Rex Murphy - Hard Hitting News

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NOTE: this is a 9XP Stand alone version of the deck, Please see the variants section at the bottom if you want to see a campaign legal starter for the deck

So, if anyone has been playing Rex in the dunwich campaign you may have noticed his ability is a little on the strong side. Certainly in several standard difficulty campaigns among people I know he has been stealing the lime light, and somewhat removing the fun of the challenge from the game. He really only needs a Dr. Milan Christopher and/or a Magnifying Glass or two to be set up. Throw in a Deduction (best at large player numbers) and/or Working a Hunch (best at low player numbers) and seemingly the rest of his deck can be varied quite a bit without loosing the ability to generate an obscene amount of clues and buckets of cash from Dr. Milan Christopher. On the upside this basically gives you a lot of choices for your favorite style of play with him at least.

You may have also noticed that the power level on Higher Education is a little strong as well and it has a rather tasty synergy with both Dr. "Moneybags" Christopher, and benefiting from exceeding by 2 on investigate actions. Certainly this interaction being so strong is leading several players I know to consider daisy as a less cluey choice simply to keep the game interesting.

This led me to try a bit of a concept deck to see how far the Rex effect can be pushed with current card stock, partly for comedy reasons, and partly to stoke a little discussion around the matter. My suspicion is that a decent central shell might enable interesting alternative and entertaining play styles in Rex. I wonder if you took the combat options out of this what interesting alternatives will come about from seemingly limitless intellect and willpower on tap.

Just to say, I would actually never advocate playing a deck in a game simply because it is strong, particularly in coops. As I elude to above, it takes the challenge (and a lot of the fun) away. I would suggest instead that you reserve it to enable harder modes of play, or indeed as a shell to play with other less efficient but more entertaining toys within.

Finally - A quick shout out to Zozo's rogueish Goddamn Sexual Tyrannasaur deck, gave me the inspiration to see what else could be done in Rex. Nice one Zozo - loved the deck.

Headlines (Basic Concept):

Here the overall plan is similar to any other Rex deck, get the Mag Glass/Milan down and start investigating. However the money supply has been boosted with Lone Wolf to be channeled into Higher Education, various combat options, and lots of card draw (to both reduce variance and keep Higher Education active). This builds what I hope is a strong all rounder while maintaining Rex`s status as clue hunter extraordinaire.

Investigative Journalism (clue hunting):

No surprises here:

• Mag Glass/Milan - First priority, these are the primary base boosts for investigating.
• Higher Education - MVP and it even starts in play. The option to pay 1 to boost 2 or 2 (usually on encounter checks) is ridiculously strong. Between this and Mag Glass/Milan above, try to test at 4 above shroud (5 on hard etc) to give good odds of exceeding by 2 for the bonus clue.
• Deduction & Perception - boosts to important investigations as needed.
• Working a Hunch - can either be spent for the actionless clue or as a surrogate Perception (double pips)
• Rite of Seeking is a Joker here. Both in the sense it is a massive overkill card ive put in to annoy a friend and in the sense that it can easily be swapped for another toy of your choice (Dynamite Blast is a good boost to the combat side of the deck, Hard Knocks would cover the stats Higher Education doesn't, or Blinding Light might give you another damage/evade card). Then again, if the absurdity of using Higher Education money on to investigate for 3 clues and trigger a small refund from Milan makes you giggle like it does me then go for it. Note that the strength of this varies considerably with player numbers. Its perfect in 3p where locations with 1 clue per investigator means exactly 3 clues, but its terrible in solo, misses an opportunity for the 3rd clue in 2p, and is a bit of a false economy in 4p where taking 3 out of 4 clues denies you the bonus clue on the second instigation.
• If playing in low player numbers, Deduction may similarly loose some of its potential when that 3rd+ clue isnt there. An alternative is Seeking Answers, allowing you to try to grab one clue from your current location and one from an adjacent location. While this may work in 3p if two 1/investigator locations are adjacent (grabbing left over clues) this is a little circumstantial and arguably much less reliable than Deduction. It also is substantially less strong at 4p.

