Card draw simulator
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| None. Self-made deck here. |
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| None yet |
HungryColquhoun · 8753
Killed 'Gator Replacer™ v2.0
I'm continuing my series with a deck each Sunday using the new Drowned City cards. Is Cthulhu treating you mean, keeping you keen? Just had an investigator die? Well, have I got a deck for you!
Overview
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This is a fully formed deck which can replace a dead investigator or just start you campaign off with a bang. Ascetic plus In the Thick of It mean you can start with 18 XP on Kymani, allowing you to grab Stealth ••• as a superb enabler of their ability (and means to tackle Agent Fletcher) right out of the gate. As a classic Rogue pay-to-win card, Streetwise is available immediately as well. The downside is you don't get XP over a campaign but, as the deck already has all the stuff that makes Kymani great, who cares?!
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A key addition in Drowned City is Forensic Kit. Paired with Thieves' Kit and Grappling Hook you have all you need to investigate with throughout a scenario without this feeling gappy. Grappling Hook with either Thieves' Kit or Forensic Kit is especially nice as it can allow for action compression from time to time (and it can save supplies on the latter two). Forensic Kit also gives an easy means to heal horror off Kymani. With a hard mulligan, you draw at least one of these cards 88% of the time in your opening hand - I like those odds!
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Kymani got a big boost to card draw with Drowned City as well. Stealth linked to "Where's the party?" gives good card draw for more or less a single action (Stealth allows for evade-to-discard). String Along adds another card on evade attempts, and Pickpocketing •• adds more card draw and/or resources from evading. Manual Dexterity, Guts and Easy Mark are all great cantrips for additional card draw - and Lucky Cigarette Case is Lucky Cigarette Case. Overall, don't waste actions playing Lucky Cigarette Case or String Along if you don't need them - I would only play these early to accelerate initial card draw.
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I found Cat Burglar really useful, and hadn't considered it for Kymani before. If you wind up with a lot of enemies engaged with you, you can cherry pick which to evade-to-discard (e.g. Hunters, or those with doom) and leave the rest in the dirt without an Attack of Opportunity. Similarly you can also get away from Massive or Elite enemies in one action, and it's another pickup-and-deliver mechanism (in addition to Stealth) for Elite or Victory-bearing enemies that your Guardian is best off killing (evade, engage, move to Guardian, Cat Burglar or Stealth to release). Overall I was pleasantly surprised with utility of Cat Burglar, I'd definitely take it on Kymani again.
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Passive boosts to are The Moon • XVIII and aforementioned Cat Burglar. Even if The Moon isn't in your opening hand, 3 resources later for a +1 boost in a non-competitive slot is often worth it. British Bull Dog is an extra enemy management option for Elite or Massive enemies if you don't want to use Cat Burglar. The deck is full of resource events, with a 96% draw chance for at least one in a hard mulligan. Leather Jacket is there for more physical soak (as you should take 2 physical trauma from In the Thick of It), and Guts plus Counterespionage give better encounter deck management. Leo De Luca does his usual thing of providing an extra action, which works well with the occasional action compression of Grappling Hook or your Burglar.
What didn't make the cut
Lola Santiago is very good, but I wanted the consistency of two copies of Stealth as a key enabler for the deck and besides Cat Burglar is surprisingly useful. If you're desperate for Lola, then Underworld Support would be your best bet to increase your chances of finding a single copy of Stealth (but odds are still lower than two cards in a 33 size deck).
Kicking the Hornet's Nest is very tempting, but given the steep resource costs in this deck I wanted resource cards which hit 100% of the time like Faustian Bargain and Bank Job - as always it's consistency that's key. Grift was also tempting, but again you need an enemy to trigger it and it pays out less usually than Bank Job/Faustian Bargain. I'd rather have Faustian Bargain in my opening hand and be able to play something like Leo De Luca than Grift which is very often useless on your first turn.
Final thoughts
For those who have followed my decks for a while, I made an initial Killed 'Gator Replacer a couple of years' ago - essentially a Mateo deck which upgraded absurdly fast (link here if you're curious!). This deck was fairly good, but as you can see it did take an alarming 4 trauma (In the Thick of It and two Arcane Research), plus non-parallel Mateo's ability and stat line leave something to be desired.
By comparison this absolutely knocks my original deck out of the water. Firstly, Kymani has a great ability. Secondly, they have a great stat line. And thirdly, with Rogue cards being relatively cheap, there's enough XP here to produce a fully fledged deck with Ascetic unlike Mateo (who will usually still want to upgrade even on an Ascetic deck through Arcane Research/Down the Rabbit Hole shenanigans, and so take a bit more time to reach full power). For a great example of this kind of deck, see the recent one from Calprinicus.
