Marion is On the Hunt in TDC (Hard) - Deck Guide

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet

Kal · 675

Marion Tavares is the most interesting investigator in the TDC box. One look at the front side of her card tells you all you need to know about how to build a deck for her. She has an event-based ability and she only has one arm, so you probably want to make an event-heavy, asset-light deck.

Simple, right? Well, no...

Her card access puts a spotlight on three powerful new cards in TDC: A Glimmer of Hope, Good Weather, and Improvised Weapon. In my Standard run through the campaign I went with a Fortune-based deck which made great use of Glimmer, and in fact half of that deck was red cards because there's a lot of good stuff with the Fortune trait.

And therein lies the problem; moreso than with any other deck I've built recently, I wanted to fit too much stuff into it. There are so many good blue and red events, and the way Marion's ability turns a regular event into a "Fast" version of itself makes you want to re-evaluate just about every card in your collection.

After more experimentation I concluded that Good Weather is not a good fit for Marion despite it being both a Fast card and one that has a very light conditional requirement (these kinds of cards are good for ensuring you can make use of her ability every turn). It proved too inconsistent to use as a combat aid since combat itself is inconsistent, and it was also hard to find the right moment to play it for her cluever partner. I know it's a good card (because Making Preparations is a good card, especially on higher difficulties) but it needs the right deck.

I briefly toyed with a Blessed Marion deck that made use of the interaction between Toe to Toe, Purified, and her signature card, Determined, allowing you to add five Bless Tokens to the bag every time. She can even take Keep Faith and its new upgrade (not to mention Ancestral Token) to keep the token bag fully-stocked.

But once you add all those cards it doesn't leave much room for anything else, so you end up with a great support deck but one that can't really accomplish much in a two-player solo game, which is how I usually play.

So after making a bunch of decks that lacked focus I went back to the drawing board and questioned my initial assumptions about what a Marion deck should look like. I also began the process of play testing on Hard and, as usual, it became very apparent very quickly which cards worked and which ones didn't.

The simple act of playing the game always reminds me that no matter how neat and balanced your deck looks on paper, if it doesn't come together in a real game you need to start making some tough choices.

This deck was designed for a two-handed solo run of The Drowned City, on Hard, alongside Finn Edwards.

The partner deck can be found here.

If you want to skip ahead to see the final version of this deck, it can be found here.

The Deck


With the last few revisions of this deck I cut back on the number of limited Survivor cards it had, ending up with two instead of five. I usually don't do this because I'm a big believer in using off-class quotas to the fullest since they give you capabilities you often don't find in your main class. In this case, however, there were simply too many blue cards that felt essential for the deck to operate efficiently.

As for the deck subtype, Marion has three to choose from: Fortune, Gambit, or Improvised cards 0-2.

Fortune has the biggest card pool and A Glimmer of Hope is a natural fit for her. Lucky! is a good card, and Scrounge for Supplies is a much better value proposition when it doesn't cost an action, though I still hesitate to call it good.

Gambit offers Bank Job, Kicking the Hornet's Nest, and Practice Makes Perfect, but the only trait that offers a good fight event is Improvised.

Improvised lets you take the new Improvised Weapon upgrade, and it's a good card. One great thing about it is that if you're fighting an enemy with a fight value of two or less you don't need to commit any cards because you can't fail unless you draw the auto-fail token (because your test value can never go below zero).

As useful as a strong attack is for Marion, though, it's hard to beat the pure value you get out of A Glimmer of Hope over the course of the entire campaign.

The Cards


I tailor my decks for the campaign and scenario at hand, and I also try to make them complement each other when I run two at once. No hard combos or forced synergies, just some consideration of what the other deck is doing and/or how it plays.

With my initial deck design I also try to optimize for the first scenario a bit more heavily than the following ones because the sooner you can begin snowballing your advantages the more successful you'll be over the course of the campaign.

In this case, however, our first scenario is One Last Job, and it's actually quite easy. Consequently, I weighted the second scenario, Obsidian Canyons, more heavily, though there aren't really any specific card choices made for it (unlike with Finn's deck).

And now for some card commentary...

A Glimmer of Hope: I tried to make a deck without this card but it's simply too good for Marion to not include. Let me count the ways:

  • Its conditional play requirement (being in your discard pile) is extremely easy to satisfy, making it a reliable way to trigger your ability every turn.

  • You can freely commit it to any test to meet a critical threshold and/or to safeguard your signature skill, Determined.

  • You can discard it to your weakness, "I'll do it myself", and easily recover it later.

  • You can discard it to various scenario card effects or to treacheries when you fail your tests and, later, to Bound for the Horizon.

It offers decent treachery protection during the Mythos phase (at least on Standard) but typically only if you happen to have multiple copies in your hand. In any case, it's almost always better to build to your strengths rather than try to shore up your weaknesses. In other words, this deck is designed with the understanding that Marion will fail most treacheries.

Without continuing on too much of a tangent about that last comment I'll just say that agility treacheries deal damage and Marion has high health and decent , and none of the willpower treacheries in the campaign are very consequential outside of a couple of very specific ones, for which we have specific mitigations (eg. Logical Reasoning in Finn's deck for the first scenario). She also has some horror healing capability.

