Can't Stop the Gambler

POV : you are addicted to the feeling of having 15min turns with 6+ actions and spending all your money on weird games where you try to reach 21 and mostly lose. This is your time to shine.

Below is a review of a true solo deck designed for Skids I made, focusing on its strategy, strengths, weaknesses, upgrade paths, and gameplay tips to survive this game on your own.

This deck was able to beat The Return to The Circle Undone with a total of 20 xp (+5 extra thanks to the conclusion which are not included here and 3 thanks to In the Thick of It ).

This deck leverages Skids' balanced stats and unique ability to spend resources for extra actions, aiming to create a well-rounded investigator proficient in evasion, move and clue gathering. The primary strategy involves efficient resource management to maximize action economy, enabling Skids to speedrun most scenarios as well as gambling a lot.

• Enemy managment : British Bull Dog will be your main ally here to handle non-Elite enemies effectively in the early campaign. Fox Mask can help you with the ones you can't kill easily to boost your agility. With all your actions, evading is sometimes the better option as you will be able to create greater gaps between you and the eldritch horrors.

• Action Economy: Skids' ability to convert resources into additional actions is a significant advantage even if you don't use it every turn. It generally helps when you are out of actions and need to move away from a nasty enemy with Hunter, or to perform the last little thing the scenario asks you before the agenda advances. Cards like Leo De Luca, Honed Instinct and Quick Thinking will provide even more extra actions and resources to fuel his playstyle. Drawing multiple cards thanks to Friends in Low Places is also a very satisfying thing, especially with the Versatile upgrade.

• Investigation: Always grab 2 Lockpicks with the xp granted by In the Thick of It and hard mulligan for them in your opening hand. It's a game changer. Fox Mask is also a very good card to mulligan for next. Those are the two main boosts to your investigation power in early scenarios. Two copies of Intel Report are quite essential to help grabbing the most difficult clues, especially when failing can mean death (if you ever played TCU, you know why).

• Resource economy: Pay Day, 21 or Bust and your own effect will be your best supply of resources. 21 or Bust is the most interesting and risky of them all, and I had to play it a bit safer with time since I was too greedy during my first few tries. Don't forget that most campaigns add several symbol tokens such as , , or the along conclusions so always keep in mind that 17 is a very dangerous number since every non symbol is a 5. Most of the time, 21 or Bust grants you 5-6 resources, which is pretty close to a Emergency Cache, and sometimes you will be the happiest gambler on earth when it rewards your with a net 7 resources for 1 action.

• Flexibility: Skid's statline is already a pretty good start to have a good flex character, but skillcards such as "Watch this!", Quick Thinking and Calculated Risk will most of the time help for scenario tests on locations or investigations when you have already used your lockpick for the turn. Fine Clothes and Well-Dressed will help with some critical parley tests in campaigns and/or Vamp. If you fail a parley test, remind yourself that it's not the end of the world. Vamp is a perfect exemple of flexible card that can help in a variety of situations.

• Encounter deck surivability: Low willpower can feel brutal in several campaigns, especially with Circule Undone. Thankfully, the return to version adjusted the encounter deck and it now feels more well-rounded in terms of skill tests. With a willpower of 2, Skids is vulnerable to treacheries and some of your runs will be disturbed by cards that stay in your threat area. Calculated Risk is pretty good at discarding them. Inclusion of cards like Guts and Physical Training could help mitigate this weakness but I prefer to focus on one strategy and add "Hit me!" which have both of our Friends in Low Places's traits.

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As the campaign progresses, consider the following upgrades to enhance the deck's efficiency with the highest priority at the top:

• Honed Instinct : Impulse control should be your 1st upgrade (3 xp). It's a crucial part of the deck since it adds an other copy of the card while also making them all cost 0. It provides a substantial action boost in critical moments. Force of Habit upgrade is also very good but I would suggest to grab powerfull allies first.

• Leo De Luca : The upgraded version has the huge benefit of only costing 5 resources, making it playable turn 1.

• Lola Hayes is a very good ally later and provides significant help to grab clues in the most difficult locations. She's also pretty valuable in Circle Undone since a lot of locations have the Haunted keyword. Delilah O'Rourke is the enemy managment equivalent if you feel you need more help with that, she's pretty great at finishing annoying enemies. Best scenario you have both of them in play.

• "I've had worse…" is one of my favorite cards and it shines in this deck since it also grants money while protecting you. I had several traumas thanks to all the treacheries dumped at me and those two copies allowed me to survive the last scenarios.

• Pay Day and Pickpocketing will also boost your income and/or card draw greatly.

• If you ever have enough xp to grab other cards, feel free to spend them on Charisma, British Bull Dog, The Red Clock or even The Red Clock. More actions and money is always a good thing here.