Kymani Jones Scarlet Keys Beater

Kymani Jones: Scarlet Keys Enemy Manager

Kymani handles the enemies so Darrell can spend every action on clues. Regular enemies get evaded twice and discarded outright; Elites get exhausted, then shot or stabbed down while they can't fight back.

How Kymani Plays

3 2 2 5, 8 health, 6 sanity. The 5 bonus XP is already spent in this list: Blur (1), Shotcaster Railshooter, and Easy Mark.

The engine is a two-step evade:

1. Evade an enemy normally. It exhausts.
2. Use the ability to re-engage it, then evade it again. Kymani adds to the attempt (5 + 2 = 7 base). If you succeed by at least the enemy's remaining health, it is discarded. No damage, no fight test.

Practical tips:

• Discard is not defeat. You get no Victory points and no "when defeated" effects, but the enemy is gone and its doom leaves with it.
• Chip damage helps: every point of damage already on an enemy lowers the margin you need. Sneak Attack or a single Shotcaster blast can bring a big non-Elite into discard range.
• The auto-succeeds if any exhausted enemy is at your location, so step 2 rarely fails.
• Stay at Darrell's location. His evidence ability reduces the difficulty of any skill test at his location, including yours. That makes parleys and Elite fights far more reliable.

Card Breakdown

The Evasion Engine

• Grappling Hook: Three actions for two, with no attacks of opportunity. Move, engage, evade in one go is the standard opener on a fresh enemy; it also investigates with when the board is quiet.
• Blur: An evade at +1 that refunds the action on success. It counts as an evade for Kymani's ability, String Along, and Pickpocketing, so a Blur step 2 discards an enemy for free.
• String Along: Turns step 1 into a draw and keeps the enemy engaged, so step 2 follows with no re-engage. The alert keyword only matters if you fail, and at 5 +1 you rarely do.
• Pickpocketing: One card per evade. With String Along out, a two-evade discard draws you two cards. Keep it on the table for the whole campaign.
• Manual Dexterity: Two icons and a draw. Throw it on an Elite evade you can't afford to fail.
• Quick Thinking: Commit it to the intellect-boosted second evade. Succeeding by 2+ is routine there, so it usually buys a full extra action.

Combo: Evade, Hold, Discard

String Along + Pickpocketing + Blur on a 2-health enemy:

1. Evade with String Along: +1 skill, draw 1 (String Along), draw 1 (Pickpocketing). Enemy stays engaged and exhausted.
2. Evade again with Blur, adding through Kymani's reaction. Discard, and Blur refunds the action.

One net action, two cards, one enemy gone. Darrell never sees it.

Killing Elites

Elites can't be discarded by Kymani's ability, so the plan is: evade to exhaust, then hit it while it can't retaliate.

• Hyperphysical Shotcaster: Railshooter form fights with any skill, so use for +1 damage. Four aether is your sustained damage on Elites. Unique; the second copy replaces the first when it runs dry.
• Backstab: fight for 3 damage. The biggest single hit in the deck.
• Sneak Attack: 2 damage with no test on an exhausted enemy. Free follow-up after any evade.
• Hatchet Man: Commit to the evade, and the next damage that turn gets +1. Evade + Hatchet Man + Backstab is 4 damage; evade + Hatchet Man + Sneak Attack is 3 with no fight test.
• False Surrender: Plays the Shotcaster for 3 and fights immediately with . Saves the action of playing it and gets a shot off the same turn.

Combo: Parley Package with Darrell

• Vamp: Test any skill at 3. At Darrell's location his evidence drops that to 1. Pick the mode the turn needs: 2 damage on an Elite, a clue for Darrell, doom off an enemy, or an auto-evade that moves a non-Elite out of the room.
• Double or Nothing: Mostly for Darrell's tests. Skill cards can be committed to another investigator's test at your location. When Darrell's evidence has dropped a test to 0, doubling it costs nothing and he resolves the success twice (two clues). Kymani can also use it on a step-2 evade, but that is a backup line.

Economy and Support

• Easy Mark: Myriad, so one XP bought all three. Each is +2 resources and a card for 0, and a second copy in hand plays free off the first. Funds Leo and the Shotcaster.
• Leo De Luca: An extra action every turn is an extra evade. Placeholder until Lola, and perfectly fine in the meantime.
• Crystallizer of Dreams: Every event you play becomes a committable icon instead of a discard. Easy Marks attach as for later evades. Its bonded Guardian of the Crystallizer enters play exhausted at 3 health, so Kymani can engage and discard it with one evade (7 vs. 3). There's only 1 copy since we should have plenty of card draw.

Signatures

• Agent Fletcher (09010): Hunter and alert, preys on Kymani, and zeroes your when you evade it. Your ability still works on it, you just need the margin from alone: 5 vs. evade 3 needs one more point (String Along, Blur, a Manual Dexterity) to reach succeed-by-3. Otherwise kill it: Backstab is exactly 3 damage, or evade once and Sneak Attack + Hatchet Man.

Mulligan

• Keep: Pickpocketing, String Along, Blur, Hyperphysical Shotcaster, Easy Mark.
• Keep if you can afford it soon: Leo De Luca.
• Keep in a heavy-enemy opener: Backstab, Sneak Attack.
• Ship: Double or Nothing, Hatchet Man, Quick Thinking, Crystallizer of Dreams, Vamp.

Upgrade Path

Total: 34 XP after the starting 5.

Notes:

• Dirty Fighting is built for Kymani. +2 on every step-2 evade and on every attack against an exhausted Elite, plus a free fight action after any evade. Evade an Elite, get a free Shotcaster blast at +2. Limit 1 in play; the second copy is redundancy. Its free fight replaces the extra action Quick Thinking was buying.
• Pickpocketing (2) is Fast and gives a card and a resource when you succeed by 2+, which Kymani's second evade does almost every time.
• Aetheric Link takes the Shotcaster to 6 aether, so one copy lasts a full Elite fight.
• Lola gives +1 and +1 , so +2 on every step-2 evade. Her clue ability costs the location's shroud in resources, which is cheap at low-shroud locations. Leo's extra action is the trade.
• Blur (4) gives +2 and can refund two actions per evade.
• Vamp (3) tests every chosen skill at 2. Darrell's evidence turns one of those into an auto-pass, and Kymani's 5 handles the evade test alone.

Side Deck

Upgrade targets only. See the path above.