"Ashcan" Pete: The Bum's Rush

"Ashcan" Pete: The Bum's Rush

OVERVIEW
Drifter "Ashcan" Pete and his faithful hound keep constantly on the move to stay one step ahead of the powers that be. This solo deck, designed for standard difficulty, focuses on free movement effects from Duke & Mists of R'lyeh to progress through scenarios quickly and take advantage of Fieldwork.

MULLIGAN
Duke, Fieldwork & Mists of R'lyeh are the three pillars of the deck, so mulligan for the latter two. The deck has multiple assets to aid with each primary type of action, in case a key card fails to materialize in your opening hand.

• Move. 1x Duke, 2x Mists of R'lyeh
• Investigate. 1x Duke, 1x Newspaper, 2x Fieldwork
• Evade. 2x Mists of R'lyeh, 2x Peter Sylvestre
• Fight. 1x Duke, 2x Fire Axe, 1x Shrivelling

MOVEMENT
This deck is all about movement. The idea is to always be moving to a new location and investigating with Fieldwork. Typically, you'll want to begin each round at a location cleared of clues. (This has the added advantage of lessening the impact of treacheries that affect your location, like Obscuring Fog.) Then:

If engaged with an enemy, evade it with Mists of R'lyeh and move to a connecting location with clues. Then, investigate at +2 from Fieldwork. If you clear that location of clues, you can move & investigate again with Duke as below.

When not engaged, use Duke to move to a connecting location and investigate at +2 from Fieldwork. If you clear that location of clues, discard a card to ready Duke with "Ashcan" Pete's effect, and move & investigate again.

Under the best of circumstances, you will be getting 2 free moves each round. Combining the free movement from Mists of R'lyeh & Duke can put you 2 locations ahead and out-of-range of a Hunter enemy. Constant movement can keep you ahead of all Hunters, mitigating the need to spend actions fighting them.

• Evade w/Mists of R'lyeh & move to a connecting location with a clue
• Investigate at +2 from Fieldwork
• Use Duke to move to a connecting location with a clue & investigate

INVESTIGATION
As noted above, the main tactic for clue-gathering is to move to a clue location and investigate at +2 from Fieldwork. You will want to save Duke for situations where you can use his free move, then investigate at an impressive 6.

Therefore, after moving with Mists of R'lyeh, you'll usually be investigating at a still-respectable-but-less-impressive 4 (base 2, plus 2 from Fieldwork). This is where Winging It and/or Newspaper help get you to a more-respectable 5-7.

Winging It is a great card, as it can be played from the discard pile and used over and over. Newspaper is more situational. In some scenarios--where you spend clues to reveal locations, cultists, etc.--it will shine; in others it will fall flat. But at a cost of only 1R, it's worth having a single copy in the deck. (Plus, it has a nice upgraded version.)

This move & investigate strategy works well in solo because most locations will only have 1 clue, making it easy to clear them and move on. For those occasional multi-clue locations, you have Winging It & "Look what I found!" to discover 2 clues with one action. Winging It can lay dormant in your discard pile until you need it and stacks with Fieldwork for essentially a 5.

With "Look what I found!" you'll want to forego Fieldwork's optional effect and investigate a 4-shroud or greater location with "Ashcan" Pete's base 2 in order to fail and gain 2 clues (and draw a card with Rabbit's Foot). Naturally, it's preferable to combo "Look what I found!" with Take Heart to draw 2 cards & gain 2R to pay for the former. Since this ideal situation--4-shroud, 2-clue location; both cards in hand--isn't going to occur often, you'll usually be using "Look what I found!" for its 2 icons.

EVASION
This deck's primary strategy for dealing with enemies is evasion. Your go-to method will be Mists of R'lyeh, as you'll want to be taking advantage of Mist's free movement as often as possible. "Ashcan" Pete's 4 lends itself well to spell-casting, especially since he can eventually boost it to 5 with Peter Sylvestre(2). When Mists of R'lyeh's backlash forces you to discard a card from your hand, Winging It is the preferred target, since you'll usually want to be playing that card from the discard pile anyway.

Your back-up evasion method, especially when there are still clues on your location and you don't want to move yet, will be to evade at 4 (with Peter Sylvestre in play):

• Evade w/
• Investigate
• Move & Investigate w/Duke

"Not without a fight!", Unexpected Courage, Lucky! & Live and Learn provide plenty of options to boost either evasion method. Mists of R'lyeh can also be boosted with Guts.

FIGHTING
Though you'll be evading most threats, occasionally you'll need to eliminate an enemy for its VP or to remove doom or gain clues that are on it. Since you'll want to be using Duke primarily for his move+investigate ability, he's your last resort for fighting. Instead, you'll rely on Fire Axe & Shrivelling.

Fire Axe is your go-to option for fighting. This deck isn't terribly expensive, and you'll be fighting selectively, so by the time you need to do so, you should have banked a couple resources to attack with anywhere from 4-8, as needed, occasionally dealing extra damage.

