Veteran Dreamer

Introduction:

This deck excels at solo or co-op play, in any difficulty. On expert the testless nature of Luke's events allows him to have very little change in the pace at which he gathers clues. (On Expert I highly suggest Quantum Flux, to help recover from a string of bad luck Chaos tokens draws). Early game can be rough for combat with bad chaos draws, but Spectral Razor should mitigate this with high test high damage.

Note on Vantage Point: If a shroud value is zero only an token will make us fail the test, as stats cannot be reduced below zero.

Card choice explanation:

1) Hawk-Eye Folding Camera/Holy Rosary/David Renfield - Are all present to provide a bonus to our , with a bit of extra something for each.

2) Shrivelling/Spectral Razor or Sword Cane - Allow us to fight with a high level of lethality

5) Delve Too Deep/Arcane Research - Provide a ton of bonus experience although not mandatory as we don’t rely on big upgrades to our spells/items.

6) Deny Existence/Ward of Protection - Encounter deck mitigation.

6) Drawn to the Flame/Working a Hunch/Vantage Point/Read the Signs - Testless or virtually testless clues anywhere on the map.

8) Seeking Answers - Our only real investigation test, use this when in our dream world to test against a 1 shroud with 4 (5 with enraptured for another full turn of invincibility and omnipotent powers). On Expert this benefits from Premonition.

9) Enraptured - A Recharge light, that also helps us gather clues the old fashioned way on standard difficulty, and makes read the signs nearly impossible to fail with our full set up on expert.

Important options:

1) David Renfield can be swapped out for Arcane Initiate, should you feel you'd rather the draw/tutor it provides over the resource/ David offers.

2) Delve Too Deep and Arcane Research are advanced cards, and should be taken once you feel comfortable with how Arkham horror works. Replace with Quantum Flux before then.

3) Premonition is in our deck for two big reasons. On expert it ensures we don't waste Seeking Answers on a bad draw. It also ensures we don’t waste Recharge, a broken card for Luke. You can replace this with any other card if you're unafraid to gamble.

4) Spectral Razor is there to allow us to engage Aloof enemies, help other investigators wherever they are, or slam a 3-hp monster. Sword Cane is better for consistent damage/evade.

5) Shrivelling can be substituted for Azure Flame, to reduce chances of kickback, though sanity is more manageable for Luke than physical damage.

6) Seeking Answers can be swapped out for Rite of Seeking if we want more reliable clue gathering power in co-op.

Upgrades: I don’t want to ruin all the fun of the game so I will only list 3 upgrades I would say are critical to Luke’s deck. In order of importance.

1. Charisma - Allies for Luke are powerful, from the two listed above to Summoned Hound, Dayana Esperence, Twila Katherine Price, Alyssa Graham, or Olive McBride. The more friends you can bring into your dream the better. Swap in For Delve Too Deep and Working a Hunch.

2. Recharge - I’ve already mentioned it but this card is insane with Luke. Dream box is overpowered and Recharge actually breaks the game in a lot of scenarios if you get it in a decent timing. Swap in for Enraptured

3. Shrivelling - This is pretty standard and helps you immensely when dealing with enemies, you can’t dodge with Gate Box. Straight upgrade.

Optional inserts: If you're looking for some other fun cards to play here are some interesting ones.

1) Shortcut - free movement to anywhere on the map instantly.

2) Barricade - can be set up using your ability and will not collapse until someone enters and exits the location. It's a wall.

3) Sixth Sense - This combined with Olive McBride, Dark Prophecy, Ritual Candles and Scrying Mirror mean you can abuse your dream world even harder, can lead to wasted turns though.

4) Scrying - Either abuse the encounter deck so we can *dodge enemies, or abuse our pointless reality to dodge/move during a set-up turn.

5) Eldritch Sophist, lets you steal charges from your teammates, they will thank you later when you appear from nowhere to slap a monster for them.

How to play:

By abusing the fact that Gate Box starts in play, this deck focuses on allowing us (with good draws) to spend a large number of our turns safe from the horror bit of Arkham Horror. Expert difficulty hammers us with high number negative tokens, so getting most of our clues done via testless or near testless is a big perk. In order to best utilize this build the first turn or two should be focused on exploring, Luke’s biggest struggle is movement compression prior to locations being revealed.

Opening Hand:

As we don't have to worry about set-up right on the first turn or two as you can safely set up in your dream world, if you miss your key cards; Ally, Shrivelling, a clue gathering ability and Hawk-Eye, you can still get them out safely whenever they show up. It is also important to remember that Luke’s ability benefits from being in the Dream world, but doesn’t require it. Try to avoid playing turns in the Dream world where you can, but once we have Recharge in our deck go wild as we’ll have tons of turns in our safe space.

Deck Weakness:

Card draw/Tutor is the greatest weakness of this deck. It was hard to fit in these effects without sacrificing clue gathering. Arcane Initiate helps with this a ton, but leaves us economically struggling. To fix this Emergency Cache can help in place of Seeking Answers or Deny Existence

* Important Note **

Gate Box should (when possible) be played just before drawing from the encounter deck. This is because you are allowed to stay in Dream-Gate from before the encounter draw to the end of the investigator phase of the next turn. This is how we dodge enemy spawns with Gate box