Multiplayer Mark for Expert Difficulty

Here's my Mark multiplayer deck. This deck presupposes that Mark is playing with an investigator or investigators who can handle most of the clue-finding. Mark will provide a little bit of support in this area, but mostly he's here to deal with monsters. Mark's five base Combat, excellent card draw, and Sophie make him the best investigator in the game at this task.

This deck is designed with Expert in mind, but it should do fine on lower levels, too.

Let's run through the card selections.

.32 Colt: Vastly inferior to Machete, obviously. But, sad to say, you will not always draw Machete, and a mediocre weapon is much better than nothing. Mark's high Combat, Sophie, and the skill cards in this deck make it quite possible to hit with this, even on Expert. The six bullets are a decent amount, not enough to last a full scenario but hopefully enough until you draw a replacement. The Combat icon on this card is a major advantage over the .45 Automatic.

Flashlight: It's important to be able to do a bit of clue-finding. Sometimes there just aren't any monsters on the board, and it's nice to be able to chip in. With Flashlight Mark will near-automatically succeed at investigating any 1 or 2 shroud location, and that can help the team out and keep the Act deck moving faster. If you're truly confident that your teammate can do 100% of the investigating (e.g. you're in a two-player game with Rex Murphy), you can cut this in favor of something like "Let me handle this!" or Prepared for the Worst. But I do recommend diversifying a little bit.

Also, having an additional asset on the board is useful to protect your Machete and Beat Cop from stuff like Crypt Chill, Pushed into the Beyond, Corrosion, etc.

Machete: The best level 0 card in the game, and the key card in any Guardian deck. Mulligan for this.

Beat Cop: Not as synergistic with Mark's special ability as Guard Dog, but I still prefer it for two reasons. First, on high levels the +1 Combat is really valuable, even for Mark. When the average token is roughly a -4, even Mark's 5 base Combat needs help. Second, the two Sanity soak of the Beat Cop is just precious for Mark. Getting a Beat Cop out does wonders for Mark's durability.

Guard Dog: Drawing an ally is very important for Mark. He needs a buffer for his pitiful sanity, and he would rather not assign any extraneous health damage to himself, either. So it's good to include a third one. The Guard Dog does a pretty solid job, although I really wish it offered more than one sanity soak. Can be usefully upgraded to Brother Xavier.

"If it bleeds...": An underrated event. It's cheap and action-free so it doesn't slow the team down at all. Even if it only heals one horror from Mark it's worth playing, but often circumstances align where it will be able to do much more than that. This game is full of monsters that deal horror, sometimes multiple points of it, and it was Mark's job to hunt down those monsters anyway. This means triggering it is usually pretty easy. A great card for keeping Mark alive, and much faster and more efficient than something like First Aid or even Smoking Pipe.

Dodge: Another important card to help Mark stay alive. You won't always be able to kill monsters before they can attack, and taking multiple points of horror in the enemy phase is a disaster. Dodge is here to save the day. Like "If it bleeds...", it's highly efficient and very inexpensive. Can also rescue your teammates in a pinch.

Elusive: Elusive? For a dedicated monster hunter? It may seem an odd choice, but this card is so incredibly powerful that Mark's going to run a copy. Sometimes Mark does want to get away from enemies--remember, this guy has five sanity--and being able to do that test-free and teleport to a space of your choice is great. Moreover, a lot of scenarios require the team to retrace their steps, and then you can simply use Elusive to move several spaces in zero actions. That's terrific value.

Emergency Aid: A little slow and expensive, but we'll take it along. It's decent for healing Mark and getting you a couple more Sophie uses. That alone wouldn't be enough to include it, but we're also planning on upgrading quickly to Beat Cop II, and refreshing that with Emergency Aid is well worth it. This card does two more useful things. It can get you out of Shell Shock range if you're in danger of dying to that. In a truly dire situation, you could even heal a teammate. (I have never actually had to do that, but hey, you never know.)

