Vincent Lee is hired to be the special medic of the ICPC in Punjab.

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Credit: Cristi Balanescu

Introduction:

Now that the Scarlet Keys - Investigator Expansion has hit the table, it's time for some deck guides with the new investigators! This deck is meant for both solo and flex.

Vincent Lee was not the most appealing investigator to me as I usually play 2 . In lower player count, healing tends to be rather inefficient, even with an Unexpected Courage as a reward. Yet after trying different things, this turned out to be my favourite version of Vincent. It plays quite fast while being both fun and efficient.
This deck does not spend much effort in healing others and focuses on healing itself first, making it a good option even in true solo.

Table of Contents:

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Set up Girish, your ICPC comrade

• Advance the game

• Get rid of your enemies

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Make Your Own Deck!

Overview:

Main Strategy:

• Set up a super-Trusted Girish Kadakia that has 5 health and 5 sanity and absorbs damage for your teammates.
• Use Girish Kadakia's ability to test at higher values. If his ability heals a damage, he provides you with an On the Mend for your next test.
• Draw quickly through your deck with Dream-Enhancing Serum, Empirical Hypothesis and Grisly Totem that activates with your recurrent On the Mend.

Prepare your ICPC partner in Punjab:

• With access, Flare is by far the best choice to find Girish Kadakia. Not only does it search it for you, but it also reduces the cost to 2 resources.

  • Girish Kadakia is so crucial to this deck that we are happy to pay for the exile experience cost. If you have him in your starting hand, you can either use it if you really need help for a fight or simply commit it for a and save experience for the next scenario.

  • Note that if it whiffs while searching for an ally, you do not have to exile it. It just goes to your discard pile instead.

• With 2 Trusted, Girish Kadakia has a massive 5-5 soak. That allows him to tank a lot of damage and horror for your teammates.

• Girish Kadakia will give you an On the Mend at the end of every successful action if he heals a damage. Your main sources of damage are failing encounter tests with your 1 and the Bonesaw.

  • As long as you have damage on Girish Kadakia, you can consider that you will have +2 to at least 2 tests per turn without even counting the many skill cards in the deck.

  • For this reason, it is better to take advantage of your 2 boosted tests to get as much as possible out of them rather than add more actions each turn.

Advance the game:

Your investigation tool:

• We have one hand available for clues. Out of the many tools available, I opted for the Magnifying Glass because it's , cheap, and works even when using Sharp Vision and Archaic Glyphs.

• An alternative to this is Mariner's Compass. It works well in this deck because only Girish Kadakia and Bonesaw/Machete are essential, and all the rest is gravy. So you can easily dedicate your resources to pump your investigation and save up during turns when you have to deal with enemies or play Crack the Case to pay for your other assets.

Make tests matter:

• As your base is relatively small and you need a boost to pass investigation tests reliably, it is better to prioritise higher yield over more actions.

• There are exactly 4 Practiced cards in this deck. That is very little for Practice Makes Perfect. But it is excellent to choose exactly what you will be searching for. Keep it in your hand until your deck has a few cards remaining, and pick a test that needs Deduction or Vicious Blow and play it when you're more or less sure to get what you want out of it.
  Don't wait too long, though, or you'll get the 4 of them out of your deck, and Practice Makes Perfect will just become a commit.

• With Girish Kadakia or On the Mend and the Magnifying Glass, you're already investigating at 7 , which is good enough in most difficulties. Later Scientific Theory (3) adds another static and allows you to use your extra resources to boost crucial tests.

Adapt your deck to your

Based on how many players are in your group, it may be interesting to adapt your deck slightly.

• In true solo and 2 , this is what this deck is made for.

• in 3 to 4 , you can opt for the Archaic Glyphs - Guiding Stones and commit if possible Girish Kadakia, On the Mend, Grisly Totem to the same test to try to collect as many clues as you can in one go.

  • It can be interesting to tweak the deck a little bit to accommodate these high commits. Replace Take Heart and Sharp Vision with Perception (2) and Inquiring Mind. Finally, it may be interesting to go for Scientific Theory (3) earlier.

  • With Magnifying Glass, Scientific Theory (3), Girish Kadakia and On the Mend, this brings you to 11 . Add Perception (2) and you'll empty 2 locations like nobody's business.

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Get rid of your enemies:

As a Flex, you are not expected to deal with all the enemies of your party but to at least be able to deal with the ones you are pulling. Doing this efficiently prevents you from being stuck and eventually overwhelmed.

