To Carcosa and Back - Solo Expert TPTC [A Phantom of Truth]

~ Part 4: The Unspeakable Oath ~

Warning: Massive spoilers for The Path to Carcosa campaign follows

This commentary assumes that the player is familiar with all story elements of the campaign. This series of decks use 2 core sets, The Dunwich Legacy cycle, and The Path to Carcosa cycle.

This series of decks is designed for playing The Path to Carcosa campaign solo on Expert difficulty. This deck focuses on the fifth scenario, A Phantom of Truth.

==================== [Introduction] ====================

Up until this scenario, we should have had at least 4 possible conviction/doubt. The first after Curtain Call, where we may have chosen one or the other. The second after The Last King, where we made a point of taking conviction to kill each of the VIPs. The third and fourth at the end of The Unspeakable Oath where we heeded Daniel's warning and were rewarded with 2 conviction and 1xp. Additionally, if we managed to chase the stranger at least 4 times, we are presented with 1 additional conviction/doubt at the dream sequence leading up to this scenario. Regardless, we should have more conviction than doubt at this time. This is good, as Wendy is more adept at surviving the conviction version of A Phantom of Truth than chasing down The Organist in the doubt version.

Unfortunately, this is also the scenario where the choice to burn down the mansion catches up to us. We will suffer a mental trauma at the start of this scenario. This can make surviving significantly more difficult. We also receive a copy of Lost Soul, which is annoying but not deadly - damage is seldom what kills us.

Compared to the previous scenario, this one has almost the opposite challenge. While The Unspeakable Oath had plenty of enemies and treacheries designed to slow us down while the doom clock ticks to its completion, the conviction version of A Phantom of Truth is all about killing us directly. Out of the 30 card encounter deck, 6 are hunter enemies. Additionally, 5 other treacheries threaten to spawn enemies. Out of the 19 remaining encounters, 8 threaten damage or horror. From the 11 encounters not directly trying to kill us, 4 force us to stay longer, 5 try to slow us down, and finally 2 makes us potentially discard our cards.

So, the majority of the encounter deck is trying to kill us. Let's talk about how we will give ourselves the best chance of surviving.

===================== [Upgrades] =====================

To recap, we should have at least 5xp and probably 6 from the last scenario. This is how we will spend them:

Permanents:

1x Charisma (3xp): Our plan for this scenario revolves around Cat Burglar. However, Leo De Luca's extra action is too good to pass up, so we will purchase a copy of Charisma that allows us to take advantage of both. Having both allies on the board also gives us much needed health and sanity buffers.

In:

2x Cat Burglar (2xp): The single best card in this scenario. A huge part of the threat in this scenario are the hunter enemies that can chase us over multiple locations. Cat Burglar lets us simply walk away from them (or any enemies that spawn on us). In my tests, I have yet to lose a game with Cat Burglar, and have yet to win a game without.

2x Cherished Keepsake (0xp): Speaking of horror soak, the most dangerous part of this scenario for Wendy is horror. Out of our starting 7 sanity, 1 is claimed by mental trauma, and 2 by Abandoned and Alone. This leaves us with only 4 to survive the onslaught of horror dealing treacheries. Having an additional 2 points of sanity can help us survive or keep our allies alive.

2x Think on Your Feet (0xp): Helpful in a pinch. In addition to Elusive and Survival Instinct, Think on Your Feet lets us easily get away from enemies that spawn on us before we are able to play Cat Burglar.

Out:

1x "I'm outta here!": Self explanatory. There is no resign option here.

2x Perception: Unlike the previous scenario, we are not under time pressure to investigate quickly. So we will take out Perception for cards that better help us survive.

2x Manual Dexterity: Between Cat Burglar's buff, Survival Instincts, and Fight or Flights, our is usually high enough to not need Manual Dexterity anymore.

1x Quick Thinking: Similar to Perception, this card is less useful since speed is not of the essence.

Stretch:

We are at the point where we have all the vital pieces for a late game Wendy deck. As this guide assumes we have earned a minimum amount of xp at each scenario, it is likely that a typical run will have a significant amount of xp left over. There are 3 general directions we can go with that xp:

Generic Upgrades:

The first option is to take all the "draw a card" and "cost 1 less" upgrades. While not flashy, these upgrades give us a consistent advantage throughout the following scenarios.

1x Flashlight 1x Lockpicks (1xp): Not exactly a "draw a card" type upgrade, but pretty much a straight upgrade over flashlight. It's worth considering before the rest of the items on this list.

2x Leo De Luca 2x Leo De Luca (2xp)

2x Lucky! 2x Lucky! (4xp)

2x Emergency Cache 2x Emergency Cache (4xp)

Exile Package:

The second option is to take advantage of Survivor's very powerful one-use exile cards, which help us survive or improve the consistency of our deck:

2x Unexpected Courage 2x Stroke of Luck(4xp) -or- 2x A Test of Will (2xp): Stroke of Luck is useful either for passing a high-stake treachery or a must-succeed attack or evade. A Test of Will more directly keeps us alive by cancelling those treacheries in the first place. We almost never let enemies attack us, so Devil's Luck is generally less useful.

2x Think on Your Feet 2x Flare (2xp): Whereas Think on Your Feet is in the deck in the event we do not find our Cat Burglar early in the game, Flare lets us dig through our deck for him. Can also be used to find Leo De Luca or as a weapon in a pinch.