In the Thick of It: We take two physical damage here because Marion has health to spare.

Machete: Marion may be an event-focused investigator but I learned pretty quickly she can't be an effective fighter if she relies solely on events. I tried a few different builds with The Book of War and I think it's a dead end for her, but I'll say more about that at the end along with some other cards that didn't make the cut.

The Machete provides you with a baseline capability to fight, allowing you to take care of small threats without having to spend your limited supply of events. It also serves as a fallback option when you simply run out of fight events.

Guard Dog: As with the Machete, the Guard Dog allows you to deal damage without spending events. It's also testless damage, which is a particularly useful thing to have on Hard.

As an ally it provides some soak, and it combos well with Toe to Toe, allowing you to dispatch most 3HP enemies with a single action.

Ace of Swords, Wolf Mask: Passive stat boosts are the most effective way to counter the token bag on higher difficulties, and the Ace of Swords is your number one mulligan target. Wolf Mask provides a similar but lesser effect with its easy-to-replenish charges.

Hallowed Mirror: I will concede that this is one of the best healing cards in the game but outside of a very few specific investigators I don't think it's ever worth taking.

Those that can run it effectively (eg. Carolyn Fern or Vincent Lee) do so because their abilities add value to the heal effects. The fact that this card costs an action to play and then it costs another action to play the Soothing Melody outweighs the value you typically get from its heal.

It's good that it replaces itself with its card draw effect, but if you had simply drawn the card it gives you instead of the Melody itself you'd be in the same position but you'd have an extra action. Anyway, I don't want to get into the weeds analyzing the value of its heal effect, but suffice it to say, this is a good Marion card because she can remove the action cost to play a Melody with her ability and she appreciates the card draw effect more than a lot of other investigators.

We get some extra value out of it here too because it can heal our Guard Dog, allowing it to deal more damage.

Ready for Anything: This card is so good it's hard to believe it doesn't cost XP. Card draw is obviously great for Marion and it's fine to play it for one card if you need to, but its horror heal really makes it shine.

You'll cycle your deck at least once in every game so it neatly takes care of the point of horror you get for doing so, and it also deals with any chip horror you take during each scenario.

Marion's weakness also deals horror, so it can help you heal some of that if you had to take a point or two from it. And, finally, during the campaign we'll take one mental trauma from our task so this card will always have something to heal early in each game from that point onward.

Second Wind: This is a good heal which will always be useful since you begin each game with two physical trauma, and its draw effect is valuable for digging deeper into your deck.

It also lets you use Soothing Melody on your allies more often since it can usually take care of your own damage in most scenarios.

Dynamite Blast: Two copies of this card might seem like overkill, but it enables a particularly good strategy in the first scenario.

Specifically, at the end when the gangsters are fighting each other, the final act advances when at least one Elite enemy enters the victory display. But if both of them enter at the same time you can get an additional victory point.

It can take a bit of planning to pull this off without taking too much damage from attacks of opportunity, but the general idea is to put three damage onto each gangster boss and then finish them off with dynamite.

There are a few treacheries which force you to discard cards at random in this scenario, which is why there are two copies here. You should have at least one copy in hand by the time you need it at the end of the scenario.

On the Hunt: This is a great card in a lot of TDC scenarios, including the first one where you need to pull enemies out of the encounter deck to advance the act. Later on, there are scenarios where it helps if you can shuffle the encounter deck and also ones which contain Elite enemies.

Crucially, On the Hunt is the only card of its kind in the game that can draw those Elite enemies, which helps you to advance the scenarios which have them and also to gain more VP.

And, as always, when you draw an enemy it means you didn't draw a treachery, which is generally a better outcome for Marion because of her low .

Sweeping Kick: This is a really great fight event because it comes with a built-in 3 bonus for Marion, which is essential on Hard (and it's why it replaced One-Two Punch in this deck).

Evading an enemy is often as good as defeating it if it doesn't have Hunter, and evading large enemies you can't kill in one turn also lets you avoid taking damage from them during the enemy phase.

Toe to Toe: This is one of the game's best fight events and automatic successes are worth their weight in gold on Hard. Note that you can still commit skills to the test, so you can deal three damage with Vicious Blow.

One of my favorite uses of this card is when dealing the final blow on an enemy resolves the scenario. What do you care if it leaves you on 1HP if the scenario immediately ends?

Clean Them Out: This card has no built-in boost so it's generally only going to succeed against weak enemies (at least early in the game) but it's often worth playing anyway simply for the resources, provided there aren't any terrible chaos token effects or the enemy doesn't have Retaliate.

It also has value as an action you can take to generate resources while you're engaged with an enemy, which matters if you started your turn on zero resources and need to play a more consequential fight event.

You might say that you could simply plan ahead and always have a resource to spend on Sweeping Kick or Improvised Weapon, but having the ability to gain resources from a fight action means you can deliberately overextend yourself to gain an immediate advantage while still being able to deal with any enemies you might draw on your next turn (or you can end your turn at the same location as an exhausted one, for example).

