Jim Recalls His Future Hip Hop Gigs|30k Series|Deck Guide

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Jim Culver - Music from the Underworld 3 3 0 1.0

Valentin1331 · 65204

Jim Recalls his Future featuring Young Rappers, demonstrating a Sixth Sense for emerging talents.

Jim-Culver-Upscaled.png

Credit: Dennis Calero


Introduction

After a little break of 2 weeks, I am back with more decks. As decided by a poll on Reddit on which Jim Culver ended up far above everyone else, it's time to release my take on him.
This deck was inspired by @LordOfRavens, which sparked my long-time wish to make Jim work and challenge the community's opinion. Get on the hype train because this deck plays much stronger than it reads, up to the extent that I would comfortably place him in A-tier for Flex and True Solo!


After the 20k Series and its success, this 30k Series will focus on the investigators that are much harder to solve. Expect some jank, some outside-of-the-box thinking and hopefully some love for the underdogs of this game.

Click here to see all the previous decks. I will keep releasing a new standalone-ready deck concept every week on Friday, so stay tuned and keep pressing the button if you want to see more!


Table of Contents:
  • Overview

  • Main Strategy

  • Don't Test Harder. Test Smarter

  • Leverage Your Deck

  • Other Cards

  • Upgrade Path


Overview:
 
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆
Enemy Management: ★★★★☆
Clue-getting: ★★★★☆
Encounter protection: ★★☆☆☆
Survivability: ★★☆☆☆
Economy: ★★★☆☆
Card Drawing: ★★★★☆

Main Strategy:

Don't Test Harder. Test Smarter:

Pumping your stats is so 20th-century... In the future, people simply make the game easier on themselves.

  • Ritual Candles turn every symbol token into an easier version of themselves. As in the future, no one cares much about the Trumpet anymore, we prefer candles in both hands.

    • With 2 candles out, symbol tokens are now usually from 0 to -2, which won't be an issue anymore.
  • Recall the Future by calling a token that would turn a fail into a pass. Let's say you test 2 above the test value, and there are a -3 and a -5 in the bag. Better call the first, as it will change the test results.

    • By recalling the future, you are increasing your chances to succeed by a selected number, which therefore increases the chances of gaining a card with Crystal Pendulum
  • When drawing a symbol token, Sixth Sense (4) allows us to get a clue from another location, picking the best shroud between the 2 locations. Use whatever shroud is lower to increase your chances of success dramatically.


Leverage your deck:
  • Brand of Cthugha (4) is an incredibly potent card, but its drawback can be pretty strong on Jim, who tests at lower values.

    • Keep Daring Maneuver in your hand as a safety net.

    • Use Recall the Future to call for a token that would cause you to succeed by 0 to prevent any mistake. It is worth it because you don't spend charges in case of failures, so in some cases, you better fail and try again than lose all your remaining actions.

    • By letting you choose among different tokens, Olive McBride also allows you to pick any combination that doesn't lead to succeeding by 0.

    • Altogether, with 2 Recall the Future and Olive McBride, you should be able to use Brand of Cthugha (4) 3 times a turn safely.

  • Sixth Sense (4) is a monster at clue getting. During your first turn, open 2 new locations during set up and start investigating from there.

    • Olive McBride increases your chances of finding a token. You can get quite high in probabilities depending on which campaign and how far in the campaign you are.

      • If you want to do the math, follow this Link, entering respectively: 1. the size of the full chaos bag, 2. number of symbol tokens in the bag, number of chaos tokens revealed by Olive: 3, 4. Number of symbol tokens needed: 1
    • Eldritch Inspiration may seem like a relatively weak card, but it acts like a reactive Deduction in this deck. Use it when pulling a symbol token with Sixth Sense (4) to get additional clues.

  • Deny Existence is a great way to avoid a bad pull on a treachery or avoid getting hurt by your weakness, but now think about its upgrade: Deny Existence (5).

    • This card turns your personal weakness into your actual signature. Use Olive McBride during the pull to get as many / as possible and turn these into healing!

    • As it has the spell trait, the Arcane Initiate will make it likely to find it before you hit your weakness.


