Card draw simulator
| Derived from |
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| None. Self-made deck here. |
| Inspiration for | ||||
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| Keymaster Pete at the [Carnivale of Horrors] - 19xp | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1.0 |
wallets · 160
Pretty simple deck recognizing the power of Key of Ys, especially with classes with access to Peter Sylvestre. This guide is more of a template, explaining the various possible ways to deck build around "Ashcan" Pete and leaving space for modifications.
*Note: I played with Delve Too Deep/Vicious Blow instead of Vicious Blow/Inspiring Presence because I was playing multi-player with a and wanted the exp, but I wanted to post the more optimal set-up.
Core Upgrades
- Charisma - 3xp
- Peter Sylvestre -> 2 Peter Sylvestre II - 4xp
- Perception -> 2 Key of Ys - 10xp
Other Upgrades
- 1 Overpower, Unexpected Courage -> 2 Stroke of Luck - 4xp
- Guts, 1 Overpower -> 2 A Test of Will - 2xp
- Lucky! -> 2 Lucky! II - 4xp
- Leather Coat -> 2 Aquinnah III/The Red-Gloved Man + Charisma - 9xp/13xp
- 1 Unexpected Courage, Calling in Favors -> Flare - 2xp
This deck is optimal after 17 XP. Keep buying Stroke of Luck and A Test of Will with the rest of the exp. If you have even more exp, get Aquinnah and well, you'll never die. Note that the skill replacements are definitely not as concrete as I laid out above. It's just a rough outline of how to replace cards if you did so in that order. You could mix up the order of the upgrades as well.
Mulligan
Find the Key of Ys, Peter Sylvestre and Dark Horse. Keep Calling in Favors if you start with it and no allies. Then go for Fire Axe if you have the key and Sylvester, you can keep it if you don't have Dark Horse.
Playing
It's fairly straightforward, just get the assets out and horror on Key of Ys. Just be careful of direct horror (Marked by the Sign, Light of Aforgomon, Well of Souls). Also, you might want to keep a Ward of Protection or A Test of Will in hand for scenarios involving Corrosion and similar cards(analysis below). Lastly, don't over force and do something like say His name three times because Peter Sylvestre might not be around to save you and things can go bad, just take the horror naturally.
Any natural synergies/combos are stated within the card considerations below.
Main Considerations
Delve Too Deep. I always go for more exp if I can, also "Ashcan" Pete handles the encounter deck well. If you have a on your team though, it should be on them. In case of other classes, "Ashcan" Pete doesn't need other class cards as much as other investigators, usually just quality of life cards, so he can take it.
Inspiring Presence. Looking for another non-class card, this one is the safest and versatile. Refreshing Duke is great, and a bit more damage/horror soak is good. There are a lot of non-class cards that work well with "Ashcan" Pete (analysis below), but this one is my personal preference.
Ward of Protection. As CaiusDrewart stated below, some treacheries are just very bad for "Ashcan" Pete. I believe there are two scenarios in Carcosa that involve Corrosion, a treachery that "Ashcan" Pete doesn't have many options against because his item assets are very cheap to play, with the exception of Key of Ys, which would all but guarantee he lose it to...rust or something. The second issue is "Ashcan" Pete is more dependent on Peter Sylvestre than ever, so you want to ensure he doesn't go anywhere. Kidnapped! and Abduction can be beat through skill tests, and Broken Rails can be fed a Magnifying Glass, but are also cards to play around. Anyways, any scenarios that involve asset and ally removal treacheries are bad, and can be approached with a Ward of Protection sitting in hand for those crucial moments.
Calling in Favors. Survivability card. I'm still debating the usefulness of this card (analysis below), but it's still pretty good. The idea is that Peter Sylvestre becomes incredibly important in this deck, and you can return Duke to search for him. Calling in Favors lets you refresh damage, which in combination with Leather Coat, Peter Sylvestre and Duke, will let you easily soak 10+ damage and horror throughout a scenario, which should be enough for all of them!
Emergency Cache. Key of Ys + Peter Sylvestre + Madame Labranche + Dark Horse is a bit past the standard Dark Horse budget, this just adds some consistency.
Resourceful. Brings back Lucky! and Leather Coat, but has the additional benefit of bringing back allies that you might have to sacrifice because Key of Ys might ending up soaking too much horror. Note that this can't bring back Duke, of course. Playing with this card, it is less good the less damage you take, because then Leather Coat becomes less useful. This is the same reasoning for why I don't take Scavenging, the target cards are very low.
