Updated - Nervous Wrecking Machine ENCORE (Hard Mode)

StartWithTheName · 63539

StartWithTheName

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The deck has been refined over a few hard mode runs of sc`s from the first half of circle undone (up to greater good) paired with a few Diana, Minh and Joe decks that ive been playing about with. And a standard mode run paired with a friends Carolyn and Akachi. Plus ofc it is a new iteration of a heavily refined deck that ran on the same principal through Carcossa and parts of Dunwich.

Yorik has had a load of toys since last played him. And since an earlier version of this deck was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had in this game, I thought it about time to see how they all fitted in these days. The biggest change to how this plays is that new survivor economy cards enable moderate clueing options and a ton more Police Badge recursions that were once simply too expensive to run alongside the old combat suite.

The deck is shown here without Trial by Fire as it is as yet to be released and arkhamdb doesnt let you publish cards until after release. For the correct deck simply swap:

If you're not comfortable proxying, the deck can still get clues easily enough with Lucky!. Or you can just wait a couple of months for Trial by Fire's release. Scene of the Crime also works fine with On the Hunt to support it.

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SYNOPSIS (Overview)

A fast and flexible Police Badge recursion focused Yorik deck. Several weapons with +2 & +1 damage enable effective damage dealing by taking him to a base of 6, 2 damage per attack from very early game. This is boostable via skill pip commitments for tougher enemies or via Cornered/passive +1 from Beat Cops with xp. The addition of a generous economy suite from Drawing Thin & Take Heart allow this combat advantage to recur seemingly endless Horror and Health soaks and Police Badges and pay for a moderately strong clueing suite between fights.

These Police Badge then enable repeated power turns such as 5 attacks totaling 10 damage, and/or turn long boosts from the recurable Trial by Fire or Will to Survive.

Day to day cluing is facilitated through "Look what I found!" and Flashlight (automatic on 1 or 2 shroud), and Trial by Fire/Take the Initiative/Cornered (for temporary boosts). Any two of these can get clues from up to 4 shroud locations without too much difficulty. With xp Will to Survive and Cornered add to the options an permutations of clue tools available.

Finally Meat Cleaver & Second Wind let us heal off any damage or horror that made its way onto Yorik himself. Direct damage in particular can be an issue in TCU owing to the prevalence of certain Spoiler encounter cards (also a spoiler).

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ENCORE (Upgrades)

Core to the deck (in order of priority):

Later xp options:

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DETAILED PILOTING

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GRAND OPENING (Mulligan & Early Game)

The Mulligan, Keep:

Muligan anything else in the hope of finding the above. If you got lucky and have a decent number of these already consider keeping clue tools.

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PERFECTING YOUR PITCH ( ability use vs play from hand)

You don't need to play all your assets via the ability. In fact you should expect to play a fair few from hand simply because you want them asap and the opportunities don't come every turn. They come maybe one turn in 2 or 3. This means you will want to save them for Police Badge or recurring soaks as often as possible. This has a few implications:

  • Get your first weapon down asap.. Just play it from hand. You need the + damage to get the opportunities in the first place.

  • Similarly you want the cash from Drawing Thin to pay for them Unless you have a plan to play it very soon, this is just too good to wait for and well worth the action to play. You will see that value several times over.

  • Police Badge has pips. Which means you can commit it to any test to get it into the bin asap. It is a little better at checks, which is worth baring in mind for any encounter cards that stay in play and test to clear at the end of turn like Spolier or Spoiler which can be a massive pain to almost any deck.

  • Anything else is board state dependent. Aside from the soaks (Keepsake/Guard Dog) which you usually want late game so they get spent for icons early game, the rest depend very much on whether you think you can use the next for a Police Badge or not. So basically if you are swimming in cash. Notice that if you have the cash to play a Police Badge then it will give you 2 actions one of which can be the action to put a different asset in play. If you pitch everything and anything with a view to recuring them later you will find a lot of them stay in the bin for good.

  • Anything discarded by Cornered is available to your ability. Unlike cards committed for the skill pips which sort of sit in limbo outside of your discard pile until the window to use your has passed.

