Father Mateo, Defender of the Faith

Father Mateo, Defender of the Faith

This is a fun, support oriented Father Mateo build, designed for use in multiplayer. He functions best as a secondary clue-gatherer paired with a group of high-risk high-reward investigators who stand to benefit the most from his protection while also most strongly making up for his otherwise subdued presence on the board. That said, anyone not looking to draw unique chaos tokens as part of their build can take advantage of the help he offers with reasonable success.

Guarding the Flock

The meat of this build's utility is in two places: encounter deck filtering and chaos token manipulation.

• Use Scrying (and eventually the upgraded Ward of Protection) judiciously to protect each investigator from being hit by the parts of the encounter deck they're most vulnerable to
• Use Premonition, The Chthonian Stone, and Seal of the Seventh Sign in tandem to shield crucial skill checks from disaster, enabling everyone on the team to give it their all when it matters
• And when all else fails, fall back to Shrivelling and Blinding Light to keep yourself and others out of harm's way

Making it Happen

Mateo's card pool being essentially only Neutral and Mystic makes things a little tricky; the cards we want to play can be expensive, both in resource cost and XP, and our options for resource generation and card draw are limited. The deck is built to get around these factors in one key word: Spells Spells Spells

We aim to make as much of our deck as we reasonably can Spells to harness Arcane Initiate to her fullest. Her benefits are two-fold: First she helps us filter through our deck to find Scrying, Shrivelling and other key answers when we need them. Second: she draws us a second "Spell" card nearly every turn, which adds up fast to fill our hand with spare flex cards we can commit to skill tests in lieu of our precious resources.

For that reason, some cards on this list are here almost entirely for the sake of their useful symbols on a "Spell" card rather than their primary card text, such as Moonlight Ritual and Storm of Spirits ; Though each has their uses as a proper card in the right situations. Feel free to season to taste with things like Astral Travel based on individual needs until the proper deck upgrades eventually start to replace them.

Primarily using disposable cards rather than resources for our skill checks alongside Uncage the Soul helps us save our pennies for key non-spell items like The Chthonian Stone and St. Hubert's Key. while an investment in Arcane Research goes a very long way to making the pricier XP upgrades we look to make more obtainable over the course of a campaign.

Mulligans, Goals, and Notes

Aggressively mulligan for Arcane Initiate at all times to get access to the deck's engine. Scrying, Shrivelling, and St. Hubert's Key are really the only exceptions you can consider keeping in an opening hand that does not contain an Initiate, but even then I would think carefully on it first, as an Initiate has a high chance of getting the first two for you in 2-3 turns if allowed the chance.

Don't be overly concerned with keeping Seal of the Seventh Sign and The Chthonian Stone in your opening hand or even getting them out early. They're both more impactful midway through the game when all parties are done setting up and the real meat of the Agenda and Act decks are in full swing. Waiting also gives you time to passively rack up some resources to afford them rather than jumping the gun and locking yourself out of St. Hubert's Key or Shrivelling early. The Codex of Ages is largely in the same boat unless you have a specific plan in mind to utilize it early.

Finally Father Mateo's special cancelling ability is use it or lose it. Be prudent with it, but err on the side of getting its value sooner rather than later each game. Your goal is always to eventually cap off the end of the game with Seal of the Seventh Sign, at which point your ability becomes moot; so use it before you get to that point. Keep in mind there's errata to Father Mateo's rules text changing " After an investigator reveals an " to "When an investigator reveals". This means you should be able to stop The Chthonian Stone from seeing an and returning to your hand where before you couldn't.

Upgrade Options

Upgrade options for this deck don't need to follow any set order, but can be tweaked to both your needs and getting the most value out of Arcane Research possible in between sessions.

High Priority:

• Arcane Initiate -> Lvl 3 Arcane Initiate 3/6XP: lets you start dropping your most important asset without worrying about doom counter timings, and gives a nice sanity buffer when you still can make that timing line up correctly. Additionally lets your eventual replacing of Moonlight Ritual be even more guilt free.
• Scrying -> Lvl 3 Scrying 3/6XP: Turning the action in Scrying into is a must have for efficiency. Just watch out for that Omen downside in specific scenarios.
• Shrivelling -> Lvl 3 Shrivelling 3/6XP: Grab this as soon as you're comfortable. Lvl 5 is usually unnecessary unless you're playing on harder difficulties.
• Premonition -> Counterspell 2/4XP: The ability to retroactively save a skill check rather than guess beforehand is a night and day difference. The fact it changes to a Spell as well is just gravy.

Other Great Upgrades:

• Moonlight Ritual/Storm of Spirits -> Seal of the Elder Sign 5/10XP: You don't need symbols to commit to tests when you automatically succeed instead. This card can quickly become part of your economy due to Father Mateo's ability and is worth every bit of XP, especially at an Arcane Research discount. Aim for one early and get a 2nd late in the campaign if you can spare it.
• Ward of Protection -> Lvl 2 Ward of Protection 2/4XP: With Scrying, you can effectively shield the group from any one encounter with only the base Wards by simply giving the worst one to yourself, but there will always come a time when you need a specific person to get no encounter at all. A great upgrade to have in your back pocket.
• Enraptured -> Recharge 2/4XP: Though the is nice on Enraptured, the far higher return and Spell classification on Recharge make it much more welcome overall.
• Fearless -> Lvl 2 Fearless 2/4XP: Nice for keeping St. Hubert's Key from breaking and an extra
• Blinding Light -> Lvl 2 Blinding Light 2/4XP: If you find yourself having to dodge a lot, this one can be a nice boon. Otherwise you can safely leave it at Lvl 1.

Potential Replacements and Other Considerations

• Flashlight is my #1 additional consideration, and I think many playgroups will find dropping Moonlight Ritual from the start for it helpful if you find you need more than just St. Hubert's Key's + and Drawn to the Flame for secondary clue gathering support. This pushes the initial benefit of Arcane Initiate back just a little bit, but is more than welcome when the situation calls for it.
• Perception is also a reasonable initial pick for clue support as a replacement for the weaker initial spells (again Moonlight Ritual) if you wish to branch more towards skills to cycle cards rather than Arcane Initiate until the count of Spells goes up.
• Key of Ys is nice, but we can't get it at a discount and already have St. Hubert's Key. It's a truly good card, but you'll have trouble filling the rest of the build if you go for it.
• I wouldn't recommend attempting to make this build more combat oriented directly, but you can certainly skew the flex spells more towards combat preparedness and symbols to help other investigators with their skill checks at your location if need be. Spirit Athame is also an option, but at that point I'd find a different build to run.
• Protective Incantation is a card a lot of decks try to run side by side with The Chthonian Stone. We don't run it here because the only way to realistically fund it is Forbidden Knowledge, which we don't have the room to build around (we're already springing for Seal of the Seventh Sign anyways).