In other words, this card gives you options. And since Marion can play any event safely off the back of a fight event while engaged with an enemy, the resources you gain can potentially open up multiple lines of play.

Stand Together: Four resources for the cost of one action is a good deal, and Finn appreciates all the money he can get, especially during the opening turns of the game. You don't need to hold onto this card to get maximum value out of it though, it's fine to simply play it for yourself if you need the resources.

Emergency Cache: Rounding out our economic package is an oft-maligned Core Set classic. It's never an exciting draw but Marion's ability effectively making it replace itself makes it feel a bit better to play. It also has no conditional requirement, which means it can always be used to activate Marion's ability (which is something you want to do every turn).

One thing I didn't mention about A Glimmer of Hope is that to get the most out of it you need to play it frequently, and that can drain your resources surprisingly quickly. This card exists mostly to account for that fact and it should enable sustained Glimmer usage over the course of any scenario.

Also, in the first scenario we want to play a Dynamite Blast at the end. By the time we arrive at the final location we should have enough resources, but if not then this card will get us across the line.

Vicious Blow: We're running light on skill cards because there isn't that much room for them alongside all the events. Yes, Overpower didn't make the cut. I was surprised too.

Determined: This card offers a repeatable 2 boost for every fight event Marion wants to play, and she needs to rely on it because, as mentioned, there isn't enough room in the deck to include enough skill cards to boost every event she plays.

Determined is a good signature on Standard where you rarely need to cover more than +4 on any skill test, but on Hard you're typically looking at +5 to have a good chance to pass a test, and in most scenarios the token scales higher than that.

This card is uniquely vulnerable to the auto-fail as well since you'll often be committing both copies at the same time, and once they're gone it will take a while to cycle your deck to find them again.

Still, it's all you've got to work with, and as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The Campaign


I chose to go east because Ruby Standish is an excellent ally and a great fit for Finn's deck. So this is our path:

  1. One Last Job.
  2. Obsidian Canyons.
  3. Court of the Ancients.
  4. The Grand Vault.
  5. The Apiary.
  6. The Drowned Quarter.
  7. The Western Wall.
  8. The Doom of Arkham.

I wasn't aiming to do Sepulchre of the Sleeper because it's more fun to experience Arkham being destroyed. My decks were still designed to get as many artifacts and as much VP out of each scenario as possible, as well as the most number of task completions I could.

I'll make some brief notes about each scenario followed by the upgrades purchased at the end. The XP totals mentioned here were what I achieved on my full run through the campaign.

Scenario One: One Last Job

This one is pretty straightforward. Discover clues, spawn gangsters, blow everyone up with dynamite at the end.

  • You can use On the Hunt to find Criminal enemies to use the act ability on.

  • If you draw Frozen in Fear you may be able to discard it using multiple copies of Glimmer and or Determined since you won't really need your signature card for any fight events. Finn can also remove it with Logical Reasoning but it's actually not a huge problem in this scenario because there isn't much fighting required.

  • Aim to have an undamaged Guard Dog in play and a Dynamite Blast in your hand before you enter the final location. Toe to Toe is also very handy to save for this moment.

  • You will also need to have enough resources to play the Dynamite Blast and possibly more if you need to use Finn's "You've had worse..." to survive all the damage you're about to take.

  • Depending on which gang boss you face at the end, either you or Finn should be able to succeed at the parley test well enough to disengage the two non-Elite enemies.

  • The cleanest way to wrap everything up is to hit the undamaged boss with Toe to Toe + Guard Dog for three damage, then play Dynamite Blast to score the third point of damage on the other boss with the Guard Dog again (from the attack of opportunity).

    When the blast resolves it will then finish off both bosses along with the non-Elite VP enemy and you'll get the maximum possible XP for the scenario.

One Last Job: 8XP gained.

Upgrades

Added:

1 x Stick to the Plan: It may be a predictable choice but it's one of Marion's best cards. Every Guardian loves it but when events are your lifeblood it becomes an essential upgrade.

Emergency Cache and, later, its upgraded version, will always be chosen for Stick to the Plan. It gives you a guaranteed way to use your ability on your opening turn, and starting every game with extra resources is a huge consistency booster given how important they are for recurring A Glimmer of Hope.

3 x A Glimmer of Hope: With its lack of a bonus icon this upgrade doesn't increase our offensive capabilities directly, but with multiple copies of Glimmer Marion can effectively evade enemies, which sometimes means you save actions and cards by not having to fight them.

Also, the next scenario is heavy on tests (including for exploring the map) so its quite valuable in general. There's also 1VP gated behind a test, and committing 3 x is realistically the only chance either investigator has for passing that.

And finally, Finn absolutely loves an commit. He is very heavily reliant on agility, and Marion helping him out with this card is honestly one of the most impactful things you can do with it.

8XP spent, 0XP left.

Scenario Two: Obsidian Canyons

This scenario is where the difficulty ramps up. It isn't too hard to simply make your way to the end, but doing so means you'll probably miss out on a lot of XP. Staying in the game and hunting down all the VP sources requires efficient play and a bit of luck.

