Rex Murphy - Hard Hitting News

Card draw simulator

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Derived from
Goddamn Sexual Tyrannosaur 38 31 10 1.0
Inspiration for
Commissaris Rex 0 0 0 1.0
TRex 0 0 0 1.0
TRex 0 0 0 1.0
Rex Murphy - Let me write my story, but give me a gun 0 0 0 1.0
Rex Murphy Journalist of real news 0 0 0 1.0
NotZ: Beginner Rex Standard 0 0 1 1.0
Rex Murphy - Hard Hitting News 0 0 0 1.0
under a majora moon 0 0 0 1.0
Rex Murphy - the Reporter 2 1 0 1.0
Rex Murphy - Hard Hitting News 0 0 0 1.0
Rex Murphy - Return to Carcosa CH1...quite badly 0 0 0 1.0
Rex Murphy at The Forgotten Age 0 0 0 1.0
Rex Murphy at The Forgotten Age (clone) 0 0 0 1.0
Rex Murphy - Clone for Steam Test 0 0 0 1.0

StartWithTheName · 63551

StartWithTheName

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NOTE: this is a 9XP Stand alone version of the deck, Please see the variants section at the bottom if you want to see a campaign legal starter for the deck

So, if anyone has been playing Rex in the dunwich campaign you may have noticed his ability is a little on the strong side. Certainly in several standard difficulty campaigns among people I know he has been stealing the lime light, and somewhat removing the fun of the challenge from the game. He really only needs a Dr. Milan Christopher and/or a Magnifying Glass or two to be set up. Throw in a Deduction (best at large player numbers) and/or Working a Hunch (best at low player numbers) and seemingly the rest of his deck can be varied quite a bit without loosing the ability to generate an obscene amount of clues and buckets of cash from Dr. Milan Christopher. On the upside this basically gives you a lot of choices for your favorite style of play with him at least.

You may have also noticed that the power level on Higher Education is a little strong as well and it has a rather tasty synergy with both Dr. "Moneybags" Christopher, and benefiting from exceeding by 2 on investigate actions. Certainly this interaction being so strong is leading several players I know to consider daisy as a less cluey choice simply to keep the game interesting.

This led me to try a bit of a concept deck to see how far the Rex effect can be pushed with current card stock, partly for comedy reasons, and partly to stoke a little discussion around the matter. My suspicion is that a decent central shell might enable interesting alternative and entertaining play styles in Rex. I wonder if you took the combat options out of this what interesting alternatives will come about from seemingly limitless intellect and willpower on tap.

Just to say, I would actually never advocate playing a deck in a game simply because it is strong, particularly in coops. As I elude to above, it takes the challenge (and a lot of the fun) away. I would suggest instead that you reserve it to enable harder modes of play, or indeed as a shell to play with other less efficient but more entertaining toys within.

Finally - A quick shout out to Zozo's rogueish Goddamn Sexual Tyrannasaur deck, gave me the inspiration to see what else could be done in Rex. Nice one Zozo - loved the deck.

Headlines (Basic Concept):

Here the overall plan is similar to any other Rex deck, get the Mag Glass/Milan down and start investigating. However the money supply has been boosted with Lone Wolf to be channeled into Higher Education, various combat options, and lots of card draw (to both reduce variance and keep Higher Education active). This builds what I hope is a strong all rounder while maintaining Rex`s status as clue hunter extraordinaire.

Investigative Journalism (clue hunting):

No surprises here:

