Stella Clark 2.0

The goal of 2.0 investigator starter decks is to "make them better" only with core set and Dunwich set cards. Newer cards can be added after finishing the Dunwich campaign so one can explore new stories with new cards at the same pace as years ago, when we didn’t have such vast opportunities as we do now.

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“After you fail a skill test:” isn’t a beginning of something you don’t want to happen. For “Survivors” it’s the core principle of their gameplay. Usually they don’t mind if a skill test fails and sometimes, sometimes they even desire the failure to happen because of some juicy proc from some cool card. Take Stella Clark´s ability, for example:

“After you fail a skill test: You may take an additional action during your turn this round. (Limit once per round.)”

Okay, you’ve failed… so what!? You may proc “Look What I Found!” and then take another action as a bonus.

Do you see where I’m heading? What is this deck going to be about? You’re right. Failure won’t be an option.

What, whaat, whaaat?

Yes, yess, and yesss.

I don’t understand the “please, I wanna fail this test” mindset. In the Core Set, The Dunwich Legacy and the Stella Clark packs there are not that many quality cards like “Look What I Found!” —and what if you don’t draw them? Or you will, but you won’t fail a test? Or you will fail a test but there won’t be a second clue at your location? Or… There are so many “ifs” and “ors,” and life in the Arkham Horror universe is already harsh by default. Let’s at least try to pretend that you have some control over it. Let’s become the Dark Horse in this race.

With Dark Horse in play, you have one task only: keep your resource pool low so the +1 stays on. This list is packed with 0-cost cards; Dark Horse itself is the priciest at 3, so you won’t need many resources to play your assets, and you can funnel extras into on-demand boosts. Dig Deep and Scrapper let you spend a resource for instant bumps to willpower, agility, or combat (and Fire Axe converts resources into big swings). Keeping Dark Horse online when it matters is straightforward. Plan A initiated.

.18 Derringer or the already-mentioned Fire Axe in one hand is responsible for fighting; in your second hand goes Flashlight or Old Keyring for investigating. Leather Coat is your shiny armor + with the Scavenging combo there’s some chance that you’ll have it “always on”. The rest of the deck leans into clean test passing, to crown it all: Guts, Manual Dexterity, Overpower and Perception cycle themselves on success, compounding momentum. And if the chaos bag gets cheeky, get Lucky! Plan B initiated.

Simply put, you’re going to deliver this letter by any means. Today. Failure is really not an option. :)

I am sure there are better characters to use the Dark Horse card, but this decklist was specifically made for Stella. Her passive ability contributes greatly to plan C—just take another action equals "go again"—and her Neither Rain nor Snow is OP as F. It correlates perfectly with the “I’m gonna pass this test” approach by adding three of whatever skill icons you need, and if you still fail, just ignore the consequences. To make it even better: Stella runs not one, not two, but three copies. I mean… really? :D

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One funny thing — I’ve never played AH: LCG (actually I did, but it doesn’t really count). This is only theorycrafting based on information from ArkhamDB and my experience from other card/board games. Is this deck going to shine? I don’t know, but I’m somehow pretty sure that it’s at least much better than the preconstructed version. I’ve never ever seen a preconstructed deck that was really ready to play the moment you unpack it — such things simply don’t happen. True story. :-)