Arkham Nine-Nine

This is a yellow-heavy Roland build that can take on the role of the group's primary clue-gatherer. I paired this with a combat-focused Jenny, and as a result the team was very versatile and could handle a lot of threats, even if they weren't by each other.

Design

This is probably best at 2-3 players. Not specialized to be primary cluever in 4 player, and would need tweaks to be solo. Seeing as this is not a hyper-specialized deck, I would pair this with another well-rounded investigator, or an investigator that leans a little towards the combat side of things.

Best suited for Zealot/Dunwich, but could also do Carcosa (might go up to two Logical Reasoning). Would need evasion tech for TFA. Plus Roland isn't great for TFA in scenarios where you have to evade half the enemies like The Untamed Wilds.

Strategy

This is a Quick Study deck. Your aim is to cheat clues with Roland's ability, Art Student, etc, and drop them with Quick Study and Forewarned.

Now you've turned on restrictive cards like Inquiring Mind and Preposterous Sketches. Finally, you pick up the clues again with your cheats or Deduction.

Quick Study is powerful, but the tempo loss of dropping a clue is significant. Ideally, this deck has enough tools to make up for that tempo loss.

Mulligan

With Stick to the Plan, your bases are covered. You'll have Prepared for the Worst, Emergency Cache, and Marksmanship.

So with your mulligan, you're mostly looking for Quick Thinking, Art Student for Horror soak, Magnifying Glass, and Shortcut. That's all ideal stuff, but you can probably live with a crap hand because of Stick to the Plan.

Card Choices

The base of this is standard Roland fare. There are some unique choices here, though.

• Quick Study is the core of the deck
• Marksmanship is really cool because you can trigger Roland's ability even when there's not an enemy in the right spot. Would love 2 of these.
• Forewarned is a powerful ability to be sure, but that tempo loss of dropping clues sucks. This deck is built to mitigate that loss, and there are several horror-dealing treacheries that can really ruin Roland's day.
• Deduction(2) is really important for recovering from that tempo loss Quick Study gives you.
• Perception is there to specifically deal with raw intellect tests like Base of the Hill and The Man in the Pallid Mask. It also helps to ensure you'll pick up 3 clues with Deduction(2), and sometimes you need clues to get your Quick Study engine up and running.
• I'll take Shortcut(2) in any deck that will let me. I think it's incredibly powerful on larger maps and really helps with group flexibility and action economy.
• I prefer Scene of the Crime over Evidence!, but they are essentially doing the same thing here: retrieve a clue without an action or test. Either is fine.
• I'm using the replacement Roland cards from The Dirge of Reason. They are much better for this build, as The Dirge of Reason is just a speed bump for this deck, and Mysteries Remain feeds into some really cool tricks here.

Upgrade Plan

Generally, you'll want Quick Study early in the campaign, and soon after you'll set up Stick to the Plan + Marksmanship + Emergency Cache. If I had to rank them, I'm upgrade cards in this order (replacing the cards in parenthesis):

1. Quick Study (Overpower)
2. Deduction(2) (Deduction)
3. Shortcut(2) (Shortcut)
4. Stick to the Plan
5. 1x Marksmanship (Emergency Cache)
6. 1x Emergency Cache (E Cache)
7. 1x Brother Xavier (Guard Dog)
8. .45 Automatic (.45 Auto)
9. Forewarned (Intrepid, Evidence!)

Obviously you can upgrade in whichever order you like. For example, you might not like Shortcut as much and opt to get it after your Stick package is up, or not at all. You may also want your .45s upgraded early on. I chose not to because I'm relying on another group member to focus on enemies a bit more than standard Roland would.

There you have it! Avoid that common guardian wet work and go find some clues!