Dark Horse Duke (Solo) - Updated

Cool deck. Just remember that you can't have more than one Peter Sylvestre card in play since it is Unique (has star symbol before it's name). Fun fact - I roleplayed Peter Sylvestre card in my Ashcan Pete deck as younger version of himself (they share a name afterall) that found him through time for mysterious reasons that he can not explain since he can not speak, and is now haunting him an trying to help him out (only Ashan Pete can see him).

The problem i often see with focusing on 1 card, what todo until you get it? I'm playing a wendy deck with 2x Leo De Luca, 2x Flare and all skill cards (so 4 chances to get leo out), however sometimes they're buried at the end of my deck. How fares this deck if you don't get the horse out early?

Also remember that Dark Horse kicks in as soon as you have no ressources, even if you spend them on your current skill check and the horse also helps on it.

In order to increase the decks consistancy, i'd recommend replacing 2x Vicious Blow with Preposterous Sketches. I've used the card in a few games and the clue requirement isn't really an issue, especially with dukes free move on investigate.

A completely different question, could someone explain to me the "fluff" behind the Dark Horse card? There's no horse on the picture and i'm not a native english speaker, i guess it refers to some kind of idiom or story from lovecrafts books?

So glad to see this - I have been running a similar pre-Dark Horse Pete deck with Vicious Blow and Magnifying Glass, plus all the same assets of you - except Forbidden Knowledge, which is exactly the card my mind went to when thinking about DH. So, yeah, really glad to see you've put this together and really looking forward to trying it. What's your upgrade path? Scrapper & Survival Instinct instinct first? There's also the delights that are upgraded Lucky! and upgraded BMoC. Such choice!

@Django a 'dark horse' is a person who you think you know / you think is a bit boring, but turns out to have an exciting secret. You know, that office colleague who's actually really into competitive paintball or, more usually, a neighbour considered 'quiet' who turns out to have a very healthy sex life!

Thanks for explaining, however i don't see the reference to the card effect then.

Is it something like you only get serious when pushed into a corner (out of ressources)?

@Django I think it's meant to be: you think you know the investigator, but it turns out just when they look like they're out of resources, in fact that makes them stronger. Another example would be you go on a work trip bowling or something like that, and one colleague has been bowling terribly all day, until the last few shots where if they can get 4 strikes in a row, they'll win. And suddenly? They get the four strikes. What a dark horse!

A further thought is on Ward of Protection over Forbidden Knowledge. I had a friend message me suggesting that because you draw the card before you gain the resource in the upkeep phase, if you draw Ward, you can take the resource (so you're ready to cancel a treachery in the mythos phase) and if you don't draw Ward, fine to stay on 0 resources...

Thanks again for clarification on dark horse fluff.

You should get Scrapper as soon as possible, as this allows you to get rid of ressources anytime (in player windows), even if you don't need the boost, to get the horse back online.

Dark Horse means to be the under dog in specific situation (no resouces in this context) and in the end coming up on the top of the situation and even better than everyone else that initially seemed to be better prepared for it. Mechanic portrays it also.

I used this last night for the first Dunwich scenario. Very cool deck. I picked Peter Sylvestre for my first upgrade. Part of me really wants to get a Leo De Luca and an early Charisma, though. What do you guys think of that? I know Leo's cost is high, but those extra actions could be useful.

@jtesorie that's awesome. Yeah it's been really strong for me too. Peter is a great first upgrade. So yeah I've actually been having the same thought as you...I wanted to make room for Leo. So I've actually tweaked this deck again to include two copies of Leo as well as some other changes that I like better. I dropped both copies of Lucky because I was mistaken in thinking that in a skill test, I could draw the tentacle token, if i was down 1 or 2, I could trigger forbidden knowledge to gain a resource in order to play Lucky and pass the test. I checked the timing window charts and yeah there is no free trigger action window after you draw from the chaos bag so you'd have to have a resource before drawing from the bag which negates black Horse. So it was hard to do but i dropped Lucky as I didn't feel it was going to be worth it ultimately. I also included a couple copies of rise to the occasion, two newspapers, and one emergency cache for some burst to get my set up and cards in play that i need. I dropped down to one scavenge, pulled out the magnifying glass, and like I said pulled the two copies of Lucky. Overall I like the changes a lot. Especially when i can upgrade to flare and potentially be able to get Leo out for free which would be awesome.

@jtesorie sorry when I said when I draw the "tentacle" token I obviously just meant pulling a token from the chaos bag. Obviously pulling the tentacle token is an auto fail :)

I changed my high XP wendy aggro deck to include Dark Horse, Fire Axe and Lucky Dice, as money dumps to get the horse back on track. This deck completed the first campaign (so she has 2 mental trauma) and dunwich up to Blood on the Altar. This means around 45 XP, though i used some on Flare.

This strategy is mind bending, how to spend your ressources, to get the most out of the horse and staying near 0 ressorces. Scrapper helps a lot to dump excess ressources, when you don't have any of the other cards, so that should be your first upgrade to this deck.

Though i don't understand why you'd remove Lucky!. You can use Forbidden Knowledge to gain 1 ressource before making a check and when you need to use lucky, you'll get the horse back on track before the test resolves, so it's effectively +3 instead of 2. If the test succeeds you saved an action and a card. Later you even get to draw a card, if you upgrade Lucky!.

However you should replace Manual Dexterity at the first opportunity, speed tests that matter are too rare in the szenarios i've played so far.

@Django ok that makes sense with Lucky. I thought that if I had that resource at the beginning of making the test that it would prevent Dark Horse from being turned on even if I spent that resource later on Lucky. So yeah if I can still use Lucky like you say, that sounds fantastic and I'll throw it back in for sure. I appreciate your thoughts and ideas

How's your experience with Peter Sylvestre in this deck? With a cost of 3, he may be too expensive and slow you down.

@Django Peter is absolutely critical in this deck for his stat boosts and his ability to heal a horror every turn from forbidden knowledge or whatever

You'd never believe, what happened to me yesterday...

We were playing Curse of the Rougarou and my wendy finally got Peter Sylvestre out pretty early, a turn later jenny (the lead) comes around with bloodshot eyes, mumbling about a Curse (Spoiler!) and Teamwork... hands me some crappy Amulet and takes Peter Sylvestre away!

In all honesty, it's a great way to counter the Curse (Spoiler), and again i didn't get to test peter in this deck...

How do you handle relying on Peter and Duke both, with only one ally slot?

Duke does not occupy the ally slot, indicated by the missing ally icon in the lower right of the card (compare with other cards, that have this icon).

Duke has an "Ally" trait, but he does not use an ally slot. You can bring an ally in while he is already in play. Look in the lower-right of his card.

@thebearmayor Duke has the ally keyword, but he doesn't take your ally slot.

Thanks for the answers, that explains a lot!

I thought you could only have one dark horse per investigator? If this is a solo deck aren't you only allowed to have one?

The "1 per investigator" limit applies to cards "in play". You can have 2 per deck. The "Exceptional" keyword is the one that limits you to 1 per deck.

@Django @jamjams32 Dou you think it's really playable on a Dunwich true solo campaign ?