Seeker Preston, an infinite draw deck (Deck Guide)

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
Base Preston deck 5 3 0 1.0
Inspiration for
Preston Pays his Path to Victory (Guide) 54 44 5 1.0

Blainerock17 · 270

You can check the derived from section to see how this deck at the start of the campaign would be like and it also includes the upgrade path for this deck.

The minimum experience to make this deck shine is 23 exp. If you deduct the 3 exp you get from in the thick of it, you need 20 exp in the campaign. Potentially, you can get this deck going by the end of 2nd scenario or 3rd scenario.

The card I think is important in this deck are:

After these cards, any additional exp would be luxury upgrades.

This deck works on any difficulty you are playing since you are either never doing any test to find clues or you are trying to fail the test to gain resources, card draw, and clues.

Deck Component:

  • Fail-test combo:

     2 Drawing Thin
    
     Rabbit's Foot
    
     2 Take Heart

The idea is to try to fail a test, either in the mythos phase or the investigation phase to gain resources, cards draw.

  • Old Keyring Investigation Combo:

    Old Keyring
    
    2 Look What I Found

This combo is to tackle shroud 3-4 locations investigation if LWIF is level 0 or 3-5 if LWIF is level 2. You start your investigation with the old keyring to drop shroud to LWIF range to get clues as long as you don't draw . Since you don't succeed on the test, 1 old keyring is enough.

  • Double Double Combo:

    Double, Double
    
    2 Cheat the System
    
    2 Intel Report
    
    2 Black Market

This combo is trying to utilize all the events to the maximum. Early game if not set up, you will DD cheat the system to get 10 resources with no action costs. Mid-late game, you will DD black market to recycle the deck constantly. You only DD Intel report if you have surplus resources and are desperate for clues and have no other clue cards to play.

  • Synergy combo:

    2 Antiquary
    
    2 Protective Gear
    
    2 Cheat the System
    
    2 Intel Report
    
    2 Counterespionage
    
    Decoy

This combo is trying to utilize the synergy cards released in the EOTE investigator expansion. Antiquary and protective gear can let you have all five classes in play and gather maximum resources from cheat the system. Also, don't forget the other events in this deck have favor traits which antiquary can reduce the cost of the resources for.

How this deck plays:

Opening hand:

Mulligan target would be:

1st turn:

Play most assets you had in your hand. You follow the below priority if you have a lot in your hands.

Priority for assets (from high to low):

The top 4 I would say play it as soon as you can. The assets after rabbit's foot I would hold on to for a bit and just draw cards to find the top 4 and save 1 action to play those to use some inheritance money.

There is also a situation you don't start with any assets. In that situation, just draw cards until you do.

2nd turn till you put down all the assets:

Continue playing the assets and draw cards through the fail-test combo if you have 2 out of 5 cards listed above.

Draw Through your deck for the first time:

At this time you should have put all the assets down. Ideally, you should have around 5-8 cards in hand, cards that you want to hold in your hand will include like Cunning Distraction, Decoy, the duplicate of Leo De Luca and Protective Gear.

How the infinite draw is executed:

In the above scenario, you would only have 15 cards max between your drawable deck and discard pile. Then you start to do Double, Double Black Market combo, you will reveal 10 cards from your drawable deck. If you are lucky you don't have to DD black market, you can play the 2nd copy of black market if it's the first 5 cards revealed or you use the 2nd copy of black market to help your fellow investigators to draw cards. This leaves you 5 cards max between your drawable deck and discard pile.

In this process, you want to try using both copies of black market to increase your chance of drawing it back before the start of the next investigation phase.

In the set-aside area, you would have crucial cards like Cheat the System, Intel Report, "Look what I found!". You should start out by playing all copies of cheat the system (giving you 10 resources). Then proceeds playing all copies of 2 intel report gives you 4 test less clues. Then trying to fail the test of investigation to use the fail-test combo and draw through your deck and recycle the discards.

This whole combo should use all the resources you generate this turn and leave you 1 or 2 actions (if you have The Black Fan purchased). You can then use that either to move or draw cards or deal with enemies or weaknesses.

Possibility of Drawing Black Market After Recycling

After the whole combo above, you should have 11 cards minimum in your deck after recycling. You then have 2 chances of drawing cards:

 - The upkeep phase draw (1 card)

 - The mythos phase draw (Counterespionage cancel draws, fail-test combo draws)

This gives you 2-6 card draws gives you a minimum of 50% chance to draw at least 1 copy of it.

Weakness of the deck:

- Not Beginner-friendly

This deck requires a very specific execution to maximize the gains you are getting. I would recommend this deck if you know what you are doing.

- Shroud 5+ Locations

The thing that will hinder this deck clue gathering speed is 5+ shroud locations. 5 shroud we can get around by upgrading to 2nd level "Look what I found!". If you feel even more supportive of the team. You can get The Skeleton Key to lower those 5+ shroud locations to 1.

But before upgrading LWIF, your only way to tackle shroud 5 locations is Intel Report.

Potential upgrade:

  • 2 level 2 "Look what I found!" helps you deal with shroud 5 locations

  • 2 Another Day, Another Dollar helps you set up even faster

  • 1 level 2 Money Talks to help you or your teammates to succeed on a crucial test and more card draws.

  • 1 Decoy The Black Fan for more action and more health and sanity

  • 1 level 3 Well Connected for more tests that you can't afford to lose

  • Streetwise for any test and test that you need to succeed on locations or treachery cards before you fully setup.

