Rita Young - exploring Feast of Hemlock Vale cards

Card draw simulator

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Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
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Ramun · 434

Introduction

It's spoiler season for the new expansion The Feast of Hemlock Vale. The cards showcased so far inspired me to anticipate a new Rita Young deck.

I included 4 cards from The Feast of Hemlock Vale:

*Note: the Hatchet card was not yet available on ArkhamDB at the time I published this deck so I used Fire Extinguisher as a placeholder. It's a convenient placeholder as they share many features (cost, xp, slot, traits).


The Feast of Hemlock Vale cards

  • Hatchet - I think Rita will love this one. Adding her puts her at a very confortable base 8 . The main downsize of the card that it should not be used for the killing blow otherwise you loose it to the discard. You also need to defeat the enemy with a separate attack to get back control of it. This means Hatchet is best used against 3+ health enemies which would have anyway needed 2 separate attacks to defeat. Use the Hatchet first to deal 2 damage, then perform a basic evade (against 3 health enemies), or use Cheap Shot (against 4 health enemies), or use Sweeping Kick (against 5 health enemies) for the killing blow. The new Long Shot can be commited to any of these options to adjust damage output if needed.

  • Sparrow Mask - A reliable way to boost 2 relevant stats for Rita. The boost is always good for whatever the encounter deck throws at us. The boost is especially welcome for cards that have a "succeed by" effect: Belly of the Beast, recurable cards Cheap Shot, Breaking and Entering & Pilfer, and the new Grift.

  • Grift - With Rita's base 5 and many options to boost it, I can cannot imagine this card providing less than 3 resources. Sure, from time to time we will draw the autofail token and it will feel awefull, but more often than not this will provide 4+ resources. The main downside here is the requirement to have an enemy at our location, which means this card may sit in our hand for a while before it can be used. Therefore, it is best used in combination with testless & conditionless other economy cards such as Easy Mark.

  • Long Shot - The survivor version of Vicious Blow. The fact that this can be committed to evasion tests makes it perfect for Rita and synergies with her ability, turning it into 2 damage. As mentionned before I believe a good use case for this card is to help with the killing blow to retrieve Hatchet. With Rita it's unlikely this card is committed to a test being performed in a connecting location, but it's still a nice option to have.


Rest of the deck / Overview

  • Clue getting - I like my decks to have some flexibility. Although this one is mainly focused on enemy management, there are some decent clue getting options as well with Belly of the Beast (the equivalent of Evidence! but for evade), Breaking and Entering, and Pilfer.

  • Recursion - Cheap Shot, Breaking and Entering, and Pilfer each have a built-in recursion mechanic which is why I only included one copy of them. To help with the succeed by condition, we use statics boosts from Track Shoes, Peter Sylvestre and the new Sparrow Mask. Occasionnally, Crafty can also provide a skill boost although we probably use it to pay the resource cost instead.

  • Resource economy - Ensured by Easy Mark, the new Grift and Crafty. Crafty is a no-brainer as we have 2 tools and 9 tricks (not counting Easy Mark which is testless & costless), some of which being recurable.

  • Card draw / Deck thinning - At a Crossroads is our main card draw engin. Other than that we have cards that replace themselves, resulting in deck thinning: Easy Mark and skill cards Guts & Manual Dexterity.

  • Encounter protection - Aside from spawning enemies which this deck can handle well, the encounter deck most likely tests our and which are our 2 main stats. As usual with Rita the big man on campus protects our low sanity.


Conclusion

I really look forward to trying this deck out. I like how the addition of Hatchet and Long Shot can make Rita a competent fighter without resorting to Dirty Fighting and having to worry about the stat at all. I believe Sparrow Mask as the potential to make recurable events very reliable, and Grift can help to pay for their heavy resource cost until Crafty is in play.

I haven't really put much though in the level 0 version and upgrade path for this deck yet, but the side deck has a suggestion for cards to start with in place of xp card that don't have a level 0 version.

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