Father Alexis Mateo (BAM!)

"Father Alexis Mateo has had a past loaded with incidents where his faith has been tested. Growing up in Mexico, he witnessed first hand the dubious relationship the church had with the local mafia. Now, since he has taken up a position in the south church of Arkham, the mysterious goings-on with witches and disappearances has him tormented again. Since the apathetic rejection of his faith after a reading with Anna Kaslow, he has kept the four of cups by his side. He'll take all the faith he can get right now, without discrimination."

Role: Chaos Bag Manipulator and Secondary Fighter

Father Mateo is an odd one, he has less card access than most classes and doesn't have the highest Will, putting him in kind of a all-rounded position, however, I have created this deck with the aim of focusing on his Will and playing around with chaos tokens.

Chaos Bag Manipulator:

The key cards for him being able to manipulate tests are Olive McBride, Grotesque Statue, Dark Prophecy, Premonition and to a lesser extent Ritual Candles. As you've seen, Grotesque Statue is great as it lets you choose between two different chaos tokens and pick one, if you are 2 or 3 up on a test, this hugely increases the chances of that test being successful, as even if you draw the tentacle, you can ignore it.

On the face of it Olive McBride seem less a lesser version of Grotesque Statue and she is, but she can be used in combination with Grotesque Statue and Dark Prophecy or Premonition to increase the chances of pulling a required token out of the bag. If you need a "Skull" for Song of the Dead for example, Olive will give you a few chances of pulling this, plus Ritual Candles will make the token more appealing because of it's reduced value.

Chaos manipulation is also great in Mateo as his Elder Sign ability is super powerful, and the more you draw, the more likely you are to get an additional action or a card and a resource.

Secondary Fighter:

Zoey will be the primary damage dealer, but given that neither Rex nor Wendy will be dealing damage, it would be good to have Mateo BAM! some enemies. If you have them both out, use Wither first and then Shrivelling in case you reduce the enemies fight and evade value and make your life easier. Song of the Dead works well with the chaos bag manipulation above and Hypnotic Gaze is like a fancy Dodge with the potential to make the enemy smack themselves.

Resource Generation:

Mateo's signature gets him resources and once he gets his main spells down, he has less of a need to gain resources. Uncage the Soul is essentially a way of playing a spell in your hand for free and Sacrifice is a nice way of gaining resources from spells that no longer have any charges on them.

Card Draw:

Mateo's signature again gets him much needed cards. He is looking to draw into his main spells as much as possible. Quantum Flux is great to use for a free card if you have used a few spells and your discard pile is looking decent. Sacrifice again can give you cards from assets you are no longer using.

Good Opening Hand Cards:

Look for and mulligan into these if possible:

Shrivelling, Sixth Sense, Holy Rosary, Four of Cups, Olive McBride

Next Upgrades:

Honestly, this is going to be tough in Mateo where it's hard to pick a card to take out, but:

Shrivelling <<<<<< Shrivelling

Deny Existence <<<<<< Deny Existence

Book of Shadows<<<<<<Ritual Candles