William digs his graveyard for Assets and buries his enemies instead.

Please don't forget to press the ♥ if you like the Deck and the work that has been put into making it :)

This deck only uses the Revised Core Set/2 Core Sets, Dunwich Investigator Expansion, Carcosa Investigator Expansion and the Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion.

Credit: Fantasy Flight Games

---

Introduction:

"Roses are red
Violets are blue
Baseball Bats are found in graves
And that's where I'm sending you"

William Yorick is the first investigator that introduced a well-known card game mechanic: Discard Pile recursion. If you are not familiar with it, it doesn't seem that good at first, but if you try, you will understand why it is often one of the strongest gimmicks in many games. While being considered one of the most appreciated investigators by the community, Yorick is a terrific enemy manager, and his playstyle is extraordinarily satisfying and dynamic.

---

After the warm welcome of the Beginner Decks made for Zoey, Rex, Jenny, Jim and Pete, I decided to go for a last Series of Beginner Deck Guides for The Path to Carcosa.

Find the other Carcosa Beginner Decks:

• Mythos Busting Mark
• Scavenge-Minhg
• Sefine-Art Black Magic Painter
• Akachi Ony-Elemental Mage
• I decided not to propose a Deck for Lola Hayes on purpose as even with the help of the community, we couldn't find any Deck that made us feel like you wouldn't regret playing any other investigator instead. If she piqued your curiosity, keep her in a corner of your mind until you have a bit more cards.

---

Table of Contents:

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Dealing with enemies

• Playing the Discard Pile as a second Deck

• Supporting your teammates

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Make your own Deck!

---

Overview:

Difficulty:	★★★☆☆
Enemy Management:	★★★★☆
Clue-getting:	★☆☆☆☆
Encounter protection:	★★★☆☆
Survivability:	★★★★☆
Economy:	★★★☆☆
Card Drawing:	★★☆☆☆

---

Main Strategy:

• Maintain your Baseball Bat by ignoring tokens with Heavy Furs and with Eucatastrophe.

• Dig Assets in your Discard Pile from turn 1 with Short Supply.

• Help your teammates pay for their Items and with damage.

---

Dealing with enemies:

William Yorick can be used in True Solo but is mainly played as the main fighter of the group.

---

• Baseball Bat is your primary weapon early in the campaign.

•• It provides a steady source of 2-damage attacks and gives you +2 .

•• The reason why this weapon is not considered amazing is because it usually breaks exactly when you need it most, leaving you naked. To prevent this from happening, we pack Heavy Furs that you use to ignore the . You can use it to cancel a token, ignore it, discard Heavy Furs, draw a new token, succeed and Play it immediately from your Discard Pile.

•• You will never see as many as when you play this build. We quickly buy Eucatastrophe to turn this frustration into an opportunity with William Yorick's wicked .

Note that the Baseball Bat still completes the attack if you pull or , so it can still kill an enemy and reward you with a card from your Discard Pile. On the other hand, you can not play the Baseball Bat that was just discarded on the same attack in case you succeed.

---

• Knife is here in case you do not find the Baseball Bat during your Mulligan or if it is in your Discard Pile thanks to Short Supply and is perfect to kill 1 enemy to access it. There are more explanations in the Playing the Discard Pile as a second Deck section.

---

• Later in the game, when you have Beat Cop to boost your , you can purchase the Fire Extinguisher to decrease the risk of failing at a crucial moment and sending Yorick straight to where he loves hanging. It also frees a hand slot for the convenient Ice Pick (3) that can increase your damage output.

---

Playing the Discard Pile as a second Deck:

"You see trash? I see gold. You see junk? I see poetry."

William Yorick is the Discard Pile Recursion gimmick archetype in Arkham Horror.

Enable your Discard Pile:

• Short Supply discards 10 cards at the beginning of each game. "Why would I do that?" You may ask. William Yorick's is what makes him so strong, yet it is useless if there is no Asset in your Discard Pile. Short Supply conveniently stuffs it for you, giving your quick access to interesting Assets even if you draw an enemy during the 1st Mythos Phase.

