Luke Performs True Magic(k) | Deck Guide

Do you want to see true magic? -Dexter Drake

Credit: Fantasy Flight Games

This deck is a True Magick centered deck that plays multiple roles:

• Investigation (6 clues per turn)
• Fight (8 damages per turn)
• Enemy control (2 chances of evade per turn)
• Heal (4 damages or horrors per turn, infinite)

Unlike classes like seeker or guardian that focuses on one exact thing, mystic naturally has lots of high efficiency and powerful spell cards for almost everything. What blocks mystic are: 1) card drawing 2) resources 3) action points 4) arcane slots. True Magick helps a lot to overcome the shortage of resources and arcane slots - you can activate spell assets without actually playing it. No need to pay the cost & occupy arcane slots. Meanwhile, thanks to Luke's second class, seeker cards bring powerful abilities to gain more resources, provide additional move actions and strengthen the card searching.

Since I cannot get extra actions, I utilize each action in maximized efficiency.

19 experience is required to purchase all core and essential cards. With Arcane Studies and Delve Too Deep, this deck has sufficient experiences and is expected to be upgraded to the full exp version after finishing Scenario #6.

I recommend you play this deck in multiplayer games, because this deck has excellent adaptability to fix the team's weak points (as well as powerful Delve Too Deep).

Team position: support & jungle

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Spell Toolkit

• Card Drawing & Economy

• Encounter Protection

• Other Highlighting Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Make Your Own Deck!

Replacing an Opening Hand

• keep Scroll of Secrets, Arcane Initiate, Backpack, Twila Katherine Price and True Magick/Research Librarian, and replace others.

Stage 1: finding core cards

• Search for True Magick by Research Librarian and Backpack.
• Search for essential spell cards by Arcane Initiate and Word of Command.
• Search for Twila Katherine Price by Calling in Favors.
• Search for boosters (Holy Rosary and The Raven Quill) by Backpack.

(Most likely you will find all of them within 5 rounds).

Stage 2: do the right things

• Gather clues with Clairvoyance (10).
• Fight with Shrivelling (10) and Enchanted Bow (8).
• Evade with Ineffable Truth (9).
• Heal you and your teammates with Clarity of Mind and Healing Words.

After the card searching, you will equip with True Magick with attached The Raven Quill, Twila Katherine Price, Holy Rosary and optionally Pathfinder. You will be able to activate any spell assets from your hand with 8-10 (+2 by The Raven Quill, +1 by Holy Rosary, +1~+3 from upgraded spell cards).

You will have 2~3 actions each turn to trigger True Magick's ability with help of Twila Katherine Price without any conditions. For example:

• Shrivelling + Shrivelling + Enchanted Bow to deal 8 damages.
• Ineffable Truth + Shrivelling to evade an enemy and deal 4 damages.
• Clairvoyance + Clairvoyance to find 6 clues.
• ...

Use Luke's Gate Box to move anywhere that needs you. If Pathfinder is in play, you will be able to show up anywhere with 0 action cost.

You may play Healing Words or Clarity of Mind, or even other spell assets (except Enchanted Bow) into your play area if too many cards in hand, or you are threatened to randomly discard cards from your hand.

You may build your own spell toolkit in terms of the style of the compaign, your teammates' strong/weak points, and your preference. I recommend you add at least one enemy-handling spell and one clue-gathering spell.

Fight:

• Enchanted Bow can be activated without consuming charges and deals 2 damages.
• Shrivelling has the side effect of taking horrors.
• Azure Flame has the side effect of taking damages.
• Armageddon has no negative side effects.
• Song of the Dead in most cases deals only 1 damage.
• Wither can be activated without consuming charges.

It is painful for me to make selections among them, because Luke has only 5 health and 5 sanity (-2 by 2xArcane Studies, -2 by Detached from Reality) so Shrivelling and Azure Flame is dangerous. Wither in most cases contributes only 1 damage per action. Armageddon requires combo and is experience-consuming because it can trigger Arcane Studies only once. Finally I chose Shrivelling because I can get exceeding sanity from assets like Holy Rosary and sanity healing from Clarity of Mind.

Enchanted Bow is always my choice because it does not consume charges on True Magick, and no need to occupy any slots as it takes effect from your hand. The extra effect to target an enemy at a connecting location can make you even more efficient (you can kill enemies in the Dream-gate). It quite fits Luke's style.

Investigation:

• Rite of Seeking is super efficient but makes it harder to plan your turn - you may only want to activate it during the last action (imagine it is your first action and you draw a token).
• Clairvoyance has side effect of taking horrors.
• Eye of Chaos has no negative side effects.
• Sixth Sense can be activated without consuming charges.

I finally chose Clairvoyance because the possibility to trigger the negative side effect is smaller on higher difficulty levels, and it is super efficient.

Healing:

• Clarity of Mind heals horror.
• Healing Words heals damage.

Unlike other mystic decks, healing spells in this deck is much more powerful.

• Infinite healings (vs. First Aid)
• not occupying arcane slots

Clarity of Mind is necessary because Luke takes extra horrors from Shrivelling and Detached from Reality. They also have combo with Soul Sanctification to help with critical skill tests (see Encounter Protection section below).

Enemy Control/Evading:

• Mists of R'lyeh gives you additional free move.
• Shroud of Shadows has no negative side effects but requires combo.
• Ineffable Truth is efficient with extra damages especially when you are evading bosses.

Evading spell is optional. It is not needed if one of your teammates are good at evading. I brought one because all my teammates are 1 and 2.