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GOLD DIGGER (Cash & Draw)

Survivor just got rich! Drawing Thin & Take Heart will be paying for almost all of our toys so we`d like to use them as often as possible:

  • Drawing Thin triggers before the test not after it: This means you can commit any card you drew to the test. It also means you dont care if you pass the test or not. Crucially since we expect to simply take the damage/horror from various encounter checks (see encounters section), we can just allow these to fail as long as the penalties dont scale with how much you fail by. On cards like TCU Encounter Spoiler just jack the test up high, take it on the chin and get a load of cash. Similarly if the haunted implications are negligible or damage/horror related, just use Drawing Thin and/or Take Heart on an investigate test and accept that you will fail it (keep an eye on the effects too).

  • You can use both copies of Drawing Thin in the same test So you only need to fail 1 test a turn to generate 4 resrouces, or 6 resrouces and 2 cards if you threw Take Heart in too.

  • Track Shoes let you initiate a test anytime you move, and dont carry the risks that haunted locations do. This is why they are in the deck, and why there is only 1 copy. They are nice to have and compliment the cash engine but not essential. But if you are playing them via a ability, then you arnt wasting that much on the install. In a pinch you can actually use them as bonus moves via Take the Initiative or Cornered ofc and the similarly offers a little encounter protection (see below)

  • Cornered cancels out the downside of Drawing Thin. It gives you +2 which exactly negates the +2 test strength allowing your to drop an asset from hand into bin for later in order to to get cash, or cycle your deck looking for something. Note the timing of Cornered allows you to play any assets you pitch this way via your ability (unlike cards committed for their natural pips (see section above).

  • You can recur Take Heart Via Resourceful or if needed Ok thats a bit obvious but its worth baring in mind.

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BREAKING A LEG (Combat)

Most here things do what they say on the tin:

  • All weapons have been selected to give +2 and +1 damage in order to get to a base of 6 or 3 above test strength for a str 3 enemy. In TCU the chaos bag actually wants us to be 4 above strength hence the recommendation to take Beat Cop (2) in the upgrades section if playing on hard. However we also have a large number of pips available to us and Cornered later on if the cop doesnt show early.

  • Early campaign, Act of Desperation can recur Enchanted Blades or Flashlights. The card is discarded before you attack, so if the attack kills the enemy you can recur the thrown item with your effectively reloading it. It even gives you back exactly enough resources to pay for it. Alternatively if you have one Enchanted Blade in the bin and one in hand, you can just pay to put the one in the bin into play over the one in hand once it runs out of charges. Act of Desperation can also be recurred by Resourceful if another weapons hasnt shown yet.

  • Dont miss the pips on Act of Desperation. If you have a longer term combat option in play like The Brand or Cleaver, this can be used to land blows. Alternatively just throwing the Brand can be equivalent to +3 higher than using its attack, and can be used while Encumbered by spoiler.

  • Burst/Bonus Damage within a given attack is available from Guard Dog/Vicious Blow/Beat Cop and Timeworn Brand's once a game ability.

  • But the real damage boosts come from Police Badge. 5 attacks at 2 damage each = 10 damage in a turn if you can land them all (or more often 8 damage if you use an action to Drawing Thin to set up the cash for a replacement Badge ready for next turn). Alternatively you can use the badge to compensate for high enemies by simply attacking over and over until an attack lands. If you miss and they have retaliate, you can even use the Dogs. Just be careful of things that have forced on attack abilities like Spoiler.

  • Meat Cleaver is our back up weapon and late game horror healing tool. Whether your heal or self harm with the cleaver depends on the HP of the enemy:

    • 1hp enemies - gain san.
    • 2hp enemies - you break even
    • 3hp Enemies - you break even
    • 4hp Enemies - you lose 1 san
    • Notice that if you use Vicious Blow or another source of 1 damage prior to the final kill, then the effects of this table move down 1 slot (ie you can heal on a 2hp enemy, or break even on a 4).

    • Similarly if you take the horror on an asset (Cherished Keepsake or Beat Cop), then you can use Meat Cleaver to heal horror taken directly on yorik and just recur them later via his if they die. Alternatively this is quite nice for Aquinnah abuse since you care less about the any horror you take using her.

    • Finally you can also just do the first attack with a different weapon and deal the last 1 damage with the cleaver to heal, or you can actually just attack say a 2 hp enemy twice with the cleaver to heal horror on the kill from the second attack, which if you are confident of a hit would be on a par with attacking once for 2 damage the taking 1 action to heal.

