Card draw simulator
| Derived from |
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| None. Self-made deck here. |
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| None yet |
ggiles · 382
An Old Dog With New Tricks: Modernized Dark Horse Duke
Credit to Valentin1331 for the Deck Description Template!
With the release of Dark Horse (5), I thought it would be fun to revisit the classic Dark Horse archetype and see how much stronger Duke’s gotten with an expanded card pool.
This is a pure flex Duke deck that works well either in true solo or in multiplayer (either in 2-player paired with another flex, or in 3+ players once dedicated fighter/cluever roles are filled). It’s online from turn 1 scenario 1, extremely resilient to all sorts of Mythos shenanigans, and (IMO) just an all-around fun deck to pilot; it’s a far cry from the extremely linear Dark Horse decks of the Dunwich days.
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Overview
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Card Deep Dive
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Upgrade Path
| Difficulty: | ★★★☆☆ |
| Enemy Management: | ★★★★☆ |
| Clue-getting: | ★★★★☆ |
| Encounter protection: | ★★★★★ |
| Survivability: | ★★★★★ |
| Economy: | ★★☆☆☆ |
| Card Drawing: | ★★★☆☆ |
Your strategy is basically “improvise a plan based on what’s on your board and what your team needs” so it’s difficult for me to give you a default gameplan to follow or a hard-and-fast mulligan priority. Instead I’m going to go over each card and what role they play in the deck; I hope this will clarify how the deck is generally played, and give you some ideas on what to look for during your mulligan.
The classic. Two things I generally ask of from a flex deck: You should be able to get 1-2 clues per turn (depending on shroud), or deal at least 4 damage per turn. If we want to meet that damage standard reliably, then we need a way to make a second attack when refreshing Duke isn’t in the cards. Fire Axe (for Dark Horse at least) has steadfastly remained the best way to do that over the years.
One of several (and with some experience, the best) of your skill boosters. I’m a big fan of the Detachable/Spring Loaded/Pry Bar/Sharpened Knife/Magnifying Lens configuration, especially on Pete; trading any card in your hand for a team-wide Lucky! is pretty bonkers.
It’s very, very tempting to tap this at the earliest possible moment, but think before you do! I had lots of instances where I was left wishing I’d kept Multi-Tool ready instead of blowing it in the Mythos phase.
Pretty much a blank card at level 0, but it’s here as a Down the Rabbit Hole placeholder for the level 3 version, which I’ve found is great team support for Big Gun Guardians and the like. I personally didn’t find holding a one-of of a blank card to be an issue (I’m a firm believer that there are no bad cards in Pete, you can always discard something to his ability), but it’s not really a core card, so feel free to swap it out for anything! I’ve had success running Live and Learn, Take Heart… maybe even Cherished Keepsake if you’re playing through Carcosa or picking up Scavenging later!
You really need a way to keep damage off of Plucky (3), and Leather Coat’s been doing a fine job of soaking damage ever since the Core Set days.
An extremely flexible piece of the Dark Horse pie. You can tap her for another resource to spend on Plucky or Fire Axe, or use her right before Upkeep to go from 0 to 2 resources (useful for playing one of your more expensive assets or to stockpile resources to spend on a big test the next turn). In a pinch, you can even use her to draw cards by pitching aggressively to your ability so you can search for a card you really, really need.
She also soaks for you, helping preserve Plucky!
The namesake of our deck! So why only one copy? Well, despite naming the whole archetype, it’s actually not that important of a card – we have so many other skill boosters. And, after we go down the horse’s rabbit hole ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) to turn it into Dark Horse(5), we don’t need another copy. So we just keep a one-of here for now.
I will note that once you have Plucky out, there’s no reason to ever refuse the resource during upkeep – you can spend resource on Plucky even if you’re not testing a relevant stat, so you can always use it to go down to 0 if needed.
The bestest boy is here! Keep him very, very safe, or else Ashcanwill cry ;_;
On a more serious note, Duke giving you damage and horror soak from the start is great for keeping Plucky alive. If I don’t have Plucky out, I often choose to put horror and damage on myself instead of Duke, so Duke can soak for Plucky later.
Jeezum crow, what a card. Slotless, actionless, testless enemy manipulation? AND it heals horror/nets resources? I will gladly take Hard Times to run this every day of the week.
The guitar also has some synergy with Wolf Mask. You can move into a space with an enemy, generate an offering for Wolf Mask, push the enemy off, and then heal a horror/gain a resource. That’s value!
Another of your skill boosters. I think the Plucky + Dark Horse + Labranche tableau is pretty self-explanatory, so I won’t belabor the point. One thing to note though, is that because Plucky is fast, there’s less of an opportunity cost to holding it in your hand. I’ve found it’s often a good idea to do that if you don’t have enough soak on the board to be sure you can preserve it.
Another wowzer of a new card: Cheap, slotless, nets you +2 to a fight right when you need it. Between this and Plucky, you can put big boosts onto any of the four stats!
With two Customizable cards, you have a surprising amount of upgrades to buy as a Survivor, and this deck just kind of fell into a Rabbit Hole sort of shape without any real effort. DtRH should be saving you at least 10+ experience over an 8-scenario campaign!
Between Pete’s Guitar and your copious amounts of soak, the trauma shouldn’t bother you too much, and this nets you Plucky one scenario sooner (thus saving some experience from the Rabbit Hole tax).