  • Mag Glass/Milan - First priority, these are the primary base boosts for investigating.
  • Higher Education - MVP and it even starts in play. The option to pay 1 to boost 2 or 2 (usually on encounter checks) is ridiculously strong. Between this and Mag Glass/Milan above, try to test at 4 above shroud (5 on hard etc) to give good odds of exceeding by 2 for the bonus clue.
  • Deduction & Perception - boosts to important investigations as needed.
  • Working a Hunch - can either be spent for the actionless clue or as a surrogate Perception (double pips)
  • Rite of Seeking is a Joker here. Both in the sense it is a massive overkill card ive put in to annoy a friend and in the sense that it can easily be swapped for another toy of your choice (Dynamite Blast is a good boost to the combat side of the deck, Hard Knocks would cover the stats Higher Education doesn't, or Blinding Light might give you another damage/evade card). Then again, if the absurdity of using Higher Education money on to investigate for 3 clues and trigger a small refund from Milan makes you giggle like it does me then go for it. Note that the strength of this varies considerably with player numbers. Its perfect in 3p where locations with 1 clue per investigator means exactly 3 clues, but its terrible in solo, misses an opportunity for the 3rd clue in 2p, and is a bit of a false economy in 4p where taking 3 out of 4 clues denies you the bonus clue on the second instigation.
  • If playing in low player numbers, Deduction may similarly loose some of its potential when that 3rd+ clue isnt there. An alternative is Seeking Answers, allowing you to try to grab one clue from your current location and one from an adjacent location. While this may work in 3p if two 1/investigator locations are adjacent (grabbing left over clues) this is a little circumstantial and arguably much less reliable than Deduction. It also is substantially less strong at 4p.

Cash is King:

High cash is importance to keep fueling Higher Education, and pay for the large number of high cost events and assets that make up the combat component of the deck. It also covers you for occasional scenarios (that i wont spoil here) which have cash heavy components.

  • 6 cards are in the deck to give very high odds on seeing one early.
  • Milan and Lone Wolf - strong passive supplies of resource. Note that the combat focus of the deck should mean Rex is safe to stand alone and keep Lone Wolf active.
  • Emergency Cache - provide occasional bursts. The upgrade on the cashe is just for the card draw (see below).

Reliable Sources (draw engine)

The drawback of needing 5 cards in hand to activate Higher Education means you`ll want plenty of draw. This also vastly improves the overall consistency of the deck or lets you dig for specific cards if needed. Just be careful not to mill yourself completely in the wrong circumstances *wink.

  • Preposterous Sketches and rex's Search for the Truth give you 3 high draw events in the deck. be sure to laugh at the pun on drawing cards from your drawings - its preposterous.
  • Use Guts and Perception liberally to self replace asap. These simply thin the deck and/or give you options if you've gone below 5 cards in hand for Higher Education. At their worst they save you a resource you would have had to spend on a higher ed charge.
  • Similarly self replacement is the reason for upgrading the Emergency Cache, but feel free to spend the xp from this elsewhere if you have a better idea. I was torn between this and Cryptic Research but this seemed a better way to demonstrate the deck principals at a glance.
  • Manual Dexterity on the other hand is a panic button for nasty encounter cards. It does self replace, but it's best played defensively rather than asap.
  • Finally the option on Rex's ability to fail for the card draw isnt a terrible idea if it pops up at a benign time, though this is nothing you can really plan around.

Close Up (combat/evasion)

Right - so your rich, your base stats are not combat focused and your hand slots are prioritized for Magnifying Glasses. Thats ok, lots of strong combat options are available from events and spells.

  • "I've got a plan!" - a card worthy of the a-team's "Hannibal" Smith. A solid one shot dealing up to 4 damage. Its main draw back is its high cost, but we've prepared for that. It's damage potential also fluctuates, but your Rex. If clues are available at all you probably have a few of them. getting at least 2 damage from this shouldn't be hard.
  • Shrivelling - 4 charges of non weapon based damage thats boostable to 5 or 7 equivalent for 1 or 2 resources respectively via Higher Education. 9 base sanity gives you plenty of space to absorb any horror from icon`d token draws.
  • Mind over Matter - A versatile to or converter for 1 turn. Great for low HP enemies, the occasional need to evade or based encounter card tests.

Alternative News (variants and upgrades):

I wanted to show this deck with the Higher Education active so people saw the overall plan. The 9xp format (ie legal for stand alone scenarios without additional weaknesses) seemed like the least problematic option. If you wanted to use this deck in a campaign, you would have to make do without the Higher Education for the first scenario, though obtaining 3 xp isnt tricky so you would expect this keystone to be set there after. Anyway for a campaign legal start deck, simply drop the Higher Education, swap Pathfinder for Shortcut, and downgrade the Emergency Cache to its basic set and you should end up with something a little like this. Your only real dead draws being Shrivelling since you can at least use the pip on Rite of Seeking. That said 1 enemies are found here and there and some do warrent the bonus damage, or at a push those Guts can be used to boost an attack from Shrivelling to 5 equivalence, but this isnt particularly efficient.

