Card draw simulator
| Derived from |
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| None. Self-made deck here. |
| Inspiration for |
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| None yet |
Dai · 1277
Concept
Broadly, the purpose of this deck is to use Drawing Thin and On Your Own to give Wendy Adams the ability to play Will to Survive every round for the entire game, taking three actions each turn without drawing from the chaos bag.
Core loop
To guarantee this, you will need two copies of Drawing Thin and one copy of On Your Own in play, as well as one copy of True Survivor, one copy of Will to Survive and 2 copies of Resourceful.
The loop each round is: Starting with True Survivor in Discard, Play Will to Survive (-2 resources thanks to On Your Own); at some point, take an action where your base skill is at least 1 above the difficulty (for instance, investigating a location with Lockpicks), committing Resourceful x2 and Quick Thinking for a total of +3 to the test and activating both copies of Drawing Thin (+4 resources), increasing the test difficulty by 4, using the effect of Resourceful to return True Survivor and Will to Survive; use the additional action granted by Quick Thinking to play True Survivor (-3 resources), returning Resourceful x2 and Quick Thinking to hand, taking 3 "useful" actions on top of the action to play True Survivor.
The total cost of doing this is 5 (4 for Will to Survive, 3 for True Survivor, -2 for On Your Own), and the total amount of resources gained each round is also 5 (4 from Drawing Thin, 1 from upkeep).
Other cards and setup
Meat Cleaver is there to give Wendy a means of taking out enemies if required, Lockpicks are there to allow you to contribute before you're ready to ignore the chaos bag entirely and to ensure you can pass a test even at +4 difficulty, Winging It is there to improve your investigation efficiency, and the rest of the cards are there to let you tear through your deck as quickly as possible, assembling your combo rapidly.
Until you're fully set up, Drawing Thin and Pickpocketing can be used to draw cards instead of gaining resources, and between Pickpocketing and Emergency Cache you should be easily able to afford everything and even have enough resources saved up to start using Will to Survive every round before all the economy cards are in place.
Variations and upgrades
A potentially more powerful approach would probably use Leo De Luca instead of On Your Own, relying on Pickpocketing and Emergency Cache and maybe "Watch This!" to pay for the combo and everything else, but that's less consistent round after round unless you can guarantee needing to evade every round, and the goal of this deck is to show that it's possible to play Will to Survive forever.
You could combine Madame Labranche with Lone Wolf to get the extra resource every round to afford the loop (or just trust to Emergency Cache and Pickpocketing to build up a big enough nest egg to carry you through to the end of the scenario, since you'll only be losing one resource per round without it), saving 6 exp from On Your Own and opening up the possibility of using Leo De Luca with Charisma. You could even add Dark Horse if you're going that route, and if doing so replace Meat Cleaver with Fire Axe.
Alternatively, Scrapper and Plucky can be added to the mix to use the surplus resources gained from Pickpocketing and Emergency Cache to ensure success in every test type in the game - Scrapper would actually be the next card included in this deck, but this shows the core deck when firing on all cylinders (and shows a build unaffected by Taboos).
Meat Cleaver can be dropped entirely if you don't foresee ever needing a combat option, replaced with Switchblade once you have Scrapper, or replaced with Impromptu Barrier to give you an evasion-based means of helping other players or Waylay for guaranteed kills; you could even use Ornate Bow if you find you don't need Lockpicks.
You could replace something (Winging It, Meat Cleaver or one of the neutral skills) with Track Shoes for guaranteed extra mobility, or add Elusive to really help you get around.
Weaknesses
A poorly timed Abandoned and Alone could knock the True Survivor out of your discard pile, but there should be enough card draw to get a replacement copy into hand quickly - just avoid the temptation to play the second copy instead of recurring the first once you have both.
Also, while Wendy is possibly the most resilient investigator against Treachery cards between her statline and her investigator ability, Will to Survive is not online in the Mythos phase, so she is still potentially at risk of effects that could disable her loop such as Ants! or Crypt Chill - it might be worth investing in A Test of Will for that reason.
