Rita Controls Crowd (Guide)

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
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Portinou · 1571

Introduction & Purpose

Rita is frequently regarded as the second-to-last weakest investigator in the game to date, because of her limited card pool and limited ability.

However, the Winifred deck and Edge of the Earth expansion offered her new powerful tools to make her stronger and actually super fun to play!

This is a deck designed to be the fighter of the group, but you will not kill enemies as easily as Mark or Tony would. Instead, you can neutralize them with many... well, tricks.

Main Strategy

The cornerstone of this deck is Crafty. It will pay for your tricks, and also allow you to boost your stats when necessary for the tests on them, when you need to ensure you will succeed by X. This is particularly relevant for Slip Away that you want to abuse here.

The goal is to have your Crafty and Track Shoes out ASAP, for economy, enhancement and free movement. Peter Sylvestre is not a priority (believe it or not), he will soak horror for Rita and boost her agility a step further, but you will succeed most tests anyway.

So basically you want to manage enemies 2 ways: kill them and/or neutralize them, which fighers are usually unable to do outside Silas. This deck worked like a charm in TFA, except for the Yithian scenario were it struggled a lot.

Assets, Events & Skills Breakdown

Let's analyze Rita's arsenal here:

  • Slip Away helps you to neutralize an enemy for 2 turns if you need to control it and cannot kill it easily or have other priorities right now. You want to succeed by 3 to take the card back and do it again 2 turns later. Trish will thank you a lot if you do this on a clue-heavy location by the way.

  • Cheap Shot is basically either a guaranteed evasion that also deals 1 extra damage. Again, you want to re-use it by succeeding by 3, which should be pretty easy in this deck most of the time. Depending on the situations this can deal 2 damages or escape to another location while still dealing damage (so basically combining both Rita's abilities).

  • Sweeping Kick is an almost guaranteed 3 damage event in Rita. Useful to one-shot your Hoods, among other things. With Crafty in play, again, it is free.

  • You can deal consistent damages when needed with your Enchanted Bow (attacking with a base of 6 , boosted to 8 with Tracking Shoes and Pete in play). Combined with Cheap Shot or Sweeping Kick, it will allow you to kill most enemies in 1 turn. And again, Cheap Shot is free and re-usable.

  • Close Call and Waylay will just zap enemies when needed. Close Call does fantastic against Vengeance X Hunter enemies. Waylay is more situational, but if you need to one-shot a 10-Health non-elite enemy, it is great. I had a great time in this specific situation in Threads of Fate, it feels really fun!

  • Expeditious Retreat and Survival Instinct are your panic buttons. Sometimes you will end up with 3-4 enemies in your location, because you are slow at killing them sometimes. These compress actions and keep you alive when it is actually time to run.

  • Tennessee Sour Mash helps you against the mythos on top of Pete, boosting your to 6, but has also a great discard action when empty, synergizing nicely in Rita.

Conclusion

Let's be honest, Rita is far from being the strongest fighter in this game, but this deck actually brings her to average IMO, and most importantly, makes her super fun to play. Enjoy!

20 comments

Jul 13, 2022 Valentin1331 · 54604

Love the Deck! I'm happy you put so much effort into one of the underdogs to make a viable build!

Maybe a quick recommendation, since Rita is a , why not trying to include Nightmare Bauble or Eucatastrophe as later upgrades, and to avoid losing Slip Away/Cheap Shot on a sad pull?

Also that'd be nice to have the upgrade path, in case someone is interested in recreating this Deck :) If you want to do it a bit faster than writing down 1 by 1, you can use @5argon's Upgrade Planner.

Jul 13, 2022 mattastrophic · 3000

Seconded on Nightmare Bauble. The downside of Nightmare Bauble, the Dream Parasite... Rita can get such a large value on Agility tests that she can overcome the -2.

Jul 14, 2022 alexalansmith14 · 674

Awesome deck, I like it very much!

Jul 14, 2022 danisnotonfire · 1

I love playing Rita, this deck is so fun!

What's the consensus on Ornate vs. Enchanted bow?

Jul 14, 2022 Valentin1331 · 54604

I wouldn't call it a consensus, but it seems like both cards are appreciated for different reasons.

Ornate Bow gives a bigger bonus to and deals 3 damages which is widely considered to be the sweet spot for weapons.

But since Rita Young already has 5 and can deal 1 damage reliably with Cheap Shot (2) and her , the exhaust of the Enchanted Bow matters less. You will still spend 2 actions to deal 3 damages (shoot and evade), but none of them will trigger an AoO, and if you played Cheap Shot (2) for the 3rd damage, you can use Rita's to change location and gain tempo compared to the Ornate Bow.

