Pete goes to the Theatre

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
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skanedog · 64

This is the decklist I used to complete Path to Carcosa on Solo at Standard difficulty.

Carcosa has been my favourite expansion so far but until today I've never finished it but Pete and Duke made it through.

The deck is a fairly standard Dark Horse build concentrating on static bonuses, ally soak, and manipulating results using cards such as Lucky!.

Inspiring Presence was invaluable for gettting extra uses out of Duke and Against All Odds really helps passing borderline tests.

As the campaign went on, Dark Horse itself began to become somewhat of a liability as the complex setup required often meant I didn't have money needed to use tools like Flare and A Test of Will which were very important later on.

Originally I tried this with the Desperate skills but they were useless in the beginning and I failed the campaign several times before I went back to the basic skill cards. The card draw is far to important in this deck to pass up as you need to find the various components quickly to be effective.

Combat was largely handled by Fire Axe tricks and the rest was evasion where possible, I killed what was necessary but ran when I could. Clue finding was never really an issue as in Solo there's usually only 1 or 2 clues on a location so Duke could handle most of them.

Hardest part of the campaign was definitely The Last King (it's hard to meet the requirements for a lot of the parley actions as this deck regularly has no cards or money to hand) and The Pallid Mask as some of the higher shroud locations had me stuck for a while trying to earn clues to escape.

Didn't struggle at all with Curtain Call or Unspeakable Oath, but only because I've died in those so many times now I can play through them on autopilot!

Thanks for reading, never published a deck before but just chuffed to finally beat Carcosa!

4 comments

Feb 28, 2019 Synisill · 790

Hi @skanedog, i haven't been online for some time, but i have read your article by chance. I truly understand how exhaustive tinkering with a deck can be for solo mode and i want to congratulate you on your first successful build! I am pretty sure there are more to follow, now that you got a hang on it. How did Winging It work out for you? I And did you more than often fight against The Pallid Man, or did the key of success lie in investigating successfully?

Feb 28, 2019 skanedog · 64

Thanks! I found Winging It not to be worth It in this deck in the end and took it out pretty quickly. So many locations have only 1 clue and as it can't be used with Duke (it triggers an investigate action on its own) it was always more useful to buff the dog than it was to raise Pete's chances. I definitely found that good old Perception was the best clue-finding tool in the deck.

I've been playing a lot more on true solo recently as I used to mostly play either multiplayer or two-handed solo but I've been enjoying the game much more now that I'm running through the campaigns solo. Thinking about true solo is a really different experience, you have to pay more attention to the bits of the game you're not going to ever pass and figure out how much of it you're willing to cope with, rather than knowing that someone else on the team can handle it. It makes for much more exciting and interesting builds. I'm currently trying Forgotten Age solo with Ursula and the lack of any real fighting ability makes even small enemies terrifying.

Feb 28, 2019 skanedog · 64

As for fighting the Pallid Man, most times I ended up just avoiding him or working around him. Duke can't investigate him so Pete didn't stand much chance with that action on his own, and more often than not there were other ways to complete Acts without fighting him too.

In the final sections of the campaign I did have to investigate him a few times to move on and that's when I was glad I had Stroke of Luck!

Mar 04, 2019 PureFlight · 750

Tell me more about Against All Odds! It's an intriguing card but it's often dismissed as a "Calvin Card" so I don't see it often. What kinds of situations did you find it to be most useful?