~ INSANE Pete's 20 Skill Card Solo God Mode! ~ (Black Stars

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Pete's skill deck v2 0 0 0 1.0
"Ashcan" Pete Dark Horse 1 1 0 1.0

Dreadreaper · 6177

Updated for Black Stars Rise: Removed: 2x Fight or flight, 1x No stone unturned, 1x Manual Dexterity, 1x Vicious blow, 1x Lucky Added: 2x St. Hubert's Key, 2x Emergency Cache, 2x Not without a fight

Rationale: The Key is exactly what this deck needs. Let's us consistently hit sanity threshold while also giving more stats. Not without a fight is excellent. Emergency Cache is now needed to help pay for all of these toys before we enter Dark Horse mode.

The goal behind this deck is to abuse Duke, Magnifying Glass, Peter Sylvestre, Dark Horse, and 20 Skill Cards in order to allow Pete to make free skill tests at an insanely high level. This deck is able to achieve a statline of 5/7/6/5 using the aforementioned cards (dog, 2x magnifying, dark horse, upgraded Peter S.), and that's BEFORE skills. Most decks can only dream of reaching these numbers as a base.

Card Choices:

Assets:

Magnifying Glass

These will help you consistently beat investigation tests with Duke. Better than Newspaper, even in Solo. Since you have nothing better to do with your hands, these are your best option.

Peter Sylvestre

Flat stat boost and sanity soak are both things that we want in spades. No other ally comes close to being this useful.

Dark Horse

The deck revolves around this card. Mulligan until you get it and then dump your cash as soon as possible. Ideally in opening hand with Peter Sylvestre. You want this to be active forever unless you plan to use Fight or Flight or Lucky! that turn, then you can gain a resource.

Duke

It should go without saying how disgusting Duke is in Pete. Having a Machete and move+investigate in one card is downright gross for solo. Before you hit 2 damage to your sanity, you should be discarding the 4 skill cards since they are useless. Prioritize discarding copies of Dark Horse and Peter Sylvestre if you already have them.

Events:

Fight or Flight

Brand new card which is a perfect complement to this deck. Sometimes you need to take out a big baddie and you have trouble reaching the fight needed to take them out. This allows you to get a guaranteed +2 to your fight for the entire turn. Simply allow yourself to gain a resource for the turn so you can use both this and Dark Horse.

Lucky!

A single copy of Lucky! will be useful until you get Dark Horse up and running. Then, do not take the resource unless you have a test you know you need to spend it on, or it will decrease your stats by 1. Fun fact, you can actually commit this to a test and gain the static bonus to achieve +3 to a test instead of +2!

No Stone Unturned

This deck wants to get rid of its money and find Dark Horse. This card allows you to do both.

SKILLS:

2 Icon Cycle:

These are here to complement your game plan of having no cash and boosting stats for free. They cycle and help you get through your deck faster while allowing you to achieve 8-9 in a stat once set up.

4 Icon Cycle:

The printing of these gives you the "INSANE" portion of this deck. You want to get 2 horror on you as soon as possible in order to enable these. This 2 horror will be taken by game mechanics in the threat deck. It is very easy to get this on you in all scenarios. Put 2 on you and the rest on Pete/Duke. Try to save them for big boss fights or large tests in the scenario, if possible. One card allows you to achieve a 10 strength test. That is pretty gross! They are VERY fun to play with.

Vicious Blow

Pete lacks damage and this skill card allows you to dish it out when needed. Save for a big baddie.

Why don't you run:

Emergency Cache?

Don't need money. We want it to be gone after we play Dark Horse and Peter.

General Strategy:

-Get 2 horror on Pete (not allies) through either a monster or the encounter deck to enable skill cards and Fight or Flight. -Any further horror should be put on Pete or Duke. -Before you get that 2 sanity, feel free to discard the 4 icon skills that you can't use, unless you know you need them for a big test in that scenario. -Save Vicious Blow for bosses, if needed. -You can gain a single resource for the turn and use it for Magnifying Glass, Lucky!, or Fight or Flight. -Otherwise, never ever gain resources once you have Dark Horse. -If playing Path of Carcossa, seek out the card The Tattered Cloak. It is incredibly powerful in this deck.

Upgrade Path:

  1. Scrapper or Peter Sylvestre x2, based on if you have 3 or 4 experience. Scrapper is here ONLY as a safety net incase you are not able to find Dark Horse in time, as you will accumulate a lot of resource that your deck cannot spend, making it useless. Scrapper allows us to stop that happening. Peter is an obvious upgrade, and provides valuable sanity soak for Pete.
  2. Whatever you didn't take from 1.)
  3. Stroke of Luck x2, replacing Lucky! and Manual Dexterity. This card is a safety net which will allow you to succeed on tests you desperately need to. It is removed from your deck, but we don't need a lot of experience, so it works perfectly to keep slotting it back in.
  4. A Test of Will is nice. Replace a skill card of your choice. Re-buying Stroke of Luck is more valuable.
  5. Continue to re-buy Stroke of Luck and A Test of Will.

Deck Uses:

This deck can be played multiplayer or solo with great effectiveness, though it shines in solo with your ability to complete all tests extremely efficiently via Duke and your skills.

The deck is a blast to play and I hope you enjoy!

