I have a theory as for what deck building strategies may be in store. The Core box gave us what I like to call The Core Secondary. Each investigator has his/her primary class matching his/her individual color. Roland, being a guardian (blue), can take blue cards and Daisy , being a seeker (yellow), can take yellow cards. These are the primary roles. Neutrals aside, each investigator can take cards matching his/her class from level zero to five. They also have an off color off class that they can build from using cards level zero to two.

Dunwich Legacy gave us the Dunwich Splash. A majority of the decks built were Neutral and the primary class cards levels zero to five, and can splash, or in other words include, up to five level zero out of class cards.

Path to Carcosa is difficult to pin down. William and Minh utilizes the Core Secondary builds, while Mark and Akachi are trait focused (Mark using tactics traits from all classes and Akachi using occult traits and cards using charges in the same fashion). Lola has a deck size and options unique to herself, and the same to be said of Sefina. If there is a theme to Carcosa investigators, I would say it is experimentations.

This brings me to the future cycle (next or one afterwards). Based solely off of Norman Withers Deckbuilding Options, the investigators in his deluxe expansion box could utilize a class shift. Norman starts off as a seeker because he can take level zero seeker cards, but he cannot take higher level seekers. Instead he may use his experience to buy mystic card from levels one to five instead. Further more, I don't think that Marie will be in the same cycle as Norman. If my theory is correct, the Mystic Investigator would be Diana Stanley with a shift towards survivor. I do think that Marie's cycle is next, so I suspect that if the shift theory is correct, Norman's cycle would be the fourth cycle.

But hey that's just a theory. An ARKHAM theory. Thanks for reading.

Nice theory, @Turtlefan2082, I like it. My own thinking is that Carcosa showed us that all the investigators in a certain box don't need to follow a deckbuilding pattern, as you outlined. In particular, if certain characters have a strong style (Mark as pure Guardian with tactics splash, for instance, or how Norman develops as an investigator), then Matt will go with that over trying to fit them into a framework. From conversations around Norman, it's always been his backstory that he moves from believing in conventional science to trusting the mystical/esoteric things he discovers, so the move from seeker to mystic makes sense. But I don't think (and of course, just my own impression) that they'd force such a scheme onto 4 more investigators just for consistency within a box - after all, Carcosa has three almost core set style investigators (William, Minh, Sefina - ignoring her deck size) and three who don't fit anywhere else. Where does that leave us? Well, it's open season for what we see next! I like your theory though!

I do expect to see a few more occult cards though. So I imagine the cycle will be something with a strong cultist element. Unless we have a fair few occult cards left to come in Carcosa.

1 hour ago, zooeyglass said:

But I don't think (and of course, just my own impression) that they'd force such a scheme onto 4 more investigators just for consistency within a box - after all, Carcosa has three almost core set style investigators (William, Minh, Sefina - ignoring her deck size) and three who don't fit anywhere else. Where does that leave us? Well, it's open season for what we see next! I like your theory though!

Even of those, Sefina has a larger deck size AND three copies of her signature card AND a unique way of using events. Basically four of the six are completely unique.

The only things I think are safe to assume about a new campaign anymore are: there will be some investigators, there will be some player cards, and there will be some scenarios. I wouldn't even put money on the number of scenarios and mythos packs at this point.

Concur with the above. Core and Dunwich were pretty consistent in their class structures, but Carcosa has three distinct archetypes across six characters. I think we're past the point where we can expect everything in a box to follow the same pattern.

If nothing else, we have both Normal and Marie as preview investigators. It seems likely we'll see them in the next campaign, and they're very different.

19 hours ago, Soakman said:

I do expect to see a few more occult cards though. So I imagine the cycle will be something with a strong cultist element. Unless we have a fair few occult cards left to come in Carcosa.

I would imagine some of those occult cards coming in the Seeker class.

21 hours ago, CSerpent said:

Even of those, Sefina has a larger deck size AND three copies of her signature card AND a unique way of using events. Basically four of the six are completely unique.

The only things I think are safe to assume about a new campaign anymore are: there will be some investigators, there will be some player cards, and there will be some scenarios. I wouldn't even put money on the number of scenarios and mythos packs at this point.

This was sort of my point - poorly expressed though it was - to expect the unexpected! So we are in some agreement!

The way I saw it, Core Set introduces us to the Core Secondary archetype to make things simple to learn and a clear guideline of what to expect.

Dunwich immediately following shows us that they are also going to mix things up and try new things. But they still keep the archetypes the same in the box so as to not overwhelm us.

