I’m going to take a second to drop a quick bookmark into the campaign to review my experience so far and explain what’s next for the series.

First, while it’s already been 2 weeks since the last episode, I want to say that this series will be going on a bit more of a hiatus. I promise I will finish it! But I have a few other things going on, and I’m looking to get back to writing on other topics for a while. I hope to do Black Stars Rise next week. I highly anticipate this deck and its 7 weaknesses will lose in Black Stars Rise, but who knows? I may still be pleasantly surprised.

Second, regarding the deck itself, I have been really pleased with this deck design. It’s been super fun to play thematically and mechanically and has been generating amazing results. I think I could have made some better choices – Ambush hasn’t done really anything for me, for example. But it’s been great playing this deck, and I would definitely play it again. In general, nearly every card in the deck saw play and I understood the reason every card in the deck was there. There are some small edits I would make but not too many. I honestly think I was on track to win Pallid Mask if I had committed that one additional icon when I was supposed to. Losing Pallid Mask was a big swing against me, I think. On the positive side, Phantom of Truth was a cakewalk for this deck. If you want to read one episode that showcases optimal ARRR! play, the Phantom of Truth episode is really it. At this point though, I have 7 weaknesses and I am not feeling great about that at all. However, I am keeping in mind that having 7 weaknesses in your deck is really unique to solo Carcosa, so I’d be interested in trying ARRR! again in a different campaign or even in multiplayer.

Third, with the Taboo update, this deck is no longer Taboo compliant. However, the only difference is that Segment of Onyx now costs 4 XP and not 1 XP. Would I still buy Segment of Onyx? I think I would. This deck was really designed around building Pendant, and building Pendant is still possible with this deck. Not taking Segment kind of defeats the purpose of the deck design. I felt often like I was spending XP for the sake of it, so I think there is room in the deck to give up 3 extra experience to keep Segments in the deck. Basically, the core XP purchases of the deck are Stick to the Plan, Enchanted Blade 3, and Segment of Onyx, and instead of that package costing 13 experience, it now costs 16 experience. Sixteen experience is definitely still attainable in basically any campaign. The cost increase will mean the core XP package of the deck is delayed by about 1 scenario and you will forego some luxury upgrades in the meantime.

Finally, I’ve been really pleased with the reception to this series! I’ve heard great responses from a few people and it’s good to know that people do enjoy this format. I do intend to continue text based solo campaign chronicles, and Sword Cane Gloria is definitely going to be next.

Thank you everyone for reading and I look forward to wrapping up this campaign in the near future.