•• During the mulligan, your targets are: Baseball Bat, Prepared for the Worst and Knife. So hopefully, there is one of these cards in your hand before Short Supply is activated. Otherwise, you wish that there is one in your discard pile, and if not, it means that power drawing for a few turns should give one to you rather fast as there are not so many cards left in your Deck.

---

• William Yorick's allows you to play Assets from your Discard Pile, making them . If you have no interesting Asset in your Discard Pile, you can commit one from your hand to a test to play it as soon as you defeat an enemy.

Dig up:

• The order in which you would like to Play Assets from your discard pile depends on your funds, yet we can make an order:

1. Baseball Bat of course, as your primary weapon
2. Schoffner's Catalogue is essential to pay for your many items
3. Heavy Furs to secure your Baseball Bat.
4. Guard Dog or Beat Cop (2)
5. Cherished Keepsake or Plucky (3)
6. Ice Pick (3)
7. Bandages

   ---

   • The reason why we added Knife in this Deck is that it is an excellent one-off enemy killer that enables you to use your to play your Baseball Bat that has good chances to be in your discard pile before your first turn thanks to Short Supply. It is cheap and able to deal 2 damage quite reliably. It is then replaced by Ice Pick (3) that is and can fill the same role though it exhausts, so you can only use it for one attack.

•• Other options were the Fire Axe, but that would eat the resources necessary to pay the Bat once you killed the enemy. Every other weapon that can deal 2 damage such as .45 Automatic, Machete, Sledgehammer are 3 resource or more, which would be too expensive.

---

• To summarise which Asset digging is legal or not, here we go:

•• Defeat Heavy Furs to cancel a , kill an enemy and dig it. YES

•• Kill Beat Cop (2) to defeat an enemy and dig it: YES

•• Pull a token that breaks your Baseball Bat, still kill the enemy with that attack, and bring the just broken bat back: NO

•• Trigger an AoO (Attack of Opportunity) on an enemy, discard Cherished Keepsake/Plucky (3) because of the horror, and take the damage on the Guard Dog, generating one damage that would kill the enemy that made the AoO. Use William Yorick's to bring back the Cherished Keepsake/Plucky (3) discarded during the AoO: YES

•• Kill the Guard Dog while dealing a damage to the enemy that would defeat it, and play the Guard Dog just defeated: YES

•• Use Ice Pick (3) to deal +1 damage by discarding it, kill the enemy and replay it immediately: YES

•• Committing a card like the Heavy Furs for its icon to an Attack, succeed and Play that card immediately: NO (the cards committed are discarded at the very end of the test).

---

Supporting your teammates:

The last part that is nice with William Yorick, as with most , is that he can help his teammates.

• Schoffner's Catalogue can help others set up their expensive Items. And if it is empty, you can recur it anyways.

• Bandages can help your more fragile teammates such as Sefina Rousseau.

• While most of your Assets commit for , which is more your role, some others can help other Investigators to find clues or pass scenario tests while enabling you to Play them from your discard pile later.

---

Other Cards:

Cards level 0:

• Emergency Cache to help you if you need a little extra cash. It is upgraded later to Emergency Cache (3) as the Supplies can be added to Bandages if you do not need any resource, which grants you more uses of Beat Cop (2).

---

• Lucky! is a reactive Unexpected Courage, especially good defensively during tests on Treachery cards.

---

• On the Hunt is good to draw more Enemies that you can use in quiet moments and in case you need to bring back a necessary card, especially a defensive one such as Cherished Keepsake/Plucky (3)

---

• Prepared for the Worst is always dull but necessary.

---

• Resourceful is especially good since you have Short Supply and later on you will have more cards that are not Assets.

---

• Overpower and Vicious Blow to land more attacks and deal with 3 Health.

---

• Unexpected Courage mostly for defensive reasons.

---

Cards level 1-5:

• Eucatastrophe is good since William Yorick has one of the greatest , and what's better than more of them? It is especially terrific as a cancelling tool.

---

• Strength in Numbers is not the best here, but it is still +3 and up to +4 with Ice Pick (3), which should allow you to pass any test.

