"Had To Be Sharp"- DTTF competition

It's fair to say that these days you have it made. You're part of a proper organisation now, with a boss who actually knows what he's doing. And it's not just him either. People sit up and take notice when you walk into a room. You have contacts that'll make sure you're the first to hear when something goes down and markers you can call in if you need something done. You even have a few Investments in your own name squirrelled away in an account no one in Dario's gang knows about just in case the hard times come back.

Because you sure as hell know what that's like, don't you? You remember all too well what it was like when the most valuable thing you owned was a set of lockpicks and what little money you had you'd lifted out of other people's pockets. When in fact, another day without another stolen dollar meant another day with nothing to eat. When you didn't have savings so much as emergency caches hidden under the floorboards of decaying flophouses and listening to your shadow didn't mean anything mystical so much as it meant knowing when to run.

But then you got a taste of what life could be like with the right kind of backing for a street kid made good , and as it turns out the most important thing to know about you isn't that you came from the streets. It's that no matter what it takes or what you have to do you are never ever going back.

(actual) Introduction

Drawn to the Flame are running a deck-building competition again, and the terms are to build a deck for any investigator that only uses cards from the core set, the Path to Carcosa and the Circle Undone. This is my entry - a clues/evasion deck for Finn that should work equally well solo or with a combat oriented partner and built around Drawing Thin, Pickpocketing and Well Connected. It was inspired by three things

1: @StyxTBeuford’s very interesting review of Dario El-Amin, in which he speculated that between the taboo lists and the Circle Undone’s resources-focused cards Dario in particular and resource hoarding decks in general might now be more viable. Dario and the circle undone’s resource focused cards seem to dovetail very well with Drawn to the Flame’s restrictions for the contest, so they were the cards I decided to have a go at building a deck around.

2: A recent game of Return to the Pallid Mask which Finn ended with 58 resources- mostly via Drawing Thin and Pickpocketing. That made me decide on him as the investigator and them as the economy cards, rather than more obvious choices.

3: A sense I’ve had for a while that the rogue card pool has a kind of weird thematic duality to it where about half the cards seem to belong to a kingpin at the centre of an extensive network and enjoying every luxury and the other half belong to a street-tough petty criminal barely scraping together enough to get by. So I liked the idea of represented both sides of that coin, so to speak, by building a money hoarding rogue who's kinda...insecure about his wealth. And as my in-character introduction might have suggested, I thought Finn's experiences with organised crime might have involved a certain amount of rough with the smooth over his career so he was a good fit thematically as well as mechanica

Having put that deck together and tested it, I’m pleased that this theme does seem to be very well mirrored in the mechanics. In that it seems to start off quite calm with investments and patrons, builds to something quite powerful and stable-feeling in the mid-game and then invariably degenerates into a desperate, panicky attempt to stay ahead of an increasingly large army of irate enemies and get away before your crimes catch up with you. That description notwithstanding, it really is a lot of fun to play so let's explore some of the mechanics

Card choices:

The backbone of this deck is Drawing Thin, Pickpocketing, Lockpicks and Well-Connected. Drawing Thin and Pickpocketing provide the economy to fuel Lockpicks and Well-connected and Well-connected and Lockpicks support the skill checks that Pickpocketing and Drawing Thin need to work.

There’s obvious synergy between Lockpicks, Finn’s high intellect and agility and Drawing Thin, and I included a fair few cards with static intellect and agility bonuses to maximise the chance of triggering Drawing Thin on an activation of Lockpicks and still getting the clue. Pickpocketing fits similarly well with Finn’s free evade, 6 agility can deal with most low alertness enemies on standard and well-connected can push even more tricky evasions into pass-by-two territory.

Amongst the other economy cards, Investments ,Emergency Cache and "Watch this!" are mostly there as support if the deck isn’t forthcoming with Drawing Thin and Pickpocketing. They’re none of them bad exactly, and there’s no downside to adding more resources to the hoard but they don’t have the same turn-on-turn value that Drawing Thin and Pickpocketing do so they’re a bit less integral to the deck working right. Another Day, Another Dollar just adds a bit of consistency to the first couple of turns. It means, for example, that you can play well-connected and still benefit from its bonus immediately.

