Working a Hunch

So, it turns out that the guy printed for the big hand archetype—Harvey—is low-key not great at the whole big hand archetype. Well, not nearly as good at Minh Thi Phan, the actual GOAT of the big hand archetype. The key: Dream Diary. Let’s get into it.

Dreams of Competence: 3XP

Okay, so the base version of this deck requires a fighter, because you sure as hell aren’t dealing with enemies. Well, you’re Minh. You’ll be fine. You can evade at 6 agility with Inquiring Presence. Don’t even worry about it. Anyway, here’s the point of the deck: Dream Diary.

2/30: Dream Diary
Dream Diary: Untranslated x2

Here’s the vision: with Dreams of a Child in play, we’ll be able to commit Essence of the Dream once a turn for a +5 to any stat. This is going to enable absolutely everything we do. But for the first scenario, we’re going to have to burn a couple of actions and a couple of resources to interpret the dream. Trust me. It’s worth it (skip ahead to the 19XP version, see what I mean).

4/30: Slightly Bigger Hands
Laboratory Assistant x2
Arcane Enlightenment x2

The sneaky benefit to the upgraded Dream Diary (we’ll get to this more in a moment) is that it artificially raises your hand size. So frankly, a hand size of 10 is fine. We get that with a single Laboratory Assistant; the second waits in our hand so the first can soak horror from our deck cycling. Arcane Enlightenment helps us negate the hand slot drawback of the King in Yellow, which again, has practically zero power in this deck. And with two matching skill icons, Arcane Enlightenment also lets Minh juice her willpower to a 7. It makes the cut.

3/30: Card Draw: Assets and Events
Preposterous Sketches x1
Thorough Inquiry x2

These cards are insurance against slow starts, and come fully online once we get Farsight. Thorough Inquiry might actually be better because of its icons. Remember that Analytical Mind gets us a card once a turn, too.

6/30: Card Draw: Skills
Guts x2
Perception x2
Eureka x2

You always commit these, no questions asked. We’re trying to cycle our deck as much as possible.

4/30: Econ
Cryptic Writings x2
Burning the Midnight Oil x2

I have a love/hate relationship with Crypic Writings, which always seems to linger in my deck until upkeep, but we get some synergy with Farsight once it’s online. Same with Burning the Midnight Oil. This should keep us solvent, especially once we’re cycling them (Drawing Thin helps too).

Okay. 19/30 cards get us cycling our deck (with Analytical Mind, 13 include draw) and keeping up with resources. The big question is whether it’s worth adding a singleton Drawing Thin (3XP taboo version) or Grisly Totem (3) with that In the Thick of It XP, but the former requires the upgraded Diary to really pop off, and the latter is just slightly too slow and expensive. Don’t worry. They’re both coming.

5/30: Clue Tempo
Sharp Vision (1) x2
Deduction x2
Fingerprint Kit x1

With all the setup required, we’ll need to apologize to our team and start hoovering clues at some point. The singleton Fingerprint Kit is not a priority until you’re flush with resources; if you do mulligan into it, save it for the King. Speaking of . . .

6/30: Make the King Cry
A Glimmer of Hope x3
Inquiring Mind x2
Persistence (1) x1

A Glimmer of Hope helps with two things: it lets us draw three cards for an action (hitting our optimal hand size), and it hangs out until the King in Yellow shows up. And then, well, Promise of Power is considered one of the best mystic skills in the game, and we’re playing Minh, so . . . we have Promise of Power at home?

We’re also adding a single copy of Persistence, which gets used immediately and then lingers in wait for the King to come.

Underwhelmed? Fair. This is the engine to a deck that doesn’t really have too much payoff. Your goal in scenario one is to survive, use your five tempo cards to keep your team moving, and interpret that dream.

The Dream Gets Teeth: 9XP

This is where it gets a bit weird: we’re only upgrading the one Diary because frankly, our draw power is going to find it for us. That’s the beauty of this deck, really: you only need one of each key asset. Let’s use the other 3XP on our first copy of Drawing Thin (taboo), which gives us more draw power and more econ.

At this point, the goal is to get to a hand size of eight cards, then use Drawing Thin each time we commit Essence of the Dream (which gets an additional wild pip. Thanks, Minh). That effectively turns the ability of Essence into “when you have at least eight cards in hand, Essence of the Dream gains two wild icons . . . or gain 2 resources . . . or draw 1 card.” It’s great, you get that every turn, and it’s something Harvey dreams he could do.

We’ll drop the second copy of Dream Diary to make room for Drawing Thin. Again, with our draw power, we’ll be fine.

Deep Sleep: 19XP

There are two routes we can go here. We’re already fully unaffected by our weakness and can pass virtually any test, so let’s prioritize tempo and get back to breaking things in a moment. The last pieces are Farsight (4) and Extensive Research (1), so let’s add them here.

We’ll add two copies of Extensive Research (1) for the two copies of Inquiring Mind, which have been outpaced significantly (yes, with Minh, a card that only gives four wild icons can get outclassed. Welcome). We’ll also finally add Grisly Totem (3) for that last Preposterous Sketches, and swap one Glimmer of Hope for a second copy of Perseverance (1).

