Arkham Deck Tech: Limited pool Kate

To work alongside Hank Samson in this limited pool experiment in Hemlock Vale, I've built the following Kate Winthrop deck as the main cluer. Once again, the card pool is limited to Hemlock Vale, Scarlet Keys, Edge of the Earth and the Revised Card box.

Link to the full deck

At first glance, I wasn't impressed by this investigator. Her statline is good, but not awesome. Moving clue to Science or Tool asset sounded counter-productive until I realized you still own the clues and can spend them to advance the agenda. Still, how many useful Science or Tool assets can we find?

• Magnifying Glass and Flashlight : Kate base 4 book stat needs a little boost, these are classics.
• Microscope: It seems a little gimmicky to me, but if she sticks to Hank, maybe it could be fuelled regularly. Kate also has 4 agility, she can probably evade some enemies too.
• Alchemical Distillation: Could be useful to fish for some key cards. Seekers cards are notoriously expensive, more resources can't hurt.
• Chemistry Set: I keep hearing this is strong. I have my doubts, but let's try it. It's also a tool using an accessory slot rather than a hand slot.

At this point, I feel it's important to talk about her signature card, the Flux Stabilizer. It's a permanent, doesn't take a slot, counts as a Tool and Science asset. From what I understand, it's essential to place a clue on it to flip as early as possible. The bonded Aetheric Currents are useful, but the main benefit is allowing to get a nice +2 on your next skill check when placing a clue on an asset. Notice it says "next skill check" and never mentioned it has to be a check with the targeted asset.

Many of these tools share the hand slots, but thankfully there are few ways to mitigate this and have all of them in play.

• Dr Charles West III: Straight up an additional hand slot for a Tool. He can take a few hits, but that's not his main purpose. I'm really unconvinced by his reaction ability. Much like the Chemistry Set, without any way of manipulating your test results, the odds you can trigger the reaction are low.
• Tinker: Making use of Kate ability to use Insight from any class, we can also attach this upgrade to a Tool to drop the hand slot requirement. Handy! (Pun intended)

Let's add in a few skill cards like the staple Deduction, some Perception, the versatile Unexpected Courage and something that feels tailored for this deck:

• Well-Funded: It gives one wild as base, one more if you control a Tool or Science asset and a third one if you have three of them! Very useful!

Seeing that Kate might have to evade some enemies, maybe I should add a few cards to help her. This way she can concentrate on using the skill cards on getting clues.

• Transmorgrify: Sounds like a good way to get rid of a hunter minion. Notice it also says you may use your book stat rather than your agility stat. I like the versatility, you use whatever stat you can boost at the time of use.

Let's round up the deck by adding Mouse Mask, another possible way of helping with investigation checks or resists treachery cards, Working a Hunch, a strong base card that can also commit for 2 books if you lack the resources to play it, and, speaking of resources, some Emergency Cache as it feels to me many key Seeker cards are expensive.

I would say I'm much more confident in this deck than Hank's. There's a strong theme going on, everything seems in place to help maximize Kate signature skill. I also didn't spend half my time thinking about all the other cards I could use if I wasn't limiting my pool. A Fingerprint Kit would be useful, for example, but it doesn't feel mandatory. Spoiler alert: the upgraded version is part of the card pool ;)