tool for the Job could be a Hunch as well, but we'll keep it in the main deck for now. The usual 'keep two resources to pay for the Unsolved Case' rider is duly given.

Joe's best combos have been neutered slightly by Taboo list updates, but he is still among the best Investigators for Guiding Stones, especially since his card pool can include Well Prepared. For investigating using the Stones, his best target with Well Prepared will be Antikythera (R.I.P. Necronomicon), but his Detective's Colts will be a solid stopgap until the XP is available. Using Well Prepared on the Colts can also help add a solid +2 to combats, which will help Joe wade through the cast of enemies in Carcosa/most campaigns.

I feel bad about going really stupidly obvious with most of Joe's deck, but there's no denying it works. You almost always want Dr. Milan (though I may yet consider Dorothy Simmons as a possible alternative) and the Mouse Mask is really going to help buff up Joe's wimpy 2. With Milan, and a Magnifying Glass, Joe is investigating at 6 skill, without taking Well Prepared or skill commits into account. That'll do.

This deck uses a new card from the 2026 Core Set: Collector. It basically does what Versatile did, but requires the user to have played/completed the new Brethren of Ash campaign. It lets me add a the Crystallizer of Dreams, which lets Joe get some extra value from his Hunches; each Hunch played becomes available for skill commits. The enemy it adds to his deck is not a huge concern for Joe to deal with; he can handle it.

Moving on to our campaign deck-building rules. Our decks needed to include:

Two copies of a 'Customizable' card which we must upgrade at least to Level 1 (2 boxes ticked) during the campaign (we can go to Level 5, which is 10 ticks). Each tick costs 1xp.

Two copies of a 'Specialist' card (which are based on the investigator's traits) from The Drowned City.

For Joe's Customizable card, Empirical Hypothesis makes the most sense. With that chunky 6+ for investigation, with Well Prepared adding to Joe's success numbers, Joe should be getting a 3+ success frequently enough for Empirical Hypothesis to be well worth it. Weirdly enough, Empirical Hypothesis is strong enough without upgrading (just the draw-engine alone makes it worth the inclusion), but the other abilities are useful. Allowing Empirical Hypothesis to add evidence on taking horror (yes it can also trigger on damage, but Carcosa...) is inevitably strong. The Research Grant add-on, reducing the cost of cards by 3, is also very attractive. Peer Review (or Group Hug! as I shall inevitably rename it) is also worthwhile. There is a possible silly combo involving Alternative Hypothesis, Group Hug! and Research Grant together letting Joe dish out card-draw and cheaper card-plays to the team like Oprah dishing out cars. The only issue is that combo costs 8xp, but Refine may help me out there...

Joe only has the Detective trait, which limits him to just two 'Specialist' options: Dakota Garofalo and On Their Heels. They're both really good, but Dakota is cheaper (XP-wise), offers free movement and hands out stat boosts that are incredibly useful to Joe as he goes through Carcosa. She is even probably worth investing the 3xp into Charisma.

Between the Empirical Hypothesis upgrades and Dakota, the mandatory upgrades are clocking in at around 11-12xp for Joe.

Carcosa is reasonably generous with xp, and we should be able to get 30xp+ going into the finale. I'd suggest aiming for a functioning deck at around 15xp though. An almost perfect run might provide upwards of 45xp, but Arkham Horror is unlikely to be so generous...

For Joe then, the likely upgrade path will look something like this:

2x Practice Makes Perfect 2x Well Prepared for 4xp

2x Archaic Glyphs 2x Guiding Stones for 6xp

Empirical Hypothesis upgrades:

Research Grant for 2xp

Alternative Hypothesis for 4xp

2x Mouse Mask 2x Dakota Garofalo for 6xp

Those essential upgrades will cost 22xp, which is on the high side. I will likely do one Well Prepared and one Guiding Stones initially, reducing the essential cost to 17xp. We are expecting 30+ by campaign end, so it should be achievable.

Then we have our likely additions:

2x One in the Chamber 2x Extra Ammunition for 2xp

2x Extra Ammunition Stock Ammo Reload for 2xp

1x Fingerprint Kit 1x Antikythera for 5xp

1x Charisma for 3xp

That brings us to the 32xp we are likely to get to. And now for the 'luxury' additions that we would like to be able to add, but will never realistically have the XP for:

2x Magnifying Glass 2x Magnifying Glass for 2xp

2x Deduction 2x Deduction for 4xp

2x Delay the Inevitable 2x "I've had worse" for 4xp

2x Vicious Blow Vicious Blow for 4xp

1x Ancestral Knowledge for 6xp (adding: 2x Perception, 2x Unexpected Courage and 1x Desperate Search)

2x Psychoanalysis 2x Psychoanalysis for 6xp

2x Preposterous Sketches 2x Cryptic Research for 8xp

2x Overpower Overpower for 4xp

Empirical Hypothesis upgrades:

Peer Review for 2xp

Field Research for 1xp

Trial and Error for 1xp

2x M1911 2x M1911 for 4xp

2x Emergency Cache 2x Emergency Cache for 6xp

And that'll bring us to Zuma levels of XP, which is super-unlikely (it'd probably require a perfect run with many side scenarios - never happening). Joe's perfectly fine at 32xp, which is very achievable in Carcosa...

Obviously Joe is a Seeker, so he gets have first call on all the Seeker cards. I've tried to pick Guardian cards that are unlikely to be used by too many other builds, so as to avoid conflicts; Guardians will have first option on any of them they want, but I have multiple playsets of several of these. Similarly, the Crystallizer I'm happy to drop if a Rogue calls dibs, though I doubt any Rogue would want to run 2 of these; in my experience, most Crystallizer use is one-off in Versatile builds (and now in our new Collector-based decks as well), especially for event-heavy decks (looking at Marion and Nathaniel decks in particular).