There are many cards that are considered must haves for some classes (e.g. higher education and Dr. Milan Christopher for seeker, machete for guardian and so forth; you catch my drift).

So here is what i want to know:

Have you built any decks that worked without must haves and still worked great? And which cards were you using as substitutes?

I have built a Pater Mateo deck with neither Rite of Seeking nor Ward of Protection. Both cards are often described as a given in mystic decks. I included seal of the elder sign as a replacement for Ward of Protection and Scrying lvl 3 as a replacement for Rite of seeking. Rex renounces higher education because magnifying glasses are enough, Ashcan Pete hasn't bought any of his 5 "wild" cards (he is our most reliable fighter with his ornate bow) and Roland leans more toward finding clues and horror mitigation.

Walking the path to carcosa with 2-3 fellow investigators (Ashcan Pete, Rex Murphy, Roland Banks) has been very tense some games but our journey this far has been in the middle of the difficulty scale (not getting all victory points, but always resolving a good resolution) playing normal difficulty.

We are very happy with how this campaign is playing so far and I enjoy very much that we're moving outside the "this has to be in your deck!!!11"-boundaries.

My must haves are not other peoples must haves.

Viscous Blow, Deduction and Magnifying Glass are must haves.

Machete and Doc Chris are situational based on the deck.

For a mystic, Rite of Seeking can easily be replaced with a decent sleeve of investigate boosters if your intellect is 3. In many ways, its more consistent.

I do consider Ward a must have, so there is that.

Guardian without machete is actually a lot of fun. It's worse, of course, especially in 1-2 player, because you have to put a lot more of your deck and resources into keeping yourself able to do 2-damage attacks, but it's a lot of fun. Played through Carcosa alongside Zoey using .45 Auto (2) as her main weapon, with Extra Ammunition and Venturer to keep stocked up, and Reliable for accuracy.

I happily go without Milan and Higher Ed. for seekers, as it's a lot more fun - seekers are already an exceptionally strong class without bringing out such absurd cards. Makes Rex and Guiding Stones a lot less potent, but we never play with Rex anyway.

I can't say I'd ever go without Rite of Seeking. 2 slots in a deck to be able to investigate efficiently is not much of an ask and it doesn't feel so strong that we'd go without it to make the game more fun, but then I mostly play Akachi for Mystic.

For certain investigators, though, some cards are "must-haves" in the truest sense - not overly strong cards in their class, but cornerstones of how they work. Mark and Second Wind/Emergency Aid. Mystics and Shrivelling. Agnes and Forbidden Knowlege. Carolyn and Peter Sylvestre/St Hubert's Key.

Cards that are must have are good cards for your deck. Cards are not labelled "must have", people give them this label.

Saying you want a deck that works great without "must have" cards, either it's because you have heard of them being "must have", but in other configuration, or your just giving yourself an handicap.

We have a Father Mateo in our group, he prefer Song of the dead instead of Shrivelling because he plays dark prophecy and olive mc bride. Makes sense in this context.

"Must have" cards are just cards that : 1- works well in combo with another, so if you deckbuild around said combo, it is a "must have"

2- there is currently no other cards in the pool that have this much power in what it does, and cover a large part of the gameplay/are reliable (Quick thinking + double or nothing should be "must have" in every rogue deck... if only you could have a way to easily get both of them together and be sure to be successful)

3 hours ago, Allonym said:

I can't say I'd ever go without Rite of Seeking. 2 slots in a deck to be able to investigate efficiently is not much of an ask and it doesn't feel so strong that we'd go without it to make the game more fun, but then I mostly play Akachi for Mystic.

I did a perfectly fine Agnes deck without Rite of Seeking at Arkham Nights. I was combat-focused, so the Rites were just too expensive for what was ultimately a distraction from my core focus. Plus, occasionally getting two Shrivelings out at once is an excellent confidence-booster.

I'd definitely run it again after TFA is complete and we've got that new attack spell asset.

What are some of the "must haves"? Im in the process of buying into the game and would love to know what I need to double up on (besides 2 to 4 cores).

4 hours ago, blitzmonkey said:

What are some of the "must haves"? Im in the process of buying into the game and would love to know what I need to double up on (besides 2 to 4 cores).