The Key of Ys:

Finally, we have the flashy endgame. Key of Ys is extremely powerful in almost all scenarios it is played, and helps us survive by soaking up to 4 horror here. Its discard ability is additionally useful for Wendy as it can stock her discard with events she can later play with her amulet.

1x Cherished Keepsake 1x Key of Ys (5xp): One copy because it is highly unlikely we have accrued enough xp for the second. If you somehow have enough spare xp, perhaps because you went through some side stories, pick up a second copy.

1x Relic Hunter (3xp): Optionally take this if we have the xp available. While it is nice to have Wendy's Amulet and Key of Ys available at the same time, we often only need one or the other to have a significant enough advantage for winning the game. As well, Wendy's Amulet is naturally suited to be played after Key of Ys leaves play, as the 10 cards discarded by Key of Ys often contains useful events it can take advantage of.

================= [A Phantom of Truth] =================

The mulligan for this scenario is straight forward. We are looking for 3 cards, in order of importance:

Cat Burglar will win the scenario if we play him turn 1.

Leo De Luca generates lots of value, and helps us draw for Cat Burglar.

Lockpicks/Flashlight at a distant third, to help us find the first 2 clues quickly.

Besides those, some cards that are nice to have in the opening hand include:

Lone Wolf: If played early, we will very rarely want for resources later in the game.

Think on Your Feet/Flare if we do not have Cat Burglar in hand. They help us survive while we look for Cat Burglar, or help us look for Cat Burglar by digging through our deck.

Surviving Paris:

If we do not have Cat Burglar, we should play any value over time assets we have in hand like Leo De Luca and Lone Wolf, then try to draw a few cards. If we still do not find Cat Burglar, we should move north towards the Grand Guignol, which allows us to shuffle our (hopefully full) hand into our deck and draw an equal number of cards. This greatly improves our chances of finding Cat Burglar by turn 3.

If we do have Cat Burglar in the opening hand, or find him in the course of a few turns, we should play him as soon as possible. He will save us a lot of actions from dealing with enemies - recall that we have over 1/3 chance of drawing an enemy (or an encounter that can spawn an enemy) on our first mythos phase. Once we have Cat Burglar in play, we can focus on trying to get 2 clues by the end of turn 3 - so we can advance the act with clues to prevent 2 horror and put some distance between us and The Organist.

The easiest way to find 2 clues is in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, which has 2 clues and a measly 1 shroud. The Montparnasse also has 1 clue easily accessible with a Flashlight, as do some versions of Montmartre and Le Marais. If we have Lockpicks instead, we can investigate pretty much any location reliably. Recall that Cat Burglar's +1 lets us investigate at 8 with Lockpicks.

If we manage to find 2 clues, advance the act on the last turn before it advances from doom. This gives us the maximum amount of time before having to deal with The Organist.

If we have Cat Burglar when The Organist spawns, the rest of the scenario should be a breeze. To escape from his attacks, simply disengage from him using Cat Burglar, and move one more location away. He will catch up to us on the enemy phase but not attack, so we can repeat this the next turn. This will also prevent any Swift Byakhees from attacking. If we do not have Cat Burglar at this time, we should be worried. We can use Elusive, Think on Your Feet, and Survival Instinct to stay alive while we look (desperately) for our burglarizing friend.

The next objective here is to collect as much xp as possible. This means clearing all four victory locations. With some clever maneuvering, this should be trivial as long as we have Lockpicks in play. Alternatively, Lucky! or Will to Survive can help us investigate the tougher locations.

While we are running around Paris, it pays to keep in mind that one version of Le Marais stops us from leaving the turn we enter it. Since we are trying to move 2 locations each round to keep ahead of The Organist (and Swift Byakhees), we should take care that we enter Le Marais on the second movement whenever possible. Unless we know we are playing with the other version of Le Marais, of course.

It is possible to find ourselves flush with resources, cards, and actions in the late game with all victory locations cleared. If this is the case, we can get greedy and try to take an additional xp by killing a Screeching Byakhee. This is easiest done with our 1 copy of Backstab, a Will to Survive, and Fight or Flight, then attacking the Screeching Byakhee regularly for 4 damage total. Otherwise, gathering some clues and using the ability on the act will let us finish the scenario faster.

When using clues to put doom on the agenda, always keep 1 clue in reserve when the agenda advances. This is because of the deadly treachery Twin Suns. While we have pretty much accepted failing this check every time it comes up, we can usually fall back to removing 1 doom from the agenda instead of taking the horror. This is not the case on the turn the agenda advances. If the agenda has no doom on it, we are compelled to take the up to 4 horror Twin Suns threaten. If we have a clue, however, we can spend the clue to add 1 doom to the agenda in a window during the Twin Suns check, so that we are not forced to take the horror if we fail.

==================== [The Future] ====================

Assuming we found our Cat Burglar at any point in the game, it should not be unreasonable to walk out of Paris with 4 victory locations cleared. So we will assume we did. As we did not intrude on a secret meeting, we will not get the extra 2 xp (and 1 mental trauma) in this scenario's resolution. Therefore, we will assume that we have 6 xp (4 victory locations + 2 from Charon's Obol) going forward.

In my tests at the time of writing, this deck completed the scenario in 5 out of the last 6 games. Out of the victories, 4 of 5 finished with 4xp, and 1 of 5 finished with 5 xp after killing a Screeching Byakhee. The loss can be attributed to finding Cat Burglar too late.

~ Part 6: The Pallid Mask ~