Track Shoes speeds up movement and opens up options for dealing with enemies on top of the static bonus to agility. It’s also a good back-up action-less skill check for Drawing Thin if Lockpicks aren’t viable and you don’t need the second move. Similarly, Intel Report speeds up and smooths out clue-gathering and lets you circumvent locations that are awkward for whatever reason

As far as the other cards go, Hard Knocks is there for theme, but if for whatever reason you really need to do a combat check at +17 or something then, good news, that option is available. :) Sneak Attack is the actual combat card of the deck. It’s the go-to thing for anything that the scenario really categorically absolutelydemands must be stabbed, and it’s also a good way to deal with the Stubborn Detective who can otherwise cause some difficulties if he shows up with more enemies. Narrow Escape is essentially Manual Dexteritybut if there’s an enemy and something else you urgently need to do it can be Unexpected Courage instead.

Money Talks is there to deal with tests where your stat + 1/5 of your resources won’t cut it as a tests value but 1/2 your resources will. This is mostly encounter cards but, just like well-connected, it can be used for particularly tricky evasions and attacks if there’s a pressing need.

"You owe me one!" is a funny card and I’ve included it here mostly for the theme, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. There are basically two ways you can go with it in multiplayer without being too obnoxious. You can jettison the theme completely and play it relatively unselfishly to try and save someone else some actions and resources by looking for cards where it doesn’t necessarily matter who plays the card as long as it gets into play. True Grit, Something Worth Fighting For, Extra Ammunition and a lot of healing Soothing Melody fit this category, along with a few other cards like Dynamite Blast and Waylay in the right circumstances. Or you can appropriate spare assets that other people aren’t using. Extraneous weapons if the scenario ends in a fight, second copies of non-unique accessories (this deck has none) and things like bulletproof vests fit into this category. Or you could use it to steal other people’s money things and add them to your giant pile of money but that would be terrible. 
 Weaknesses:

For the published version of this deck, I chose three weaknesses I thought fitted thematically- two old enemies with grudges and The Tower • XVI just in case Finn needed reminding that the things of this world are temporary and ruin and death are inevitable.- but it can handle most of the weaknesses fairly well with the notable exception of Paranoia.

Piloting notes:

At the beginning of the game, you’re looking for some combination of lockpicks , well-connected, the cards that give static bonuses and the economy cards. Lockpicks are the single most important thing because they make investigation consistent and investigation is how you win, so get those out first. Then you want well connected, pickpocketing and drawing thin and then you’re off to the races. Keep fuelling well-connected and use it and the other cards to land pickpocketing and drawing thin and avoid big delays from encounter deck nonsense and there shouldn’t be a lot that can slow you down. Of the weaknesses, the mob enforcer is best dealt with via parting with four of your precious resources, the detective is best dealt with via sneak attack and the deck isn’t terribly dependent on committing cards to pass skill checks so the Tower can just be ignored.

Testing comments:

I tested this deck in Return to the Pallid Mask and Conviction!Return to Dim Carcosa and it reached the nice resolution both times , ending with 42 and 35 resources respectively. So , while I was kinda skeptical, it is possible to build a deck around well-connected and get enough of a resource hoard to be worthwhile. You don’t even have to be Preston to do it.

Possible variations:

For a truly solo deck, you could trade You Owe Me One for Cunning or Swift Reflexes. You could gain a bit of combat capability by adding Lupara, Sleight of Hand or Backstab. And lastly Dunwich Legacy and Forgotten Age cards-wise, the obvious thing that’s missing is Lola Santiago. Beyond her, you could also add High Roller and Double or Nothingfor surprise giant piles of money or Pay Day and Ace in the Hole for another mechanism for surprise giant piles of money , or even the The Skeleton Key to better facilitate lockpicks + drawing thin. There’s quite a few ways you could go.

Last Thoughts

This was a really interesting deck-building challenge , and genuinely did change my thinking about the "right" way to approach deck-building for rogues. Lots of the cards that I would have defaulted to were ruled out by the restrictions , but the deck I ended up with didn't feel second-rate or lacking in any way. It was thematic , it was effective and it was really hugely fun to play. It moves fast, it has a lot of cool choices, it's a version of Finn that's relatively unafraid of the encounter deck and fundamentally there is something really viscerally satisfying about declaring yourself Dragon King Of All The Resource Tokens. I'd encourage everyone to give it a try :)