• Your "weapons" (I know the Bonesaw is not one...) are your primary ways of dealing with enemies. The Bonesaw provides damages to Girish Kadakia for every attack so that you have enough to heal on him for a steady supply of On the Mend.

  • Note that the damage from the Bonesaw and the heal from Girish Kadakia both happen "if the test is successful". You can therefore choose in which order you would like to trigger them. If he has 0 damage on him, giving the damage first and then healing him to gain On the Mend is more interesting. On the opposite, if he has only 1 health left, then heal him first and the damage after finishing the test with still 1 health left.

• For enemies with uneven damage, you can use Brute Force or Vicious Blow to save an attack and unnecessary damage on Girish Kadakia. If necessary, you can tutor Vicious Blow with Practice Makes Perfect.

  • Another way to deal 3 damage is with Flare. I would only use it if I am in a seriously tough situation. The flexibility it offers is welcomed.

• Inspiring Presence is best used during combats. Readying Girish Kadakia and healing him is a good way to get 2 uses and 2 On the Mend from him in a single turn, providing you with more consistency when you have to land multiple crucial tests in the same turn.

• Machete is a good alternative before you have drawn your weakness. The Wounded Bystander prevents you from using the Bonesaw, and an unfortunate situation may see you drawing him during the upkeep phase and an enemy directly after, during the mythos phase. That would lead to unavoidable trauma unless you decide to use your base 3 or have Brute Force in your hand.
  Before drawing the weakness, the only situations when I would feel comfortable with the Bonesaw out is if I have a Bandages to absorb the damage on the Wounded Bystander, Bizarre Diagnosis in my hand. Once your weakness is cleared, the Bonesaw is always the best choice for damage dealing.

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Other Cards:

• Backpack tutors some of your most important cards.

• Dream-Enhancing Serum helps with more drawing and increasing the number of cards you can store in your hand. You can optimise your proc rate by using the tutoring of Ancestral Knowledge to get a second copy of a skill already in your hand. Also, it is an Item, so it fits in a Backpack.

• Grisly Totem (3) should be triggered very often with On the Mend and the number of skill cards in the deck. You will reliably draw 1 card each turn as soon as it hits the table.

• Bandages help in 3 situations:

  • Lifting a bit of weight off Girish Kadakia if there are many enemies on the board (and getting more On the Mend for it)

  • Prevent the Wounded Bystander from getting lower in health if you need to take damage for whatever reason, including the Bonesaw.

  • Give On the Mend to your teammates when they take damage at your location.

• Speaking of the devil, Bizarre Diagnosis is against your tempo, but getting rid of the Wounded Bystander in 2 actions (counting the one to get the clue back) and 0 resource is rather fine. It makes it par with many other weaknesses in the game, except that it requires 2 deck slots.

• Empirical Hypothesis is not obvious here. Yet, as you will commit Girish Kadakia any turn if possible, you will often over-commit and sometimes be rewarded. In Hard/Expert, I would maybe replace it with a second copy of Dream-Enhancing Serum.

• Burning the Midnight Oil is an easy way to get resources out of what you're supposed to do anyways, to play one of your many 3-cost assets.

• Same goes for Crack the Case. Keeping it in your hand is good until you have an asset and benefit from its fast pace. Even on a 2-shroud location, it still brings you to 3 resources with the upkeep phase, allowing you to play any asset besides Girish Kadakia.

• Trusted makes your Girish Kadakia an absolute machine.

• Resourceful is great here to bring back your Brute Force and Sharp Vision. You can also keep it in your hand a little longer and try to get 2 of them to trigger Dream-Enhancing Serum.

• Take Heart has a good spot in Vincent Lee as you will inevitably fail some scenario tests using . Keep it in your hand until it happens, and get some benefits out of your failure.

• Scientific Theory (3) is great in Vincent Lee as he uses both stats, and it allows you to sink extra resources to ensure a test and trigger Empirical Hypothesis more reliably. It fits especially well in this deck because Girish Kadakia is going to absorb most damage/horror, so it should be able to stay on the table.

  • On top of that, it is a waste to heal a horror from Girish Kadakia since it doesn't give you On the Mend, so it helps to absorb a bit more on Scientific Theory. You may need this as you sometimes fail to heal the Wounded Bystander and get mental trauma.

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Upgrade Path:

Link to the 0xp deck

(View at arkham-starter.com)

Link to the full xp deck

Make Your Own Deck!

Empty for now, but I may add other options based on the feedback!

To create your own guides, find the template I have created here