Vicious Blow one of the best out-of-class cards, simply because it reduces the difficulty of one of the most important skill checks and it helps defeat enemies with an odd number of health. "Ashcan" Pete's attacks are at a premium because Duke can only attack once before you have to discard cards, and Fire Axe needs Madame Labranche if it wants to attack for +1 damage.
Basic Considerations
Key of Ys. A card that is of reasonable difficulty to play around for some classes, but very easy for classes. Very strong card, I don't recommend playing this deck on Standard difficulty because it's just very powerful.
Fire Axe. Very good Dark Horse card because it's cheap to play and easy access to +1 damage.
Magnifying Glass. Great out-of-class card. Should you run 2? I think you can have preferences, I think it's consistent enough for 2 of.
Leather Coat. "Ashcan" Pete has 6 health, five to use. Duke has 2 health, 1 to use. Peter Sylvestre is too vital to use unless situation is drastic, Madame Labranche can sacrifice 2. So there's about 8 damage you are free to take before important assets are lost. It's good, but Leather Coat can shore him up to invincible status.
Madame Labranche. Great card with Fire Axe, giving two good axe shots after a Duke attack, which lets you attack the entire turn. Damage soak for cheap and gives you resources. Lastly "Ashcan" Pete can discard a lot of cards, making it more likely you can get extra cards as well. Note that if you want to keep your hand size low, then maybe desperate skills are better.
Dark Horse. You could just run the Key of Ys and get more expensive cards, but survivor cards are naturally pretty cheap. Will to Survive doesn't synergize well with Key of Ys so Dark Horse tends to make sense anyways, you don't have to play around it too much.
Lucky!. Most cards aren't better than Unexpected Courage. Same goes for Lucky!, which is better.
A Test of Will. It's a very good card for 1xp. You can compare it to Ward of Protection II, except you don't take horror and A Test of Will is within a class that doesn't demand much exp.
Stroke of Luck. A decent card, versatile, this time for 2xp. It's a bit more expensive, and you should be passing more skill tests than normal, but you can save this for some critical moments.
Flare. This card is ok, you don't want to exile this card for Madame Labranche but Peter Sylvestre is good. If you have Aquinnah then Flare becomes very good. The main plan is ally retrieval, but if it's late in a scenario and you need to pump out some big damage, having access to the attack is great as well.
Guts, Overpower, Perception. This deck can't go as reliably to 3 sanity with Key of Ys for desperate skills, but still has a good chance to. I go for standard skill cards because you'll likely have enough stats to pass skill tests with the regular skill cards, plus card draw is better with "Ashcan" Pete because he can discard more cards for Duke.
Card Replacement Considerations
To replace any of the cards below, add normal skill cards, followed by the desperate skill cards. Can add cards such as Flare as well. For example, you could replace Calling in Favors, Leather Coat, Emergency Cache with Manual Dexterity, Guts, Reckless Assault, Desperate Search.
Leather Coat. In campaigns and scenarios where you don't take much damage, you might not need this card.
Resourceful. Not as good without Leather Coat. Typically used to bring back Lucky!, still ok to bring back allies or assets you lost unexpectedly. That shouldn't happen too much though.
Calling in Favors. The downside of Calling in Favors is that it's a little awkward. If you don't get an ally, it's not useful. The allies you use don't have any immediate effect (compared to Art Student), so it's hard to extract value out of refreshing damage soaks. And since Peter Sylvestre is covering horror, you're really only soaking damage, and that could be done with Leather Coat. There is of course, the ability to just get allies out on the field, but there are also limited situations to use this too:
Scenario 1: No Peter Sylvestre or Madame Labranche. Then you can trade Duke for a search. This is ok, unless you need Duke, which you usually do. You have an decent chance of getting at least one of these allies.
Scenario 2: One of Peter Sylvestre/Madame Labranche. Then you are really only looking for 2 cards in the deck, which is much less likely to be found. And you send a card back to your hand. Again, these allies don't recover much when sent back (really 1 of each at best), so this isn't too good.
Vicious Blow/Delve Too Deep can be replaced with other cards. Below are class cards that I think could be better then Vicious Blow (or just good Neutral/ cards), everything else is strictly worse.
Neutral cards: Fine Clothes, Painkillers
: Vicious Blow, "Let me handle this!"
