The New Adventures of Pete and Pete

So after having a short-lived tryst with Jenny, I realized something important about Pete that keeps me making decks for him as a soloist: Pete is extremely fast to set up. I've said it before, and I have no problem with mentioning again that Pete has effectively zero set-up time. As soon as the game starts, his trusty dog is by his side, and ready to solve some mysteries. As a solo player, you don't really have the luxury of other players performing actions, getting locations revealed, and getting the ball rolling. You also have no one to help mitigate your bad luck. Having essentially your full kit available to you without drawing a single card is invaluable, and I honestly believe Pete is the best soloist in the game, and probably one of the most beginner friendly characters as well.

This is my third iteration of this deck, and it's going to look remarkably similar to the last one with some inspiration from @0bs in his use of Scrapper as an early upgrade combined with the Lone Wolf resource engine. The basic skeleton remains the same, and really, all Survivor decks are going to look pretty similar. That said, there are a few key changes from the last deck that make it worth publishing. Again. I swear this is the last time for a while.

Why Pete, though?

• Nearly Zero Setup

Pete's setup is complete right at the start of the game: Duke. You start out of the gate with a built-in +1 damage on attacks as well as the ability to move, and investigate in a single action. That is tremendous. Most decks have the weakness of having fairly long set-up times, especially if they mulligan into a bad hand. Pete is far more resilient to that.

• Build Flexibility

While Survivor builds are often going to look similar in a lot of respects, the Dunwich Legacy characters all have the ability to use any combination of five Level 0 cards from any other class. While most builds will use these slots to shore up their weaknesses or complete parts of their engine, Pete doesn't actually need to do that, leaving him far more customizeable. This allows him to change out his build as necessary if he's going to be in a co-op game, focusing less on purely selfish cards, and more on supporting cards while retaining extremely strong early-game capability to cover for the rest of his team while they set up.

• Strong Stat Baseline*

4/4/4/3 is the best stat spread in the game, and the effective 8/8 health/sanity he has is extremely strong. As the asterisk implies, though, this comes with a caveat: the higher and are only applicable during Fight and Investigate actions, and only while Duke is in game, and ready. Any skill checks that require either stat are going to be far tougher; especially checks in this deck due to having no planned way to easily pump it outside of skill cards.

Core Card Choices

Peter Sylvestre is the other Pete of this duo, and also an extremely useful ally - especially once upgraded. His ability to soak Horror is invaluable (in fact, it makes the second half of Rougarou almost trivial...) and it has good synergy with Painkillers in cases where you need to heal yourself. The extra is sweet, sweet icing.

Lone Wolf will likely not get a ton of use in your first scenario outside of potentially feeding a Fire Axe hit, but is integral for later when you pick up Scrapper. You'll want to build your deck with this already slotted to avoid the 2xp tax later.

Lucky! is your bandaid card. It's, arguably, the cornerstone of the class owing to the fact that it will save your life. Its upgrade is pretty nice as well, giving you a little bit of action compression like the basic skill cards.

Fire Axe is your fallback for when you can't ready Duke, or just need to chip off a single point of damage from a monster to finish it off. It has an extremely efficient pump effect, and works well with Vicious Blow to get a quick, almost guaranteed hit ( notwithstanding...)

"Look what I found!" is your primary in-faction source of Clue scooping, and is an effect that's extremely easy to trigger off in mid-high shroud locations with Duke. In situations where locations won't have many clues, this can also be used as your third, and fourth Perception; important in a deck that has no other way of pumping .

Emergency Cache never gets any real explanation or mention, and just seems like an auto-include. The card itself is pretty nice; one action for three resources. It accelerates setup time a little, or can give you resources for a pump when you need them. For Pete, this will help feed Scrapper later on. What really shines is its newly released upgrade, though. Three resources, and a card draw for a single action, and no other cost. That is why it's an auto-include.

Flex Choices

Vicious Blow is an extremely good, dependable source of extra damage that also has the bonus of being free. Other options here would be Dynamite Blast which is expensive, but requires no skill test, and Backstab which removes reliance on Duke for the same amount of damage. I prefer Vicious Blow because it's a skill card, it's free, and it gives a 1 pump.

Working a Hunch is here in place of what would normally be Magnifying Glass or possibly even Dr. Milan Christopher, and I honestly believe this is a case of seasoning to taste as they both have equally as strong virtues. Hunch gives you a guaranteed Clue when you need it, and can also be used as your fifth and sixth Perception. Just like "Look what I found!", this is extremely important in a deck that doesn't have any sort of Talent to pump for a character whose baseline stat is low. Another potential replacement for this card is Double or Nothing if you're feeling extra spicy, but Pete is generally looking to just make his checks, and you likely won't find much use for it.

Painkillers is pretty handy for some quick healing and synergizes well with Peter Sylvestre's horror soak. That said, it can just as easily be replaced with Leather Coat or upgraded into Bulletproof Vest later on. I generally prefer it over the Coat just because it's one more damage it can heal, but it does have the weakness of making you actually take that damage first. When it comes to cut cards for upgrades, this is probably the second one to go. If you're playing correctly, you shouldn't need to heal yourself too often since your damage reduction will be in the form of Evasion.