Certain basic weaknesses will really mess with this deck - Doomed is obviously a problem for any deck that draws lots and lots of cards, Drawing the Sign will need you to play around it or deal with it immediately since the normal approach to the core loop requires you to keep 4 cards in hand at the end of your turn and Amnesia will mess you up even more if it hits once your combo is rolling.
Finally, the deck as shown here is limited by Wendy's stats - high-evade enemies and high-shroud locations will still pose problems, though this is ameliorated by upgrading into Scrapper and Plucky, swapping the Meat Cleaver for a Lantern and/or changing to Dark Horse.
Other investigators, or, 'Why Wendy?'
Wendy is probably the best investigator to take advantage of this combination of cards, since she has access to the rogue cards that help it work best, particularly Lockpicks for consistent success on Drawing Thin tests and Pickpocketing for additional draw, but the core of the build comes down to the Survivor cards Drawing Thin, On Your Own, True Survivor, Will to Survive and Resourceful.
As such, any survivor could use it - this was originally going to be an "Ashcan" Pete build entitled "Duke ate my chaos bag!"; he can use his Dunwich slots to take Quick Thinking and the Lucky Cigarette Case or Leo De Luca (if using Charisma and Madame Labranche in place of On Your Own), and pick up Mr. "Rook" to assemble the combo much more efficiently or maybe Ward of Protection to handle the Mythos phase, while also having the flexibility afforded by Duke to take full advantage of Will to Survive and handle enemies. Pete also has the advantage that Wracked by Nightmares doesn't endanger the loop like Abandoned and Alone does.
Silas Marsh has access to Quick Thinking, so he can still pull of the core loop of up to 3 tests with no chaos bag every round, and he's a much better monster-hunter, just add Lantern and/or Flashlight to give him a wider range of locations he can investigate; Rita Young can use Ace in the Hole for big action turns and William Yorick can use Police Badge for a similar effect.
Purpose
Full disclosure, I don't see this deck being all that fun to play. You'll be wandering around a bit early on, not able to contribute much more than your average 0-exp Wendy while you frantically rip apart your deck, until you instead start automatically succeeding on more or less everything, forever, at which point you're not really playing Arkham Horror anymore. Instead it's more like a thought experiment and a way to showcase just how powerful Drawing Thin can be - as well as a way to give On Your Own a moment to shine.
| 8 comments |
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Apr 28, 2019 |
Apr 28, 2019Hah! It feels bad being super positive about it when I don't think it would be fun to play, but maybe I should have a hype man big up the deck for clicks... High Roller is certainly a potentially strong card for the deck but it doesn't help setup and it costs exp so I didn't include it as this is kind of intended to be the framework. It would be particularly nice for a build that tries to do everything as a way of ensuring that Combat tests land, and also give an extra boost against the Encounter deck. Not sure how Totem level 3 can recur True Survivor, did you mean to say Take Heart? You could still retain On Your Own if doing so, or use it in combination with Track Shoes and Drawing Thin to intentionally fail the Track Shoes test every round for guaranteed use of Take Heart, which would guarantee the resources needed for the loop and let you avoid On Your Own, giving you an ally slot (for, say, Leo de Luca) and avoiding the need to use Drawing Thin on a test and still pass it. The Totem/Take Heart/Track Shoes/Drawing Thin combo would be potentially absurd draw and resource gain (2-6 resources and 2-4 cards each turn without using an action) on top of upkeep, pickpocketing and LCC, so that might end up even more degenerate than my deck above but Grisly Totem (3) isn't out yet to I can't add it to the deck, and it might be a little more cumbersome to set up with more moving parts in the engine. Still, if you have an enemy to evade, you're guaranteeing up to 9 resources and up to 6 draw (or 8 if you don't need resources) every round, for the price of 7 resources to play the loop (or 5 with On Your Own). That strikes me as very powerful. Any survivor can use the Totem/Take Heart/Track Shoes/Drawing Thin combination, which is frankly worrying. Thanks for your comment, I guess the potential is even worse than I thought! |