Emergency Cache: This deck is a little on the expensive side, so we need to take this along. Great if it's in your opening hand--Emergency Cache, Beat Cop, Machete is usually a fine opening. Can eventually be replaced by Ever Vigilant or (preferably) Stand Together.

Evidence!: Again, having some clue-finding support is usually a good idea. Evidence! is not very expensive and has great tempo. Compare Working a Hunch (itself one of the best cards in the game). The double Intellect icons on this card are very good, too.

Shortcut: A wonderfully flexible event. It's free, other than the card itself, and saves at least one action. It opens up a lot of tactical possibilities, too. To give one example, you can use Shortcut to drag a monster to a high-shroud location, no attack of opportunity taken, then kill the monster and play Evidence!.

Guts: There are many, many treacheries that test Willpower and inflict horror on failure, so I see this card as a must for Mark. The +2 is valuable, and it will often be totally free, since Guts can replace itself.

Overpower: On high levels, Mark needs boosting in combat, and this is the most efficient combat boost this game has. It's a good idea for your teammates to take more copies of this card, too.

Unexpected Courage: A supremely versatile card that will help no matter the game situation. Take two.

Vicious Blow: A Guardian staple. Allows you to dispatch a monster with 3 or 5 health in one fewer action (and with one fewer skill test, too). Saving actions is always great, and it can be critical if it lets you kill a monster that would otherwise have stayed alive into the enemy phase.

Upgrades

The top priority is to upgrade Beat Cop into Beat Cop II, which is one of the best allies in the game and wonderfully synergistic with Mark.

After that, there are a lot of strong paths available. I like to transform Guard Dog into Brother Xavier. I can rarely resist the efficiency of Stand Together, which would be a pretty tremendous upgrade to Emergency Cache.

Getting a super-weapon like a Lightning Gun or Shotgun is not a bad idea, especially towards the end of the campaign. This requires a lot of support from other cards like Extra Ammunition, so it's a big investment. If your party is not lacking for firepower (e.g. there's a Mystic on the team), I would recommend going for Keen Eye and "I've had worse…" instead.

Some Guardian cards we are NOT including:

True Grit: Too expensive and slow, in my opinion, and I hate that, unlike Emergency Aid, you have to play this one in advance (instead of being able to hold onto it until you need it). If you really like the idea of this card, just wait for Brother Xavier, which is much much stronger.

"Let me handle this!": This card is pretty good for pulling a monster to Mark, which often saves you an engage action. But with his poor Willpower and sanity Mark almost never wants to take on treacheries, even with this card's +2 bonus. Moreover, since Mark is ideally on the same space as his teammates anyway, you often can't use this to relocate things like Obscuring Fog. If you plan on wandering far away from your teammates, this card becomes much stronger, but the Guardian should not be doing that.

Prepared for the Worst: Not a bad card, but there's no room for it. If you're risk-averse and see a ~20% chance of starting the game weaponless as too high, this would be a fine include.

.45 Automatic: Expensive, severely limited in ammo, and has a virtually useless Agility icon if you already have a better weapon out. If you're worried about not drawing a weapon I would add Prepared for the Worst instead.

Heroic Rescue: Fun, but a little too situational.

Leadership: Skill cards that are pretty bad at boosting yourself aren't that appealing to me. Unexpected Courage is way better.

Trench Knife, Blackjack: Weapons without extra damage are terrible.

Teamwork: Too weak and situational. All of the assets in this deck are much better in Mark's hands than anyone else's, and Mark seldom has a ton of extra resources to pass around.

Taunt: Not bad, and it can save you an action in certain circumstances, but a little too situational. Shortcut is way better (and cheaper). "Let me handle this!" is probably also better.

First Aid: Painfully slow. Just way too wasteful in terms of actions.

Bandolier: Too slow and expensive. Try to avoid spending actions on non-vital assets.

Dynamite Blast: A great card, especially on high levels, but you can't fit in everything.

"I'll see you in hell!": I can't say I recommend inflicting trauma on yourself to kill non-elite enemies.