Jenny Barnes Unlocks Carcosa

The Path to Carcosa may be fraught with peril, but it has also been overflowing with boons for our favorite dilettante, Ms. Jenny Barnes.

(TL;DR: This deck allows Jenny to serve as the team's secondary or even primary cloover (clue-gatherer), with some clever use of event and skill card combos for efficiency and plenty of reliable stat boosts. This also works as a solo deck, as clue gathering is ultimately required to clear a scenario, and Jenny still has plenty of tricks up her sleeve to handle any monsters that come her way.)

The recently released St. Hubert's Key is incredible for Jenny-- it addresses all the headaches I've had trying to use Adaptable to shift cards around mid-campaign to ensure Jenny has ways of reliably boosting her so she doesn't get savaged by the encounter deck. It also boosts her to a very respectable 4, which when coupled with a plethora of skill cards, Flashlight and later Lockpicks and Streetwise, there really is no need to spend additional out of faction slots on things like Magnifying Glass or Dr. Milan Christopher. St. Hubert's Key kills several birds with one stone, including filling her normally unoccupied Accessory slot, assuming you aren't running Green Man Medallion or intend to purchase Lucky Dice (though if you do it likely won't be until the 3rd or 4th scenario at soonest, at which point you could just swap out St. Hubert's Key via Adaptable).

Jenny's base Sanity of 7 and high resource gain allows her to easily shoulder the "drawbacks" of St. Hubert's Key's 4 resource cost and -2 sanity (if this even counts as a drawback since it heals 2 sanity if you would be defeated by horror(!)). A single copy of Logical Reasoning as a way to quickly heal the 2 Sanity effectively needed to re-equip St. Hubert's Key should you happen to lose it via its "cheat death" mechanic that causes it to be discarded (if you've only got 2 sanity remaining you obviously won't be able to equip your other St. Hubert's Key). Alternatively, and with the +1 granted by St. Hubert's Key boosting its reliability, a single copy of Liquid Courage might be worthy of a slot, leaving you one free out of faction slot to play with.

I personally always include Delve Too Deep in my Jenny decks (and any investigator who can run them), as I think it's a lot of fun trying to squeeze an extra few experience points out of each scenario, but it's not for everyone. If you don't feel comfortable with Delve Too Deep, you can always reach for a Machete or a second Dynamite Blast if you want to shore up your ability to handle any monsters, or a Magnifying Glass to boost your investigating powers even further.

"Watch this!" is a great addition, in both flavor and function, and all but removes any need to run cards like Emergency Cache or Lone Wolf in my mind (which aside from resource generation do nothing for you) and features additional AND pips, which Jenny has always been left wanting. The fact that it features an pip is actually quite handy as well, as "Watch this!" can be used to boost your already very strong Lockpicks tests, all but "guaranteeing" the bonus resource payout, you showoff. (If you really want to roll the dice and leave the other investigators in awe, you can combo "Watch this!" + Double or Nothing + Quick Thinking + a skill card such as Perception for a potential net gain of 9 resources, 2 card draws, and 2 additional actions on top of multiple clues or damage! (Just don't pull that !))

Narrow Escape allows for some wonderful deck compression as well, as it all but invalidates cards like Think on Your Feet since it enables you to completely ignore a monster at your location for one action which you can use to snag that last pesky clue, draw a card, or simply move away, and then fight or investigate at +2 skill value (basically an Unexpected Courage) all for the cost of 0 actions and 0 resources. Amazing! You could even use the +2 boost to turn around and kill the monster you ignored with a powerful combo (e.g. via Double or Nothing) The fact that it features 2 pips when we don't want to run Manual Dexterity is just icing on the cake. A fun little early game combo if you happen to have 2x Knife, Narrow Escape, and Double or Nothing in your hand: Throw your equipped Knife for +2 , +1 damage, equip second Knife, cancel attack of opportunity with Narrow Escape, throw second Knife with a Double or Nothing to attack with +5 (or +7 with an Overpower) for the cost of 2 actions and 2 resources, with a total payout of 6 damage and a high chance of double card draw, two extra actions, or extra resources (or all the above!) if you used a skill card and/or "Watch this!" and/or Quick Thinking ... this is why Rogue is so much fun!

Despite it's popularity among other Jenny decks I really don't feel that Hard Knocks is all that great in the beginning of a campaign, and it often feels like a dead or mediocre-at-best draw until better weapons are available. Until then, Jenny's actions often seem better spent running away with Elusive (and now Narrow Escape) and/or lobbing Dynamite Blast or relying on her plethora of skill cards to handle early game combat. Swapping Hard Knocks in later via Adaptable is certainly a viable option, but you may find that you don't need it.

While I've yet to run this exact deck, I'm honestly having a hard time trying to think of anything Jenny would struggle with given this setup outside of Expert difficulty, with proper play and a little luck. I've been a fan of Green Man Medallion ever since its release, but I really think St. Hubert's Key is so wonderful that I would never not take it, and it gives Jenny just enough raw Intellect that the age-old concern over having both her hands occupied by her Jenny's Twin .45s isn't as much of a concern anymore, especially when Jenny can afford to run so many excellent Skill cards that can be used to boost many different types of tests. With a couple Switchblades, Lockpicks, some Streetwise, Charisma and an Adaptable nature...and maybe a bit of a Hot Streak when the going gets rough... Jenny Barnes should be able to elegantly handle anyone or anything foolish enough to get in the way of her search for her sister.