Pete's Happy Family

This is your typical poor-as-dirt Ashcan Pete deck. Pete's 'real ability' is Duke, who represents a combination flashlight/move as well as a .45 with the exception that you can only use him once per turn (unless you activate Pete's printed ability, more on this later). As such Pete is equipped from turn 1 with 2-3 assets worth of flexibility with no actions or money spent, we want to capitalize on this as much as possible.

Pete's largest strength is of course his greatest weakness, if you lose Duke then he becomes extremely inept and difficult to play since the two major 'win condition' attributes (strength and intelligence) are both naturally very low. As such we usually want to hedge our bets by choosing a couple good allies to have our back. This isn't a problem however, since Duke doesn't cost the Ally slot we gain the full benefit of everyone involved so long as we choose good allies.

This is where the 'happy family' part comes in. Leo De Luca is one of the best husbands you could ask for, supporting you and giving you extra actions. Pete the 2nd is a dutiful son, reminding you of all the good and kindness in the world (and, once upgraded, helping keep you in top mental and physical shape). Of course until you reach 3 experience the extra LDL and PS cards in your deck will be dead draws, but the nifty thing with Pete is that dead draws are never dead but are instead important fuel for turns when you need to double up on Duke. The test icons for these guys in theory could be useful, but in practice you'll have 10 other skill cards at your disposal which do the job better anyway.

Newspaper is a sleeper powerhouse for Pete. First of all he rarely uses his hands and Newspaper isn't unique so you can have +4 (!!) int for those really rough shroud locations if you draw both. Flashlight is a key include in Expert for when you want to investigate 1-2 shroud locations and don't want to waste actions. Either can be pitched to ready Duke and then recurred with your 1x Scavenging for future Duke shenanigans.

All remaining Survivor and neutral cards are just good survivor stuff (TM) and skill cards to really boost you above the 4-5 skill that you want on Expert often. Having a lot of these keeps us rolling high and moving swiftly since they draw to replace themselves upon success.

Dynamite is for baddies you want to spend less time on, or clusters that may arise when you evade a lot (this happens in Expert when you just don't have time for every enemy) Arcane Studies, Shriveling and Emergency Cache are the parts of this deck I'm least attached to. Despite LDL and Dynamite this deck is REALLY cheap and just passive income will see you get pretty rich. In spite of this, Pete can suffer in the end game if there are multiple enemies around and Duke gets overwhelmed. Pete's natural high will means he can become a decent caster, and with (upgraded) Pete the 2nd around this basically becomes a better .45 for you to fall back on. (plus boosts for investigation when Newspaper is failing you)

Upgrade priorities:

Top Tier - Charisma and Flare so you can get the happy family together ASAP. Flare is there to boost your chances of a turn-1 LDL to something ridiculous like near 50%. Totally worth 1exp/use even if sometimes it just flubs and gives you PS instead.

Good Things (TM) - upgraded Peter Sylvestre for the stat upgrades and the extra robustness, Will to Survive works really well with this deck since you can accomplish so much (fight, fight, move +investigate, investigate) all in one turn with zero variability (esp on Expert).

Nice Things - Scrapper if you still feel you have a surplus of money, upgraded Lucky! never hurts but isn't particularly efficient exp use, Close Call can act as a cheap way to 'kill' tough non-elite enemies.

A fun deck to play, a little swingy as are all decks that run LDL, but still good regardless.