We take the Do No Harm task here because it offers the most useful bonus at the end, but it can be quite hard to take eight damage in some scenarios. In the later ones you'll probably have to drag an enemy around for a turn or two, but between Second Wind and Soothing Melody it shouldn't be too hard to handle it.

  • Stick to the Plan: Emergency Cache, Sweeping Kick, Dynamite Blast.

  • Take the Expedition Gear as it can help you heal if your Hallowed Mirror is at the bottom of your deck, and its enemy moving ability can be useful.

    It's not generally worth using its heal action unless you or Finn are two points away from death (ie. the amount a failed treachery or location disappearing underneath you would deal) as pretty much any other action available to you is more valuable for progressing the game state.

  • Keep track of where the target locations are in the Summit Deck whenever you put locations into play. In Act One, four locations must be put into play before any of the following ones can potentially be the Central Spire.

  • Try to find the Central Spire as quickly as possible to advance to Act Two. This will add the Aerial Waterfall location to the Summit Deck, which is the one you need to visit to grab the Obsidian Claw artifact.

    The Claw will let you explore the rest of the map very quickly and it's Finn's best artifact for the rest of the campaign so making sure you find it should be your main priority.

  • If you do run into a VP location during Act One then clear it if you can as it makes the Summit Deck smaller when you advance to Act Two.

  • Conserve your fight events until both the Star Vampire and the random Elite star spawn enemy are in the victory display.

  • Don't kill The Inescapable as it's too much of a drain on your resources if it returns later. Finn should be able to keep evading it, or you can use Sweeping Kick to do the same and move away. Once the other VP enemies have been defeated it's fine to spend whatever you have left to kill it.

  • St Elmo's Fire can be useful for taking damage if you need more hits to make progress on Toe the Line.

Obsidian Canyons: 6XP gained.

Upgrades

Added:

2 x On the Hunt: This campaign has a lot of scenarios with VP enemies in the encounter deck so this card offers a lot of value.

In the next scenario, the deck contains five Glyph cards which are each worth 1VP. Two of them are enemies, and being able to pull them out of the deck with On the Hunt makes it easier to use the act ability or certain location abilities to find the rest.

More generally, when you rely on events to deal most of your damage you can fall into a pattern of play where you want to save your good cards for when the boss enemies appear, which leads to inefficient resource usage (actions and cards) for dealing with the regular enemies.

The Machete helps to address this issue, and On the Hunt gives you a lot of flexibility for fighting on your own terms. I typically try to draw the VP enemies as early as possible in most games so that I can then use my events freely on everything else.

And finally, On the Hunt is a really solid economy card and it will allow us to replace Stand Together later.

6XP spent, 0XP left.

Scenario Three: Court of the Ancients

Once again, simply making it to the end here isn't too hard but getting out with a decent amount of XP is going to take some effort. It's starting to feel like a pattern...

  • Stick to the Plan: Toe to Toe, Sweeping Kick, On the Hunt.

  • Take the Expedition Gear again. You can sometimes use its enemy moving ability to strand Hunter enemies in a side room when you go down the lift.

  • The encounter deck here can deal quite a lot of damage and horror so it's better to not make use of the act ability to find the Glyph cards as it means you'll draw some Omen cards that will hurt you even more.

    By avoiding the act ability you don't have to discover as many clues to be able to enter the Vault at the end.

  • Use On the Hunt to draw the first Glyph enemy at the starting location, then you can kill it and use the discard ability to potentially find the Glyph treacheries.

  • You can hang around at that same location for a while to kill more enemies while Finn gets set up. If you find your second copy of On the Hunt you can grab the other Glyph enemy.

  • When the lift is cleared of clues, the Colossal Tyrant spawns. Try to save your Sweeping Kick for this guy as it will take a few turns to deal with him.

  • There are three different Archive locations and the best one lets you pull a Glyph card from the discard pile at the cost of one action. Between you and Finn you should be able to pass the and ones, but probably not the .

  • You might be able to pull off the one by committing all three Glimmers and both copies of Determined (if it's late in the game all the tough enemies will be dead so you won't need it anymore) plus whatever else you have up your sleeve. It's best to focus on the other two though as there may not be enough time to get all three.

  • Finn should be able to take care of the Vault when you reach the bottom floor so you can hang out at the Resign location while you wait for him.

Court of the Ancients: 7XP gained.

Upgrades

Removed:

1 x Dynamite Blast, 1 x Emergency Cache: We need to make room for a couple of new cards and this is the best place to find it. Two is one too many copies of Dynamite Blast, and having two copies of Emergency Cache is less important now that we have On the Hunt.

Added:

2 x True Awakening: This card supercharges your draw power and enables frequent deck cycling. You gain a lot of offensive power by being able to restock your basic fight events regularly, and the next scenario has the most fighting of any so far.

1 x Emergency Cache: Adding a draw effect to this card is worth the XP cost at this point in the game because we can always play it on our first turn every game thanks to Stick to the Plan, and cards (and resources) are worth more the earlier in the game you get them.

6XP spent, 1XP left.

Scenario Four: The Grand Vault

The objective here is to discover at least three Glyphs (out of a possible five) to open up the tablet chamber. We also want to activate all the locations so we can enter the Core of the Vault and kill The Inescapable once and for all.