Apr 30, 2019Include Look what I Found to take advantage of Take Hearth & Drawing thin, and actually stay relevant in the early game |
Jun 18, 2019How are you getting the action from quick thinking if you aren't passing the check by 2? If you're up 1, and pitch 3 icons (2x Resourceful, 1x Quick Thinking), and make the check harder by 4 (2x Drawing Thin), you're even with the check difficulty. Did I miss a ruling on how these cards interact with eachother or something? |
Jun 20, 2019Good catch. Very true, you'd need to start a test where you are 3 above base (with Lockpicks, this is also important to ensure that you don't lose a supply). Or, use one copy of Drawing Thin, and the other copy on another test. Regardless, testing at +3 should be very easy to accomplish consistently with Lockpicks, by investigating a location of shroud 4 or less. In those rare occasions that you cannot effortlessly create a test at +3, you can use Perception for investigation or Manual Dexterity for evasion - and potentially Scrapper for 3 (or 5 with taboos) exp more - to bridge that gap. Since the core "loop" is self-contained, you will have surplus resource gain (the standard 1/round, plus the various resource cards) and surplus card draw (the standard 1/round, plus the various draw cards) to cover such eventualities. Or, alternatively, just don't use one copy of Drawing Thin if you are in a turn where you absolutely cannot manage the added difficulty; you'll be swimming in additional resources very quickly. Or of course simply change to Track Shoes and Grisly Totem (replacing Winging It and some of the neutral skills), similar to what was discussed in the comments above, for a free test each round where you will be able to use both Drawing Thin, both Resourceful and one Quick Thinking and still pass at +2 (4 base agility, +1 track shoes, +3 from the skills, +1 from Grisly Totem is a total of 9, difficulty 7 with both Drawing Thin). Or just have Track Shoes on its own for a free test you don't care about failing, to use both Drawing Thin and combo with Take Heart, or use just one Drawing Thin and nothing else and still pass the Track Shoes test if you want free movement, as this will enable you to only need to use use one Drawing Thin on another test such as the one with both Resourceful and one Quick Thinking. |
Jun 20, 2019Scratch the "standard 1/round" for resources, as that is already earmarked for the loop. Posting at 3 am will do that... |
Jun 08, 2020You’ll save 3XP because on your own is now a permanent, but you’ll lose more because drawing thin costs more XP. |
Aug 26, 2020The new On Your Own is Exceptional, so it'd be the same XP cost. |
Great write-up, you just forgot to add some marketing buzz words like "best investigator in the game", "miracle-worker" or "works best here" and some feel-good-phrases like "needs time to get a feeling for it" or "once mastered, is the best deck in the game" :)
On to actual commentary: Love that you use Pickpocketing's flexibility to set up, personally I went with High Roller, as with Drawing thin it's either Resource neutral or nets +2, so you can contribute to the team earlier, as you don't have to fail so many tests just to get Drawing thin rolling. High Roller also helps to manage that +4 bump on the combo turns, but unlike Pickpocketing, it lacks potential draw on it's own.
Another way to get the combo rolling, esp. in non-Wendy survivors might be to skip On your own and get Grisly Totem in the survivor lvl 3 version to recur True Survivor. Technically, it's not fully resource autarkic anymore, but as you normally need to move to other locations, and you best do that on a non-combo-turn, you can use your move turn to get 2 extra cards and 6 resources with 1 action. Biggest plus would be that you can contribute alot earlier due to Totem's +1 and get a setup speed with Totem(3)+Take heart that even Lockpicks+LCC or any Lola version can't match. Perhaps best when played in Ashcan, as he can contribute on the 1st turn and fall back to combo later, and the "recur commited card on failed tests"-part on Grisly Totem(3) kinda simulates abit of Wendy's power.