Charlie Kane's (Blursed) Cult of Personality

Initially intended as a Guard Dog self-punish combat deck for Hard difficulty, I ended up pivoting to a engine to help the multiplayer party out, with a more "standard" Beat Cop damage plan. The hallmark interaction of the deck is Spirit of Humanity with Priest of Two Faiths to generate 7 easily. With support cards around the shell like "I've had worse…", A Chance Encounter, and Nephthys, it can consistently max out for the entire party to benefit from in multiplayer.

Bless

• Spirit of Humanity is the build-around card for this deck. Use all your excess soak on allies to generate , or add a couple to the bag for some extra uses of Beat Cop/Grete Wagner.
• Priest of Two Faiths is a great source of soak, skill commit, and all for a single resource and a card. Wouldn't be amazing without Spirit of Humanity, but definitely an all-star of the deck with it.
• Ancient Covenant is the best covenant in the game, and a great payoff for the being generated by your engine.
• Nephthys is a fantastic upgrade for the deck for a variety of reasons. She maintains your generation by stashing the used tokens and eventually returning them. On top of that, she generates free damage while doing so. Lastly, she commits for +3 every turn where she isn't using her exhaust ability. Good soak and reasonable cost to boot, what's not to love?

Economy

• Take Heart solves both draw and resources in a single package, at the downside of putting yourself at the mercy of a particularly rude //. The potential drawback is definitely worth the efficiency, and you can even share with friends who are getting hit particularly hard by variance in a given scenario.
• Motivational Speech is probably the weakest economy card in the deck, but with how many resources are demanded by Charlie's allies, you need all you can get. It's basically strictly better Emergency Cache, and in the worst case where you've already got your allies in play, can still be lent to a friend or committed.
• "I've had worse…" is very helpful with what the rest of the deck needs. Spirit of Humanity, Meat Cleaver, Beat Cop, Grete Wagner and the encounter deck are constantly taxing the available health pool of your allies, and this card not only stems that for free, it also provides an economy upside to the very resource-hungry deck.
• Gregory Gry is a powerhouse economy card as his resource gambling ability does not require exhausting. Charlie is usually making ~2 skill checks per turn at high value on Hard difficulty with his ally committing skill, which translates to an additional 2-3 resources.

Combat

• Meat Cleaver there actually aren't as many reliable 2 damage weapons for Charlie as you might think, and most of the Guardian options are quite pricey resource-wise as well as limited in ammo. Cleaver is a good middle ground of unconditional 2 damage fight for only moderate investment. The horror downside is easy to trivialize with the quantity of allies in play. This campaign I opted for 2 mental trauma from In the Thick of It to let Cleaver instantly hit the threshold for +2 at any time.
• Guard Dog good starter card for the deck, but needs upgrade or replacement soon. For the campaign I played (EotE), it turned out that inviting enemies to attack was not particularly attractive due to additional downsides of being hit.
• Grete Wagner Excellent ally for the +1 at level 0, with added upside of action-less, test-less clue generation. Pricey in resources, but totally worth it. Fantastic upgrade option as well to go from +2 to +3 on fights/investigates as well as the additional passive .
• Beat Cop was the combat ally I opted for over upgraded Guard Dog, due to the passive bonus, less conditional free damage, and a slight preference toward over . Works great with Bonnie Walsh to generate 2 free damage in a single round.
• Summoned Hound begins the campaign as a medium card, but grows into a great one with upgraded A Chance Encounter, additional passive /, and copies of Charisma (more commits to use on all the free tests). The best target for Bonnie Walsh's ready effect usually. This version of Charlie prefers a single copy due to the competing slot space with Spirit of Humanity, as well as diminishing returns of a second copy with Bonnie.
• Vicious Blow good card is good. Great option for an upgrade once you have extra exp as well.

Recursion

• A Chance Encounter can replay Priest of Two Faiths sacrificed to SoH for 1, resurrect a discarded Summoned Hound to get around the bonded downside, bring back a fresh Beat Cop or Medical Student. The applications are numerous and value is incredible. It's also insurance against asset-discarding effects that can be encountered through miscellaneous treacheries.
• Resourceful continues to prove itself as probably the best card in the Survivor class, and it's not even hitting the ceiling of value in this deck.

Upgrade considerations:

• Lesson Learned, Aquinnah if you are opting for a Guard Dog build.
• Charisma, no explanation needed.
• Second copy of Summoned Hound. Has diminishing returns with Bonnie, and also competes with Spirit of Humanity for the arcane slots.
• Flare as a final 1-2 scenarios option is quite nice for getting those highly sought 1x ally copies into play (Grete Wagner, Nephthys, Bonnie Walsh).
• Well Prepared functions as another +2 with upgraded Grete, Bonnie, or Nephthys on the field.
• Baseball Bat to replace/supplement Meat Cleaver. Cheaper resource cost and no self-horror cost is nice, but the 2 exp can be better spent elsewhere for most of the campaign.