There come to my mind:

- Delve too Deep

- Dr. Milan Christopher

- Higher Education

- Shrivelling

- Machete

- Beat Cop (Lvl 0 and Lvl 2)

- Rite of seeking (kind of)

- Ward of Protection

- Key of Ys (which is controversial, but i houseruled it so that horror always has to be placed on Key of Ys)

- Lucky!

and now i am leaning myself a bit out of the window

- Charisma

- Key of Ys

- Streetwise

- Viscious blow

- Deduction

Feel free to agree or disagree with me. But that's the general tenor i see on the internet.

Don't spoil yourself too much by looking up decks on the internet. For me it was and still is a huge part of the fun creating my own decks and figuring out how they work or why they didn't work. The best part is when supposedly bard cards turn out to be a great addition for your deck

Must have's kinda flux depending on player preferences. Higher education is'nt a must-have for me unless i'm Rex, other characters generally do fine with their base of 5.

To me the must haves are (Brackets is "in-class mostly", "Ive got a plan" is a terrible Roland card for example!):

Guardian: Vicious blow. -A weapon-. (Beat cop). The former just does so much stuff, save a shot from a major weapon and kill a minor enemy, bridge the gap and kill a bigger enemy with your weapon. Then there's weapons in general, Machete was top-dog but lately guns have been gaining ground. The last Protects and Serves, health and horror tanking and extra damage in a pinch, also the static +1 is invaluable.

Seeker: Shortcut. (Dr Milan). (I've got a plan). (Archaic Glyphs). Deduction. Shortcut is a free extra action, often does useful double duty since you can move around ignoring enemies. Milan makes a pile of cash (I.e, enables Higher education and Hyperawareness). The plan murders a choice opponent, valuable when you gotta pitch in damage on a boss or kill off a big foe you just drew that is'nt easily dispatched by a buddy. Glyphs is superb, the advanced version speeds up your clues or keeps you safe, both of which are invaluable mechanics. Deduction is a free clue, basically a free action, speed is good and important

Rogue: Lone Wolf. Lockpicks. Lone is perhaps the most powerful econ in the game. Lockpicks is bad if you want Typewriter but outright amazing if you dont.

Mystic: Shrivelling/Mists of R'lyeh. (Rite of seeking). Ward of protection. Mystics are Willpower central so the assets that use Willpower for non-willpower tasks are crucial, which is why every mystic deck has Shrivelling and Rite of seeking. Ward of protection keeps you safe and an net your entire team extra rounds if you can prevent doom.

Survivor: Look what I found. Lucky. Getting 2 clues after failing to investigate is a terrific way to recoup the cost of a failed action. Lucky is harder to explain, the strength of Lucky is the possibility that you dont actually need to use it, you can risk actions at a decent success chance and save the Lucky to beat the hard-to-reach numbers when you finally draw one, it's also never-ever a wasted card.

In my experience the best cards are the ones that help you build an action advantage, this means securely beating tests (negating lost actions on failed tests), doubling up on successes with mechanics that cause extra damage, clues, free movement, so on. Automatic successes are also good, especially on high difficulty. Once you've got action multipliers (mechanics that grab clues quickly and/or deal damage quickly) you need to shore up your defenses, health/sanity tanks, healing and/or cards that let you beat defensive tests (Chief among which is Guts. Finally there's burst success, if you can kill a big foe (Big = 4 health) in one hit that's a hugely useful mechanic, also being able to grab clues in multiples is very useful, if you can mop up a 4-6 clue location before something big spawns on top of you that's very useful.

The fun thing about Arkham Deckbuilding is that the best cards are sometimes not obvious and the obvious cards aren't always the best option at the time. I for example said that action advantage is good, which might make you think of Leo De luca, but Leo just gives you extra actions, not better actions, Leo really shines if you can build a skill-test advantage where you're beating tests securely even after spending a ton of cash on a huge ally, but if you can't then Leo's bonus actions just become failed actions. Find a balance between speed and success rate!

With such an excellent designed LCG as AH... there are thousands of possible must have combos possible really.

And with each new cycle that number will only go up...

Its less about using netdecks for me. Its more about having an adequate card pool for my buddies. The two friends (and my gf) who will be playing are huuuuuuuge deck builder fans and I want to make sure we have enough.

Thanks for the list!

The only "must-have" I put in all my decks is Emergency Cache (x2). Very rarely there is an exception to the rule for a very specific deck.

But that is really the only "must have" for me.