The Marie Lambeau Card Mill

Card Milling

This deck, apart from taking advantage of Marie's special characteristics, is a card mill deck. Some of these cards may be applied to other characters who can draw level 0 cards from several professions. Marie's extra action for activating the elements of the card mill only make it that much more powerful. Let's look at the primary cards that power the mill.

• Scroll of Prophecies - A must-have for card cycling according to many. You can consistently cycle through 3 cards at a time. Your hand will fill up eventually and some cards will go to waste.
• Scrounge for Supplies - A true starving actor, Marie will dig through the garbage for those discarded cards, so no worries about discarding some.
• Occult Lexicon - For a cost of 2, you get three 0 cost Spells that draw 2 cards each-- perfect for Marie's fourth action. If you find that your deck is winning too much at giving you the right cards, the extreme flexibility of the Blood-rite spell allows you to discard those cards to either gain resources or deal damage.
• Scrying - Apart from its power in ordering the encounter deck, Scrying will potentially let you get to some of the above cards when you need them.

Doom Management

Marie Lambeau requires doom management in order to use her ability, as well as deal with her Weakness, Baron Samedi. This deck aims to both provide that doom management as well as take advantage of Marie's lust for existential doom.

• Mystifying Song - It comes with Marie for just this purpose. Though for 3 resources, use only when really needed. Her resources are better spent on advancing the act rather than delaying the agenda.
• David Renfield - With one doom on him, Marie gets her power as well as an additional Willpower from David. Plus, you get a free resource to boot!
• Moonlight Ritual - The most direct way to get rid of that pesky Doom for no cost. Scrounging for Supplies can really shine here.
• Calling in Favors - The cherry on top, with this card you can ditch David or trade him for a Doom-less David! A solid redundancy for removing Doom sans Moonlight Ritual.

Value Cards

Almost half of this deck exists to either cycle cards or Doom. Those cards exist so Marie Lambeau can find the cards she need to advance the game effectively. Mystics are flexible enough to adapt to most situations. With these cars, Marie can either take lead on investigation or fight her team out of a corner.

Fight

• Shrivelling - This old favorite deals extra damage using Willpower. It's her primary method of attack. There's not much else in the deck apart from the Blood-rite spells in Occult Lexicon.

Investigate

• Rite of Seeking - At a cost of 4, this spell isn't always viable. If you need a lot of clues in not a lot of time, those 4 resources often are worth it.
• Deduction - If either clues aren't your main objective or your main responsibility (or if you're short on resources), this 0 cost card will net you 2 clues. Given that Marie's Intelligence is pretty solid on its own, she shouldn't have much trouble investigating with shrouds up to 3 with the extra Intelligence from this card. And don't forget to Scrounge!

General

• Uncage the Soul - This resource-conscious card will allow you to get Spells out faster.
• Holy Rosary - Situational. A decent 2-cost Asset, wear it for some extra protection and power, if you need it.
• Hallowed Mirror - The three Soothing Melody Spells this adds to your deck will prolong your life and the life of your teammates, very effectively.
• Emergency Cache - Resources good. It's probably a bad use of Scrounging to pull these our of discard, but there's a situation for everything.
• Deny Existence -

Experience

Experience is gold, but you need to suffer a little now for great benefit later. We want Marie Lambeau to upgrade her Spells as quickly as possible after each scenario.

• Arcane Research - Start the game with two mental trauma (ouch!), but upgrade a Spell after each scenario for two less experience.
• Delve Too Deep - For when you're feeling too healthy during a scenario, have an extra encounter for an extra experience for this scenario. Don't forget to Scry!

Weaknesses

• If you don't drum up a Scroll Prophecies in your opening hand, you'll either need to find one or suffer a more static deck. You may not draw cards necessary for doom management. An opening hand Occult Lexicon can help with this.
• The deck lacks many skill test buff cards, let alone powerful ones.

On Resources

• The cost graph is intentional (Playing the deck well might cost you 18-30 resources per scenario). Besides being conscious of the inherent resource constraints in a typical game, including many 0-cost cards gives Scrounging for Supplies more flexibility that doesn't further exhaust your resource pool.
• The synergy of Calling in Favors or Moonlight Ritual and David Renfield can be used to pump for additional resources. Remember that the Doom check doesn't occur until the Mythos phase.
• Another reason I like Deny Existence is that it's upgraded version has the potential for adding to your resource pool. It might be risky to use it for this purpose, since losing resources isn't the worst effect an Encounter can deliver, but it's a consideration nonetheless.