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TAKING ON A NEW ROLE (Clues)

Yorik can finally clue reliably from the very start of the campaign! Hes no seeker, but he really can pull his weight when the enemies are all done and buried. How we do it depends on the shroud:

There are a few other tricks here:

The other interesting thing to note is that this clue suite works almost irrespective of your current , which means it is viable in other characters like Rita Young, Calvin Wright, Wendy Adams, Silas Bishop, "Ashcan" Pete, or Lola Hayes. Or if you are willing to forgo the Will to Survive, it would also work in Agnes Baker and Preston Fairmont, though arguably preston might want to find a +1 from somewhere (im looking at you Lola Santiago).

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TOUGH CROWD (Encounter Deck Handling)

  • Use On the Hunt liberally. Obvious uses include setting up a ability when no enemies are around, setting up Bury Them Deep, or making sure you get that VP enemy out of the deck. Less obvious uses include getting around aloof keyword on enemies, manipulating the order enemies (like Spoiler) come out of the encounter deck, or frankly the fact that this can guarantee you don't draw a particularly bad encounter card at a bad time.

  • You have lots of Soak - Just take the hits Guard Dog & Cherished Keepsake can be recurred as needed. If the impact of an encounter card test doesn't scale with the amount failed by, then just take the hit and take the cash via Drawing Thin/Take Heart as described above. Importantly Spoiler doesn't do all that much to your Dogs.

  • Dealing with Direct Horror Heal this off with Meat Cleaver if needed. (See combat section).

  • Dealing with Direct Damage [CARE TCU ENCOUNTER CARD SPOILERS] Direct damage is a particular issue in TCU due to Spoiler and spoiler. We are using spoiler to fire Drawing Thin and Take Heart off action. Since Guard Dog is also a low priority some damage on yorik himself is inevitable. This becomes quite a big issue if we get hit by a bad token on spoiler or end up with Spolier on you. And of course over a campaign, this will happen a few times just by chance and it is at least better on you than others due to your soak recursion. Second Wind is there to recover this. You rarely need it more than once a game, but dont be afraid to use it anytime you have 2+ damage on you (it draws a card so the action isnt lost). Also remember to recur it via your ability if you get caught short. There are a few alternative options for the same slot:

    • Painkillers - Can be played via to save ability. Then put the horror on Keepsake and/or heal it off with Meat Cleaver. Can be a little slow in practice as those abilities could be better spent on Police Badges. Note that Painkillers don't discard from play automatically when empty, so they are hard to recur. This is the reason i swapped to a 2hp event.

    • Emergency Aid - Can be used in the same way as Second Wind. They're slightly more expensive and lose the card draw in favour of flexibility on timing and option to heal Guard Dog or Beat Cop(2) for a little more damage. This is untested, but don't sound as good on paper.

    • Alter Fate (3) - Upgrade any of the above to this and you can simply take the doom on spoiler and clear it later on. You can even use this on other players. Note this can ofc be used for a lot of other cards too and it can be recurred via Resourceful/ draws.

  • Alternatively, If you do need to pass tests, Take the Initiative which has in the mythos phase can put you to 6 or 6 in those early games. or Cornered + Police Badge/Track Shoes can do the same once you have the upgrades by discarding any 1 card.

SHOWTIME! (Power Combos)

Fight or Flight & The Red-Gloved Man are gone in favour of Trial by Fire, but cash and draw are now available making the Police Badge combos highly recurable. Once ive managed to get one of the badges into the bin, i tend to get to fire a Police Badge one turn in two or three. This has numerous advantages listed above, but one that is less obvious is that if you are taking more tests you will likely see more s, giving you a little more recursion. There are a few other notes about the the combo pieces:

  • It is possible to have a 7 or 9 action turn via Police Badge if you start with at least one badge in play. This combos with Will to Survive and/or Trial by Fire if you time it well.

  • Will to Survive + Trial by Fire also work fine together. How would you like to take 3 clues off a 4/5 shroud location as the parties brawler without needing to draw any tokens?

  • 9 Action Turn Achievements! Start your turn with 2 Police Badges in play. Fire both off for a 7 action turn, then kill something to put one of them back in play to be fired off again for a whopping 9 Action turn. Bonus points for using Will to Survive and/or Trial by Fire on the same turn.

IMPROVISATION (Variants):

More combat, less clues:

More Theme:

  • swap 1x "Look what I found!"/Flashlight/[Trial by Fire] (/card/05281) Gravedigger's Shovel. because you are Yorik and you should have a shovel. This also enables:

  • Shovel throw achievements! Act of Desperation can be used on Gravedigger's Shovel to deal 2 damage and refund the price. This isnt especially effective, but it does allow you to shout "Spadearang!" as your comrades roll their eyes at you. Bonus points if you kill Spoiler by doing so, more bonus points if you Bury Him Deep afterwards, and double those points if you scream "There can be only one!!" across the table as you do so...

