« Ashcan » Pete - An introduction to Survivor archetypes

“I’m late, I’m late! No time to—no time to—no time—”

“Time for what, exactly?” Pete asked.

The Rabbit didn’t answer. He only twitched and flicked, always glancing at a watch and muttering things not meant for the surface world.

Then the Rabbit looked at Duke. Duke looked back. And something primal snapped.

With a snarl that echoed like thunder in a cathedral, Duke lunged. The Rabbit didn’t run. He dissolved. Into fur and shrieks and slivers of bone. When it was done, Duke stood panting, fur bristling, muzzle red.

Pete bent down and picked up what was left. A rabbit’s foot, still warm, still twitching faintly.

“Guess you’re good luck,” he said, stringing it around his neck with a length of guitar wire.

Back on the road, things were different. Pete smiled more than he used to. He’d sit by campfires, pluck a few dissonant chords, and lean forward, eyes glinting like coal.

“Wanna know how I got this rabbit’s foot?” he’d say.

And nobody ever asked twice.

I made this deck for a beginner friend who wanted to explore Survivor mechanics, so I loaded it with as many Survivor archetypes as I could.

Archetypes included are:

Fail forward / Fail protection

• Rabbit's Foot, Live and Learn, "Look what I found!", Take Heart, Artistic Inspiration, Lucky!

Low resource

• Dark Horse, Fire Axe, Madame Labranche, general low cost of cards in the deck

Discard forward / Low hand size

• Gift of Nodens, "Ashcan" Pete's investigator ability, Last Chance, Madame Labranche,

Recursion

• Short Supply, A Glimmer of Hope, Resourceful, Gift of Nodens

This is a flex deck that can fight with Fire Axe or Duke, and investigate with Newspaper (enabling basic investigate actions) or Duke. Once the Glimmer of Hope engine is running (which should be accelerated by Short Supply), Duke can be readied once every turn.

For off-class card choices, I went for:

• Artistic Inspiration: fits very well into the Fail forward / Fail protection archetypes. I love that it works both ways: turn a failure by 1 into a success, but also turn a success by 0 into a failure when you were hoping to fail (pulling the might do that to you).

• Wolf Mask: the low cost fits into the Low resource archetype. Mostly here for the boost to help fighting with Duke (base 4 being decent but not great). The boost can help for treacheries or evading.

• Down the Rabbit Hole: a great fit considering that the latest upgrade cards that came with Drowned City (Last Chance(3), A Glimmer of Hope(2)) and Hemlock Vale (Dark Horse(5)) are awesome. Also, did you ever wonder how Pete got his rabbit's foot?

For the upgrade path, priority upgrades are Dark Horse(5), Newspaper(2), Last Chance(3) and A Glimmer of Hope(2).

All can be purchased with xp discount, allowing you to bank sufficient xp to later purchase Gift of Nodens at 6 xp.

When upgrading Dark Horse into its permanent version, replace it with End of the Road to meet deck size requirement. It's a decent card in Pete and will serve as a placeholder for Gift of Nodens.

Planning to upgrade Lucky!(2) into Lucky!(3) for free at the same time you purchase Gift of Nodens is a good way to optimize the discounts from Down the Rabbit Hole.

At this point the deck is 19 xp and is pretty much done:

Link to the 19xp deck

(View at arkham-starter.com)

For further xp, you could go the "xp optimal" path and continue to purchase only uprade cards: Rabbit's Foot(3), "Look what I found!(2)" and Fire Axe(2).

Alternatively, you could go the "skill replacement" path if you are are willing to pay the additional xp from Down the Rabbit Hole:

• Replace Take Heart with Unrelenting. Take Heart was here mostly for the card draw, so you get the same effect without having to fail a test.

• Replace Stunning Blow with Strength in Numbers. You have other options to evade, and having a to skill card has great value later in a campaing when the chaos bag is getting more and more negative.

I actually recommend going this path, as Unrelenting and Strength in Numbers are more versatile/less situational cards than Take Heart and Stunning Blow, meaning that they are much better targets for Gift of Nodens recursion.