Get all that? I sure didn’t. Here’s the current asset loadout, and it’s pretty potent.

2/30: Hand Assets
Dream Diary x1
Fingerprint Kit x1

4/30: Ally and Arcane Assets
Laboratory Assistant x2
Farsight x1
Arcane Enlightenment x1

2/30: Other Assets
Drawing Thin x1
Grisly Totem x1
Analytical Mind x1 (doesn’t count toward deck size)

This setup, with a full hand, lets us commit Essence of the Dream for six wild icons every turn . . . but really, we’ll be subtracting two for the Drawing Thin card draw. That lets us investigate at a base intellect of 10 (or 11 with Fingerprint Kit), and nets us three cards. Then you factor in these events:

4/10: Econ and Card Draw Events
Burning the Midnight Oil x2
Cryptic Writings x2
Thorough Inquiry x2

Hopefully we never have to spend an action on the first two. The last seems anti-synergistic (Farsight needs a full hand to come online) but allows you to supercharge your team, or simply get great icons. This is the weakest part of our deck, but each have a place.

6/30: Clue Acceleration
Extensive Research x2
Deduction x2
Sharp Vision x2

6/30: Card Draw Acceleration
Eureka x2
Guts x2
Perception x2

Remember how we’re starting each turn with a 10-intellect investigation test, and drawing three cards off it? Well, then we’re playing Extensive Research with Farsight and getting two free clues without spending an action . . . then throwing Sharp Vision into a third test, with a Eureka and a Perception, investigating again at a 10, but this time for two clues and two cards. We still have an action, we’ve hoovered five clues, and cycled through four cards (while drawing five). That’s a totally normal turn with this deck.

Oh, and remember our buddy, the King in Yellow? We still have two copies of Glimmer of Hope and two copies of Perseverance (1), which sit in our hand or discard pile for the moment the book shows up. The thing is, we’ll have at least two tests a turn where we’ll easily be committing six matching icons. These just get us to the card requirement.

That’s the main deck. The rest is gravy.

Dreams Within Dreams: 29XP to 39XP

This is where we add a couple copies of Studious to ratchet our starting hand to seven cards. Doesn’t seem like a lot, but it means we can hard mulligan through nearly half our deck for the Dream Diary. We’ll also lose one Glimmer of Hope for a second copy of Drawing Thin, and a second for At a Crossroads.

The double copies of Studious work pretty well with The World XXI (3). I considered adding it. It tops us up and draws through our deck faster for the things we need . . . but in the end, in this deck, I think it’s just a little too redundant. If we need resources, we can always use the resource ability on Drawing Thin instead of the card draw.

Another option: add Deciphered Reality (5), which for us just says “Fast. Draw a token. Unless it’s the auto-fail, discover one clue from every revealed location.” Granted, we’ll need some extra cash for that (we’ll be able to play it a few times every game), so one copy of Thorough Inquiry gets dropped to make room, and both copies of Cryptic Writings get upgraded.

Technically that’s only 38XP, so let’s drop the singleton Fingerprint Kit for a second At A Crossroads. I hope we’re comfortable running effectively six play-based events in a Farsight deck:

• two copies of At A Crossroad (1) (doesn’t take an action)
• two copies of Cryptic Writings (2) (shouldn’t take an action)
• two copies of Burning the Midnight Oil
• two copies of Extensive Research (1)
• one copy of Deciphered Reality (5)
• one copy of Thorough Inquiry

Of our 22 event and skill cards:

• nine provide card draw acceleration
• seven provide clue acceleration
• six either provide econ or tank the King in Yellow

And here’s our final board, which costs 14 resources to fully implement. With five starting resources, four from Burning the Midnight Oil, and six to eight from the two copies of Cryptic Writings, this should be entirely online by the first time our deck cycles:

The only asset not here is the second Laboratory Assistant. Listen, we’re flying through our deck at break-neck speed and there’s very little soak for that sanity. But there is just enough, thanks to those two. So, let’s do the math here:

• 8/30 cards on the board
• 10/30 cards in hand
• 12/30 cards in deck/discard

Ten of those non-board cards, including Lab Assistant, draw us a combined 19 cards each time the deck cycles. Our assets passively draw us four cards a turn. Hope that basic weakness isn’t too rough?

A final note: the reason this is so much better in Minh than Harvey is pretty straight-forward: deck cycling means you’re likely to encounter your weakness pretty often. Harvey has some ways to deal with infinite damage, but it’s clearly going to be a significant consideration. Minh can just fully ignore her signature weakness, which basically just costs her a draw. That’s it.

I don’t think Vault of Knowledge moves the needle at all. In fact, Minh’s signature is probably better: it allows her to buff teammates and cycle her deck with and endless supply of Eureka, Perception, and Guts. The only cards that get worse with a smaller hand size limit are Celaeno Fragments, the Forbidden Tome suite, and Feed the Mind (3) . . . but Minh gets access to survivor 0-2, which (hot take incoming) is laughably better.

As always, any ideas or suggestions can be left in the comments.