Fortunately, three of them are already active, but we'll probably have to visit every location anyway in order to find the glyphs and the 2VP on offer.

  • Stick to the Plan: On the Hunt, Emergency Cache, Dynamite Blast.

  • Once again, take the Expedition Gear. Its enemy-moving ability is particularly good here for rounding up all three Persistent Construct enemies at an empty location.

  • You can use On the Hunt to pull the Constructs out of the deck but it's not really worth doing until you draw at least one of them naturally because you need to keep evading it until all of them are ready to be blown up (to prevent them from returning to play via their ability).

  • Having said that, you may want to have one of them beat on you to make progress on Toe the Line because there aren't a lot of other regular sources of damage in this scenario.

  • Finn can also pull Constructs out of the encounter deck, so between the two of you it shouldn't take too long to set them up for a Dynamite Blast.

  • If you pull Deadly Mechanisms never pick the "deactivate" option unless there's a location nearby you can reactivate easily (some of them are more costly than others) or you've already revealed the Core of the Vault.

    The Vault Attendant enemies are easy to deal with but moving is still usually the best option and it can even be beneficial sometimes.

  • Note that the Core of the Vault is connected to the Moving Platform so near the end of the game you can finish up at the Core while Finn rides the platform back to the starting position, then you can move across and resign.

The Grand Vault: 8XP gained.

Upgrades

Removed:

2 x Guard Dog: Now that our deck is cycling efficiently it's finally time to upgrade our offensive capabilities, in the form of a new ally. The next scenario is a step up in the combat department too, so the timing works out well.

1 x Machete: The next scenario doesn't have a lot of fighting until the very end, so you're pretty much guaranteed to have one Machete in play by the time you need it.

Added:

2 x Beat Cop: The humble Beat Cop is exactly the kind of boost we need. His passive will help us keep up with the token bag (the is a flat -5 and the is -6) and his on-demand damage ping will help save us cards and/or actions when meeting an enemy's HP threshold.

And, as with the Guard Dog, we can gain additional value by healing him with Soothing Melody.

1 x Ever Vigilant: Finn loves this card and it's absolutely worth the cost simply to speed up his opening. If he gets a Backpack in his opening hand it can multiply the number of available targets for him.

From now on, if Finn gets a good opening hand you should use Ever Vigilant on your first turn, otherwise you can use Emergency Cache and wait until Finn draws a Backpack (or otherwise builds up a bunch of assets in hand).

8XP spent, 1XP left.

Scenario Five: The Apiary

In this scenario we have to draw locations from the encounter deck and make our way to the Central Chamber where we will find a boss waiting for us.

Interestingly, when you're doing an eastern expedition the rarely gets above a value of zero. I assume coming from the west is different since the cultist enemies are in the encounter deck, but I'm not sure how dangerous they really are.

  • Stick to the Plan: Ever Vigilant, Emergency Cache, Dynamite Blast.

  • Take the Laudanum so you can nuke the first copy of Frozen in Fear you draw. Future copies can be dealt with using A Glimmer of Hope.

  • Use Beat Cop to kill each Stowaway Drone that appears and prevent it from adding any doom.

  • Leave all the Apiary Tenders alone, if possible, as having them all in play and in the same location at the end is... a real blast.

  • Use A Glimmer of Hope to remove Infected! from both Finn and yourself.

  • You can also use Glimmer to claim the Grisly "Mask" from the Growing Fields. Let Finn claim the Ancient Relic since you'll need to keep taking damage for Toe the Line.

  • If one or more Apiary Tenders engages you with their ability you can use the Mask to escape. The most likely way they'll jump you is when you draw Alien Eggs, but you can sometimes play around it by ending your turn closer to another enemy if there's one in play.

  • Use On the Hunt to shuffle the encounter deck each time cards get added into the bottom ten cards. This makes it more likely you'll find the new locations sooner since they could end up in the top part of the deck.

    Save one copy for when the agenda advances so you can grab the Grotesque Amalgam. Finn can use "Where's the party?" here as well since it's non-Elite.

  • Use your actions for the act ability instead of Finn's whenever possible, and try to discard 10-20 cards at a time after a deck shuffle.

  • Try to clear Hungry Walls using its to save Finn having to take damage (or waste resources trying to pass the test).

10XP gained.

Upgrades

Removed:

1 x Machete: Now that Grisly "Mask" is online the Machete isn't really needed anymore.

Added:

1 x Hallowed Mirror: Now that Grisly "Mask" is online we'll be taking more horror. There's also quite a lot of damage in the next scenario so this is a good time to upgrade the mirror.

2 x Stand Together: More of what Marion loves and an excellent boost for Finn as well.

1 x Vicious Blow: This is a considerable upgrade and we can expect to meet the "succeed by 2" requirement consistently with A Glimmer of Hope and Determined. Similarly with the Beat Cop, dealing an extra point of damage makes our fight actions more efficient.

1 x Bound for the Horizon: This card turns every other card in your deck into a personal Shortcut, which is lowkey one of the strongest cards in the entire game. A lot of cards in this deck aren't as good as Shortcut, but of course context matters, and Bound for the Horizon making every card in your deck situationally a Shortcut is even better than having the card itself.