Other Cards:
  • One of my biggest hesitations with this deck was between Deep Knowledge and Captivating Discovery for draw.

    • Deep Knowledge is fantastic when you have at least 1 candle out, but if you don't, it will very likely cause you to fail the tests when you pull the tokens. Play it even if you don't have the candles out, as it will get you closer to them, so you'll be more likely to have them in play when you face the tokens.

    • Captivating Discovery is a solid card, but it requires you to have a clue, which you can only do once you have found Sixth Sense (4). Because this is more likely to be an issue, I opted for Deep Knowledge.

  • Take Heart is here for the treachery tests you will inevitably fail to get draw and resources for setup.

  • Uncage the Soul, as always, is excellent for tempo and because there is a decent number of spells in the deck, though they tend to be cheap.

  • Spectral Razor, besides being a fantastic card, is especially important in Jim Culver because he has no other ways to deal with enemies than spells. In other words, without Brand of Cthugha and Spectral Razor, he is naked in front of enemies. Not great for his street cred.

  • Voice of Ra is a more swingy resource engine, some will prefer Emergency Cache, but it fits well here because we can use Olive McBride to improve the yield, or commit it to a test if we have enough resources.

  • Crystal Pendulum will bump your on top of feeding you with cards.

    • As a rule of thumb, it best is to call for success by whatever you are testing (so pulling a 0 modifier) because of the number of 0s in the bag, plus every , plus your . This will be even improved by your Ritual Candles turning certain symbols into 0s and potentially Recall the Future.

    • On the other hand, it is better not to use it on your Olive McBride test as she makes the results more swingy, for the best or the worst.

  • Promise of Power is another big hesitation with Read the Signs. Both have pros and cons, but I prefer Promise of Power to pass treachery tests or scenario tests. Once you pull Sixth Sense (4), Read the Signs becomes more or less useless.

  • Arcane Initiate of course shines in this deck. Best is to play her asap and replace her with Olive McBride once you pulled at least one fighting option and, most importantly, Sixth Sense (4).

  • In the Thick of It brings 2 Brand of Cthugha into the first scenario, avoiding them from being taxed by Down the Rabbit Hole. We choose to take 2 horror.

  • A bit more precision on Eldritch Inspiration:

    • Before we upgrade to Sixth Sense (4), it will not do much: replace the instead with another one, which means being able to choose a location 2 locations away instead of one. This can be useful in very specific cases, but otherwise, it will mostly be a commit before you upgrade your spell.

    • It can also be used on Recall the Future if you named a symbol token.

  • Jim's Trumpet, unfortunately, is useless in this deck and will be a commit for complicated Brand of Cthugha (4) tests.

  • Finally, Observed closes the upgrade path as an option in case you run out of upgrades and want to enjoy the beautiful design of the cards.


Upgrade Path:

Disclaimer: This decklist is published in the version that I tested. The upgrade path is just one possible way you could upgrade while maintaining the best experience and value of the deck. As these decks are made to be universally good, feel free to adapt them to your campaign and change the upgrade order around based on your experience.

Link to the 0xp deck


 Cost  Total
   Down the Rabbit Hole  →  0 XP 0 XP
 
Core Upgrades 0 XP
   In the Thick of It  →  Brand of Cthugha 1 XP 1 XP
   In the Thick of It  →  Brand of Cthugha 1 XP 2 XP
   Sixth Sense    Sixth Sense •••• 3 XP 5 XP
   Sixth Sense    Sixth Sense •••• 3 XP 8 XP
   Read the Signs  →  Recall the Future •• 3 XP 11 XP
   Read the Signs  →  Recall the Future •• 3 XP 14 XP
   Brand of Cthugha    Brand of Cthugha •••• 2 XP 16 XP
   Brand of Cthugha    Brand of Cthugha •••• 2 XP 18 XP
 
Luxury Upgrades 18 XP
   Arcane Initiate    Arcane Initiate ••• 2 XP 20 XP
   Arcane Initiate    Arcane Initiate ••• 2 XP 22 XP
    →  Charisma ••• 4 XP 26 XP
   Deny Existence    Deny Existence ••••• 4 XP 30 XP
    →  Relic Hunter ••• 4 XP 34 XP
   Uncage the Soul    Uncage the Soul ••• 2 XP 36 XP
   Uncage the Soul    Uncage the Soul ••• 2 XP 38 XP
    →  Observed •••• 5 XP 43 XP

(View at arkham-starter.com)


Link to the full xp deck



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

11 comments

May 13, 2023 mattastrophic · 3215

I like this! Test smarter, not harder. It really does showcase how to leverage Jim's ability.