With Scrounge for Supplies and Resourceful, you can recur any card you like except Pete's Guitar. While it’s good, the guitar doesn’t really form the core of your strategy, so I’ve opted for Short Supply to kick-start recurrence: A Glimmer of Hope and Grizzled (Always Prepared) have good chances to come online, and you also have good odds of being able to dig out a key asset like Pluckyor the Pocket Multi Tool.
You only have 1-2 uses of Duke per turn, so you often have a surfeit of actions. Paying a resource and an action for +2-3 to your next test, or 2-3 cards you can use as fodder for your ability, is quite nice in that context.
After buying Plucky, I had a spare Thick of It experience and didn’t quite know what to spend it on. I think At a Crossroads is probably the best generic bang-for-your-buck you can get as a Survivor with one experience; three cards for an action and a card, especially for Duke who often has only one clue-getting or fighting action per turn, is a bargain.
On the flip side, I didn’t find the action-gaining side of this very good for much the same reason. Duke has only so many productive actions per turn, and the card doesn’t often come at a good time to provide an extra action to a teammate. You can force the timing by fishing this card out of your discard with Resourceful, at least; I’ve had some success donating another action to a Guardian by committing Resourceful to a Big Gun test on a boss.
Another Survivor card that’s stood the test of time. It’s actually a bit clunky when you’ve got Dark Horse out – do you spend a resource to get the Dark Horse benefit, or do you hold onto it to potentially play Lucky? Depends on how Lucky you’re feeling! :)
(Of course, eventually you’re going to upgrade into Lucky! (3) with DtRH, and from there on out this card is all peaches and cream).
OH BOY OH HOWDY CAN YOU TELL THIS WAS A SCAVENGING DECK BEFORE ASMODEE MASSACRED MY SON?
To tell you the truth, this was a hasty swap for Scavenging, and so it hasn’t been playtested as much as the other card choices in this deck. I do like the breadth of cards you can recur (including Vicious Blow and Resourceful), but as you upgrade cards and more and more things slip out of Scrounge’s grasp, you may want to consider ponying up the Rabbit Hole tax to swap this out for Scavenging. You’ve certainly got the experience for it!
Pulling triple duty as encounter protection, attack booster, and (with Always Prepared), an actionlessly recurrable card that can be pitched to your ability.
I pretty much always go for Always Prepared, 2x Specialist on this card. The recurrence is just way too good to pass up, and you want that recurrence to fire off as many times as possible.
With the new FAQ that states you can use Grizzled on an investigation test against a location with a matching trait, might this be pulling quadruple duty as an investigation booster as well? The question is this: is it worth giving up an encounter card trait (that could potentially proc Always Prepared) for the investigate boost? I tried it and wasn’t convinced – I had so many other ways to boost investigation that I never felt desperate for the highly conditional Grizzled boost (though admittedly that conditionality is campaign-dependent; Ancient will net you a majority of TFA cards, but over half of Carcosa locations don’t even have traits). Overall, I think getting as much encounter deck coverage as possible so you’re getting one of these per turn (which allows you to be very generous with pitching it to your ability or to a Rogue in need) is a much better use of your trait spread.
This is a better Vicious Blow, if for no other reason than every time I look at the card art I laugh.
Hilarious art aside, I’m including both this and Vicious Blow because I had a lot of trouble getting Fire Axe out consistently, but I needed some kind of damage acceleration beyond Duke to really be comfortable calling myself a flex investigator; two damage-boosting skills helps a ton in this regard. It also has a nice synergy with the guitar: Seduce the enemy into the arms of your fellow Guardian the next room over, then throw a brick through the door.
Pretty self-explanatory! Use it to get a key asset from Short Supply, to get recover a card that you’ve lost to a treachery, or as a way to fire At a Crossroads on demand.
Same as Long Shot, but without the brick. Needs a buff >:(.
As a Rabbit Hole deck, the cards you want to get are pretty self-explanatory. The order’s also very fluid, as there’s no core cards you desperately need; get whatever you think will help plug the holes in your team’s composition, or to meet whatever unique demands the campaign’s making.
There are some decisions to make, and some advice I can give, though:
Plucky (3) is your first upgrade priority
It’s just so, so much easier to keep Plucky alive when it’s got three horror instead of one. On top of that, this goes from “pump asset” to “passive skill booster”, and on top of that it gets -1 cost. I always regretted it when I bought something other than Plucky first.
Dark Horse swapping
When you upgrade to Dark Horse (5), you get to slot in a 0-experience card without paying extra for DtRH (see the FAQ on the card page for a source). You can really pick anything to slot in here; I’m a big fan of Backpack, to help you tutor out some of your items (of which you have quite a few!).
Speaking of Items, you may wish to swap Scrounge for Supplies for Scavenging at some point (especially once Token of Faith and Pocket Multi Tool have been upgraded). This increases the chances you’ll see your higher-level items (and Pete's Guitar), but at the cost of making it slightly harder to see Plucky or Labranche (since you can Scrounge Resourceful to recur those, but you can neither Scavenge Plucky/Labranche nor Resourceful). I think the higher-level items (along with soak recurrence) is worth it; with the additional Down the Rabbit Hole experience, you should be able to afford Scavenging pretty comfortably.