In the next scenario, extra movement comes in handy for escaping flooded locations and chasing down aloof enemies that spawn around the map. To be fair, extra movement is handy most of the time but up until now other upgrades have had higher priority.

11XP spent, 0XP left.

Scenario Six: The Drowned Quarter

Our goal here is to drain six locations so we can claim the Barrier Node artifact. It's best if we can avoid revealing more than six locations, but we also want to find the VP location so sometimes it's unavoidable.

The Drowned Quarter: 6XP gained.

Upgrades

Removed:

1 x Clean Them Out: Our resource needs have largely been met ever since we upgraded to On the Hunt so this slot is the best pick to make room for some new cards.

Added:

1 x Vicious Blow: The second copy.

1 x Fang of Tyr'thrha: This is a powerful attack which tests at 7 for us without any other bonuses. The move is quite handy as well.

6XP spent, 0XP left.

Scenario Seven: The Western Wall

This is the only scenario in the game where flooded locations can potentially be dangerous since we begin the game at a fully flooded one and can't move until we discover four clues.

Our goal is to make our way up from the sea floor to the top of the wall. Movement abilities come in handy, so having Bound for the Horizon is a nice advantage.

The Western Wall: 6XP gained.

Our task completion triggers now, and we gain an extra 7XP, to make 13XP in total.

Upgrades

Removed:

1 x Clean Them Out: The second copy.

1 x Second Wind: We need to make room for a new card, and this is the best slot to take. The card draw has been useful for the whole campaign but as the deck has become more efficient (and now that our task is finished) the heal has lost a bit of value and it won't be needed for the finale.

Added:

1 x Fang of Tyr'thrha: The second copy.

1 x Charisma: This will allow us to have both copies of Beat Cop in play.

2 x Dynamite Blast: One upgraded copy, and one added. It hasn't ever really been important for Marion to upgrade this card before now because she could always play it effectively as a Fast card, but now that we have XP to spare we might as well. It's fantastic for fighting Cthulhu.

The Western Wall: 13XP spent, 0XP left.

Scenario Eight: The Doom of Arkham Part I

We've finally returned from our expedition only to find Arkham in a bit of a state. We need to track down Tillinghast Esoterica and recover our artifacts (all six of them) before Arkham completely floods.

  • Stick to the Plan: Ever Vigilant, Emergency Cache, Dynamite Blast.

  • This one is pretty straightforward. Find clues, search the locations, then fight Randall Tillinghast. You can either brute force him or Finn can duck in and out each turn with his movement abilities to evade him and grab the artifacts to weaken him.

The Doom of Arkham Part I: 8XP gained.

Upgrades

We have so much XP and hardly any spare slots to add new cards.

Removed:

1 x Second Wind: The second copy.

Added:

1 x "I've had worse…": This card provides some flexibility. If staying at a fully flooded location for your whole turn lets you accomplish something worthwhile you can gain five resources instead of drowning.

Or, if you simply want five resources, you can drown for a turn. After all, you've had worse.

1 x Observed: This is the go-to card for when you've run out of other upgrades to purchase. It's good!

The Doom of Arkham Part I: 8XP spent, 0XP left.

Scenario Nine: The Doom of Arkham Part II

It's time for the final showdown. Arkham will never be the same again!

I chose to fight Cthulhu here, but the other option was also available since I had all six artifacts.

  • Stick to the Plan: Ever Vigilant, Emergency Cache, Dynamite Blast.

  • Toe to Toe is good for flipping the Cthulhu enemy cards, or you can wait for Finn to evade them all.

  • For the first set where their HP is only two, use the Grisly "Mask" and your other 2-point attacks to finish them off.

  • For the next two sets (3HP and 4HP) use Dynamite Blast to knock out all three parts at the same time (plus Beat Cop or another attack to finish off the 4HP set).

  • There's quite a lot of damage and horror flying around here, but with John Raymond Legrasse for additional soak plus your regular healing abilities it should be very manageable.

The investigators win the campaign!

Marion Tavares in The Drowned City - 71XP

The Cards Not Taken


The original deck list I came up with looked very different to what you see here and, as I mentioned at the beginning, I learned very quickly which cards weren't working when I actually took them into a scenario.

What surprised me most about how Marion plays is that when you reach a critical mass of cards in the deck that draw other cards you end up fully cycling your deck quite early into the game.

This has two main implications for deck building:

  1. You gain offensive power by having more of your fight events available more often.

  2. The relative value of a lot of cards changes quite significantly.

Both points are related but to touch on the first one, I initially began adding XP fight events earlier. I went for more of a burst damage profile because sustained damage didn't seem possible when relying solely on events, but once I started cycling I was able to deal more consistent damage by playing the same events multiple times.

As for the second point, the main reason you include two copies of important cards in any deck is because you're more likely to draw them over the course of the game. But when you can be certain you'll see a particular card in question by mid-game at the latest you can afford to drop it back to a single copy (Machete) or you can expect to have two copies in play (Beat Cop justifying Charisma).

It also changes the way you balance the amount of resource cards in the deck, because more card draw means you'll find your resource cards faster, so you can then to take fewer of them as well.

