Calvin in the Key of Y

Backpack, backpack

Let me first say that I don't think Calvin is the best investigator. It takes effort to bring him just in line with other investigators, only to then be lot closer to death. However, he is also utterly Arkham Horror. The tension of marching straight up to the death line and toeing it for the rest of the game is awesomely fun.

This requires a change of mindset from how you'd normally play. Rather than reacting to encounters and mitigating damage as best you can while progressing the acts, Calvin gets fired up by eating encounters and finding enemies to bloody him up a bit in the early game. You won't want to commit any skills to an encounter test that's going to damage you, and you might move with an enemy engaged with you first to provoke an attack before swinging back at it. It's all a little backwards.

Alright, the deck. The key synergies here are Meat Cleaver, Painkillers, and Petey. The Cleaver and Painkillers can help damage and horrify you early if the encounter deck doesn't do it, and then they're how you manage your imminent death for the rest of the game. You want to hover at 4-5 damage & horror. You've got free Leather Coats and Cherished Keepsakes to soak up excess later. If you get too close on health you can pop a Painkiller and have Pete talk you through it, and the Cleaver itself can pull a sanity back in a pinch. Just never keep both at 5 for fear of direct damage/horror, unless you have Until the End of Time out or some damage cancellation in hand.

"But what's the deal with the Backpack, isn't that a bad card?", I hear you asking. Well, where this deck gets bananas is when you swap the Key of Ys in for the Keepsakes. +1 to all skills for each damage/horror on yourself, and +1 to ALL skills for each horror on the Key which you can easily feed with the Cleaver and Painkillers?! You should have no trouble getting to base 7-8 skills across the board. That's nuts. So, regarding Backpack: In addition to the deck coincidentally being > 40% items, finding the Key early is pretty important. It does work nicely with the rest of the items, though. Ideally you have a Cleaver and Lantern out, but the Shovel is very decent early if that's all you've got as the +2 to hit helps early and you can always ditch it for a free clue when you draw into your other items later. You obviously can't throw the Coat down with the Backpack out, but you don't need the Coat for damage soak until later in the game when you've already incurred some damage yourself. So it's nice bonus to have those late-game cards thinned out of your deck.

Upgrade paths are pretty straightforward: Key of Ys immediately, then Peter and Lucky. Those alone will likely take you past the halfway point of a campaign so whatever else will be situational. Blood Eclipse would be awesome, unless you've already suffered more than a point of physical trauma. Bulletproof Vest might seem like a natural upgrade path from Leather Coat, but I wouldn't recommend that due to its cost. You could replace Perseverance with better damage cancelers like I've Had Worse or Devil's Luck. Will to Survive (I'd probably prefer this over Against All Odds) and upgraded Rise to the Occasion are also good choices.

Let me know what you think!