Sometimes it is interesting if you bring Knowledge is Power. For example, evade an enemy that engages with your friend at a connecting location. It requires 3 actions (move, engage and evade) but you can do it with 0 action cost: 1) play Knowledge is Power as if you are at a connecting location where your teammate is engaged with a tough enemy and 2) evade that enemy as if you are engaged with that enemy. It is part of Luke's magic.

Total resources you need: 21

• 1 from Scroll of Secrets
• 1 from Arcane Initiate
• 2 from Holy Rosary
• 2 from one copy of Word of Command
• 3 from Twila Katherine Price
• 3 from Pathfinder
• 3 from The Raven Quill
• 4 from True Magick
• 1~2 from one of Backpack or Research Librarian.

Total resources you can hopefully get until the beginning of Round 5: 21

• 5 from the initial resources
• 4 from the upkeep phase
• 6 from 3 copies of Astounding Revelation
• 3 from one copy of Crack the Case
• 3 from Emergency Cache

Total cards you can hopefully draw until the beginning of Round 5: 25

• 5 from the initial cards drawing
• 4 from the upkeep phase
• 6 from 2 copies of Scroll of Secrets
• 3 from 1 or 2 copies of Backpack
• 3 from Arcane Initiate
• 3 from 3 copies of Astounding Revelation drawn during deck search
• 1 from one of Research Librarian or Word of Command or Calling in Favors.

Drawing treasury cards is dangerous for this deck, even with 2 copies of Ward of Protection. Luke's basic value 4/3/2/3 makes him vulnerable for any kind of skill test. Things get slightly better after Holy Rosary is put into play.

Soul Sanctification provides great help for passing skill tests. You begin the game with it. And getting 2 offerings with only one action cost from Healing Words and Clarity of Mind is very efficient, as long as True Magick has charges (you can always find the chance, e.g. after drawing Detached from Reality). That would help you pass 1-2 critical skill tests in the future.

Failing damage/horror tests like Rotting Remains or Grasping Hands is acceptable for this deck as you can heal yourself. Leave Ward of Protection for other terrible encounter cards like Ancient Evils.

Deny Existence and skill cards like Promise of Power are good in other mystic decks, but I am not willing to add more passive cards because they occupy your hands (you will have 6 spell asset cards in hand to trigger True Magick's ability) and make it harder to search for core assets. But it is good enough when you are lack of experience for purchasing Soul Sanctification.

Crack the Case performs well for Luke. With Luke's unique ability, you no longer need to investigate yourself or stick to your seeker friends. You can get resources in the Dream-gate, or just stay one distance away from your friends.

Astounding Revelation provides resources without action. Many cards in this deck like Arcane Initiate, Backpack and Calling in Favors can trigger its ability, and Research Librarian and Word of Command can find them for sure. Note that Scroll of Secrets cannot trigger its ability to get resources (you may put it on top of the deck and search it by Arcane Initiate instead).

Though True Magick and Twila Katherine Price are absolute core cards, I add only one for each of them, because it is expensive for experience. You can add additional copy for them if experience is exceeded.

Knowledge is Power boosts the one-turn-kill ability that provides the chance to deal 14 damages in one turn (4x Shrivelling + Enchanted Bow). It is a fast ability, meanwhile can trigger Luke's as if ability and you even do not need to enter that location. I would definitely add it to my deck if it was 0xp. It would help a lot at the beginning.

Sword Cane is not suitable for this deck, because Luke gets up to 5 through the whole game. But it is good at the beginning when True Magick is not in the deck and spell assets are not upgraded.

It is a huge dilemma to upgrade this deck smoothly. At the beginning, without True Magick and The Raven Quill, I must use a totally different game strategy. And I have no perfect conclusion yet for the beginning deck.

There are 2 upgrade path choices:

• Purchase True Magick immediately after the first scenario together with The Raven Quill.
  • Link to the 0xp deck
  • Pros: can get more free experience from The Raven Quill's ability.
  • Cons: only one charge per turn without Twila Katherine Price, and may fail because Luke has low .
  • Cons: hard to find without upgraded Backpack.
  • If you purchased it, you emotionally want to keep your spell assets in hand. Finally you find yourself bounded by the True Magick.
• Purchase Twila Katherine Price and Backpack first, earlier than True Magick.
  • Pros: can play this beginning deck normally as other mystic decks and have more consistent performance at the beginning.
  • Cons: need extra experience, as you can only earn extra experience from The Raven Quill after True Magick is purchased.

In either way, remember to upgrade exact one spells one time to fully utilize Arcane Studies.

Finally I used the first strategy, because my teammates kindly accepts the situation that I am only a healer & Delve Too Deep provider at the beginning :)

(View at arkham-starter.com)

• From @ethereal64's inspiration: Sign Magick + Sin-Eater + Blood Pact.
  • With True Magick, Sign Magick can be guaranteed to be activated every turn to get a free action, which can be used to activate Sin-Eater to eliminate Dooms just eaten from True Magick (dooms are added to it as you treat it as if it is Blood Pact during the skill test). In this way, it gives an extra charge to True Magick and +2 during the skill test without any conditions.
  • My suggestion for the replacement: Soul Sanctification -> Sin-Eater, Calling in Favors -> Sign Magick, Healing Words/Ineffable Truth -> Blood Pact.
• From @ethereal64: Sign Magick can be used to waive the cost of the second True Magick activation (as long as you activate a different spell asset from your hand). I will definitely add it to this deck as there are no other competitors for the hand slot.