I had taken Ready for Anything out of the deck early on, but once I started playing with True Awakening and I began to see the power of mass card draw I quickly added it back in and I couldn't believe I didn't realize earlier that it's a staple for Marion (it even has her on the art!)

It creates a kind of a positive feedback loop where card draw effects make your other card draw effects more powerful, but it's only useful up to a point. You still need to make room for effects which progress the game, which is why Stand Together is the last upgrade that draws cards (not that there are any amazing ones left after that).

Here are some other cards that were in the deck at various times but didn't make the cut. In most cases these cards aren't exactly bad, just not the right fit for this deck and/or the scenario or campaign.

The Book of War: This is the big one. I tried for a long time to make this card work and I thought I had something for a while, but as the campaign progressed its shortcomings were too hard to ignore.

The main problem with it is that it doesn't do enough to enable an event-based combat strategy on its own. Returning one event to your hand each turn is a good effect but it can't provide enough events to cover every combat situation you can expect to see in a two player game.

It's possible that with the additional draw effects from the 24xp version of the deck it could act as a supplemental effect like the Machete but I doubt it would work well enough to replace it, and since Marion only has one hand the weapon is the better choice. Also, you would have to address the problem of how to get to that version of the deck consistently without the Machete.

Another thing about the Book is that its effect is only as good as the card you use it on. I seriously considered swapping it in and taking One-Two Punch because being able to play that card every turn is obviously extremely powerful, and if every enemy can be defeated with a single card then maybe it can reach the required level of efficiency to go with a purely event-based strategy after all.

I think the Book is best used as a simple value engine to replay good cards. If Marion wasn't the only fighter in the team it would be a lot more acceptable for her to leave enemies on the table, but as it stands, it's a deal breaker.

Old Keyring: The Book of War has two main shortcomings. One is its cost, which I addressed pretty well by adjusting the deck's resource cards, and the other is that as a unique item you can't simply play the second copy to discard the first one when it runs out of uses.

The Old Keyring is the card I settled on to handle that issue. You can play it to forcibly discard The Book of War when it's run out of uses, and it's the best candidate out of all the available options because it's very cheap and it provides Marion with a useful capability (two guaranteed clues from 1-or-2 shroud locations).

It has a limited shelf life of only two uses, which is also a point in its favor since you won't feel like keeping it around when you're ready to play your next Book. If you do need to play another book right away, though, then you're only down the single resource it cost to play it. In practice, the ebb and flow of combat should afford you enough opportunities to get good value out of it.

And finally, it has good synergy with Finn's deck. He's running Matchbox and Flashlight, with Alton O'Connell and Lola Santiago on board to scoop up three clues from a single action.

Part of the reason I stuck with the Book of War for so long is that I was really satisfied with the Old Keyring, but as with a few other clue-focused cards that took up some early slots I eventually got rid of it to streamline the deck.

Improvised Weapon: I had this card in the deck for a long time but I eventually realized it was underperforming. Its main problem is that when its in your hand its really bad. It costs one resource and an action to play it to get it into your discard pile and doing only a single point of damage is a weak effect.

As with a lot of cards, I think Marion disguises how bad it is because her ability makes it better and she often has discard synergy with cards like Bound for the Horizon or her weakness.

Yes, you can discard it to avoid having to play it, but you can discard any card in the game, including ones that are good when they're in your hand. Its two damage attack isn't good enough to outweigh its downsides. And also, shuffling it into the deck often felt like a penalty because Marion really wants to cycle as quickly as possible to get her good events back.

I replaced it with Second Wind and the deck was better for it almost immediately. That card provides cycling and a useful heal effect which helps with her task. Improvised Weapon can be good in some decks, but it wasn't good in this one.

Other Deck Concepts


The deck I made here is a pretty safe build that uses fight events and card draw to fulfill the role of primary enemy handler in a two player game. While I was designing it and testing it over the course of the campaign, though, I had some other ideas about what kinds of decks might work just as well, or possibly better.

So here are some of those other deck ideas. I haven't tested any of them in an actual game but I have thought really hard about them now that I've experienced this campaign to its fullest.

Each deck is designed for a two player game of TDC on Hard, starting from the east.

Generally, when building for Hard you want to take advantage of testless effects or otherwise find ways to consistently handle large negative chaos tokens. For the cluever decks, the most important consideration was to have effects that let you discover more than one clue using a single action, as without such effects you won't be efficient enough to fulfill that role.

Leveraging Marion's strong draw power, each deck has some key cards which should appear sooner rather than later in most games so, overall, they should perform more consistently than it might appear on paper.

That's the theory, at least. Depending upon your choice of partner you may want to adjust some cards as well.

Marion Tavares - Combat - Gambit - Sledgehammer

This deck relies on getting a Sledgehammer into play to serve as your main weapon. You can use cards like Hunter's Mark and Reliable to meet chaos token thresholds, enabling consistently high test scores.

You can use Pushed to the Limit to deal with large enemies efficiently (such as The Inescapable), and Strong-Armed ensures your important attacks will always land. It also offers a quick way to complete Toe the Line.

