Shedding Light on Stella Clark (Deck Guide)

Deck #1 in the "Updated for Scarlet Keys" series.

Shedding Light on Stella Clark

The cornerstone of this deck is two copies of Quick Learner. Yes, you can buy two and yes, they do stack (They probably shouldn't, but they do).

Their combined effect will give you -2 difficulty to tests during your third and fourth action each turn. The new Scarlet Keys cards Shed a Light and Old Keyring (3) will reward you handsomely for reducing tests to a difficulty of zero. Gumption and Quick Learner combined are awesome and Winging It is great too.

Short Supply acts as a tutor, along with Scavenging, Resourceful and Scrounge for Supplies. And Scavenging will help you get those keyrings and Shotcasters back in play.

This deck is focused on finding clues but scavenged .18 Derringers will serve you well enough for the first few games until you can upgrade into railshooting and telecasting Hyperphysical Shotcasters. You also have the agility to run away when needed...

...because Peter Sylvestre is here to buff your , so are your favorite Track Shoes! Having an of 5 to 6 is great for handling agility-based treacheries (so you can save the Neither Rain nor Snow for other stuff), evading enemies - and for the Shotcasters.

Short note on skill tests:

Chaos tokens apply their modifiers to the investigator's skill value, and skill values in Arkham can never be reduced below zero. Since the investigator will always win ties, a test difficulty of 0 can only ever fail by an auto-fail effect. That's typically the chaos token, which in most campaigns has a 5 to 7% probability of showing up.

That's the key to this deck.
(insert scarlet key/keychain-related pun above)

Upgrade path

• Quick Learner! Buy two as soon as you can afford to. In a Xp-starved campaign (such as Dunwich Legacy) it's actually worth saving the Xp from In the Thick of It 'till after the first scenario.

• The new (but still Old) Keyring is just fantastic. As I wrote earlier - with Quick Learner and an upgraded keyring, only the token) can stop you from getting four clues per round from even 4 shroud locations.

• Hyperphysical Shotcaster with Railshooter (2 Xp) can fire off your agility, which is often 5 or 6. For another 2 Xp, it can find clues in remote locations with the telecaster ability. It will also auto-discard itself when empty, which is super-handy for Scavenging. You will sometimes miss the failsafe effect from the .18 Derringer, but the Shotcaster can do crazy things; even discard treacheries from play, which is great in at least two recent campaigns.

• Rabbit's Foot is your primary source of card draw (apart from Take Heart), and thus really important to this deck. The level 0 version is fine, but the level 3 version is bonkers.

• Scavenging is a great way to save actions and get those keyrings and derringers/shotcasters/Schoffner's back in play.

• Sharp Vision and Unrelenting are great in combination with the -2 skill difficulty from Quick Learner (or committed to another investigator's tests). Brute Force is a decent option too.

• Salvage can replace Scrounge for Supplies - after you add in shotcasters. Either you use it to get keyrings back into play or to dismantle either the second shotcaster or a pair of track shoes for resources. Recycling four cost Shotcasters will throw the cost curve off abit, so having an extra source of income can be nice in some cases.

What to mulligan for?

Rabbit's Foot is the most important card in the deck. Resourceful and Scavenging are second and third since they will help you pick up useful stuff discarded by Short Supply and get your engine up and running.

Cost curve

The cost curve is a bit steep in this deck, but don't worry too much about it. You don't have to get Peter AND the track shoes AND the Shotcaster into play for the deck to work. Focus on the keyrings and the Rabbit's Foot (they both cost 1 resource) and bide your time. Schoffner's Catalogue is great combined with Scavenging (2), and Take Heart can be brought back with Resourceful in a pinch.

Where's [Insert card name]?

One would think Exploit Weakness would have a place in this deck, but not really. I mean, it depends on the campaign; it's a great card if you have enough targets with 2 or less evade/combat OR if you have some other way (outside of Gumption) to reduce the difficulty of the combat/evade test. Improvised Weapon, Impromptu Barrier, Flashlight (3) or Grizzled (with the Nemesis) upgrade all work. My version of the deck is more focused on finding clues, but you can certainly build it differently.

Lifeline is fun and seems like the perfect Stella card, but it should be a late buy. You can easily get +2 actions with it (with Quick Learner bonus on both) and that's nice - but not always worth 1 Xp. (But it's absolutely worth it to save a teammate when they just failed three skill tests in a super-unlucky round. They'll pay you back in smiles :D )

Drawing Thin will supercharge this deck to high heavens. You need to fail a skill test each round anyway, you already have the track shoes that will give you a free test. And gaining resources and cards for nothing lost is silly powerful. Me, I think the effect is too powerful even tabooed at 3 xp, but I'm not judging if you want to include a copy or two.

As for allies... I like Peter Sylvestre. The agility bonus is excellent, and not having to worry about sanity is a nice bonus. You can upgrade him if you want (especially if there are plenty of willpower tests in the campaign) but there's no rush. Granny Orne is another decent choice, especially as she can help your team. Stella can even go On Her Own, but I would suggest adding more events for that to be worth it.

Parting words

I played this deck (two-handed) through THREE continuous campaigns (first on normal difficulty, next two on hard) before Stella finally succumbed to trauma at the end of the third. It's probably a bit overpowered, so remember that you can always just increase the difficulty. <3

Have fun!