-Dreadreaper

18 comments

Mar 11, 2018 Django · 4854

The decks description is a bit contradictory? Do you need Emergency Cache now or not?

Do you need horror from enemies/mythos on pete or do you hard mulligan/No Stone Unturned for St. Hubert's Key?

Mar 11, 2018 Chron73 · 1

@Django I'm assuming you want the Emergency Cache early to pay for Peter, St Hubert's Key and Dark Horse. Once you're set up it becomes discard fodder to ready Duke. As far as Horror, you ideally want it from the Key, but if the Key doesn't show up, you'll have to get it from treacheries/enemies.

Mar 11, 2018 Dreadreaper · 6177

@Django It indicates it at the top of the text why changes were made from the original. No stone unturned isn't in the deck anymore. @Chron73 you are correct on all counts.

Mar 13, 2018 veneretio · 339

Very cool update to your original. I missed "Not without a fight!" when I was trying to improve on your list. Something I was toying with is Madame Labranche instead of Peter to allow for refilling your hand faster or enabling the use of A Test of Will in a pinch. Seems like Peter's horror healing is less needed now than before. Thoughts?

Mar 13, 2018 Django · 4854

I guess you need Peter Sylvestre more then ever because you don't want to lose St. Hubert's Key. With of 5 Yes we ashCan should be able to investigate without duke (+skills cards) and keep some cards on hand.

Petes stat boosts are very useful. You might run out of cards, if you fight a lot and use Dukes damage boosts twice each turn. That's the only moment i consider Madame Labranche useful.

Mar 13, 2018 Boyyos · 1

Isn't Dark Horse limited to one per deck, or did I miss some rule about solo play? Correcting that would open up a slot for a card like Madame Labranche, or whatever else you might need.

Mar 13, 2018 jacque_stampunk · 3

It is not limited to one per deck it is limited to one out per investigator. Exceptional cards are limited to 1 per deck

Mar 13, 2018 veneretio · 339

@BoyyosThe limit for Dark Horse is just how many copies each investigator can have in play. So, you still want both to improve your chances of drawing it.

Mar 13, 2018 veneretio · 339

@DjangoI think you need Peter less. Previously, you were intentionally hitting yourself twice so you needed Peter to prevent being defeated. Now if you go insane, the key will pop you back up. I do agree the stat boosts are useful though, just not sure if they're as useful as being able to aggressively use skill cards and refresh Duke since Madame Labranche will keep your hand full.

Mar 14, 2018 Quilzar · 6

Do you not like Charisma & Aquinnah L3? I think she might be close to broken in a Pete deck like this (super combotastic and you can ready her with Pete's ability (and maybe inspiring presence).

Mar 14, 2018 Django · 4854

I'm not sure you want to play Aquinnah III for these reasons:

This is a Dark Horse deck, so you don't want to include anything costing more than 2 ressources, unless it's absolutely essential.

If you add her, you also need means to deal with the additional horror like Peter Sylvestre II (she only redirects damage) and would want to add ally tutors (Flare) and revive (A Chance Encounter II). However the deck focuses on skills, so you don't want to replace skill cards with non-skill cards.

Mar 15, 2018 wallets · 160

Would Lucky! be slightly better than some of the skills in the deck (Manual Dexterity)? I feel as though it's just really versatile, as I would also take another Unexpected Courage over skills.

I also have a question: If you have Dark Horse in play, could you draw a card before opting not to gain a resource? Then, you can see if you draw Lucky! and can take a resource if you wanted. Otherwise there is the small downside of it being nothing more than Duke fodder for a turn.

Mar 18, 2018 Chron73 · 1

Tried the deck out and love it, but I want to add 2xFireaxe in due to a situation I came across.

I had the Key, Magnifying Glass, and Dark Horse already in play and no resources. At the end of my turn I drew Pete, so I decided to take the resource so I could use my first two actions of the next turn to gain 2 more resources, and play Pete with my 3rd action.

The problem is...I was forced to randomly discard a card and of course it was Pete. For the rest of the game I was stuck with a resource, a hand full of skill cards, and a useless Dark Horse. Replacing a couple cards with 2xFireaxe would help to remedy this rare, but frustrating occurrence. Just not sure what to replace.

Mar 18, 2018 Chron73 · 1

Considering the hand slot, looks like Magnifying Glass would be the prime choice

Mar 21, 2018 leikos · 1

@Chron73 One of your answers bothers me. This: "As far as Horror, you ideally want it from the Key, but if the Key doesn't show up, you'll have to get it from treacheries/enemies." The key doesnt give u horror dmg. It reduces your MAX horror value by 2. So it won't trigger your cards i think.

Mar 21, 2018 leikos · 1

@Chron73okay sry i overlooked something. u need 3 or fewer sanity to get the activates. so it works with the key my fault

Aug 01, 2019 NerdDad · 2

If you have an excess of XP, is it worth adding charisma for story allies and then potentially adding Madam Labranche instead of emergency caches? I've found that Pete seems to have XP to spare and nothing to really spend it on...

Dec 05, 2023 iKiKoMoRi · 1

I am taking a pleasant autumn walk with Duke through Innsmouth thanks to this deck. I have bought Charisma to be able to use the ally support from the story. Great deck, simple and fun! Thanks!