This being said, saving 2xp for the pair and 1 resource to play is highly appreciated and the fact that you can shoot from 1 connecting location is icing on the cake.

Not trying to speak for OP, but that's my take on it, and I think the Enchanted Bow here is really well optimised!

Jul 14, 2022 Trady · 159

Cool deck, I feel like that Crafty card really lifts Rita to a reasonably playable and fun level.

On the Ornate Bow vs. Enchanted Bow dilemma, how about both? Even with all these cool tricks, Rita with a bow and Rita without a bow is a big difference, I'd rather raise the chance and put at least 3 bows in my deck.

I somewhat question keeping Take Heart - at this point you won't fail that many tests and if you do, it is probably thanks to the . Live and Learn may serve you better than Lucky!. Nightmare Bauble looks like a great addition too.

Jul 14, 2022 Valentin1331 · 54604

@Trady I love the idea of Live and Learn since Lucky! will not allow you to succeed by 3 to keep Cheap Shot (2) or Slip Away (2) but trying the test again, with a boost, gives you significant chances to bring it back to your hand.

Jul 14, 2022 Portinou · 1571

@danisnotonfire I played both enchanted and ornate bows and I think that first one works better in this deck. Simply because you can rarely afford to spend an action to nock an arrow. The point here is to shoot with the enchanted bow and combine its damages with an event to achieve reasonable DPS when needed. Also, if you miss, your evasion will still work most of the time and you will have the bow ready for the next turn, without needing an action to ready it.

Jul 14, 2022 Portinou · 1571

@danisnotonfire @Valentin1331 And I can also confirm that the discount on resources and XP is much more impactful on the economy of the deck than it might seem :-)

Jul 14, 2022 Portinou · 1571

@Trady I played entire scenarios without finding the bow, and it still worked just fine. The problem starts if you draw neither the bow nor crafty early. I had this happening once and drew cards on my first 2 turns to find one of the two, because you are not a rogue, so you cannot keep playing events continuously without an economy otherwise. But again, you can do fine without a weapon here.

Jul 14, 2022 Portinou · 1571

@Trady The point of Take Heart is mostly to fail a test on purpose early (typically on an investigate action) to draw 2 cards and gain 2 resources. This is basically a pure economy card, which worked fine to compensate a poor mulligan.

Jul 14, 2022 Portinou · 1571

@Valentin1331 @Trady I added Nightmare Bauble indeed as a late quality-of-life upgrade and removed Lucky, but this is a nice to have. If you lose your events, well... you loose them :-) At this point you would have enough possibilities to still find a solution with your other cards, which is part of the fun. The 2 copies of Lucky are actually here to deal with treacheries that would ruin your tempo/hinder you sanity too much, not to save the lost Slip Away or Cheap Shot. This is why I chose it over Live and Learn.

Jul 14, 2022 Portinou · 1571

@Valentin1331 Sure I can add the level 0 version and upgrade path, I just do not know how to add a hyperlink here :-)

Jul 25, 2022 Krysmopompas · 349

Rita's awesome, and the upgraded Bait and Switch is great with her, especially when she's playing with Guardians or other fighters. I'd rec. having a spot in the deck for that.

Aug 01, 2022 Trigunner · 1

I once ran a very similar deck through 2 player The Circle Undone. It really is a fun to play deck. Crafty is very powerful. And the Bow plays way better than it looks. I would play Breaking and Entering though and I also had 2 Look what I found and a single Pilfer, but that really depends on preference and how your group is set up. I like to be able to pick up some clues, even if I am the fighter/enemy handler.

Sep 15, 2022 DrOGM · 22

Just to make sure I understand correctly, if you use Sweeping kick to defeat your Hoods as you suggest, wouldn't you suffer an attack ? Since the Forced attack you trigger by evading it would be applied before you can use your own reaction to deal the 3rd damage ? (even then, it's still a good strategy)

Sep 15, 2022 Portinou · 1571

@DrOGM I must say this is an unclear point of rules. Both your reaction and Hoods reaction trigger in the same window. Here is my understanding: in most similar situations, the players are allowed to decide in which order the abilities trigger (so it would be the same for reactions). Therefore you can trigger your reaction before theirs, and since they are defeated and therefore out of play, they can no longer attack you. A rule expert would though be required to confirm this, I found the definitive answer nowhere!

Sep 22, 2022 An_Undecayed_Whately · 838

Seems light on early cash... what are your thoughts about Sneak By for the start deck? The final deck?

Dec 18, 2022 Luke89 · 1

This deck seems so fun! Could it be possible to get a 0xp version?

Jun 16, 2023 thefurian · 1

Thanks for the deck, is there a chance to get the 0xp version?