[Multiplayer] [Guide] Calvin Perfected

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet

Calprinicus · 4950

THE CORE

You will draw lots of cards with Perception, Guts, Overpower, Manual Dexterity, & Lucky!.

With the card draw, you will find cards that can soak horror and damage. Play them, but don't assign damage or horror to them until the late game. Until the End of Time, Leather Coat or Bulletproof Vest, & Cherished Keepsake or Elder Sign Amulet. Also a good ally.

You will use Painkillers & Smoking Pipe to shift damage and horror where you need them depending on what skill you are using. Towards the end of the game you want to have 5 damage and 5 horror on your investigator (or 6 if you found Five of Pentacles). Ideally you'll have and no damage or horror to any of your soaks.

At this point, you should be fully powered with have 6-8 damage & horror you can soak to assets. Calvin is a force to be reckoned with and powers through the ending.


PROS:

  • Best late-game character.
  • No initial setup. You'll be dedicated to helping others instead of playing assets in early turns.
  • Lots of team support and skills to dedicate.
  • Decent encounter deck mitigation
  • Versitile. Good in all skills.

CONS:

  • Requires teammates. Bad solo.
  • Bad at skill tests in early game.
  • Lowest HP & Sanity of all investigators.
  • Lot of trauma especially at the end of campaign.

EARLY GAME

On you mulligan, only keep: Meat Cleaver, Miss Doyle, Cornered, and Five of Pentacles.

Move before you allies & give them +2 to their skill tests with Perception, Guts, Manual Dexterity, and Overpower.

Hopefully these draws reveal Miss Doyle or damage soaks for late game.

At the start you will want Miss Doyle so Hope, Zeal, & Augur to help with mitigate the 0 stats.

Use "Let me handle this!" to get monsters or treachery cards from allies, especially ones that deal damage or horror. This will help power his skills.

MID GAME

Keep playing damage soaks without assigning them damage or horror to them.

Once you have some damage and horror on Calvin, you can start to use your skill cards on yourself to succeed at skill tests. Cornered is very helpful at this stage.

Use Smoking Pipe & Painkillers to manage your damage and horror. By late game you want them even with 5 damage & 5 horror with at least 4-8 damage & horror soak.

LATE GAME

This is where Calvin Shines! With a +5 in all skills ( or +6 with Five of Pentacles) there is nothing he cannot face! You become an absolute wrecking ball and succeed all skill tests.

UPGRADE PRIORITIES

1xp Madame Labranche -> Miss Doyle

1xp Madame Labranche -> Five of Pentacles

2xp Unexpected Courage -> Cornered

2xp Unexpected Courage -> Cornered

2xp Lucky! -> Lucky!

2xp Lucky! -> Lucky!

3xp Cherished Keepsake -> Elder Sign Amulet

3xp Leather Coat -> Bulletproof Vest

3xp Rise to the Occasion -> Rise to the Occasion

3xp Rise to the Occasion -> Rise to the Occasion

2xp Ward of Protection -> Ward of Protection

2xp Ward of Protection -> Ward of Protection

BONUS (OPTIONAL)

5xp Meat Cleaver -> Timeworn Brand

3 comments

Oct 31, 2019 Cuherdir · 1150

I'm just going to go ahead and heavily disagree with "Best late-game character".

Also, I'd spend at least one Rise to the occasion XP for Charisma (not to say anything about the Amulet or West as they're ok, but expensive XP-wise. Allies are the superior soak options in my opinion, above Smoking Pipe/Painkillers most of the time as well).

Still, Calvin is a great character and seeing a different take on him is nice.

Nov 01, 2019 Calprinicus · 4950

Painkillers and Smoking Pipe are incredible at distribute damage and horror. In my experience it's better used to get a +1 to skills as you swap between clue finding and combat than to push onto soaks you'll want later.

Additionally, it makes it a lot easier to get +5 in all skills at the end of the game.


Charisma is expensive by itself. But given his card pool, Until the End of Time, Bulletproof Vest, Elder Sign Amulet, and Miss Doyle total in 8/8 soak.

With Charisma, the best i can come up with is Until the End of Time, Leather Coat, Cherished Keepsake, Miss Doyle, and Peter Sylvestre for a total of 7/9 soak. Which is only 1xp less but adds 1 card to the deck. However Peter Sylvestre's ability to remove sanity is tempting along with the stat boosts so swapping out a Smoking Pipe is tempting.

Nov 01, 2019 Greatsageishere · 141

Remember that you absolutely do not want to be sitting at 5 damage if you’re playing The Forgotten Age and Curse of Yig is hiding in the deck. Been burned by that one enough times to know.