Zoey Samaras: Kill Them All!..

...and Let God sort them out!

Preface

This deck...

...Is not particularly good as a standard combat deck and doesn't work as intended very often., which is a shame, since I had hoped to make deck-publishing a regular thing, but I didn't account for a pretty common phenomenon; sometimes, the decks you make simply won't come together and deliver the results you had hoped for.

Despite this, I have published it anyway to see if the community at large can make something out of it. I know there are better players than myself on the website, with a bigger inclination for making useful decks over non-standard, thematic ones, and I hope they weigh in with their thoughts. And if nothing else, I'm sure people will appreciate the unique take on a guardian deck that I'm going for here, as described below:

Introduction

This is a 3-4 player Dynamite Blast into "Let God sort them out..." combo deck, with added thematic-ness from Zoey's religious zealotry. Honesty this is the best way I could think of for triggering Let God sort them out's condition with an action to spare in order to play it, and it's not going to be enough sometimes, on top of being difficult to pull off AND heavily dependant of the scenario you're playing.

The Limit Is Our Own Imagination

As an guardian, Zoey Samaras is pretty generic: with a restrictive card pool, a boring but practical special ability, and the stats you would expect on a tanky guardian, she hasn't really got a theme to call her own.

The one standout quirk of hers is how rich her special ability makes her, which gives her access to cards few, if any, other guardians would take, such as mining-grade explosives, and Physical Training.

Cunning Distraction is also a card not often seen in decks due to its cost, but pairs very well with big booms, in that you can mass-evade into mass-detonate over two rounds, a more relaxed time-frame than one round.

And with that bigger window comes the opportunity to play "Let God sort them out...", which was appealing on it's own just because it fit so well with Zoey's personality.

Still, we'll need far more stalling tactics than one frozen chicken, and stalling comes in the form of two flavours: more evade, and chip-damage.

Evasion For Those With Two (Left) Feet

Despite Zoey's abysmal , we can make it work with no less than nine evasion-focused cards.

On top of Cunning Distraction, all the skill cards included help with evasion, either with Take the Initiative and Daring's +3 skill boost, or Stunning Blow's auto-evade, and Handcuffs allows one to evade with instead of , with the added bonus of perma-evade, especially useful for setting up Dynamite Blast into "Let God sort them out...".

Death By a Thousand Cuts

Knife, Trench Knife, and Survival Knife do not provide much in the way of hurt, and that's kind of the point; stalling out and getting enemies to three remaining health is the name of the game here.

3 damage a round is enough when the flow of enemies is a trickle; when it's more than that, you'll have to rely on her high damage/horror thresholds, evasion options, Delay the Inevitable and Zoey's Cross, which supplements her lacklustre Damage Per Round a bit. Both Knife and Survival Knife also offer emergency extra damage as needed.

Everything Else

That ends the list of integral inclusions in the deck; everything from here is either standard fare:

• Physical Training: for and boosts.
• "If it bleeds...": for horror-healing.

...or further enables it's core strategy:

• Taunt: Did you know that you can engage exhausted enemies? If you do, they will follow you around without taking attacks of opportunity, which will be critical in rodeo-ing enemies into one place.
• "I'll see you in hell!": This is the final option should things go pear-shaped and you wind up engaged with more than you (or anyone else) can deal with.
• Delay the Inevitable: it's stalling potential has already been mentioned (i.e. keeping a ready enemy on you into the next round without taking damage), but guess what, it works on self-inflicted damage as well, such as playing with very hot fire, or on any other investigator unfortunate enough to get caught in the cross-fire (Cross-Fire?).
• First Watch: Rather than stall for time, accelerate the flow of enemies with encounter deck manipulation. I should mention here that this deck really needs a steady flow of enemies, and two-players isn't going to cut it, as I found out in my test campaign. Three is the absolute minimum; four is preferable.

Upgrades

Stick to the Plan... first upgrade with maybe an exception made for Dynamite Blast (2).

I generally do not consider making combo decks in Arkham Horror LCG; you can't really stall for time, there are few combos that are serious win-conditions, and the game has many ways of punishing holding cards in your hand. The ONLY combos I recommend involve permanent cards, and Stick to the Plan counts, essentially drawing out either your pair of Dynamite Blasts or "Let God sort them out..."s at the start of the game, reducing the number of cards you're waiting on to one.

Note that both cards on Stick to the Plan is a bad idea; you cannot play two cards from Stick to the Plan in the same round, due to it exhausting as an additional cost. Instead, put Cunning Distraction and two copies on either of the combo pieces, depending on which one you'd like to guarantee it's usage.

After that, Flamethrower is an excellent pick, replacing Trench Knife. Flamethrower enemies down to three remaining health into Dynamite Blast, or just two Flamethrower shots will do to trigger more "Let God sort them out..."s.

By now, even Zoey will struggle with resources, so Physical Training (2) is a decent shout, as is "I've had worse…" (2), to replace Delay the Inevitable. You will also like some extra card draw, so Taunt (2) is good.

Whenever you have 1xp left over, pick up Brother Xavier, replacing Handcuffs. You have to be very particular with alternate damage sources; only enemies killed during YOUR turn, in the investigator phase will count towards "Let God sort them out...", so cards like Heroic Rescue or Ambush won't work. Brother Xavier will work, as well as provide even more stalling power, and a boost to boot.

Total exp cost for the lot: 34, and at some point, you'll be looking to replace "Let God sort them out...", once the camapign nears its end. What you replace it with will be up to you, and how much exp you have left, at this point.

Conclusion

Sometimes cools ideas don't work out; a lesson learnt when field-testing this deck. It shouldn't discourage trying out new things though, otherwise you end up playing the same decks over and over again. I'll be hanging onto this Zoey's Cross, and waiting and seeing if any future cards, will add to it's viability.