The Rat's got you covered

Introduction

Have you ever been playing a high xp Rogue deck where your actions are so efficient that playing non-fast assets feels bad? Well, let me introduce you to completely legitimate businessman Joey "The Rat" Vigil. No longer will you have to waste actions getting item assets like Lockpicks and Lucky Cigarette Case out.

Well, that was the reason why I originally decided to build this deck, but there are a few other advantages that Joey, specifically the level 3 version offers. For one thing, he does have the best cost:soak ratio among Rogue allies, so you won't feel too bad if you have to sacrifice him to save yourself. If you add in Delilah O'Rourke, you could soak up over half of the damage from Beyond the Veil.

He also allows you to discard item assets at will, and even pays you for them. Why would you want to discard a card from play, you ask? Well, if it's a limited use card like a used up gun, all that it's offering you is asset protection. it also defrays the cost of playing a new gun somewhat. Winifred Habbamock also has completely ridiculous card-draw, so you will most likely see the copy of the gun that you discarded by the time you run out of uses on the one you just played. That's pretty much the core concept of this deck.

Overview

This is a flex deck with an emphasis on enemy management over clueing but is still ready to contribute clues, if necessary. It's also a skill-heavy deck designed to take advantage of Winifred Habbamock's inherent synergy with skills, and particularly the large number of excellent Rogue skills.

It is largely designed to be paired with a flex who has an emphasis on clueing. My first campaign with a deck similar to this was with a Necronomicon-Scavenging Minh Thi Phan while the other was with Stella Clark. I have also played a true solo version of it through The Path to Carcosa. Because it already has the capacity to both get clues and deal with enemies it adapts fairly well to this.

What's the plan for Enemy Management?

Winifred Habbamock has some built in enemy management in the form of 5, and with a relatively low concentration of weapons and attack events in the deck there will be times when you will be using mostly this. Additionally, if you draw Dendromorphosis as a weakness, as I did in The Web of Dreams, you will occasionally have your firepower taken away from you, so it's important to be ready to evade where necessary. Evasion can also be a good way to trigger our succeed-by effects.

Beyond that, we're taking guns due to their inherent synergy with Joey "The Rat" Vigil. The exact guns to take are sort of up to you. Different weapons have different advantages. In my 2-handed runs I took the Mauser C96 (2), which has a lot of ammo, and is therefore a good weapon for pumping loads of enemies full of lead. It also gives us benefits for oversuccess which synergize with our Rogue skills and draw engine. As part of that it provides us with some drip economy to supplement Lone Wolf and The Rat's secondary ability. I think this is my preferred option for guns.

Other options, however, include the Lupara, which offers less ammo but better burst damage, Sawed-Off Shotgun, which is like Lupara but with a lower floor and higher ceiling, and the .41 Derringer which gives us extra actions as a a reward for oversuccess. Lupara was my choice for my Carcosa solo run, and I think it was solid. Outside of solo you'll probably want another gun in addition to Lupara, as 2 ammo isn't much even with Wini's deck cycling capabilities. To lean away from clues and go all in on enemy management, I'd probably go Beretta M1918.

How about Clues?

Our primary clueving tool will be Lockpicks. In this example deck, I'm starting with Lockpicks (0). This should be fine, because we're planning to partner with a primary cluever flex investigator, so we won't be discovering the lion's share of clues, but in solo I would prefer not to depend on a card that will discard itself the moment a happens, so I took Flashlight. If you need to be taking on a larger share of clues then you should probably go Flashlight. You could also always take both. My man Joey can hook us up with either, as they're both item traited.

Beyond Lockpicks we just have Intel Report, and I don't think we need anything else. This will occasionally be used to pick up two clues at once, occasionally be used for , and occasionally be clutch for getting clues off of a distant location to save actions. In 3-player I would consider Pilfer.

A few notes on drawing cards and piloting Wini more generally

Part of the strategy of this deck involves cycling our guns using The Rat's second ability. This means we need to be burning through our deck really fast. Wini's ability is extremely powerful, but it does have a few limitations that must be played around.