You may have noticed that the xp other than Higher Education is quite flexible here. Alternatives, or indeed good options for upgrades are: Cryptic Research (over Preposterous Sketches or Perception/Guts), or upgrading the Deduction to v2. If your playing a campaign and find your picking up story allys Charisma may be important later on given that you aim to keep Milan in play blocking the slot. Your unlikely to gain much from upgrading Magnifying Glass since you probably want to keep it in play, but i suppose it saves 1 resource.

15 comments

May 01, 2017 zozo · 2912

Yay for the shout-out! Thank you. I'll have a proper think about this deck shortly. Just building my own Dunwich Rex as we speak...

May 01, 2017 StartWithTheName · 63551

very welcome @zozo, have fun building! If you have thoughts i`d love to hear them. Tweaked the write up a little to iron out a few (massive) grammar errors and clarify a few things.

May 02, 2017 zozo · 2912

Great write-up - finally had time to read in detail and digest. I must confess, spotting Rite of Seeking I immediately thought 'wtf?' I'm glad you cover that in detail and how it's the fifth card flex slot. For more card draw, it could be a Rabbit's Foot, but I personally like the idea of.... a Fire Axe - sure, it won't be your primary damage card but for 3-health enemies, you can hit them once with Shrivelling and then polish them off with the ol' axe.

Given that it's a damage deck, my own other preference is Dodge, particularly if you're going to wind up tangling with enemies. I know @unitled is a dodge-fan; I'm sure there are others out there. Other than that, a really thorough write-up and discussion. There's little I'd deviate from here!

May 02, 2017 StartWithTheName · 63551

Thanks @zozo. Yeah the Rite of Seeking was meant mainly as a joke. Sort of an exaggeration of Rex getting 2 clues. "Just 2? Clearly that's not enough! I want an entire turn of clues from every action while doing something my char is clearly not intended to do". But ofc if you were tweaking this deck concept more seriously it can be anything you need. I quite like the idea of a defensive card. Dodge is one option. It might even let you get a Shrivelling into play from hand while engaged perhaps. I like the fact it sits in hand keeping those 5 cards up too. Elusive would be another way to get out of a tight spot and might be a little more versatile perhaps.

I cover a few other options in the text. It's tempting to list a few options and give mini reviews of how to use them in the body text but I think my write up is already way too long. I think my personal preference is probably Hard Knocks (cover those last two stats as a pseudo jenny) or Delve Too Deep (turn all that spare action efficiency into group xp). I probably should have just put one of those in the original deck but I am a silly man at heart.

May 08, 2017 guybrush · 19

Since we have a free hand slot, what about ritual candles?

May 08, 2017 StartWithTheName · 63551

Thanks @guybrush. I find i want the hand slot for the second mag glass when it turns up. And when your digging for cards as much as you can in the deck (plus the muligan) your very likely to find it in due course. But there is a wild slot in the deck (rite of seeking), by all means give it a whirl if you like. Id love to hear how it goes.

Im also not a huge fan of the candles personally. I find they very rarely change how i play. because you are usually able to manipulate your skill level to initiate the test at say 2 above test level and multiple tokens rarely have a -3 on them, they effect very few token draws. Where they do they effect anything at all they just 1 token in the bag etc. So you need those rare occasions where your testing at the right skill difference, the toke to come up and for it to be an important draw. Over a course of a scenario that isnt very often in my experience. On important draws you can usually put that bonus card in to go 3 above etc and cover the non icon -3 (or whatever your aiming for) so i find any card with a wild icon to be considerably preferable. Shame because when i first saw them i was really excited.