Survival Instinct is just about on the cusp of being a core card, but there's an argument that can be made that it is swappable with Cunning Distraction. I believe Survival Instinct is superior simply because it allows you to move in the same action. It's also free compared to Cunning Distraction's high cost, and synergizes extremely well with Will to Survive.

Rabbit's Foot is a bit of an odd card. It's nice when it's out. It's an Unexpected Courage-lite when you need something to throw at a skill test. That said, don't underestimate the card draw this card can give you during streaks of bad luck. It definitely shows its use when you're playing on Hard. You'll likely end up cutting this for Will to Survive before you cut Painkillers, though; Will to Survive has anti-synergy with this card.

Basic Skill Cards have their own umbrella here. Swap them to taste, although I wouldn't recommend cutting Guts. You won't have any other way to pump , and while Pete has a very high base stat, it isn't a guarantee. Arkham Horror has this funny way of completely ruining your day... An honorable mention, in place of one of these slots, is Rise to the Occasion as a one-off; likely replacing an Overpower. It's very restrictive, though, and will likely only be useful maybe once or twice in a campaign, so it's only really considerable as a one-off.

Feeding Duke/Play Guide

This deck is actually straightforward to play, and is honestly all Arkham Horror fundamentals: spend skill cards liberally, but not foolishly. Decide if it's even worth investing in certain check. Some checks have very minor penalties for failing them, and might not be worth the investment; others, of course, can be crushing. You generally always want to invest in anything you spend an action for, though; your time is at a premium.

The trickiest part is going to be deciding what to pitch to ready Duke in situations where you need him twice in a turn. You obviously can't count on pulls (but wouldn't that be nice?) so you have to play triage with your cards.

The obvious first picks are second copies of non-consumable assets if you already have them in play. The exception is the Fire Axe; in a lot of situations, you can probably comfortably pitch the first copy you find for an extra swing with Duke. Use your best judgment. Rabbit's Foot, if you still have it, is also great Duke food.

After that, "Look what I found!" is probably going to be your best bet; especially if you're in a scenario where locations only have singleton clues as a solo player. Painkillers (or whatever you've chosen for damage soak) is also a good target if you're reaching the end of the game and don't foresee yourself taking much more damage.

I generally don't recommend pitching any of your skill cards except in dire emergencies, with Overpower being the first to go if you absolutely have to.

Mulligan Guide

(inspired by @DadouXIII)

Lone Wolf is always your first target, especially once you get Scrapper. Try to always start the game with it in hand. You'll want it as early as possible, or you'll find yourself very cash-strapped when you need it the most. You can get away with Emergency Cache, especially if it's the upgraded version, if the rest of your hand is amazing, but that's going to be rare.

Peter Sylvestre is a key mulligan target as well. The +1 (and, with the upgraded version, +1) is welcomed icing on top of the extremely good horror soak he provides.

Lucky! is great to try to mulligan for early for a bit of early game confidence as well.

You might be tempted to mulligan for your power cards, but don't; you often won't need your power cards early. While it would be nice to start the game with Survival Instinct or Will to Survive (and you absolutely should hold on to both cards if you draw into them,) getting your economy going is paramount, followed closely by protecting yourself, and putting up the only form of passive stat boosting you have.

Upgrades

Scrapper is your first upgrade, without question. This immediately makes Lone Wolf worth its slot, and also will be the only Talent you pick up. Considering that it's Permanent and doesn't take up a deck slot, it makes Pete's already ridiculous early game nearly unstoppable.

Will to Survive should definitely be one of the earliest upgrades you start looking at after Scrapper, likely replacing both Rabbit's Feet for two of them. I can't even begin to tell you how invaluable this card is. Just as powerful as Rogues can be with their ability to essentially buy their way out of anything, Survivors can just say 'Not today, .' For its effect, it's extraordinarily cheap: it only costs 4, is just as - if not more - powerful than almost all of the 5-cost cards in the game, and it's Fast on top of that, allowing for a full power turn of goodness.

The upgraded Peter Sylvestre should be a pick-up after Will to Survive. This will put your at a base of 4, helping with some of the nastier skill checks and the ever-important ability to Evade.

Upgraded Lucky! and upgraded Emergency Cache are definite includes as well if you get the experience for them. Both will give you some acceleration, but they're not quite as critical as the above three cards.

A potentially good idea would be to replace your Working a Hunches with Charisma and two copies of Dr. Milan Christopher. You'll lose the auto-clue, but you'll essentially be giving yourself a slightly better Magnifying Glass that can be a secondary source of resource generation, and a meatshield in a pinch. I still prefer the free clues that Hunch gets you, but you can't go wrong with this if you have excess XP.

If you need something else to throw XP at, and you don't feel like swapping cards around, consider turning your Painkillers/Leather Coats into Bulletproof Vests.

So that's probably the most comprehensive write-up of this dead horse that's been beaten to undeath at this point I'll ever do. This is also going to be my platform and framework for Pete decks from this point forward, with updates (and links back to this decklist) as new packs come out with new toys to play with. I will also still be publishing my personal results, but I'm going to only publish after every third scenario.

Hopefully this was informative. There is no doubt something awesome and amazing I've missed, so feel free to critique and give me your feedback. Also, go check out @0bs' Pete deck for another take on how he can be built.