The main issue is that it requires us to commit 2 cards but we only get one card in exchange. This means that, absent any other card draw we will gradually run out of cards, and when Wini is low on cards she tends to struggle. Cards are her lifeblood.

The first way to cope with this is Opportunist. As long as it returns to our hand we've spent 2 cards, but also get 2 back. However we are bound to lose Opportunist eventually, if only to a pull. To help with this we have Lucky Cigarette Case which can do the same thing without as high of a risk of being discarded. With additional XP we will add All In which accelerates everything that already makes Wini powerful.

The other issue that can come up is that needing to commit 2 cards to activate Wini's means that we need to have at least 2 cards to legally commit to a test. Especially at low XP, Wini will often end up with a hand full of cards that she can't commit to the tests that she needs to do at the moment. For this reason we must prioritize icons as much as possible. This is tricky in the low-xp deck, but luckily high-xp Rogue skills are almost all . This is actually the reason why Daring Maneuver is in the 0xp deck, though it will occasionally come in handy to be able to play it. Daredevil (0) is also an option, but could end up discarding important cards. This might not be that big of a deal, though, I have never been daring enough to include it, myself.

Alternatives

At this point I think it's a good idea for me to point out that Joey "The Rat" Vigil (0) is not necessarily a good choice to include in the 0xp deck. At 4 cost he is fairly expensive, and we don't usually have enough resources to use his ability at 0xp. In addition, the L0 version does not give us the drip economy and cycling that the L3 offers. I would recommend including a Trench Coat or Fine Clothes, instead, to allow us to use Lonnie's horror regeneration. Joey "The Rat" Vigil is here mostly to make it so that people who are searching decklists for him can find this one. I will say that is not the worst icons to have, though.

• Backstab is included here as a solution to 3-health enemies, and also because it's the most damage available to Wini in 1 action. Having icons is potentially useful to activate Wini's ability. Other options include Coup de Grâce for more icons, or Hatchet Man, though I think that one is much better after you have Delilah O'Rourke. It wouldn't be crazy to replace this with Daredevil to get more icons.

• As discussed earlier, Lockpicks could easily be Flashlight depending on how risky you want to play, and how important Wini's clueing is to the rest of her team.

• When I ran this deck solo, I ended up skipping out on the weapon and taking Sneak Attack, Hatchet Man, and Backstab for enemy management. I also didn't include Overpower and did include Perception. "You handle this one!" was removed, and Say Your Prayers was added.

• Depending on scenario, Nimble could be good

Upgrades

This is probably the point to lay on the bad news that Joey "The Rat" Vigil is not necessarily the most impactful early upgrade, and is better as a late campaign card to improve an already very effective deck. That being said, both of the times I ran something like this 2-handed, I did upgrade to him pretty fast, and it worked fine. Joey just didn't really start to shine until the late campaign. He will pay dividends at that point, though. IMO it's best to take 2x The Rat because he's nice and cheap to play so we don't mind killing him off as much as other allies.

High Priority

• Charon's Obol. It's not essential, but this deck is pretty XP hungry.

• Adaptable. It's usually the right call.

• Momentum. This card is a bargain at 1xp and gives us a valuable to trigger our . There are countless situations where lowering the difficulty of tests helps. Can replace Daring Maneuver or Backstab, or maybe one copy of an asset. Some of this will depend on our order of upgrades. Remember that we can always bring back a L0 card with Adaptable if we decide that we made the wrong cuts earlier on.

• Lucky Cigarette Case (3). Improves our consistency a lot. While I haven't done it every time, I think it's best to take 2 copies of this because we want to be able to get it as early as possible. One nice thing about this card is that there is no limit to how deep you can dig, so if we commit an entire hand worth of skills (hopefully one of them is All In to refill our hand), then we can dig through most of our deck which could be clutch for finding our guns at a critical point or something.

