A deep dive into the seeker class: the academics who are driven and curiosity pull them into dangerous situations.
I did a quick overview of all Arkham Horror LCG classes and the Guardian class in earlier articles. This week, I wanted to spend more time going a bit more in-depth with the Seeker class. In my opinion, this is the strongest of all classes due to the cards in the Seeker pool
There are 13 seeker characters, which range from students to researchers to professors. Anyone with academic curiosity. Seekers want to figure out the “why” or other answers. This leads them to be very good investigators as they have many tools to assist in their drive for knowledge. Intellect (or book) is the main stat for this class.
As I said before in the Guardian article, there are always some exceptions. If there is a rule, there is an exception. Or, at least, that’s true of my experiences. For now, I want to focus on the core truths. I mean, you should know the rules before you break them.
After going through the level 0 cards, I felt that a few categories emerged. I might have narrowed down the possibilities a little too hard. And some cards didn’t fit into any particular category. It came down to clue acquisition, gaining cards, managing enemies, gaining resources, healing, and translating the unknown. There is a lot to cover under the seeker umbrella.
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Clue Acquisition
Investigation
This feels like an obvious aspect for a class that investigates. But seekers can investigate well. This mainly means getting multiple clues with a single action. While being consistent and getting one clue per action isn’t bad, clue compression can be even better.
One staple seeker card is “Deduction” which is a skill that gives an extra clue from the investigation. Not only does it get more clues, but increases your skill value for the test. That’s hard to argue against.
But, if falling back on the basic investigation (which, again, is not a bad thing if it keeps up with game tempo), there are classic tools to help seekers that are hard to pass. Especially a magnifying glass, a card that does not take an action to put onto the field, and gives a good bonus for investigating.
Passive Discovery
Seekers also have ways to gain clues without using an investigate action, or testing at all. These types of clue acquisition cards are often triggered by another effect or have a potentially high cost. Or sometimes both. While getting clues without having to test is useful, I think doing an investigate actions are more readily available and easier to work around.
Gaining cards
Drawing Cards
Drawing cards is one of the biggest aspects of the seeker class in my mind. If you want to draw cards, you go seeker. There are card events to draw more cards. There are item reactions to draw more cards. A standard character is deck is about 33 cards. I have seen a seeker cycle through the entire deck multiple times in one game.
There are several bonuses from drawing cards as well. Accessibility is the most obvious benefit of drawing cards. If you go through your entire deck, then you will find the card that you are looking for. Being able to find all components of your kit is always beneficial.
Drawing many cards and not being able to play all of them means that a seeker often has a full hand. Hand size is normally 8 cards before you have to start discarding. Which is why Seeker also has cards that modify hand size. There is a strategy for seekers referred to as “Big hand” because of the modified hand and drawing cards combo.
Even if an investigator is not going big hand, they naturally benefit from big hand cards, just perhaps not as much.
Searching for Cards
Another card-related mechanic that is attached to Seekers is the ability to search (or scry). This will instruct a player to look at the top X cards of their deck and pick one from the group. This can be as few as 3 cards to as many as the entire deck. This mechanic is especially helpful when looking for a particular card or effect. While there isn’t as much of a card pay-off from searching in terms of quantity, there is an argument that searching puts value on quality.
Managing Enemies
Seekers are not the ones on the front lines. They were not originally built to be fighters, but they do have some ways to manage enemies. And to be honest, they can upgrade into fairly decent fighters as well. I think the seeker class is overpowered, but that’s a different conversation.
The available tools at level 0 include some fight cards that allow you to fight with intellect instead of combat. I love the card “throw the book at ‘em” because it means it in such a literal manner.
The other cards available to them for managing enemies tend to immobilize or evade the enemy. Immobilization can be very useful if you are willing to abandon a section of the map. Evade is nice for getting out of a sticky situation while hoping your fighter will be able to come in and make things better.
Gaining Resources
Rogues are typically money characters, but Seekers have some good options. One of the best cards to me is “crack the case,” as it’s a reaction to something that a seeker is most likely going to be doing anyway. The only issue is that the value for this card is very episode-dependent. If the scenario has only low shroud values, then getting a value from the locations isn’t as likely.
Some cards give consistent value, which again, trigger after doing something you would naturally do anyway. The triggers are often on draw, search, or investigation (some care about successful investigations, others don’t). No matter what type of seeker deck you are building, there will be at least one good option for gaining resources.
Healing
I wouldn’t call healing a core component of the seeker kit, but it still felt worth mentioning. That also might just be recency bias based on some of the decks I have played. There are some action-based heals that can be repeated or are one-time events (until you cycle on the deck and see the card again). I have not found healing to be a core component needed for many Arkham decks, but it does allow for a level of recklessness when knowing there is a safety net.
Translating the Unknown
This mechanic is one of the more… interesting ones that does solely belong to the Seeker class. Each card has an objective that must be completed before the player is allowed to upgrade the card. But the upgrades are quite good. And each card gives a reward when the goal is accomplished. There are also different paths that a card can upgrade into, allowing for a very diverse range of upgrades.
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