The Big Man:

  • I dont bring Peter Sylvestre because hes an unnecessary cost. Thats one less Police Badge you can afford. Hes also prone to dying to Spoiler, and since were simply tanking these hits with heals and soaks, you will end up paying for him a few times. That said, he offers to save a few uses relative to the Cherished Keepsake. The question really is just how much horror are you going to take? in my experience not so much as to warnt him over the Officer Pewterson. Certainly its not worth taking him if anyone else has more use for him like if you're paired with Wendy, Rita, Agnes, Carolyn, or Silas.... but if you really must, you can upgrade Cherished Keepsake into Peter Sylvestre (2), then grab an extra Charisma at the expense of 3 to 7 xp you could have spent on some fun toys. Just know that I’m judging you when you do so.

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Anyhow - Thanks for reading!

22 comments

May 16, 2019 Jelius · 7

This is amazing. It's everything I want out of a Yorick deck.

May 17, 2019 StartWithTheName · 63539

Thanks @Jelius

Jun 11, 2019 acotgreave · 782

Used this deck for Unspeakable Oath, along with Carolyn and Skids. Fantastic stuff. I got Drawing Thin and Cornered both played in my first turn, along with Lucky and Look What I Found in hand. My head melted trying to work out whether to Cornered cards or Draw thin to get the boost or use Lucky.

Great fun!

Jun 13, 2019 Django · 4854

I'm currently playing a similar deck through RT Dunwich and must admit the "fail to win" combo (Drawing Thin, Rabbit's Foot, Take Heart) is damn effective. I used Peter Sylvestre as horror soak, so i could include Rabbit's Foot as well.

His ability means all assets in his discard pile are basically in your hand. So the deck turned totally bonkers after i added Cornered to use any asset as Unexpected Courage and play them later.

Adding Will to Survive with more XP was just the icing on the cake, renaming my deck "William to survive".

Jun 13, 2019 analyzechris · 8

I'm furious with TFA and want revenge. I really love how this deck operates. Do you think this could work in a solo run of it?

Jun 18, 2019 StartWithTheName · 63539

Cheers @acotgreave, @Django and @analyzechris.

@Django Yeah the combo works well in quite a few investigators just now. the key is having something to do with all that cash or draw. I get the impression a fail to win Wendy with high cost events might be fun too.

@analyzechris, re solo TFA, Ive not actually tried this in TFA at all yet and i have quite limited experience with true solo (I usually play 2 handed). So these thoughts come with a lot of salt. Certainly the encounter set has a higher agility focus than the other campaigns so far so the calibration on this might be a little off. One option would be to simply tank the poison. For the most part this results in an occasional 1hp hit from Creeping Poison, which you could just put on the dogs. You might also consider adding a Leather Coat, or another Second Wind. The latter is nice for letting Snake Bite just hit you for a pathetic 1hp. Though it would also let you heal off the trauma taken between scs. Another option would be to take the Peter Sylvestre route in the variants section. between the agi from him and the track shoes, a cornered card could potentially take you to 7 agi for a test which should in theory be enough to pass it on hard... in theory. Yet another option is to bring more encounter protection generally. Alter Fate and A Test of Will are possibly your friends here. Anyhow, if anyone else has any good ideas please feel free to chip in. The "solo" tag here is really in light of the fact is seemed to do fine on the solo-esk parts of TCU that I wont spoil. Certainly when ive played this deck it has been able to contribute enough clues to match the other players when it hasnt been chaperoning them, but i wouldnt want to give an unfair impression that this is going to walk through TFA as I have no idea how it would fair if im honest.

Jun 18, 2019 balsak40 · 1

Holy crap this deck is amazing!!! i love the way the cards work in this deck and more importantly the discard pile too! I'm doing an audio playthrough on Arkham's Kids now through Carcosa on Easy and I have never mopped up on the Last King like this!!!!! I gave ya props on this deck with a hyperlink to your decklist! This deck is crazy fun solo!!!!!!

Jun 23, 2019 StartWithTheName · 63539

Cheers @balsak40

Got a link?

Jun 24, 2019 balsak40 · 1

@StartWithTheName I do!
Itunes - podcasts.apple.com

Spotify - open.spotify.com

Google - www.google.com

PocketCasts - pca.st

Episode 8 is the start of the campaign!