• All In. More icons and really speeds up our early game while keeping us running later on. Just an all around amazing card. With this and the upgraded Cigarette Case we can afford to take certain assets as 1-ofs leaving us more room for icons. This can replace Overpower.

• Mauser C96 (2) or other gun of your choice. See earlier discussion on guns. Definitely a 2-of

• Delilah O'Rourke. It's possible to do without her, but boy does she ever make killing enemies much easier, while also giving us useful static boosts. She helps conserve ammo and can deal with immediate threats (especially Dark Cult) if we're out of ammo or whatnot. I would definitely try to get her early, especially in true solo. It might be okay to take her as a 1-of though. Replace Lonnie

  • It is worth mentioning that Lonnie's healing ability (which can target anyone's item asset), can play a useful support role. In general, though, not upgrading to Delilah will be more of a challenge. If we choose not to take Delilah, we should take some other weapons or attack events such as Garrote Wire or Sneak Attack (2) to compensate. Having to bring more cards will limit the number of icons we can include which can stifle us if we're not careful.

• Charisma. Whether we stick with Lonnie Ritter or upgrade to Delilah, we need this.

Lower Priority

• Lockpicks (1). Could be taken as a 1-of for 2-player.

• Garrote Wire. This is good for finishing off odd-health enemies. This can probably be a 1-of as well.

• Copycat. I freakin' love this card. Very useful if we're pairing with another skill-heavy 'gator like Minh Thi Phan. Also a icon.

  • Note that in the insert for Wini's deck it implies that this card can trigger her ability on it's own (by committing a second card from another player's discard).

• Ace in the Hole or The Gold Pocket Watch. Pretty strong late campaign cards if we have enough XP.

• Opportunist (2). Less necessary than I thought it would be, especially as this deck will eventually have lots of triggers for succeeding by 3 or more. However, this upgrade is going to boomerang more often.

• Daring Maneuver (3). I haven't tried this, but it seems sound, especially in the early game when our draw engine is still starting up. Worst case scenario, it's a icon, which is still pretty good for Wini.

• Double or Nothing. Fair warning, this is pretty bonkers in Wini. Prepare to accidentally break the game :P

Depending on various factors

• Three Aces. Winifred Habbamock is currently the best primary Rogue at using this card, can also be committed willy nilly for more draw on the first run through your deck to be assembled on subsequent runs for big combo turns.

• Daredevil (2). Not recommended with Three Aces but is otherwise another skill. It also can trigger Wini's on its own, because it finds you the second card to commit. Probably not high priority, though.

• Liquid Courage or Liquid Courage (1). Also synergizes with Joey by being item traited. This can be a useful support card. I also took it in Dim Carcosa in my solo run because it's a place where horror healing can be relevant, but I only ended up using it once.

  • This can also be a good tech against certain weaknesses like Chronophobia or Kleptomania

• Moment of Respite. I was going to take this to Dim Carcosa, but would have had to pass on Ace in the Hole, so I went with Liquid Courage (1) instead. Probably not worth it outside of solo, and even then maybe not.

• Hatchet Man. This is more of an Adaptable side-grade. I don't care for it, except maybe in Finn, normally, but when combo'd with Delilah O'Rourke it's excellent. No inherent synergy with The Rat, though, so it might be better to take Lupara for 3-healthers. I think that I took a single Lupara in addition to my Mausers in the Web of Dreams run. I think I might have had Hatchet Man earlier on, though.

• Money Talks This card can be pretty wild in Wini, and this deck did end up sitting on a decent sized pile of resources a couple of times, but we are replaying guns a lot, and it definitely didn't end up with as many resources as some Wini decks I've built.

Mulligan

I generally try to mulligan for card draw, especially Lucky Cigarette Case. I would definitely keep Lone Wolf or All In. I would probably keep Lockpicks (as clues tend to be more pressing than enemies in the first couple rounds). I'm less sure about allies and guns unless you've also gotten All In or especially Lucky Cigarette Case. I never did keep Opportunist, but it might not be a bad idea, as it does improve Wini's early game card draw.