In a lot of ways I think this is a good deck that's viable late campaign and provides momentum early on - so it's a bit of disservice to say this is just a killed 'gator replacer (but that sounds catchier!). In fact using this from scenario 1 means you can better find XP to allow other investigators to upgrade (and arguably it's a very good beginner deck, so long as you can explain the and Cat Burglar weirdness well). Will you be using this when an investigator dies unexpectedly? Let me know - if you die a lot you could always keep this one sleeved!
| 4 comments |
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Mar 16, 2025 |
Mar 16, 2025
On your points and in no particular order!... For Streetwise, I think as this entire deck runs on , it was definitely worth keeping for me. It ensures that you can out-boost the chaos bag for crucial tests, and means you're less dependant on waiting for -boosters like Cat Burglar and The Moon • XVIII to come online to beat high shroud locations. For the hand-slots, you do change over your investigate assets a fair amount, so I definitely appreciated the number that was in here and it does help a lot with that turn 1 consistency (the 88% at least one draw chance). The other neat thing is British Bull Dog and Forensic Kit have an icon to commit, so I never found they felt wasted even when I didn't need them. For String Along, I think the 3 resource cost and the fact that you only draw cards when evading hurts it, so I wouldn't replace a Lucky Cigarette Case with a second copy. The reason I kept one copy on the deck is the +1 skill boost to evading makes you less dependant on both Cat Burglar and The Moon • XVIII to test at a base 7 on your initial evade (obviously the second evade is Stealth and with added on, so that doesn't need any help!), so that combined with the card draw won me over. Overall it's nice early on, but Lucky Cigarette Case is nicer. For Riot Whistle, as the Grappling Hook can give the same level of action compression for me it's surplus to requirement on Kymani generally, even when spec'ing them for combat. It's also situational (e.g. the use case is Aloof or already engaged enemies on a buddy) so it takes a fair amount of time after installing it to show value. Dirty Fighting is also excessive on Kymani in my opinion (even when making them a fighter). Your main role is to evade-to-discard non-Elite non-massive enemies, and not to be killing enemies generally with British Bull Dog. I found the discussed pickup-and-deliver mechanism great for Elites or VP enemies I didn't want to deal with (dropping them off at my Guardian), and Cat Burglar with Stealth mean you have two routes to achieve the same result - again making it consistent even earlier. In terms of the resource costs, I agree they're steep! However (!) the economy here does keep pace with it and I never felt myself waiting to play stuff - Thieves' Kit refunding itself and the masses of resource events are key parts of that, as is Pickpocketing ••. This deck never missed in providing me with enough cash to get up and running (e.g. Thieves' Kit plus Leo De Luca plus one of your many 2 resource useful assets), especially with the card draw to find more cash! I guess if there's any specifics in the above let me know and I'm happy to clarify, but for me this is the best Kymani deck I've played precisely because it's so powerful from the first scenario. While a Kymani deck that gains XP normally will reach (slightly) greater heights, I'd say you're already starting to plateau at the 18 XP mark in terms of new cards making massive differences to your capabilities. This is because some of the best Rogue cards are one or two XP - so XP late in a campaign doesn't add as much value to your early purchases and upgrades for Rogues in particular (a hot take, maybe?!). While the deck looks simple I'd say it's incredibly finely tuned, apologies for the long an effusive reply but I like it a lot! |
Mar 22, 2025Stealth not triggering Kymani's ability, right? |
Mar 23, 2025
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I've been arguing that Kymani is the best fighter in the game since about a month after they were released. Their starting 5xp is a large reason why. I've played Kymani around 8 times now and I can say this build is a classic example as to why.
No disrespect meant; I would make a few small modifications. Streetwise feels unnecessary and expensive. I'd replace it with Relic Hunter for +1 accessory slot. And then I'd look at the 7 hand slot items and remove at least one of them. British Bull Dog is your weapon, so probably one of the Forensic Kits. And I'd replace it with a Riot Whistle so that taking care of non-elite enemies is always one action. I would also argue that String Along (in Kymani) is LCC except you don't need to succeed by 2, it gives you +1, and it costs 1 more resource. I would trade a second LCC for a second String Along.
It's a shame this deck is missing Dirty Fighting but I'm not sure where to get the 2xp. Counterespionage is 1, sure. Easy Mark? No - even without Streetwise this build is resource hungry. Cat Burglar? I mean, I would (especially since I replaced the +1 on evades with a second String Along), but it feels like one of those cards where the deckbuilder is like, "I really, really want to make this card work!" and so suggesting that it get replaced would be similar to insulting them. And ... as someone who rarely runs Cat Burglar, I want to see it in a deck. lol So this might be an example of "not enough xp for one of Kymani's core cards."
And I know I mentioned a lot of ways to improve Kymani's fighting but that's because I view Kymani as a primary fighter who can get 1 or 2 clues a round. They aren't a flex. Thieves Kit, Forensic Kit, and even sometimes Grappling Hook mean that Kymani can do their job as the primary fighter while getting that extra clue or two per round. That's enough clueving out of them already and doesn't need to be improved. If your main fighter is keeping the board clear while still getting a clue or two per round, you're going to tear through scenarios.
Regardless - I love this deck. It's my favorite investigator and it is highlighting why I love them. Thanks!