May 13, 2023 danisnotonfire · 1

This looks really fun and intuitive, thank for your continuing the series!

What are your thoughts on Jim + Nkosi Mabati to make all symbols the skull? Always seemed a perfect fit but never felt worth the xp/resources and too inconsistent for me.

May 13, 2023 mattastrophic · 3215

Personally, I think that the Nkosi thing is kind of a trap, because of how expensive he is, and the fact that he doesn't give a stat boost.

May 13, 2023 mattastrophic · 3215

This is where Recall the Future really shines IMO, because it's slotless.

May 15, 2023 LegallyNickFury · 236

Premonition seems like it could be strong in this deck?

May 16, 2023 Valentin1331 · 65204

Thanks @quyetx for the suggestion :)

It would certainly be strong. Unfortunately, deck space was a real issue in this deck, and an effect that could be strong but also has a high chance of revealing a token for which you do not need anything to pass. Premonition is stronger when associated with cards like Prescient or with Skill cards.

Since we're discussing it, Dark Prophecy was in the deck list until really late because here it can help tremendously, triggering Sixth Sense (4). But again, due to deck space requirements, it was the card bringing the smallest added value and was cut out.

@danisnotonfire, I agree with @mattastrophic, Nkosi Mabati is good, but the Ritual Candles already do enough to negate the Symbol tokens, so using XP, more resources and a highly competitive slot for this seemed much weaker.
After having played around Nkosi Mabati quite a bit, my conclusion is that he is more useful in decks that are looking for or tokens, and especially the since they do not have access to Olive McBride.

May 24, 2023 Gnorung · 1

My first ever self-made deck in this game was a token bag manipulation deck. Needless to say, taking every card that refers to manipulating chaos symbols or depends on drawing certain ones does not make for a good deck. I kind of gave up on the archetype afterwards because it felt like there were a lot of traps and I didn't know how to assess most cards' worth in a deck. Still kept secretly loving it though since I already like keeping track of the bag. I'm really looking forward to trying this and seeing the potential of bag manip decks.

I imagine it wasn't as easy to find a theme for this one, but I appreciate the attempt. Also, I must say that is a suspiciously red fit in the artwork, but drippy none the less

May 24, 2023 sedlak87 · 1

your lvl 0 deck does not contain Deep Knowledge

May 25, 2023 Valentin1331 · 65204

@sedlak87 Good catch, as explained in the guide, I strongly hesitated between Deep Knowledge and Captivating Discovery up until the last minute and forgot to make the change in the 0xp deck. It's corrected!

@Gnorung I hope you'll like it! It's a bit like my Daisy Deck focused on the clue-dropping mechanic. It's not about adding all the clue-dropping cards in one deck but curating the most adapted to what you are trying to achieve :)

And about the artwork, most importantly, why tf is he feeding pigeons when the world is dying behind?

Mar 03, 2024 difra · 1

hi, what would you sub in if i don't have fream eaters and the scarlet keys?so no spectral razor read the signs and upgraded uncage the soul.

would i be better of running a true magik build? (even tho no twila...)

Mar 04, 2024 Valentin1331 · 65204

@difra I would suggest to Proxy it, because even a pair of Shrivellings may struggle because it will require you to boost your to work reliably...
And if you don't feel comfortable doing so, then indeed Shrivelling is most likely your best bet.

If you have the Feast of Hemlock Vale already, you can add the upgraded Spectral Razor (2) before you upgrade your Brand of Cthugha to the level 4, which will fit exceptionally well in this deck, as well as Olive McBride (2)!