Parley Patrice

POV : you love to have an audience while wearing your superb Hunting Jacket and playing the violin to the terrifying foes, so much so that you are getting paid to perform (and good money!). You want to parley as much as possible with enemies and make them reconsider their whole monster life and embrace the true sound of music.

Below is a review of a true solo deck designed for Patrice, focusing on parley events. I'll talk about the strengths, weaknesses, upgrade paths, and gameplay tips to survive this game on your own.

This deck was able to beat The Scarlet Keys with a total of 28 xp (including 5 extra thanks to the conclusion). Okay it's the easiest campaign so far, but the run went really smoothly and most tests where joked for her. Let's see how the deck works.

The "Parley Patrice" deck is designed to capitalize on Patrice's rapid card draw and her high willpower stat to perform most of the tests needed in each scenario without caring about her other stats. Boost your as much as you can with Granny Orne, Moonstone and skills, then use events or assets that facilitate clue gathering and enemy management, ensuring Patrice can navigate scenarios effectively on her own Eldritch Tongue is also a key piece to this strategy since it will allow you to play or even replay events with parley from your (huge) discard pile.

• Starting Xp: take 1 Hunting Jacket and 1 copy of Persistence with the xp granted by In the Thick of It so that we can benefit from all the xp reduction cost provided by Down the Rabbit Hole on other cards (mosly ). Hunting Jacket is a new but almost essential card for Patrice. The resource income + soak it generates is already valuable, but keeping your most interesting cards for later (when you have actions and/or money to play them) is key. No more cycling through the deck to find your deerest instrument!

• Mulligan: Always try to seek for Patrice's Violin since you'll feel the difference without it in your economy, it's a fantastic signiature card. Hunting Jacket is also a must have during the few first rounds. Then, look for Granny Orne. Sword Cane is good but since you can play it even while engaged with enemies, it's not that problematic to draw it later.

• Investigation:Old Keyringis a very good tool for the lower shrouds locations. You probably won't need the 3xp version since most locations have only 1 clue in true solo but it could be valuable for certain scenarios/campaigns. "Look what I found!" is absolutely wild as the clues can be grabbed at distance while you uncover the map. Lucky!, Granny Orne and other skills can also help you for the investigation tests when you don't have the assets in play. I also like to use String of Curses to grab some clues in difficult locations when the agenda is going to advance, or when I have a copy of Eldritch Tongue in play to discard the enemy right after.

• Enemy managment: Spectral Razor being one of the best events in the game, you will have no trouble dealing with most non-Elite enemies with it, along with Drain Essence which as less damage pontetial but heals you back. Stall for Time is a pretty descent card to deal with enemies that are either too difficult to fight and/or have too many health, note that it also makes some monsters easier to evade since it can use their fight value if it's lower. Sword Cane is pretty great to evade or finish off monsters too and will do the job consistently.

• Economy: Playing Patrice recquires a very good economy. All those events that seat in your hand need to be played so having Patrice's Violin early is a game changer. Hunting Jacket also gives your resources back and since you can recycle it multiple time during a scernario, the potential income/soak is pretty unmatched.

• Encounter deck surivability: High willpower will make you mostly out of touch, but Sparrow Mask is pretty cool to boost yourself during mythos phase and Ward of Protection is always nice for nasty treacheries that you don't want to manage. Also forget about all those Acolyte little? cultists and meet String of Curses.

  ---

As the campaign progresses, consider the following upgrades to enhance the deck's efficiency with the highest priority at the top:

• Granny Orne: She might just be one of the best allies in the game and 3xp feels a bit low for her ability and stat boost. Having her ready during your turn really feels like a safer game. It's also usefull to fail some of the tests that you actually want to fail with her effect like "Look what I found!".

• Power Word : Grabbing clues and moving enemies around is pretty strong. Keep in mind you won't be able to put more than 2xp in it so chose your upgrades wisely.

• "Look what I found!" is one of your best ways of getting clues around the table. It's especially strong when you can bypass some enemies or locked locations thanks to it.

• Grizzled is a neat card to help you Parley, Evade or even Fighting. Chose the best traits possible to fit the campaign (its sometimes a good idea to choose 2 different ones). The recursive upgrade is also very good with Patrice.

• If you ever have enough xp to grab other cards, you could use Charisma along with other powerfull allies such as Peter Sylvestre.