Guns, Germs, and More Guns - Underworld Market Tony

Introduction

"A switchblade in hand is worth two cyclopean hammers on the bottom of your deck." - Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

Most people may be tempted to look at a 3 investigator and think "There's some clue-getting potential here", but I am actually going to suggest we look one stat to the right. As the primary fighter, our main bane is not drawing a weapon early. To solve this problem you frequently have to spend excessive experience on supporting cards like Stick to the Plan paired with Prepared for the Worst, hard mulligan away good cards that are not weapons, or stack your deck full of weapons. The latter may seem like the obvious answer, but a deck that is filled with too many weapons is sacrificing space for commits, allies, soak, and economy cards, all of which are desirable for a smooth game.

With Underworld Market we can stash most of our weapons in a side deck, at least 7 of which will be weapons. This has three main benefits:

1. Independent of mulligans, you will always see a weapon within the first two turns of the game.

2. Most decks have to balance between the number of weapons, skills, events, and other assets. Our market will allow us to fill our main deck with utility cards that might otherwise have been cut or mulliganed away in favor a weapon. Here's an example hand we might see in an opening:

Joey "The Rat" Vigil, Lucky Cigarette Case, Faustian Bargain, Overpower, Shortcut.

Which cards would you mulligan? In a normal deck, you'd have to choose between getting an early accessory and ally out. Maybe your Overpower draw hits a weapon, but if not you could be lagging on damage for the first few rounds, and swinging at base might means you probably won't be triggering the Lucky Cigarette Case every round. In an Underworld Market deck, this is not a problem, we could keep this hand as is and be completely fine, since a weapon is coming soon anyway. Better yet, with Joey that weapon will be played without using an action.

3. None of these cards can be discarded by encounter card effects. You might lose cards in your hand when you fail a will test, you might even have to lose a weapon in play to Crypt Chill, but there is no encounter card that targets side decks.

On its own, this card does nothing, but it provides a level of consistency that virtually no other card can guarantee.

The Underworld Market Deck

Initially, run:

2x Colt Vest Pocket - With Joey "The Rat" Vigil & Sleight of Hand, Tony can get at least 4 shots out of this. This is a very good card for rounds when you need to spend every action fighting.

2x Switchblade - Tony's base 5 makes succeeding by 2 here a lot less difficult. I think anyone who has played Tony realizes this, but if you haven't, there you go. It's also fast!

2x .45 Thompson - An expensive but strong weapon, I typically draw at least one when I see it then wait until I have a Contraband ready before playing it. In general if you get a weapon down with 10 ammo you will have a difficult time running out. This is a good problem to have.

1x .41 Derringer - Our weakest weapon and early thing to upgrade out of. It's similar to switchblade but has limited ammo, so it doesn't synergize well with 4 action turns and is a poor Contraband target. That said, even the weakest gun is still a gun. I run one in the main deck as well and upgrade them away as soon as I can.

1x Contraband - Our first non-weapon. This synergizes well with early weapons like .45 Thompson, and will work wonders when you grab the better illicit weapons like Chicago Typewriter or Beretta M1918 later in the campaign. That said, it is not something we want to see as an early draw, so there's only one in the side deck.

2x Embezzled Treasure (Replace the 2 Quick Thinkings) - Between Tony's bounties, Crack the Case, Faustian Bargain, and 21 or Bust, it is very easy to end early scenarios with an excess of resources. This card is a great way to turn that excess into funding for the whole team next game. Later in the campaign, your team can and should be more self-sufficient, so upgrading these for Fence can be a good choice. Side note: This is one of those Skarlet Keys cards you can play two of, and there's no law preventing you (or whoever) from starting the next game with +10 resources.

This side deck will change as the campaign progresses. Mainly, we will be either upgrading the existing weapons or replacing them with better illicit weapons, so this will be somewhat scenario dependent, but in general I'd recommend never going below 6 weapons.

Lastly, your signature Tony's are not illicit, so they cannot go in this deck. The long colts are probably mid-tier as far as your overall weapon options go, so I would not discount their use; however, this is not something you prioritize for mulligans.

Off-Class: Why Seeker?

Guardian is far and away the most common choice here and the benefits are obvious: more ammo synergy and greater damage potential. That said, as Tony I have never struggled with either, so I went with the utility options seeker provides us for fast resources, card draw, and movement tech. Some quick notes on our choices:

Crack the Case - You can play this on other people's investigations. It's also fast and doesn't add curse tokens.
Logical Reasoning - Our weakest area is sanity and at 2 we should expect to fail encounter tests a lot. This can be a great way to mitigate failing a Rotting Remains test or getting rid of Frozen in Fear.
Preposterous Sketches - Rogues are usually light on card draw outside of Lucky Cigarette Case or being Winnifred.
Shortcut - A great option for Sleight of Hand or Colt Vest Pocket turns when you need to reposition.
Inquiring Mind - Somewhat situational but at 2 a triple commit can do wonders for tests that have a "for each point you fail by" condition.

Parting Words

Aside from Underworld Market, this deck should upgrade the same as any other Tony deck, with the main priority being your high damage illicit weapon of choice.