Monterey Jack - solo deck guide (Drowned City edition)

Introduction

Hello folks, here comes my true solo guide for Monterey Jack. We will draw lots of cards, have many resources and take up to 12 actions per turn. We will keep moving to get a free resource and/or card each turn. Sounds good? Let me explain.

Note on update: this is updated for Hemlock Vale/Drowned City. Enjoy one of the best solo decks (my opinion)

Scores:

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Enemy Management: ★★★★☆

Clue-getting: ★★★★★

Encounter protection: ★★★☆☆

Survivability: ★★★★☆

Economy: ★★★★★

Card Drawing: ★★★★★

overall: ★★★★★

The engine(s):

Please note that the main engine wasn’t invented by myself, I rather build on other people’s ideas to refine a true solo deck that is really capable of dealing with everything getting thrown at it.

We want to have Eon Chart, Ariadne's Twine and ideally one resource generator (Dr. Milan Christopher, Lone Wolf) in play. This lets us take two additional actions per turn for the remainder of the game. Combine that with Leo De Luca, Pathfinder, Hiking Boots, Nimble and Quick Thinking we get 12 actions in total. It can get pretty crazy!

On top of that we are resilient to the encounter deck and even Willpower tests when we have Dream Diary Mouse Mask and Money Talks online.

We handle enemies by simply running from them with our endless actions or beating them up with Trusty Bullwhip or Hyperphysical Shotcaster.

Assets

Dream Diary: the upgraded version gives us so much power, it’s not rare to have 8 additional cards in hand to get the bonus either, especially when we can control our draw with ancestral knowledge.

Flashlight: we will rotate this out pretty quickly but it serves as a nice starting card when we have no slots left to use magnifying glass

Trusty Bullwhip: supreme card, fast, gives us the ability to kill 5 health enemies in combination with backstab.

Lucky Cigarette Case: placeholder until we get our eon charts ready

Dr. Milan Christopher: supreme resource generation (you should play the mutated version otherwise he is way too strong) and very welcome intelligence boost

Leo De Luca: who would pass up on bonus actions? He is also kind of meaty to give us some soak

Death • XIII: I like the additional intelligence and we have so much resource generation and actions that we can easily play it later if it’s not initially in our hand.

Mouse Mask: it’s not just there to get clues. It’s also really useful to get rid of nasty willpower treacheries stack stick in your threat area. Should be easy to replenish in most scenarios.

Hiking Boots: it’s a conditional free action and a permanent boost for one of our prime stats. We should pick it up.

Lone Wolf: we play solo who would pass up on a free resource every turn?

Pathfinder: it synergizes so well with our ability that we should never pass it up.

Well Connected: gives us another “out” for crucial willpower tests. We can have a lot of resources if we want.

Events:

Backstab: it’s nice to have the possibility of another 3 damage in your deck Breaking and entering: situational but useful even just for the huge stat boost for the investigation

Decoy: it can be nice to evade two enemies in one action but later on we replace it with forewarned for even more encounter protection.

Elusive: sometimes it’s just nice to have a free jump to any revealed location. If the non-taboo’ed version is too OP for you, try something else in this spot.

Faustian Bargain: synergizes with Money Talks and Well Connected. It’s also useful when you draw a lot of high cost assets in the beginning before really getting any resource engine online.

Intel Report: testless clues are always good.

Money Talks:this is really just good vs. willpower tests and should be saved for critical moments. 6 resources in your pool will get you an ability score of 6 combined with well connected and Dream Diary.

Skills:

Nimble: I often found I just wanted to move to another location rather than several. So I chose to keep this one as a 1 of.

Perception: card draw and intelligence is always useful

Quick Thinking: we primarily test for intelligence and are quite not good enough to warrant a second copy.

Unexpected Courage: flexibility.

Upgrade path:

Charisma (3 XP total): drawing Leo und Dr. Milan together will now be very welcome

-2x Lucky Cigarette Case +2x Eon Chart (5 XP total): we get our engine started

-2x Flashlight+2x Ariadne's Twine (11XP total): engine completed

-1x Decoy + 1x Hyperphysical Shotcaster (13 XP total) : we need two assets to deal 2 damage; Railshooter it is

-2x Dream Diary +2x Dream Diary (19 XP total): we are dreaming of becoming invincible to willpower tests :)

+1x Ancestral Knowledge (25 XP total): add 1x Unexpected Courage, 1x Eureka!, 1x Deduction, 1x Nimble, 1x Quick Thinking

+1x Higher Education (28 XP total) hint: can be switched with Ancestral Knowledge depending on the compaign

-2x Money Talks +1x Cryptic Research +1x Forewarned (33 XP total)

After that it’s really up to you. I would look at Relic Hunter or simply upgrading Eon Chart?