Jun 27, 2019 lamentia · 13

Hello there. Cause i dont know how to send a private message here and dont know if you have a name in reddit of arkham lcg, can you post a deck for sefina?thanx

Jun 29, 2019 StartWithTheName · 63539

Cheers @balsak40 i`ll have a listen.

Hi @lamentia. Im afraid ive not had many attempts at Seffie. I played her a little when carcossa came out but the build i ran was a little lack luster. I do recall what looked like a really solid mystic heavy build by the fantastic @Fbones. arkhamdb.com

Its been out for a while now so with the wider card pool theres likely a few new toys that would fit it. Rite of Seeking (2) and/or Sixth Sense for example. Four of Cups too. But you could follow the principals of the deck using newer tech if you wanted, or tbh the previous build still looks pretty decent to me.

Jul 13, 2019 alpha5099 · 50

I played through Carcosa with a similar deck, and reading this I just noticed that I had misplayed his ability--I was assuming cards I committed for the skill test were eligible targets, but sadly not, they're not in the discard pile yet. Dunno if I screwed it up that many times, but certainly good to know for future Yorick fun.

Jul 13, 2019 Django · 4854

@alpha5099 As the decks author wrote, Cornered is a good solution for that problem.

Jul 14, 2019 StartWithTheName · 63539

yeah i wouldnt worry about it @alpha5099, its an easy mistake to make, and its easy enough to work around. It also doesnt give you a massive advantage really. Most of the things you want to install from the bin have few potent pips on them really so the advantage of holding them in hand is small. The exception is possibly the police badges, but once you used them once they never return to hand per se. And ofc as @Django kindly points out Cornered is the solution to this, so after say 3 or 4 scenarios your start using that instead since most assets are 1 pip and cornered gives you two.

Its also just a game and should be enjoyed :) I cant see that mistake taking much away from that.

Jul 30, 2019 Lord Triloth · 1890

Just broken!

Feb 20, 2020 The Lynx · 952

I really like Cluegetter Yorick with the Flashlight - LWIF - Lucky combo with the Shovel as a backup weapon and backup clue option.

My favorite little upgrade after playing the Meat Cleaver with Yorick is adding Reliable for the +1 boost that he could get from Beat Cop or the Tarot Card.

I also found Stray Cat to be an incredible ally in Forgotten Age. After playing it initially it becomes totally actionless after that with Yorick's recursion. It was so good that I plan on using it in my next Yorick campaign.

Mar 31, 2020 Taevus · 636

@Django I'm about to start this campaign (Return to Dunwich). I worry about the added draw making me go through my deck quickly and having a certain treachery wreck me. Did you run into this issue? Or otherwise prepare for it?

Feb 07, 2021 buzard · 1

I'm kind of confused. It keeps talking about taking a mulligan to get Police Badge but there is no Police Badge in the deck? Variations on this deck have the same issue.

Feb 08, 2021 Lord Triloth · 1890

@buzardThis is a LVL 0 deck, made to start a campaign with. Police Badge is a LVL 2 card, too which you upgrade to when you get victory points.

Jul 19, 2021 ratnip · 63

Considering the Drawing Thin taboo nerf, is this deck still viable?

Jul 22, 2021 StartWithTheName · 63539

Hi @ratnip

Its been a very long time since i played this specific version of this deck, but i have played variants of it usually on stand alone like this deck: Link

With so many cards having been released sinec then there are a lot of ways to tweak it into a different version of a "police badge recursion yorick" of some sort at least. However as for Drawing Thin, I tend to just pay the xp if the deck needs it to function. You mainly need the cash to pay for badges anyway and those cost xp. All the taboo has really done for drawing thin in my eyes is place a more reasonable tax on it. I would possibly argue it warrents 4xp cost not 3 to balance it, but it works fine and has stopped being quite as ubiquitous as it once was. For a campaign starter you will need to sub in a level 0 economy card of your choice at least, and possibly be careful not to over spend early game. But i dont see any reason it wouldnt work out. Also note that you have more choices for weapons and clue tools (Old Keyring is almost certainly better than flashlight here for the "Look what I found!" trick (you still failed the test, you get to keep the key: more details At this link)

Oct 24, 2022 Caric · 1

Loving these deck both this and your first iteration! Amazing! Has anyone experimented with any substitute customizable asset for Yorick from the Scarlett Keys cards? Or even just thought about one that may work well?