Prest for Time

Investigate

Investigate

Investigate

Investigate

Investigate

Investigate

Investigate

Investigate

Investigate

"..."

"Pass the turn"

This deck is built around a central interaction of:

• Turn-long stat boosters: Trial by Fire, Fight or Flight, and (later) The Red-Gloved Man
• Ways to gain additional actions in a single turn: Borrowed Time, The Gold Pocket Watch, Ace in the Hole, and Quick Thinking

Note: The Gold Pocket Watch doesn't work with Trial by Fire!

The Game Plan

You spend most of the time pottering about in the Preston way. If you have cards that let you pay-to-win, then you play them if useful. If there is some way you can contribute with no stats, go ahead. Otherwise, draw cards to find your combo pieces!

The ideal investigation combo turn would leave you at 5 (Trial by Fire) + 1 (Lola Santiago) + 1 (Dark Horse) = 7 .

The ideal combat combo turn would leave you at 5 or more (Trial by Fire or Fight or Flight) + 1 (Dark Horse) + maybe 2 (Fire Axe) = at least 6 , probably 8 .

You'll notice that the resulting isn't actually that high: for the particularly high shroud locations, you'll instead want to sit there with Lola Santiago and set up for combo turns elsewhere.

The Mulligan

You're looking for a two types of cards in the mulligan: combo pieces, or ways to leverage Preston's resource advantage.

• Fire Axe is your only source of extra damage
• Lola Santiago is the only way you're going to reliably help gather clues until your combo turn
• Trial by Fire is the important stat-boosting card; Fight or Flight comes into its own only later on
• Any extra actions
• Dig Deep lets you help with enemy management and reduces your reliance on others to pass treacheries

Upgrade Path

It takes a lot of XP to assemble this all. The most important cards are, in order:

• Lola Santiago: She's an extra action each turn for a test-less clue. She may not contribute much to the big combo, but she lets Preston actually do things the rest of the time.
• Borrowed Time: This is the only repeatable way to add actions to the combo turn.
• The Gold Pocket Watch: This card is the nuts. It just gives such a huge advantage even with 2 investigators and no combo shenanigans.
• Ace in the Hole is expensive XP-wise, but its effect is one-of-a-kind.

Adaptable

I've included Adaptable in the list because due to the nature of Preston wanting to pay resources to do everything, he can play a flex role in a unique way, filling in the weaknesses of the group. Possibilities for Adaptable include:

• Flashlight, "Look what I found!", Intel Report for clues
• Cunning Distraction, Decoy, Small Favor for enemy management
• "I'm outta here!", "You handle this one!", Perseverance, Thermos for self-preservation
• If you have some spare slots, the glue is really important for keeping the deck running smoothly: "You owe me one!" draws a card to replace itself, Lucky! keeps your combo turn rolling smoothly, Swift Reflexes can be another way to gain actions

Note:

• I've found that once you have Lola Santiago, you don't really need the help from Flashlight and "Look what I found!" any more. Intel Report still has the nice bonus of long-range clue-finding though.
• Beware of Perseverance. If/When you're in Dark Horse mode, you won't be able to afford the resources to pay for it during the mythos phase. Because of this, I've tended to upgrade this to Devil's Luck when I've had the spare XP.
• Beware of Small Favor. It triggers attacks of opportunity! It's useful for helping out teammates who are in a pinch, but not you yourself: you'll want Cunning Distraction or Decoy for that.

Further Upgrades

• Haste wasn't available at the time of deck creation, and seems like a pretty neat way of gaining more actions
• Leo De Luca + Charisma will gain you extra actions too; he's all the way down here because his extra actions are spread across multiple turns and, although Preston's filthy rich, his high cost does matter
• The Red-Gloved Man is an additional stat-booster
• All In can draw you a tremendous number of cards if you can get teammates to contribute to your skill check
• Lucky! (2) draws you a card and can help accelerate you towards the combo
• Any other ways to draw cards that I've missed. Lucky Cigarette Case doesn't count because it's difficult to pass tests with Preston let alone overachieve!

One more coffee...

This deck is tremendous fun to play! I've been building it up over the course of a TFA campaign at standard difficulty and it's been a good laugh. It involves a lot of being babysat (with much thanks to Minh, Preston's long-suffering secretary), a good helping of cowardice, and then turns where you get to say,

"No, it's fine. You guys go ahead."

"I've got this."