Scavenging Rex (with lockpicks)

Scavenging is one of my favourite core set cards, and level 0 Lockpicks is one of the more interesting tool from the starter decks, and their combo is a fairly obvious one. A once per turn investigate at a large bonus that you have to succeed by two at, plus a card that triggers once per turn on an investigate that succeeds by two or more. It's a natural combo, but I'm still not sure whether its better in Wendy Adams, Finn Edwards or Rex Murphy. (Jenny Barnes can also run this combo respectably, but is definitely worse than those three) I'll make my case for Rex here.

Deckbuilding

Obviously the core combo of the deck is Lockpicks and Scavenging, which also synergises with Rex's ability to pick up one extra clue per turn on an investigate that succeeds by 2 or more. This means once the deck is set up, you'll be spending one investigate per turn with lockpicks giving you +3, and a success will give you two clues and an item back. At base, in normal mode, which I usually play, with the worst tokens generally being -4, this is guaranteed but for the on a location of shroud 1, with Dr. Milan Christopher and Magnifying Glass taking that up to a (near) guarantee on shroud 3 locations. I won't lie though, without my lucky charm of Father Mateo also playing, I've found these Lockpick tests to be a magnet. Still, it's not the end of the world when you do fail, since you can always scavenge the lockpicks back, for a price.

The other scavenging targets I've included are Encyclopedia, which with Rex's investigate economy you'll have some time to use even outside of Daisy, and can be a massive help in a team game. In addition, it has a nice icon for repeated committing. Just note if you commit something to the investigate, it can't be scavenged back that test because of timing issues. Magnifying Glass is a cheap, fast boost that can also be committed and recycled. Scrying Mirror is a very nice card that's also helpful for the whole team, and has a nice icon for recycling. It, and Encyclopedia can jam up your hand slots a bit, but you can generally get rid of them when they're low or out of secrets with a Magnifying Glass.

The Accessory slot takes the new level 0 Disc of Itzamna for a nice bit of encounter protection. It can be hard to find the time to play it, though. The body slot is taken by Backpack, which is excellent here. It has 12 targets, and the worst is probably Encyclopedia, which can't be used for its nice commits once attached to the Backpack.

Dr. Milan Christopher is the only ally we're bothering with, and he's astounding even after being tabooed. I expected this deck to be resource heavy, cycling multiple items every few rounds, but in practice I wasn't playing the items as often as I thought. This lead to be sitting on piles of money in a few of the games I was in, so it lead me to put in Hyperawareness, which I now view as essential. Even if your allies are dealing with all the monsters, you need at least some evasion boost if you're moving through dangerous squares, or something spawns on you after you've lost a disc, and there's basically no other boosting in the deck, other than icons and spare Backpacks.

Strange Solution and Shrewd Analysis are there for fairly obvious reasons, though I did find it hard to find the time to identify the solution. Even the unidentified solution is a nice icon, though the upgrades are all much nicer double icons. The upgrades are random, but you don't really mind what you get, they're all relatively useable.

"I've got a plan!" is your sole fight option, and you'll generally have a nice pile of clues to max out damage. Burning the Midnight Oil is great resource generation, the best of the starter deck economy cards. Emergency Cache is also there. Shortcut is great for movement, and can prepare your friends' turns too.

Deduction is the only double skill, and is very good to use with Scrying Mirror to figure out when you can get the best benefit from it. Manual Dexterity can boost evades and also lockpicking investigates.

Gameplay

Though the main combo of the deck is Scavenging and Lockpicks, you don't need to hard mulligan for either. Lockpicks is searchable, and it's fine to draw into Scavenging later. If you have it in your opening hand, you will probably end up waiting until there's an item in the discard pile to play it anyway. Even if you never draw Lockpicks or Scavenging, Rex is a competent enough investigator to handle generic clueing just with a couple boosts, though it hurts not to play into the gimmick.

