Just Throw Things At It

Creepy things chasing you?

Throw a bookcase at them!

Don't like that dude's face?

Hit him with a torch!

Solving a murder?

Throw a mirror at the wall!

This is a solo Rita deck all about improvised cards and their effectiveness with Cornered. It's not too tricky to pilot or too hard to get the engine up and running. It includes some cute utility events as well, so it's a good way to brush the dust off of some of your binder fodder. I built and tested the deck on a Pallid Cast Detective Agency livestream, but the stream cut out during the first game. Point is: this is the end result after 3 test games.

Obviously you're pitching the improvised cards to Cornered when you need the boosts. This will most often be used to prevent you from taking too much horror from a treachery or to help investigate. Other than that, you have a lot of good enemy management and some decent clue getting tools. If anything, you're weak at getting clues here, but Cornered can turn all your cards into courages so you can make it work.

Meat Cleaver and Peter manage your feeble sanity.

I had some trouble with money in my first few games without Take Heart - mainly because my weaknesses were Indebted, Paranoia, and/or The Tower • XVI, all of which take some tempo out of your sails. With the Take Hearts I felt like i had some excess funds, but I knew I had a Paranoia coming up and resigned first. I would simply start with Take Heart as your only econ card and then add Easy Mark as your second option if you feel poor.

Speaking of, Drawing Thin would be particularly strong in this deck. I would do those instead of the Easy Marks if you're not playing the Taboo list or if you have a plethora of XP. DT makes the dig from Rabbit's Foot really strong too, so the synergies are abound. For Taboo Standalone, you can drop the Easy Marks for 2x Drawing Thin and an Infighting if you don't mind taking another weakness.

I have level 2 Lucky! in here because draw is pretty important in a Cornered deck. The draws that Lucky, Guts, and Easy Mark/Drawing Thin give you are significant to getting your deck up and running.

I don't have "Look what I found!" because this is a solo deck and you don't need to find two clues often - and if you do you have winging it. Belly of the Beast gets around Haunted effects, investigation inhibitors, etc, so I thought it was better.

There's a lot of play with the utility slots. I have Think on Your Feet, Survival Instinct, and Waylay, with the upgraded version of the first two being good includes as well. I also thought Infighting was worthwhile, although Cornered kind of undermines the outstanding icons on it. Basically, Impromptu Barrier, Survival Instinct, and Infighting all deal with being buried in enemies, which is likely to happen if you are evading a lot. In solo you're not as likely to spend your entire turn doing one thing, so I didn't include Trial by Fire, but that's an good back up for fighting or investigating nonetheless. A Test of Will and Stroke of Luck are also good includes. You can choose how to mix up those slots as you like.

So here's my list of changes if you're going Taboo Standalone:

• -3x Easy Mark
• +2x Drawing Thin
• +1x Infighting
• Think [0] -> Think [2]