Intro

This deck is intended for 2+ players on standard difficulty. I completed successfully Return to the Night of the Zealot together with Monterey Jack and Daniela.

Investigator

Monterey is a good stuff investigator. His ability is generic and always good. You want money ( theme), and you want cards ( theme), and you move in every scenario. So, the flow of the game enables your ability. In my experience it is ok to go 1 location away and get a card or 1 resource. I don’t think, you should go out of your way to move 2 times during your turn (when do you have time to investigate then?). In 90% of cases I took cards from Monterey’s ability, because he is quite rich already.

Monterey’s signature card Trusty Bullwhip is very useful. It is fast and cheap and helps a lot either to defeat small enemies on his own or attack and automatically evade a beefy enemy and help the fighter. Moreover, you choose upon success of the test, which option you take, so it is never wasted.

The weakness – Buried Secrets – is quite swingy. It can land on a low-shroud location and be easily investigated away or, as was in one of my games, land on a 4-shroud location + Obscuring Fog and you have to work hard to eliminate it. By the way, I don’t think it is a good idea to take horror from Buried Secrets.

Card selection

Enemy management

Monterey is a primary cluever, he doesn't have to deal with lots of enemies and needs to team up with a fighter. Still, he can kill off some pesky enemies when he needs to. Trusty Bullwhip, Backstab and Sneak Attack help to leverage his high and convert it to damage. When it does not work, you just run away, be Elusive :).

Clue acquisition

Monterey wants to get clues fast and move on. Fingerprint Kit and Deduction help with action compression. Once you are swimming in money, just buy clues with Intel Report. Make big tests with Breaking and Entering (which otherwise help with Lucky Cigarette Case and Gregory Gry) to crack extra high shroud locations or automatically evade enemies. Otherwise, Flashlight and high help you get through.

Surviving

Yeah, 1 , you have to be fast enough to not notice it. "You handle this one!" makes money and passes on the responsibility, which is great in multiplayer. When you are hurt you can heal some horror with Logical Reasoning or Gregory Gry will take a hit.

Resources

Monterey is swimming in cash in this build. This is intended so that he can get Higher Education later on and solve his and boost issue. Needless to say, drawing cards through his ability helps a lot. So, he has Lone Wolf, Gregory Gry, "You handle this one!" and Faustian Bargain and occasional resources from his ability.

Limited Slots

These are investigation tools Fingerprint Kit and Deduction + horror mitigation Logical Reasoning.

Upgrades

The goal of this “rich” build is to get Higher Education, which is boring, but efficient. Other notable upgrades are Pathfinder and/or Hiking Boots to capitalize on his quest for movement. One other fantastic upgrade is Ancient Stone. Monterey draws a lot of cards, and both upgrades Ancient Stone and Ancient Stone can be very useful. Forewarned is really helpful against treacheries. Otherwise, just put good seeker cards in :).

Conclusion

Monterey is an evasive seeker, who wants to be always on the move. He is rather prone to horror and negative treachery effects, but his seeker access helps him a lot to cover this area. I would say he is rather new player friendly because his ability rewards you for just playing the game.