Smokey Joe Diamond - P.I. - thematic build

I chose to limit the card pool to choices that made more thematic sense for Joe as a Private Investigator. I also limited myself to one core set of cards (instead of proxies) since I now have a large enough pool of cards (Core - Dunwich - Carcosa and >50% of FA/TCU) to find substitutes for missing cards. I don't feel that any cards central to the deckbuild were missing.

Private Investigator Smokey Joe Diamond is checking out the Miskatonic Playhouse for business mogul Charles Ross, Esq.. Rita was there with her university friends and joined him in the pursuit of this madness. Ross will be making sure that Joe and Rita always have the best gear by wiring a generous amount of cash whenever needed.

Thematic must include cards Fingerprint Kit has to be included in this build for a PI. Hawk-Eye Folding Camera was also considered but nothing says detective like taking fingerprints at a crime scene.

Alice Luxley and Beat Cop will be joining Joe as soon as he can get #Charisma after the 1st or 2nd scenario. This will boost him up to a 6 in combat and intellect if he can find any of his weapons. Alice Luxley replaces the +1 intellect boost that Dr. Milan Christopher normally supplies to Seekers. I am hoping that she can get in a few shots of easy damage. Rita can exhaust enemies and get in a cheap point of damage before Joe finds the clue and finishes up. Calling in Favors - Joe knows people and once he gets the #Charisma and Beat Cop upgrades he is going to be making the call to bring in more allies. This card might get cut for the planned upgrades though.

Survival Knife The .45 Automatic and Detective's Colt 1911s are not close to enough weapons and Survival Knife seems like exactly the type of weapon a PI would carry. Enchanted Blade might make more sense but Joe believes in old school weapons.

Evidence! - Deduction - Working a Hunch - Fieldwork and the Pathfinder are all part of his sleuthing repertoire. Unfortunately I don't have Scene of the Crime yet but I think I have enough clue and movement boosts in the deck.

Crack the Case is a fantastic economy booster that could end up paying off substantially for the duo.

Combat Joe will handle more than half of the combat and he will be a little restricted early on with just two guns and two Survival Knives. He will be fighting at 5 combat skill value with any of his weapons plus the Ace of Swords upgrade after the first scenario and a Beat Cop after the second scenario. There are also 7 skill cards that can boost combat. This should be sufficient to handle most common enemies and Rita will be getting the Ornate Bow upgrade after two scenarios.

Economy This is a fairly expensive deck to run but Charles Ross, Esq. should help considerably and ECache and Crack the Case should balance the rest out.

Investigating Fingerprint Kit and Alice Luxley will make Joe a 6 intellect once both are played. This should be sufficient to grab clues pretty steadily throughout each scenario.

Hunch Deck Delay the Inevitable Emergency Aid Preposterous Sketches No Stone Unturned 1x Evidence! 1x Working a Hunch

Shortcut and Logical Reasoning are part of the main deck.

Upgrade Path

High Priority (9XP) Charisma Ace of Swords 1x Beat Cop Forewarned

Medium Priority (12 XP) Pathfinder 2x Vicious Blow 1x or 2x .45 Automatic 1x or 2x Blackjack

Other options Eidetic Memory - This might need to be a higher priority Shortcut Police Badge Extra Ammunition Well-Maintained Emergency Cache could be added to resupply his Fingerprint Kit. It is too that Joe is Old School and doesn't have any interest spending time researching Strange Solution. This would be a fantastic synergy. Elder Sign Amulet - just in case he takes a couple of mental trauma

The Campaign Results Rita and Joe got off to a slow start in Curtain Call but did well in the Last King once Rita got her Ornate Bow they were pretty much unstoppable until the final scenario. They (mostly Joe) got 10 damage in on Hastur but everything they did went wrong.

What went well and what went wrong for Joe

Joe needed intellect and combat stat boosts to be successful most of the time against the enemies and shrouds in Carcosa.

Ace of Swords and Beat Cop along with the .45 Automatic meant that almost every shot hit its target.

Alice Luxley provided a much needed intellect boost and soak but her special damage ability was a non-factor. Joe and Rita just killed things very efficiently. It should come as no surprise that Dr. Milan Christopher is a better option.

Calling in Favors - I never had a situation where it made sense to use it even though I had 3 different allies (5 cards) in the deck.

Charles Ross, Esq. - The big disappointment likely to bad luck. He never came up early in games and ended up getting replaced near the end of the campaign.

Ever Vigilant was a fantastic economy and action saving card that was definitely worth upgrading.

Crack the Case was also fantastic and largely replaced Level 0 Emergency Cache

Fingerprint Kit was great for picking up clues 2 at a time but its supplies were too limited and Joe really needed another static intellect boost beyond Alice Luxley. There were too many times that he failed tests at +1 or +2 and their progress stalled. The options for this would be to use the tried and true Magnifying Glass or Hawk-Eye Folding Camera. The second takes a few locations to setup but helps during treacheries and parley actions. Or I could have made Emergency Cache a priority and used it to partially resupply the Fingerprint Kit.

Pathfinder and Shortcut are awesome. Pathfinder is possibly my favorite Seeker card and saved so many actions during the game.

The Hunch Deck overall was fantastic aside from Delay the Inevitable and Evidence!. Their usages was too situational. Everything else got used a lot.

Do you have any other favorite cards that would work really well thematically with Joe?