No Rabbits Were Harmed In The Making Of This Deck

No rabbits were harmed in the making of this deck.

This deck draws inspiration from Hello? Yes this is dog by AkaanQ and also Pete's 20 Skill Card Solo God Mode by Dreadreaper.

The idea is to seamlessly combine the concepts behind these two decks to pave multiple paths towards never failing a skill check!

Option 1: Making Bank with David Renfield

The synergy between this card and this investigator is currently the main reason to ignore Dark Horse.

David Renfield combines with "Ashcan" Pete's "ready an asset" ability to generate resources twice per turn without taking any actions to do so. Adding doom when using Chris Redfield is optional so the agenda can be tightly danced around for maximum gain (at least when not facing a potential Ancient Evils).

These resources are then typically ploughed directly into skill tests through use of cards such as Fire Axe, Plucky, and Scrapper.

Getting rid of David Copperfield at the right time is critical. To support this, we use Calling in Favors to pick him up and possibly find another ally, Painkillers to put a horror on him whenever we like, or simply play another ally or put one into play using A Chance Encounter. Being able to get rid of David on a whim is the reason that we never buy Charisma!

Finally, this strategy requires a decent flow of cards because it requires a card to be discarded each turn. The lowest opportunity cost for doing so is by including skill cards such as Guts, Overpower, Manual Dexterity, and Perception. These cards are also supported by our second strategy!

Usually you might consider Rabbit's Foot to help here, but I promised not to hurt any rabbits. Instead we will accessorize in a different way...

Option 2: Key to the Kingdom

Would you rather have a Rabbit's Foot, or just not fail any skill checks in the first place?

Enter St. Hubert's Key.

This mystic accessory increases your to 5 and pumps Duke's to 5, while reducing your maximum sanity to 3. It also has a built-in safety net, letting you discard it instead of gibbering off into the night to heal 2 horror (and setting you to 4 remaining sanity).

Obviously this is fantastic in "Ashcan" Pete because it allows immediate use of the panic skills Desperate Search, Run For Your Life, Reckless Assault, and Say Your Prayers, all while still having the potential horror soak from Duke.

Usually the panic skills are dead cards without low sanity, but "Ashcan" Pete turns dead cards in hand into another use of an asset. If you can't find St. Hubert's Key early enough then you can ditch the panic skills for more resources from David Renfield, turning them into a win-win! If you can't find David, the Key can pass clutch skill tests until both come online.

Painkillers gets extra mileage here as a great fallback for this strategy because it can put us in range of being able to use the panic skills very quickly by itself, and still keep a spare supply for a troubled Renfield to take his fatal overdose.

Other Card Choices

Putting this all together in the same deck is tight on space but still leaves a few slots open, especially when we throw out some traditional inclusions.

Since we are so focussed on passing skill checks we don't want to take cards that rely on failing them, so Rabbit's Foot, "Look what I found!", and Lucky! are all out.

We need a second ally to go with Renfield, and I hugely prefer Madame Labranche over Peter Sylvestre. While at no cards in hand she can be used to filter quickly through the deck to look for specific cards, and we have no shortage of horror healing. Not to mention that keeping all our allies the same cost is useful for Calling in Favors (remember it can also return Duke to hand).

Between David Renfield and St. Hubert's Key, we have four of our five non- card slots. Here are some suggestions for the final slot:

Elusive - I like the ability to disengage from all engagements at will, and as such always value this card highly. It is better in multiplayer where multiple divergent locations can be revealed at once.

Inspiring Presence - High synergy card that can give Duke a third "sic em" or "sniffer dog" action in a turn, while healing him at the same time. Has which are all the icons we want.

Laboratory Assistant - Another 2-cost ally that draws cards and keeps everything flowing.

Lone Wolf - Certainly a consideration for solo play, this one can net quite a few resources over the course of a game and therefore leans in to the Jenny Barnes style of paying to win.

To finish up I actually cut all the skills because this deck doesn't want to do a great deal of running, replacing them with the useful staples Fire Axe and Flashlight. Until we get some XP there is nothing really on which to spend resources so I prefer the axe here over Baseball Bat, especially with the sweet Labranche synergy (you can use her free action in the middle of an axe swing for another +2 if you ready her using Pete).

Spending Experience

This deck runs perfectly on just 5 XP but can be improved further with a couple more expensive cards.

Follow this upgrade order and you can't really go wrong.

Upgrade #1: Scrapper (3 XP) - This is integral to spending your way through and skill checks.
Upgrade #2: -2x Flashlight +2x Plucky (2 XP) - Being able to spend through difficult skill checks makes auto-success in low shroud locations a much less important requirement. Just remember that you can't painkillers yourself into panic mode with a composure in play.
Upgrade #3: -2 A Chance Encounter +2 A Chance Encounter (4 XP) - The upgraded version is much less fiddly and recycles David Renfield for the next agenda. It also brings back dogs that have died and gone to heaven.
Upgrade #4: -1 non- card you chose +1 Will to Survive (3 XP) - None of the cards in our fifth slot are better than this. The entire deck is built to pass checks, so why not take the randomness out of doing so?
Upgrade #5: -1x Madame Labranche +1 The Red-Gloved Man (5 XP) - You can do without Duke for a turn when your skills are set to base 6. Only one copy is really needed, I have purchased two in the past and it felt like complete overkill.
Upgrade #6: -2 Emergency Cache +2 Emergency Cache (4 XP) - Peter Rabbit likes it when he can draw cards for doing something that he was going to do anyway.
Upgrade #7+: -1 Calling in Favors +1 Flare (1 XP repeating) - When you have nothing else on which to spend experience, stockpiling experience to continually rebuy exiling cards is fine.