Parallel Skids trying to be Mandy

Three Acts, Three Threads, Three Aces

Note: Winifred Habbamock Starter Deck spoiler within

When I saw that Surprising Find was in Parallel Skids' card-pool, I really wanted to try to build a deck-search oriented Skids deck, not because it's a good idea, but because it seemed like an interesting deck-building experiment.

To make things even better, the soon-to-be-released Winifred Habbamock Starter Deck will be coming with a 3xp version of Lucky Cigarette Case that lets you search your deck for each point of oversuccess after completing a skill test. Between that, Practice Makes Perfect, Calling in Favors and Backpack (2), there are a fair number of ways to search your deck available to Parallel "Skids" O'Toole (though I did not include the last one in this decklist).

To explain a little bit about what Surprising Find even does, it's basically a deck-thinner. Like other Research cards, you can pull it out in addition to the target of your search when using a search ability. It then gives you on your next test, and if you succeed you get to draw a card. At its best, it thins your deck by 2 cards and gives you +1 to a random test, at its worst, you draw it instead of a different card and can commit it to a test for . It's not terrible, but is generally been relegated only to stuff like 50-card Mandy or Seekers taking Versatile.

I've always thought is was a cool idea, and even put it in a Minh deck, once, but I'm not going to claim that it's a must-have for Skids, or even a particularly good choice. I did manage to have a decent run of standalone Threads of Fate with this deck, finishing all three acts. To be fair 19xp would be on the high end of what you could get in the first 2 scenarios of The Forgotten Age (and then probably only with Delve or Obol), so it's not much of an accomplishment.

I decided to take Versatile, because it would be hard to cram 3 copies of Surprising Find in a 25 card deck. Then I decided that there wouldn't be a better card to Versatile for in this deck than the king of deck-search, himself, Mr. "Rook". For one thing, he is just a generically really strong card that can greatly improve the consistency of any deck (in this case at the cost of reducing the consistency of the deck with Versatile, lol, but remember this is meant to be janky fun rather than optimal), but also he combos really well with Calling in Favors.

I suppose the core combo of this deck is the well-known Practice Makes Perfect + Three Aces combo. Basically, you use PMP to dig out the Aces on tests that you are likely to succeed on in order to assemble them in your hand to commit to high impact or very difficult tests. As an additional point, Parallel Skids can recur the Aces using his , but it's not like you can rely on that to be able to assemble the Aces again before reshuffling them. Still, it can put you a bit closer to that goal on the next go through the deck if you don't have a more immediate target.

The other Practiced skill is Momentum. This is actually an insanely good card for Parallel Skids, in addition to being a secondary target for PMP when no Aces can be found. If you commit it to a Lockpicks test, you have a pretty good chance to get -3 difficulty to the next test. This is useful for all kinds of stuff, getting a second clue from a high shroud location, doing a difficult Parley test, and so much more. You can also use it to lower the difficulty of Parallel Skids' ability. This means that, with full Momentum, you can bet all 3 resources and succeed on anything but the . This gets completely bonkers with Double or Nothing, but this is a taboo deck, and I couldn't afford the extra 3xp for that. It's still very efficient without DoN. As a side-note, I think you could also go the other way and trigger a 0-difficulty test to commit Momentum to in the Mythos phase in order to lower the difficulty of a treachery test. That might not actually work, though.

As for other synergies, along with Skids' ability, Gregory Gry will help to get Money Talks on-line. I find that if you've got enough resource generation this can be a good way to pass tests that you're bad at (useful in true solo). Greg is also good as a disposable horror soak, and is an excellent target for Calling in Favors.

Delilah O'Rourke is mostly here to assassinate Acolytes and Wizards. They both have only 2 agility, so they're fairly cheap, and it's very important to keep the doom from building up. She can also help you with any other enemy, but not all of them can be finished in one turn. She also boosts your , which improves the performance of Lockpicks, as well as makes it easier for you to avoid enemies. Her bonus also boosts your accuracy with the Switchblade. I would probably rate Delilah as one of the absolute strongest allies in all of Arkham Horror.

Parallel Skids does also have Close Call, which is another excellent cultist management card, and better in some cases in ToF, so I could maybe see running Lola Santiago instead of Delilah, but I kind of prefer Delilah for solo or flex rogues. Usually Lockpicks, Intel Report, and Momentum are enough for getting 1 investigator worth of clues.

As for the other cards included, I should think Lockpicks is pretty self-explanatory. Flashlight is there because I didn't have enough xp for 2 Lockpicks, and I didn't want to be stuck unable to get clues for half of the game. Rook and Lucky Cigarette Case (3) certainly make the one-ofs more doable, but there are some things that you don't want to take a chance on, particularly when you're going Versatile. It actually ended up being helpful because I drew Through the Gates as one of my weaknesses (a terrible weakness for anyone who draws through their deck, though I think you can trigger Research cards off of it, which is hilarious). Once Lockpicks was in play it was safe from that.

Intel Report, Quick Thinking, Unexpected Courage, Lucky! and Lone Wolf should also be self-explanatory.

Switchblade (2) is included to make killing larger enemies go a little faster and be a little cheaper. It's truly an amazing card. Solid combat boost, and no action to play it. I do think that this deck could have done without it though. I might suggest replacing this with a second Lockpicks. Then you'd have enough xp for a 3rd Lucky or 1x Close Call.