I should say though ive never used them in a hard mode game where the token effects are boosted. Perhaps they have more of a role there. But honestly dont let my cynicism stop you :)

May 11, 2017 guybrush · 19

@StartWithTheName I didn't knew you could play 2 mag. glass, or pathfinder. This is gamechanging. Yeah I'm not so hot for the candles as well, but they can save your butt sometimes.

May 12, 2017 StartWithTheName · 63551

yeah dont get me wrong. I wish they did more than they do. you never know. there may be a sc where all the tokens are set to -3 or something one day.

Double Pathfinder if you can get it out is crazy in some scenarios. Especially large ones like sc2 from core. I have a feeling it probably should have been "limit one per investigator" like lone wolf/dark horse got. Then again unless you dig for it (and you have earlier priorities in this build), your unlikely to get both down. especially at 3 to play

May 20, 2017 Django · 4855

As a thought experiment, what's the highest amount of clues you could retrieve on a single action with a single investigator? I'm using rex in my own try:

That's 17, but i've never seen so many on a single location. I think 12 was the most.

If you use a mystic instead, you could get 18, as Rite of Seeking 2 will also be doubled.

May 20, 2017 StartWithTheName · 63551

you also cant commit 2 Double or Nothing in a single test im afraid.

I suppose you also run into problems with who can have which xp cards. I guess your looking at a Jim deck to permit Donutss out of faction since presumably all 3 other investigators are committing Deduction v2s for their single card. This means they must be Rex, daisy and lola. Then you could throw in 2 regular Deductions from Jims own deck on a Rite of Seeking v2.

Now, are you counting clues gained from extra actions you gain from Quick Thinking in this action or not? - which btw, would give you 4 more actions if you committed 2 during a Donut test.

May 20, 2017 Django · 4855

The above can be done with rex alone, if he has Rite and Double as out-of-faction card.

With x2 double i meant, that the total of clues up to that point is doubled, not that you can commit it twice. The card itself prohibits this.

I wasn't counting extra actions (this includes Working a Hunch and Evidence!). Though i did not think of Quick Thinking + Double or Nothing, nice combo.

May 20, 2017 StartWithTheName · 63551

Yeah unfortunately rex cant have Double or Nothing since its a fortune card. (Otherwise it would have been in this build - its such a great card).

As yet there are no seekers who can have it. Possibly by design to stop it being too easy to pull off deduction combos on key clue hunting time pressure points.

That was my reason for looking at Jim. Hes the only Id than can have upgraded rite and Donut. But I guess ultimately Rex could be committing 2x Deduction 2, and someone else could be putting the donut in, daisy could be putting a third deduction 2 in and Lola the 4th. Ofc, good luck finding a location with that many clues on it in the first place hehe.

This is often the issue with deep dig clue hunting strategies in Rex i think. Usually you want to think in combos of pairs + singles of clues probably. Then just accept that getting twice the action worth of outcome is good enough action compression on that aspect of the game leaving you open to pick up on areas where small additions give big gains. I guess thats why the Rite is a comedy include here. There are less ridiculous ways to get that 3rd clue, Working a Hunch for example.

May 21, 2017 Django · 4855

True, i always forget about rex's restriction "no fortune cards". I wasn't aware Double or Nothing is one of those...

It was a thought experiment, i wouldn't try this in an actual game. The risk is too high, loosing all invested cards and ressources, should you pull an autofail. I'd rather use them over several actions, not a single one.

The highest amount of clues i've seen was 12 on a locations (3 per investigator in a 4 man game) and often the team splits up, so this combo would cost more actions for the donut to move to rex.

I also don't recommend to put more one use "gather more clues" cards into rex deck, he's efficient by himself. It's better to increase his to make his ability more consistent and compensate his weaknesses, with the Disc and the plan.

May 22, 2017 StartWithTheName · 63551

I'll be honest. If I had the chance to try it on a certain scenario that I won't spoil I would give it a go if only for the giggles.

May 22, 2017 Django · 4855

I think i know what you mean, i played that scenario with 2 people a couple times and it varied 9-12 clues. However with 4 ppl, you might get ~20. So if you pull the above combo... wow THAT should blow everyone!