Upgrade into Empty Vessel and charge it up with On the Hunt and Kicking the Hornet's Nest, then use Wish Eater for even more reliable attacks, or for glyph tests.

Marion Tavares - Combat - Gambit - The Book of War

I tried to find a way to make effective use of The Book of War and the best I could come up with was recurring Toe to Toe.

Deal testless damage with Toe to Toe and Guard Dog/Beat Cop. Recur Toe to Toe with Scrounge for Supplies and The Book of War.

Use Will to Survive to pass glyph tests (and Frozen in Fear with a commit).

Commit Inspiring Presence to Toe to Toe or a Will to Survive test to guarantee its effect.

Complete Toe the Line quickly with all the damage you'll be taking (and healing).

Use Bank Job with Marion's ability so that it only costs one action.

Marion Tavares - Cluever- Fortune - Nautical Charts

Use Nautical Charts with Reliable and various commits (Determined, A Glimmer of Hope, Unexpected Courage, Take the Initiative) to guarantee at least one double clue action per turn.

Use Grisly Totem to make your commits more efficient. This card also enables Call for Backup.

Use Breach the Door with the same commits above on high shroud locations. Let your partner use their actions to discover clues from breached locations (which should have a shroud value of zero).

Use Girish Kadakia, Nose to the Grindstone, and Well Prepared to ensure your Nautical Charts actions succeed. Motivational Speech is in the starting deck for Girish.

Use Call for Backup and True Awakening for additional clue compression.

Marion Tavares - Cluever- Fortune - Flashlight

This is what I came up with for using The Book of War in a cluever build. It's here to recur On the Trail, which combos well with Obsidian Claw and a partner who can pull enemies out of the encounter deck.

In the early game, use Scrounge for Supplies and Resourceful to recur Contemplative. Later, recur Fortuitous Discovery once one or two copies are in your discard pile.

Taking a leaf out of Finn's book, use Flashlight on low shroud value locations to guarantee success, with Contemplative. Use it with Breach the Door on higher shroud value locations if you weren't quite able to open the door all the way.

Use the upgraded Flashlight to lower the shroud value of your Fortuitous Discovery locations to zero. Crucially, the Flashlight doesn't exhaust for its effect so you can use both together more than once per turn.

Use Lucky! to safeguard your Fortuitous Discovery tests on non-zero shroud value locations, and to protect Determined.

Use A Glimmer of Hope to pass glyph tests (and Frozen in Fear).

Marion Tavares - Cluever- Fortune - Field Agent

Use Field Agent to discover testless clues. Use Calling in Favors and your other allies to find the Agent.

Use A Chance Encounter to get an additional use out of the Agent if it dies. You can then return it to your hand with Calling in Favors.

Use Will to Survive to pass glyph tests, or other impactful tests.

Commit Inspiring Presence to Will to Survive tests or to Flashlight tests on low shroud locations to guarantee its effect. Each use of it provides an extra clue from the Agent. Each copy of Trusted represents an additional clue as well.

Use Bank Job with Marion's ability so that it only costs one action.

Final Thoughts


It's a truism that in pretty much every card game, drawing cards is fun. It's the most basic interaction you can have with a deck of cards, and when a game is balanced around card draw being a strong effect, performing said strong effect regularly feels rewarding.

So it's no surprise that Marion is fun to play. I also appreciated how other aspects of her design contributed towards defining her as a character, like how she only has one hand (neatly represented with a game rule) and she has Survivor card access (she gets by with grit and a bit of luck).

As for the campaign, I liked how it began and ended in Arkham, and while I did enjoy the feeling of exploring an alien place (in the form of R'lyeh) the middle scenarios could've used some more varied scenery.

In terms of mechanical challenge there was a diverse range on offer, but most of the difficulty was confined to scenarios two, three, four, and five.

In some ways it's to be expected that the hardest parts of the game are when you're low on XP, but the nature of the push-your-luck elements with glyphs and artifacts meant that if you were able to accomplish a lot early on it made everything afterwards that much easier.

Again, that's to be expected and it's clearly the intended design (and snowballing advantages is a core part of the game's design at a fundamental level) but I do wish there was a way for the game to continually ramp up its difficulty in line with your growing capabilities.

It's never more keenly felt than in the finale of most campaigns, where I'm anticipating a struggle and hard-won triumph but, more often than not, end up doing a victory lap instead.

And that's how TDC ended for me, unfortunately. The Doom of Arkham has a fantastic design, and the way Cthulhu was represented was an inspired choice, it's just a shame the difficulty slider was tuned all the way down.

I don't mean to criticize the designers too much for that, though, because I know it must be hard trying to accommodate all types of parties that make it to the end (and settling for the middle ground in terms of XP or goals completed is probably the right choice) but yeah, I'm always left imagining what could have been when it comes to that final experience.

The Feast of Hemlock Vale came closest out of any AH campaign to offering the kind of challenge I appreciate in a finale, but from all accounts we'll never see the likes of that again with the shift towards designing for a limited card pool (if you want to play with your whole collection, at least).

Despite all that, I enjoyed The Drowned City more than most campaigns and I'm looking forward to the next one.

0 comments