Drawing fish and sometimes failing!

This deck was made to pair with Amanda on a blind hard run of The Innsmouth Conspiracy, and it worked very well (and was extremely fun to play). The basic premise of the deck is to take advantage of Silas's 2/2/4/4 stat line by succeeding at evasion and fight tests and failing at investigation and willpower tests. Our team was curse-heavy, and I found myself often actually wanting to draw curses by the end of the campaign.

Assets Silas doesn't need many assets, and the goal in this deck is to only carry the absolute minimum of them. The priority asset is Silas's Sea Change Harpoon (which is basically a better version of Machete), and Silas's Net is a nice consolation prize early in a (multiplayer) scenario. Peter Sylvestre helps deal with horror--especially testless horror--and provides an additional point of agility. Silas likes to evade (often efficiently) more than he likes to fight, so that agility boost is helpful. Track Shoes are an essential for an evade-first survivor. Grisly Totem, Rabbit's Foot, and Drawing Thin are all about card draw--which always took priority for me both in-scenario and in upgrades.

Events Silas doesn't need many events, but he really loves a few of them. Eucatastropheis phenomenal for Silas, despite the taboo, and the ideal is to have one copy in hand and one in the discard pile at all times. Lucky! saved our bacon several times--and Silas is basically invincible if he has one level-3 Lucky and one Eucatastrophe in hand. "Look what I found!" is the failer's path to clues--and Silas has solid card draw and can make decent use of his discard pile, so he can usually get to it when he wants to. I didn't wind up using True Survivor often, but it was impactful when I could time playing it right before cycling my deck, which I usually cycled 2-3 times per scenario.

Skills Silas's unique ability means that his deck should focus on carrying a large number of skill cards--especially skill cards with multiple different icons. Unrelenting is a stupidly good card because it allows you to seal tokens for a skill test, and then Silas's ability allows you to pull the card back once you've drawn the chaos token for that skill test. So you can change your odds, protect against a particularly nasty symbol, or position yourself where Lucky! and Eucatastrophe protect against the only potential negative outcomes of the test. Or, if you are hurting for cards, it can alternately be actually committed to the test, sealing friendly tokens, and providing emergency card draw. Resourceful also shines in Silas's deck, as it can be committed to almost any test he wants to take and can pull back the correct survivor cards for any situation that's brewing. Need to jump into a room full of bad guys? Get Survival Instinct into your hand. Need to fight a victory point monster? Grab that Brute Force. Did you wind up needing to use the Eucatastrophe or Lucky! that you were keeping in hand? Grab the other Eucatastrophe or that same Lucky! back out of your discard pile. Then, if you've got a second, use True Survivor to get those Resourceful's back in hand. Fey is a super versatile card with two question marks--and it boomerangs back to your hand automatically if you draw any curse tokens during the test (while still contributing to the resolution of the test). I used this card to pass particularly nasty encounters, boost evasion or fight attempts, and help my teammate when needed. Take Heart + Grisly Totem is an established but nevertheless potent combo I stole from Stella. Add in the Drawing Thins, and Silas has consistent card and resource draw--important when you pull that terrible Siren Call. Nimble + Track Shoes mean Silas can cover half the map in one action if needed, which is excellent for managing the enemies while one's partner hoovers up the clues.

Play Style This deck should be played extremely aggressively. Overcommit to skill tests, fail (on purpose) frequently, and prioritize drawing cards whenever possible. Silas can evade from the word "go," but he doesn't really want to--he ideally wants to spend a handful of actions early trying to get his card draw system in place. Once he gets set up, he accelerates like a madman, dashing all over the map to deal with bad guys and agility tests. I consistently found that by the end of the first agenda, Silas was at a full sprint-- using selective failing on Encounters and investigation attempts to get clues, resources, and especially cards. Super fun, aggressive, YOLO character--combining the fun of Stella with a dash of the invincibility of peak Wendy, a sprinkle of the discard-strategy of Yorick, and the damage capability of a guardian wielding a machete.