: Ward of Protection, Quantum Flux, Forbidden Knowledge, Drawn to the Flame
: Deduction, Eureka!, Inquiring Mind, Shortcut
: Rabbit's Foot (Higher difficulties)
level > 1: Devil's Luck, Aquinnah, Scrapper, Plucky, Flare, Newspaper(Quilzar)
| 17 comments |
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Mar 30, 2018 |
Mar 31, 2018
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Mar 31, 2018I just finished an entire solo Dunwich campaign with a "Pete & His Key's" deck, it ended up looking like this.... I took Forbidden Knowledge and Painkillers to "power up" key, and I think the card might be close to broken if I was honest (especially in Pete). As a Side Note L2 Newspaper solo is pretty amazing! |
Mar 31, 2018I have a question about Test of Will and Ward of Protection, are these not really hard to play in a Dark Horse deck? Since there is no timing window to get the resource between drawing the card and cancelling it which means you always have to take the upkeep resource which turns off Dark Horse, or is that the plan and then you always have some way of spending the resource? |
Apr 01, 2018
This lets you take resources for Ward of Protection etc. |
Apr 01, 2018
Newspaper is a decent card with Duke, keeping Pete more efficient on full investigating turns. It can be a bit annoying sometimes because a lot of Carcosa locations have 1/1 clues but you said you were playing Dunwich, which I do believe has way more clues, more 2/2 clue locations. It costs two exp per paper, but Newspaper II can also free up class cards, so I'll add that to the potential card list at the bottom of the guide. And haha yes, I think Key of Ys is busted as well. I was also considering ways to power up the key, Painkillers can be a more aggressive version of Leather Coat, and definitely another good card with Peter Sylvestre. Forbidden Knowledge is pretty good with Fire Axe too, also a good call. I lean towards Vicious Blow as a pretty clean, action compressing class card, personally. Looking at Painkillers, Forbidden Knowledge and Newspaper vs cards such as Leather Coat and Magnifying Glass, I see we also have relatively different approaches to valuing cards as well, as I tend to value simpler cards, while these new cards are more powerful, but also more situational. In my case, I feel I though with the Key of Ys, "Ashcan" Pete is powerful and you would just want to protect that. I think there's room for both in different scenarios, and different playstyles. I don't think I could part with Vicious Blow however, its just great. With regards to Ward of Protection, A Test of Will, and having at least one resource, there's a lot of interesting stuff here. The basic idea is you should have Fire Axe in play, and then you can always take the resource to feed the axe. Usually, without Fire Axe, then you're almost obligated to take Scrapper as a necessary evil because yes, you need to drain resources. But what if you don't have Fire Axe out? It takes a long sequence of events to have Ward of Protection in hand and not be able to pick up a resource and have a bad treachery hit you. Another intriguing concept in a lot of Dark Horse decks I've noticed is that 1 cost cards are really common. Most include some kind of combination of Magnifying Glass, Fire Axe, Scavenging, Lucky!, Plucky and a few others as well. This is often by chance, since the cards I just listed are popular for good reason. Often, at the beginning of a game, your setup costs more than 5 resources. Dark Horse/Key of Ys + Peter Sylvestre are the most common at 6, and then you want resources to get those other 1 cost assets out, and potentially even more cards. So to answer your questions, yes; you often tend to take the resource anyways because as the game plays out, yes; you find yourself able to spend it on something. Again, great suggestions. |
Apr 01, 2018
You could take both before your 3rd action which would turn off Dark Horse for your 3rd action but would let you dump the horror onto Pete for him to heal it off. This also opens up potentially getting to 4 resources before you next turn which opens up some powerful card choices like L3 Aquinnah and Will to Survive are not out of reach without wasting actions to take resources. So that is indeed a great idea, the only downside I can think of, is it is another 3 XP, but the more I think about it the more I might prefer it over L2 Newspaper or L2 Peter which were my 2 upgrades after Charisma and 2 copies of the Key.