---

Upgrade Path:

Link to the full xp Deck

---

• Unexpected Courage x2 Eucatastrophe x2 - 6xp - Total 6xp

•• Prevent yourself from the that would discard your Baseball Bat.

---

• Guard Dog x2 Beat Cop (2) x2 - 4xp - Total 10xp

•• From here, you can abuse the auto damage from the Beat Cop and refill it with Bandages.

---

• Charisma x1 - 3xp - Total 13xp

•• Helps you have 2 Beat Cops online at the same time for 2 testless damage that you can heal simultaneously if you have 2 Bandages at the same time.

---

Cherished Keepsake x2 Plucky (3) x2 - 6xp - Total 19xp

---

• Baseball Bat x2 Fire Extinguisher (3) x2 - 6xp - Total 25xp

•• After a while, the Baseball Bat becomes a bit too clunky as you need to fight bigger enemies, and losing it becomes increasingly damaging.

---

• Knife x2 Ice Pick (3) x2 - 6xp - Total 31xp

•• Now that you do not have the Bat anymore, the knives are less valuable.

---

• Heavy Furs x2 Strength in Numbers x2 - 2xp - Total 33xp

•• Now that you have the Ice Pick (3) and that the Scenario Tests are becoming hard to pass, the 3-4 are excellent to have.

---

• Emergency Cache x2 Emergency Cache (3) x2 - 6xp - Total 39xp

•• Get more $$$, draw a card and gain the luxury to assign the unnecessary resources to your Bandages for more testless damage.

---

• Vicious Blow x2 Vicious Blow (2) x2 - 4xp - Total 43xp

•• More damage when you need it.

---

Make your own Deck!:

• I try to use the Taboo for my Decks, but it is definitely not mandatory. If you don't it can be great to use Machete + Knife + Flashlight or Old Keyring. The first is your base weapon, and the second is if you have more than 1 enemy on you and the last is to support the investigation on lower shroud locations.

---

• My first thought while making a William Yorick Deck was Dark Horse. I made This Deck (if you are curious, look at it, it comes with its own upgrade path!), but while playing it, it turned out a bit more boring. It uses the same weapon over the full course of a campaign and lacks upgrades if you do not have Stella Clark and Nathaniel Cho's Decks. Even if you do, the upgrades are often slight improvements of the same card (Overpower Overpower, etc...). Eventually, the fact that I already used Dark Horse with "Ashcan" Pete led me to propose this more exotic Deck that adds a layer of tension over the Chaos Bag which I loved.

---

• By now it's the 4th Ice Pick (3) Deck that I've released, with Rex Murphy, "Ashcan" Pete and Minh Thi Phan. The reason for this is that this card is simply too good to not take with anyone that can grab them from their discard pile or cycle their Deck fast enough to see them regularly, especially with such a small collection. If you are tired of them, keep your Knife, and you'll do fine.

---

• If you have access to Stella Clark and Nathaniel Cho, I would change the Deck very little. Glory is great instead of On the Hunt. Lucky! (3) and Overpower (2) are also good upgrades to increase the team support and the drawing power.

---

• If you have access to The Forgotten Age, you could also play Aquinnah (3) and Kerosene to reflect damages, Daniela Reyes style.

---

Interesting cards if you do not mind proxying are:

• The Old Hunting Rifle instead of upgrading to the Fire Extinguisher (3). The consequences of failure are less harsh than the Baseball Bat and you still have some / mitigation anyway.

---

If you are playing this Deck with the others of the series and only 1 collection, here is a proposed way to distribute the overlapping cards for each investigator:

Mythos Busting Mark|One Collection Variant: 0xp Deck / Full XP Deck

Scavenge-Minhg|One Collection Variant: 0xp Deck / Full XP Deck

Sefine-Art Black Magic Painter|One Collection Variant: 0xp Deck / Full XP Deck

Akachi Ony-Elemental Mage|One Collection Variant: 0xp Deck / Full XP Deck

Yorick Gold Digger|One Collection Variant: 0xp Deck / Full XP Deck