Now Carcosa mixes and matches. Showing us they don' need to match in a box, as well as more unique archetypes. They have eased us into having flexible types of investigators.

I hope they introduce another neutral investigator. Someone stable, with level limited access to every class at once.

13 hours ago, tsuruki said:

I hope they introduce another neutral investigator. Someone stable, with level limited access to every class at once.

The only person I can think of that might fit this kind of build thematically is Trish Scarsboro the spy.

Honestly, even unrestricted level 0 access would be extremely powerful. I doubt we'll ever see it.

1 hour ago, BD Flory said:

Honestly, even unrestricted level 0 access would be extremely powerful. I doubt we'll ever see it.

Yeah what makes Lola not broken is the only role at a time thing.

If she was able to play all the cards at the drop of the hat, she would be broken. There would need to be some other limiter in there.

5 hours ago, Soakman said:

The only person I can think of that might fit this kind of build thematically is Trish Scarsboro the spy.

Monterey Jack would be perfect. Like Indiana Jones he is part Seeker (professor), Mystic (esoteric knowledge), Guardian (uses guns and good in a fight) and Rogue (doesn't do things by the book).

Trish seems like a straight up seeker/rogue to me.

14 minutes ago, Meretrix said:

Monterey Jack would be perfect. Like Indiana Jones he is part Seeker (professor), Mystic (esoteric knowledge), Guardian (uses guns and good in a fight) and Rogue (doesn't do things by the book).

Trish seems like a straight up seeker/rogue to me.

Fair, but I think spies would have to infiltrate a variety of groups and therefore require a broad set of skills. Especially if the goals and terms of the mission are not clearly defined.

43 minutes ago, Meretrix said:

Monterey Jack would be perfect. Like Indiana Jones he is part Seeker (professor), Mystic (esoteric knowledge), Guardian (uses guns and good in a fight) and Rogue (doesn't do things by the book).

Trish seems like a straight up seeker/rogue to me.

Using guns isn't an exclusive Guardian thing. I think he will likely be Rogue with Seeker elements. Maybe Mystic.

That's fine. I don't see him as as strictly a guardian. In Eldritch Horror, Elder Sign, Mansions of Madness and Arkham Horror, combat is always his primary attribute. I don't think it's a stretch for him to dabble in the guardian class.

I think the Rogues could use a combat focused investigator. Someone who could use the Rogue weapons effectively.

16 minutes ago, Radix2309 said:

I think the Rogues could use a combat focused investigator. Someone who could use the Rogue weapons effectively.

Michael McGlen will assuredly fill this roll.

51 minutes ago, Meretrix said:

Michael McGlen will assuredly fill this roll.

I could see him as a Rogue (0-5) that can use weapons 0-? of any class.

3 hours ago, Jobu said:

I could see him as a Rogue (0-5) that can use weapons 0-? of any class.

He seems more like a guardian with rogue access to me, possibly through illicit.

What about a jack of all trades guy with card access 5 cards max from each class?

5 max from each class is similar to Lola, but without restrictions it would be super powerful.

A neutral investigator needs constraints in deckbuilding, And/or what they can play.

Not sure if I really want to see more neutral investigators after Lola. I love the concept but really don't like building decks for her or how she played when I tried her out. Maybe my opinion will change after more practice with her but my initial impression puts her in dead last for investigators I want to play.

I'm more curious as to what the setting will be for the next cycle will be. My guess is something with Innsmouth but that was also my guess for what the current cycle was going to be.

5 hours ago, TechnoGolem said:

Not sure if I really want to see more neutral investigators after Lola. I love the concept but really don't like building decks for her or how she played when I tried her out. Maybe my opinion will change after more practice with her but my initial impression puts her in dead last for investigators I want to play.

I'm more curious as to what the setting will be for the next cycle will be. My guess is something with Innsmouth but that was also my guess for what the current cycle was going to be.

If you look at the Ancient Ones represented by encounter sets in the Core Set, it's very likely we know which ones will be the focus of the next two cycles.

The Encounter Sets include Agents of (1)Hastur:The Path To Carcosa, (2)Yog-Sothoth:The Dunwich Legacy, (3)Shub-Niggurath:Unknown cycle, and (4)Cthulhu:Unknown cycle

So the next two campaigns will likely be centered around good old Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath

If its is Cthulhu/Rlyeh related i really hope for an adaptation simillar to Elder Sign's Omens of the deep Pacific Ocean maybe a scenario on a ship etc. But am really looking forward for the Alaskan expedition/Ithaqua & the Pharaoh/Egypt one.