Shrivelling is in the deck as a second option and to tackle enemies for which a melee weapon is not ideal, like Conglomeration of Spheres, Avian Thrall, or Poltergeist. Since it has limited charges, you will want to save Shrivelling for certain occasions. Horror dealt by Shrivelling's occasional backlash can be assigned to Peter Sylvestre, then healed at the end of the round.

Again, "Not without a fight!", Unexpected Courage, Lucky! & Live and Learn provide plenty of options to boost either method of fighting. Shrivelling can also be boosted with Guts.

FAIL TO SUCCEED
Since failed tests can impact the tempo of this deck, Live and Learn, Lucky!, "Look what I found!", and (eventually) Oops!(2) can be used after-the-fact to help turn failures into successes and keep the momentum going. Rabbit's Foot can also turn a failed test into a positive by drawing a card that, among other things, can be used to ready Duke with "Ashcan" Pete's effect for another attempt.

Take Heart, in particular, can turn a failed test into a dramatic turn-around. But, since it must be played before the test, you will need to plan to fail. This will probably mean investigating or fighting with "Ashcan" Pete's 2 or 2 against a high enough shroud or fight value, respectively, to ensure failure.

Under the ideal circumstances, you can investigate a 2-clue location; fail; draw 1 card with Rabbit's Foot; draw 2 more cards & gain 2R with Take Heart; then spend those 2 resources to play "Look what I found!" and discover 2 clues. Once you upgrade to Oops!(2), you can pull off a similar play while fighting.

Even without pulling off a big combo, Take Heart can often be a good card to play when you're out of options, as it gives you a chance to find the cards and resources to address whatever problem you may be facing. Can't seem to defeat that enemy who's dogging you? Take a swing and miss with Take Heart. Maybe you'll find that Flare (see below) and the resources to play it. At the least, you'll gain some resources to pump your with Fire Axe and some cards to either commit to the attack or to discard for Cornered (see below).

EXPERIENCE OPTIONS
Your first upgrade should probably be Peter Sylvestre(0) to Peter Sylvestre(2) for the additional +1 to aid with Mists of R'lyeh & Shrivelling and additional horror soak for, among other things, Shrivelling's backlash.

If you have any XP left over, Flare is another good early purchase, as it can find a tardy Peter Sylvestre(2) or deal a burst of damage--something this deck doesn't do well, since its emphasis is on evasion. Consider replacing 1-2x Guts, since you'll now be getting +1 from Peter Sylvestre(2), and Flare effectively replaces the lost card draw, albeit with specifically targeted card drawing.

Alternately, if you're having trouble with treacheries, you may want to consider replacing 1-2x Guts with A Test of Will instead. With "Ashcan" Pete now at 5 & 4, he should be able to deal with most treacheries, but A Test of Will can cancel those non-test treacheries or, at worst, can be committed for +1.

Upgrading Newspaper to Newspaper(2) can provide more clue acceleration. You could even exchange 1x "Look what I found!" for a 2nd copy of Newspaper(2) since they both have 2 icons and can discover 2 clues.

Otherwise, replace 1-2x "Look what I found!" with 1-2x Oops!(2) for another fight option that works well with the "fail to succeed" theme, especially if you went with A Test of Will over Flare, previously. "Look what I found!" is fairly expendable with Newspaper(2) & Winging It able to clear multi-clue locations.

Or, for additional evasion, you might consider replacing 1-2x "Look what I found!" with 1-2x Survival Instinct(2). This card can fill the blind spot of Mists of R'lyeh and work as a safety valve by helping you evade multiple enemies at once, in case you get swamped.

Lastly, upgrading Lucky!(0) to Lucky!(2) adds more card drawing for "Ashcan" Pete's readying effect and/or Cornered (see below). Even if you don't add Cornered, this is still a good upgrade, if you've got the XP to spare.

I feel like those are the basic initial upgrades you'll want to make. Further options include:

Exile Cards: Go the Exile route, using experience between each scenario to replace strong Exiled cards like Flare & A Test of Will. If so, Stroke of Luck, in lieu of 2x "Not without a fight!", would be another good addition to that strategy. Otherwise:

Cornered: Even though "Ashcan" Pete should already be able to consistently investigate, evade, and fight at skill values of 5-7, you might want to replace "Not without a fight!" with Cornered for more consistent skill boosting. "Not without a fight!" really only shines when you're engaged with more than one enemy (otherwise, it's a less flexible Unexpected Courage), and this deck aims to avoid that situation by evading and staying ahead of enemies. However, you probably want to be discarding cards to ready Duke with "Ashcan" Pete's effect, so if you want to use Cornered as well, you'll need to add more card drawing.

Rabbit's Foot(3): This upgrade doesn't add card drawing but, rather, makes your existing card drawing more effective. Though, since you're often only drawing cards to discard them for an effect, your XP is probably better spent elsewhere.

Scrapper: It's nice that it's Permanent, but Fire Axe is more effective at boosting , so you'd primarily be using Scrapper to boost . Probably not worth it.

Expensive or resource-eating options: Timeworn Brand, Will to Survive, Dig Deep(2), and Plucky would all be great cards for this deck, but there just isn't enough economy in the deck to support them.