Darrell the Chancer (20XP) - a HC deck

Darrell the Chancer

Overview

This deck pairs three low-maintenance clue compression combos which are synergistic but (importantly) are not interdependent. As far as I can tell these combos have never been paired into a single Darrell deck before, and with his monster 5 he puts them to good use.

The key point of overlap is after they're installed combos have low or no costs, meaning the couple of resources provided per turn by Dr. Milan Christopher and Madame Labranche fund everything you need to play. The first combo is Dark Horse with Mariner's Compass, which allows resources to be spend to boost and trigger Dark Horse in the same action. The second combo is Ice Pick ••• with Scavenging and Schoffner's Catalogue. Ice Pick can be discarded for an extra clue, triggering Scavenging to play your second copy of Ice Pick fast from your discard pile (using Schoffner's to pay for it, which can also be sourced with Scavenging). Ice Pick can be used on any investigate action, and so stacks with the other combos.

The final lesser-used combo is Winging It with Forced Learning and Short Supply. Winging It gives clue compression when played from your discard pile, and it's then shuffled into your deck. Forced Learning gives you a natural route to discard it without playing it from your hand, creating a recursion loop. Short Supply meanwhile gives a chance for it to be in your discard pile from turn 1. What's nice is Winging It sits in your discard pile until you need it, allowing you to maximise efficiency. Generally Forced Learning is great for getting through your deck quickly and for drafting your most powerful cards, with A Glimmer of Hope providing another auto-discard alongside Winging It to enable drafting (and providing deck grease that otherwise compliments Darrell's ability).

Beyond these combos, you then have nonbo Deduction and Sharp Vision providing further bursty clue compression. For enemy management, it's all about evading - with Survey the Area giving a massive boost and Survival Instinct also allowing for some movement compression. Evading means you can more readily clue-find at enemy locations, and so provides an additional way to get evidence onto Darrell's Kodak (beyond just clue-finding at treachery locations). Darrell's spicy weakness is handled with Empirical Hypothesis (giving you a ready supply of evidence), Cherished Keepsake plus soak on your allies, and Logical Reasoning should you need horror healing in a pinch. Lastly Alter Fate provides a decent way to cancel treacheries, and again sits at a low resource cost.

Advanced Strategies

• The Survivor's Code. A real survivor doesn't rely on any single thing to survive, instead they have several tricks up their sleeve. With Ice Pick + Scavenging, Mariner's Compass + Dark Horse, and Winging It + Forced Learning, clues are never far away.

• Hope Springs Eternal. A Glimmer of Hope means you can reliably boost on whatever tests you like, and they're easily fished out of your discard pile with a resource from Madame Labranche and Dr. Milan Christopher. Having this as a contingency in your back-pocket is massive, as the three separate icons allow you to hedge risk on semi-high tests, or just commit all three for a tough story card test which is outside of your comfort zone (plus you can really dampen test difficulty when you add in Darrell's ability). Glimmer may seem unassuming, but it's actually insanely good deck glue.

What didn't make the cut

• Shed a Light. Shed a Light is nice, but 2 resource events are generally more than I want to run on a Dark Horse deck and it also needs support to work at its best (Gumption and hand slot assets that this deck doesn't have space for). While Darrell's ability does make it easier to trigger, it's not as universally applicable as things like Winging It (which is also recurrable) or nonbo cards like Sharp Vision and Deduction •• - so that with the added expense made it a no from me.

• Card Draw. In my opinion you don't want card draw here (Perception, etc.), as it can mean you draw Winging It by accident and ruin your flow. Forced Learning already allows you to draw up your deck quickly in any case. Make sure you use Empirical Hypothesis for Darrell's ability/weakness and not for card draw!

Campaign starter and planned progression

With In the Thick of It this is a 20 XP deck, with the mental trauma offset by the contingencies you already have in place for Ruined Film. Starter deck is directly below (and link here):

A recommended order of XP purchases/upgrades is as follows:

• 2 x Magnifying Glass → 2 x Ice Pick •••

• 2 x Unexpected Courage → 2 x Sharp Vision

• 2 x Fingerprint Kit → 2 x Alter Fate •••

• 2 x Eureka! → 2 x Survey the Area

• 2 x Deduction → 2 x Deduction ••

Further upgrades and side deck

Talisman of Protection is a nice consideration for the side deck, however I like Cherished Keepsake and Leather Coat (which have fairly similar functions) just a little bit more. Still it's a worthy contender.

My (slightly left-field) recommendation for upgrades is Déjà Vu, Leather Coat •, Cherished Keepsake • and Burn After Reading (the latter potentially replacing Burning the Midnight Oil). Burn After Reading gives 2 clues per action, and it allows you to remove Doom in a pinch in the latter scenarios in a campaign. Alternatively you can go for Scavenging ••, however the risk is this excludes it from Scrounge for Supplies (and Ice Pick plays fast anyways). If you're going upgraded Scavenging, it has anti-synergy with upgraded Leather Coat and Cherished Keepsake, so don't take both!

Final thoughts

I really liked this deck as it felt like it embodied being a Survivor - finding a way to make things work through multiple avenues rather than being innately specialised like a Seeker. There's a lot of talk of things like Research Notes or Old Keyring ••• getting tabooed in the next list, and while I don't have a crystal ball I like to think there's nothing here which would be tabooed so hopefully this is future-proofed (maybe!). Hope you like it, have fun!