I did originaly consider 1 Magnifying Glass and 1 Lantern but Lantern does not combo with Duke very well and I really wanted 2 Inspiring Presence maybe 2 Magnifying Glass, 2 Forbidden Knowledge and 1 Inspiring Presence might be the way to go! I really liked Inspiring Presence in Dark Horse Pete but after that run, I think taking Delve Too Deep could be a super interesting choice. What do you think about Double Or Nothing instead of Vicious Blow? It could be more versatile as you could get double clues (sadly you would only get 3 with L2 Newspaper) but you could get 4 damage instead of the 3 that you would get with Vicious Blow. I might try 1 Forbidden Knowledge 2 Double Or Nothing and 2 Vicious Blow, this opens up the possibility of an 8 damage attack (this is probably overkill but would be fun!). With Pete only having 2 base Intellect and 2 base Fight Rise to the Occasion becomes a more interesting card that might be better the Unexpected Courage. I do really like "Not Without a Fight" as well, I think it is a very versatile card. The other interesting note is that Dark Horse Pete was already a really good deck if you do lose the Key your deck does not suddenly become garbage, all the cards you have not been commiting to tests while you had the Key will really help Dark Horse Pete! |
Apr 01, 2018
What is the urgency to buy Charisma as Pete with this deck? I can't say I really see it. |
Apr 01, 2018Having Duke, Labranche and Peter out really lets you do some clever combos and gives you lots of "Key Protection" but I do think you could be right. 2 Keys --> Scrapper --> Charisma --> L2 Newspaper --> L2 Pete could be the way to go! 2 Keys, Scrapper, Charisma & 2 Test of Will is an interesting 18 XP stand-alone deck! |
Apr 01, 2018
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Apr 01, 2018
About Double or Nothing, it's just a very tough card to pull off more meaningful effects. If you take your easy/average enemy at 3 fight, you really want to leave +3 buffer on skill tests on Standard, +2 max, so you'll need 8 fight to at least have a reasonable chance, more on higher difficulties. I guess you get as close as possible with Key of Ys, but it's too much to ask for a class card, so I didn't consider it. "Not without a fight!" is a good card in multiplayer, because it would be more likely you are engaged with more than one enemy. To be honest though it doesn't really happen that much unless you are the main fighter of the group and then, one or two times a game. Expect to have around one enemy with you at most, so it's like unexpected courage and skills. But you typically want Unexpected Courage and skills first because it's less situational. It's a good skill card to add after you've filled your other needs. |
Apr 01, 2018
Also, I do prefer upgrading Peter Sylvestre before Key of Ys for similar reasons to a comment earlier. Yeah, Dark Horse and Peter Sylvestre is already a force on its own, and already completes a deck with 4xp. With Charisma, it is a fully fledged and powerful deck for 7! You don't even need the key, and you should fully be prepared to not draw it! So if you get the Key of Ys first and lose it somehow, that is ok. I suppose I made a mistake when I call it "Core Upgrades" in the guide when I should maybe say; "Hey you don't need to upgrade anything more, ever. You're good." and let the core just be Peter Sylvestre. I want to bring "base" Dark Horse Pete upgraded before I transition to Key of Ys Pete. I get Peter Sylvestre before Key of Ys not because it's safer, but I want to have a stronger base for Pete in the case that I don't even draw the Key. |
Apr 03, 2018
Looking at Double Or Nothing, with 3 horror on Key and Dark Horse you are already at 8 right? 9 with double or nothing committed and that is before committing anything else. I might give this deck a run later in the week and see how it goes! I do think you are right that I am being less safe with my deck building and more splashy, doing 12 damage in 2 actions seems quite good though! I really want to try and get Will to Survive to work as I think that would be utterly bonkers, but it is another 6 xp to find (9 if you include Scrapper which would be 100% required to make it work...) |
Apr 03, 2018Forgot to mention the main reason I like "Not Without a Fight" is it gives you options, it is almost always best to kill something, but evading something can be the difference between winning and losing, so this is like overpower and manual dexterity in one card (without the card draw) but I found card draw to be the least of my worries! |
Apr 04, 2018
Otherwise, I think that with Dark Horse and Key of Ys, Will to Survive is a bit less reliant on Scrapper to hit those base numbers to pass every test, but yeah, it's pretty expensive. The larger issue is the resource cost, imo. Tell me how the deck plays out, I'm interested in Forbidden Knowledge/Double or Nothing! |
Apr 04, 2018You would have to take Double Or Nothing and Vicious Blow (so not in my deck currently) but if you take both Duke or Fire Axe + Vicious Blow + Double or Nothing gets you to 6. I have always been super keen on Forbidden Knowledge in Dark Horse Pete and it is the one card I don't think I would take out, it gives you access to a good amount of resources and with Madame Labranche you can get from nothing to 4 fairly easily, before Key came out I used to love L3 Aquinnah and she if fairly costly and you sometimes want to replace here in a panic. I am really keen to see how Scrapper works out! :) Still not sure of my upgrade path.... Charisma --> 1st Key --> Scrapper --> 2nd Key maybe... Both Keys --> Scrapper --> Charisma would seem to work as well though! |
Apr 20, 2018Quick update from me, finished my 3rd Pete Key's Campaign, Dunwich this time) and ended up looking like this. Double Or Nothing and Will to Survive is a pretty fun combo but you can only really get it for the last 2 scenerios. Key of Ys is still utterly busted imo, if you have it your are an utter god, I 100% think it needs to be changed, a card that makes your investigator this powerful should not exist. |
Looks terrific. Personally I think I would fit in Ward of Protection--it's just generally a good card, and it's nice to have a way of inflicting horror on yourself for the Key, as well as to cancel treacheries that deal direct horror and/or treacheries that discard assets.