The Unbound, Bound

Deck created for the Northern Light Over Arkham/Elsee Gee 2021 New Year contest. The requirement was to pick a "Binder Fodder" card and construct a True Solo deck around this card, along with a scenario for this to be played in.

My Binder Fodder card is the Binder-iest of them all...it's Bind(er) Monster! A card that gives you a one-off evade attempt using your Willpower with no other bonuses except for the fact you can keep the enemy bound as long as you pass a Will 3 test each turn.

So let's give ourselves a reason to want to Bind something long term, and good chances of actually passing that test. The latter leads to taking a 5-Will Mystic and a fairly standard set of permanent Willpower boosts (Four of Cups, St. Hubert's Key) and skills (Guts), but the interesting part is getting value. For this I picked another couple of cards: Followed, which will give us the option of engaging our bound enemy and dragging it around with us for a couple of 2-clue gathers, and Eavesdrop (which can work if we Bind an enemy where we want the clues in the first place, or if we re-evade afterwards. Since these are both Intellect tests, I've gone for St. Hubert's Key over Holy Rosary or Crystal Pendulum, and Followed can give an additional boost if the enemy is damaged. There's also Think on Your Feet, which I believe can be played when moving between locations with an enemy engaged to get a free extra move - always useful in one-investigator games, and when you're not taking an Attack of Opportunity in the process since the enemy is exhausted, a good bonus for moving around (with the enemy kept with you in tow).

This all leads to us wanting a reliably accessible enemy with a few health for optimal value, and combined with wanting to make ourselves effective prior to getting the enemy, we find ourselves with Summoned Hound. No cheats for getting it into play here - we want the Unbound Beast (also a perfect name for this deck) in our deck, and drawn, once we're ready with the Bind Monster and Followed/Eavesdrop.

With Mystic and Rogue cards, we're playing Dexter, but he's only got 2 Intellect for the Rogue events we're using to make the most of our Bound Unbound Beast, or 3 with St Hubert's Key. To this end, it's time for 3 copies of Mind's Eye - allowing Dexter to substitute in his Willpower whenever necessary (along with a single Sword Cane to help reduce demand on that, especially if there are unbound enemies around). Sign Magick ensures we have enough Arcane slots for both Mind's Eye and a copy of the Summoned Hound prior to its conversion, and Priest of Two Faiths is just a really good card for Dexter that he can drop on the table before or after the Hound has come and gone for some easy Blesses, a touch of soak and a use of his ability. Talking of Dexter's ability, Forbidden Knowledge also helps the economy of the deck, while being able to soak its horror on to the Priest once or twice, and is effectively a free resource using his ability to swap it out.

To round out the package, a few skills. The deck obviously wants Willpower icons and Wild icons, and additionally wants both natural card draw and potentially filtered weakness draw if it's found the combo. It's also a deck that's going to be, once set up, hopefully taking a reliably safe 3-Willpower test in the Upkeep phase once a round.

We've therefore added Guts for simple icons and draw, Opportunist for repeated boosts on a hopefully easy test, Quick Thinking with an eye to finding opportunities to do interesting and unusual things with an opportunity for an action during the Upkeep phase, and Daredevil to (a) help draw the Opportunists and Quick Thinkings, and (b) filter down to find the Unbound Beast when we're ready for it.

The competition also requires a suggested standalone scenario to try it in. I'm going to suggest The Depths of Yoth, for the following reasons:

• It's an excellent scenario in standalone in general
• The Bound Unbound Beast can provide breathing room for the other enemies when required to spawn an enemy from the Pursuit area (note that attachments remain attached to enemies in the Pursuit area).
• There are a few 2-shroud locations but not vast numbers, giving opportunity to get value from Eavesdrop and Followed without making you want them all the time.

It's probably worth playing on a lower difficulty and with low (or even 0) starting vengeance given it's still a gimmick deck, and probably below the XP you'd hope to have in this scenario if playing through a campaign, but with careful (and lucky) play this could see its way through an exciting few levels of the descent!

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Added text:

• This was picked as one of the winning entries for the competition, and got me a copy of Barkham Horror - which is fantastic since I'd missed getting it when it released, and is fitting for a deck about Hounds.
• I did try playing it in (Return to) Depths of Yoth, in stand-alone mode, choosing to start with 5 Yig's Fury (and getting basic weaknesses Haunted and The Tower • XVI). I made it to Depth 4 successfully before being overwhelmed by enemies - although I ended up only playing the one Summoned Hound and discarding it before it became an Unbound Beast. The Bind Monster proved helpful anyway, though, locking down a Brood of Yig on the first floor and keeping it tied up until it escaped in an unlucky pull on depth 4, and usefully absorbing some otherwise terribly timed "spawn an enemy from the Pursuit Area". So not a great deck, but actually not as bad as I feared!