The most important card to open with is Dr. Milan Christopher. After that, it's probably Backpack, to get a nice item search. Hyperawareness is also fairly nice to keep, but other than that, it's up to preference, and anticipating the level.

Some other points - Scrying Mirror is not good for use with lockpicks, unless you're deciding whether to use Deduction. You usually want to be guaranteeing the success by two or more on the lockpicks, so scrying mirror doesn't help that much. If you have a free action, it's better to get an item out than throw out an investigate that's only 1 or 2 up, especially if that item is Disc of Itzamna. You investigate very efficiently as Rex, so unless you're really behind it's better to prep for next turn or the mythos phase.

Rex's Curse is a very annoying and persistent weakness. There's not much you can do about it other than alter your playstyle a little when it comes up. For a starter, Scrying Mirror becomes useless on you while your curse is up. Very little changes about your lockpick investigate actions, though it does give you an extra chance to draw the and curse deciding to play the unlucky character. If your shows up on the second curse test, it's sometimes a good idea to take the fail, but not if the test is essential and generally not if it would throw away your Lockpicks.

While Rex might be able to work as a Solo investigator, this is very much not a Solo deck. You have two ways of killing enemies, one that only works on 2 health enemies (but is recyclable) and one that deals 4 damage maximum and then is gone. Partnering with a guardian is obviously good, and one good pick is Roland Banks, who lets you leave one or two clues on an area and run off to let him kill an enemy there. Other than that, your team options are just people who do things you don't, which is pretty much everything except investigating. But that's just being a Seeker, I suppose.

Upgrades

While neither upgraded Scavenging nor Lockpicks are in my collection, Rex, unlike Wendy Adams, can take neither. This does make it harder to argue that he's the best user of this combo. He does, however, have access to high level Seeker items to recycle, such as The Necronomicon. While cycling it with Scavenging probably isn't the best way Seeker's can reuse it, it's certainly a late campaign option.

That aside, other key upgrades include Strange Solution into its variants, which I've already talked about. Rolling into the Acidic Ichor means you can cut "I've got a plan!" for whatever other upgrades you're taking, and the Empowering Elixr allows you to cut some of your resource gain cards. The other two don't add any easy deckbuilding options but are still fine cards to have.

Other priority upgrades include the ever-present Pathfinder, an amazing card that makes Rex even more efficient a clue-gatherer. Shortcut is the easy cut to make room for it, but it can be good to have both, too, particularly in a higher player game.

Magnifying Glass wants to see an upgrade too, since it competes less for hand slots if you're bouncing it back to your hand every so often.

Deduction is also a nice upgrade, and even better used with Scrying Mirror. With levelled Deduction in Rex, you can clear 4 clues from a location with a single investigation.

Upgraded Backpack gives you a bigger search and is cheaper, though you have little use for the extra icon.

Hyperawareness is a decent upgrade if you hate paying its initial cost as I do.

Another interesting option is replacing "I've got a plan!" with Harvey's upgraded Mind Over Matter which struggles for damage, but adds a lot of interesting options to your turn once played. If I'm reading it right, your lockpick investigation for that turn will be your plus your plus your , which might just be overkill.

Upgraded Disc of Itzamna deals with enemies easier, though it's worth considering that the lowered level version can soften up enemies for teammates who may want an easy kill to trigger an ability of theirs. It also doesn't add enemies to the victory display (though this can be a good thing in forgotten age), though you can always choose not to trigger the ability. In any case, I wouldn't consider it a priority upgrade.

Don't bother upgrading Encyclopedia unless you're really struggling for things to buy. It doesn't make it cheaper or give it better icons, so the level 0 version accomplishes everything it needs to.

The only other cards (in my collection) that I'd draw attention to here are the Esoteric Atlas which can add some nice movement options and the Bulletproof Vest if you're struggling for Health soak or your teammates aren't protecting you as much as they should.

Well, that's about everything, but I'm sure there are plenty of interesting cards from outside my collection that would make this deck even better.