Cash is King:

High cash is importance to keep fueling Higher Education, and pay for the large number of high cost events and assets that make up the combat component of the deck. It also covers you for occasional scenarios (that i wont spoil here) which have cash heavy components.

• 6 cards are in the deck to give very high odds on seeing one early.
• Milan and Lone Wolf - strong passive supplies of resource. Note that the combat focus of the deck should mean Rex is safe to stand alone and keep Lone Wolf active.
• Emergency Cache - provide occasional bursts. The upgrade on the cashe is just for the card draw (see below).

Reliable Sources (draw engine)

The drawback of needing 5 cards in hand to activate Higher Education means you`ll want plenty of draw. This also vastly improves the overall consistency of the deck or lets you dig for specific cards if needed. Just be careful not to mill yourself completely in the wrong circumstances *wink.

• Preposterous Sketches and rex's Search for the Truth give you 3 high draw events in the deck. be sure to laugh at the pun on drawing cards from your drawings - its preposterous.
• Use Guts and Perception liberally to self replace asap. These simply thin the deck and/or give you options if you've gone below 5 cards in hand for Higher Education. At their worst they save you a resource you would have had to spend on a higher ed charge.
• Similarly self replacement is the reason for upgrading the Emergency Cache, but feel free to spend the xp from this elsewhere if you have a better idea. I was torn between this and Cryptic Research but this seemed a better way to demonstrate the deck principals at a glance.
• Manual Dexterity on the other hand is a panic button for nasty encounter cards. It does self replace, but it's best played defensively rather than asap.
• Finally the option on Rex's ability to fail for the card draw isnt a terrible idea if it pops up at a benign time, though this is nothing you can really plan around.

Close Up (combat/evasion)

Right - so your rich, your base stats are not combat focused and your hand slots are prioritized for Magnifying Glasses. Thats ok, lots of strong combat options are available from events and spells.

• "I've got a plan!" - a card worthy of the a-team's "Hannibal" Smith. A solid one shot dealing up to 4 damage. Its main draw back is its high cost, but we've prepared for that. It's damage potential also fluctuates, but your Rex. If clues are available at all you probably have a few of them. getting at least 2 damage from this shouldn't be hard.
• Shrivelling - 4 charges of non weapon based damage thats boostable to 5 or 7 equivalent for 1 or 2 resources respectively via Higher Education. 9 base sanity gives you plenty of space to absorb any horror from icon`d token draws.
• Mind over Matter - A versatile to or converter for 1 turn. Great for low HP enemies, the occasional need to evade or based encounter card tests.

Alternative News (variants and upgrades):

I wanted to show this deck with the Higher Education active so people saw the overall plan. The 9xp format (ie legal for stand alone scenarios without additional weaknesses) seemed like the least problematic option. If you wanted to use this deck in a campaign, you would have to make do without the Higher Education for the first scenario, though obtaining 3 xp isnt tricky so you would expect this keystone to be set there after. Anyway for a campaign legal start deck, simply drop the Higher Education, swap Pathfinder for Shortcut, and downgrade the Emergency Cache to its basic set and you should end up with something a little like this. Your only real dead draws being Shrivelling since you can at least use the pip on Rite of Seeking. That said 1 enemies are found here and there and some do warrent the bonus damage, or at a push those Guts can be used to boost an attack from Shrivelling to 5 equivalence, but this isnt particularly efficient.

You may have noticed that the xp other than Higher Education is quite flexible here. Alternatives, or indeed good options for upgrades are: Cryptic Research (over Preposterous Sketches or Perception/Guts), or upgrading the Deduction to v2. If your playing a campaign and find your picking up story allys Charisma may be important later on given that you aim to keep Milan in play blocking the slot. Your unlikely to gain much from upgrading Magnifying Glass since you probably want to keep it in play, but i suppose it saves 1 resource.