  • False Covenant if your team had any curse generation/ Ancient Covenant if your team had bless generation. These two permanent cards you are using more for the team rather than on yourself though. Since this deck doesn't care about test failure.

9 comments

Dec 29, 2021 Magic Al · 9

Sounds fun, but it's worth noting that Double Double exhausts on usage, so you'll only get one event doubled. With that in mind you have to play carefully as to what events you want to see doubled over the course of the scenario.

Also I'm not sure how Black Market is to be played every round since it itself is an Event so a single usage. Sure, you could play both and DD one for a mega 15-card draw for a round or two 10-card draw rounds, but again keep in mind that over a scenario which may see about 10-12 rounds total your event options are limited - especially if you don't have DD in your opening hand.

From practise with my own Big Money Preston deck run, I found that DD that was reserved mainly for: one or two big money cards like Hot Streak(4) or Faustian Bargain, Intel Report to get 4 clues for a combined cost between 8-12 resources (I was playing 4p multiplayer so your mileage may vary) and Scrounge for Supplies to return Intel Reports and Trial by Fires back to hand. Any resources accrued were straight dumped into Intel Reports, meaning my resources swung wildly. 20+ resources could be spent plenty quickly!

Dec 29, 2021 Blainerock17 · 270

@Magic Al hi, so this deck utilize the Cheat the System which is fast action for 5 resources per cards once you have Protective Gear and Antiquary out. So with the DD black market combo, you will end up playing almost your deck open once you fully setup, and because of the fast action you had on Cheat the System, you can just play 2 of those when they are on black market or your hand to get 10 resources while not using any actions unlike the traditional big money cards.

Also the reason why I said this deck could go infinite draw is that, you will hold on at least some cards in your hand, usually is the enemy management card and duplicate asset. This will cause your deck usually only have around 10ish cards.

DD black market cause you draw 10 which leaves you couple cards left in deck. This deck also have tools like Drawing Thin, Rabbit's Foot and Take Heart if it didn't end up on black market,. So you will draw 3+ cards on your turn, which would likely empty the deck and cause you to reshuffle. Then, the upkeep phase, Counterespionage draw, or potentially the fail test combo in mythos phase if you still haven't got the black market back into your hand. You have a pretty high chance by the start of next investigation phase to draw the black market into your hand and start the combo.

This whole DD black market combo could also gives you a whooping 8 clue gain per turn. You just play all your copy of Intel Report and "Look what I found!" while you do the fail test combo. The total resources for this would be 12 and Antiquary discounts the favor card like Counterespionage, Intel Report, Decoy. So you could just pay 8-12 resources for 8 clues. Which means you are not losing resources. With this deck, I usually have around at least 30+ resources by the end of a scenario.

This deck definitely needs a couple turns of setup, I usually finished setup between the end of 3rd round or 5th round if I don't have any useful cards in my opening hand. I would say once you reshuffle the deck for the first time, this deck starts to run crazy. It really just trivialize a lot of problem in this game since you always have access to some cards that will help any situation you are in.

Dec 29, 2021 Blainerock17 · 270

@Magic Al there are like 2 cards I think are worth use dd on. Either early game Cheat the System to get your resource piled up for well connected and money talk and The Black Fan or mid-late game Black Market. Other card I don't think are worthwhile since you can just recycle and use the card again one turn later.

Dec 31, 2021 Averu · 35

This deck needs track shoes to iniate an action free drawing thin test when moving.

Jan 01, 2022 Blainerock17 · 270

@Averu yeah, I did forget about track shoes. I did run track shoes at the start of the campaign and had to cut it for sneak attack because our team fighter is Diana and she would have problem fighting at the first few turns. It also helps when fighters got overwhelmed. But you are right, if your fighter can handle the enemy without your help, then I would agree track shoes would be a great addition and cut sneak attack for it.

Jan 02, 2022 Averu · 35

How do you deal with the horror that you generate each time you suffle the discard pile into deck?

Jan 02, 2022 Blainerock17 · 270

@Averu going on to protective gear usually or Leo. You can just play a new copy when the one in play is discarded.

Feb 17, 2022 mikecheb · 4

Great list! Started running a version of this midway through The Forgotten Age on Standard and it was wildly effective, though complex to pilot, a bit overkill on the clue compression for 2P, and can definitely result in some turns that are much longer than other investigators'. I was doing so much testless clue-gathering that even with a twice-per-round +12 from Well Connected (3), I simply didn't find myself taking tests at all.

Have you considered running Call for Backup in this deck? I used it over "Look what I found!", as it's cheaper and requires no fiddling with test ranges and shroud values, plus can support the team with damage and healing and compress your movement. It's also a Favor so it can be paid for with Antiquary.

Another suggestion for this list could be Haste, which is almost flexible enough to be a 2nd Leo De Luca (or 3rd if you have The Black Fan online). Since so much of this deck is playing events from the market, you end up fairly easily hitting 3 Play actions in a row. It also helps to draw 3 cards with 2 actions if you're desperate in the beginning setup phase of this deck.

Feb 18, 2022 Blainerock17 · 270

@mikecheb thanks for the suggestion here. I agree this deck probably have a little too much clue compression for 2p. You probably would see 8 clue on 1 location per scenario. Call for Backup is not bad in the sense since the benefit of healing, move, dmg is quite good and you dont have that much clue to clear on lower player counts.

Haste is a nice inclusion for sure. The reason why I didn't include is my group when I run this deck needs my help a lot and I can hardly maintain the flow for haste, so I can't really use it. But if your teammates don't need your help a lot. That is a good card for this deck and probably an early upgrade as well.