Rita Reads Chapter 2, Leaves Pete Behind

Rita Reads Chapter 2, Leaves Pete Behind

Wait, what!? Rita without her beau Pete?

While others are writting guides for the new Chapter 2 investigators, I wanted to show some love for one of my favorite legacy investigators, Rita Young, who just got a lot stronger thanks to a couple Chapter 2 cards. She used to struggle getting clues, either running out of clueing events, or the resources to play them.

Chapter 2 fixes all of that.

• Hunter's Instinct lets her recur the clue and economy events from the discard pile to replay them multiple times.
• Longbow might not look like a big upgrade over Ornate Bow - but being Survivor traited is huge. It lets us use Short Supply and Resourceful for fast setup.
• And yes… the rumors are true: Rita has left Peter Sylvestre and found a new partner in Daniel Jameson.

Overview

• Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ (3)
• Enemy Management: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4)
• Clue-Getting: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4)
• Economy: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5)
• Card Advantage: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ (4)

Main Strategy

Use events to grab clues, then use Hunter’s Instinct to recur them from your discard pile whenever you engage an enemy. Rinse and repeat.

Enemies are handled with Rita’s , Dirty Fighting, and Longbow.

Clue-Getting

All clueing is event-based and dependent on location shroud:

• Look what I found! – 1-2 shroud
• Pilfer – 3-4 shroud
• Breaking and Entering – 5+ shroud and clues while engaged

These all loop through Hunter's Instinct, giving Rita sustained clueing she’s never really had before. Use Hunter's Instinct to grab clue events or the resources to run them from the discard pile.

Enemy Management

• Longbow hits for a big 3 damage! (with the tradeoff of needing reload actions)
• Dirty Fighting adds action compression via free attack after evasion
• Daniel Jameson pulls serious weight:
  • Passive agility boost = better evades and Longbow shots
  • Ability = insurance against autofail on your Longbow attacks

Mulligan

Hard mulligan for:

• Hunter's Instinct
• Longbow

Also Keep:

• Resourceful
• Scrounge for Supplies

These let you recover the key pieces from the discard pile—especially after Short Supply does its thing.

Fast Setup

Short Supply is doing the heavy lifting here:

• Pre-loads your discard with targets for Hunter's Instinct
• Helps you find Longbow and Hunter's Instinct faster via Resourceful/Scrounge

Between mulligan + recursion, you should reliably have your engine online in round 1.

Resource Economy

Running clue events is expensive, especially Pilfer.

• There are 9 total resource cards which seems extreme but you'll be glad to have the resources.
• Most of the resource cards can be recurred from the graveyard if needed but we are hoping to save the supplies on Hunter's Instinct to grab clue events.

Upgrade Path

Link to lvl 0 deck

Core upgrades:

• Bewitching (3) (6 XP)
• Meat Cleaver (0)) → Dirty Fighting (2) (2 XP)
• Baseball Bat (0) x2 → Longbow (3) x2 (6 XP)
• Cherished Keepsake (0) → Canteen (2) (2 XP)
• Cherished Keepsake (0) → Hunting Jacket (2) (2 XP)

Important Notes:

• Hunter's Instinct stays at level 0 so it can be recurred with Scrounge for Supplies
• Same applies to your clue events—they stay level 0 for recursion
• If you upgrade Hunter's Instinct, you’ll rely more heavily on Resourceful

⚠️ Watch out:

If you upgrade Dirty Fighting (2) before getting Bewitching (3), it can get stuck in the discard pile from Short Supply with no way to recover it.

Survivability Note

By taking Peter Sylvestre out of the equation it gets even tighter on her low sanity. The Canteen (2) will help a lot and if you get any mental trauma you may want a second Canteen (2) in place of the Hunting Jacket (2).

There are very few icons in the deck which is something that Peter Sylvestre (2) would have helped. This is partially offset by the fact that Lucky is recurable with Hunter's Instinct but she's still gonna be taking it on the chin plenty.

Conclusion

This is my first published deck - and my love letter to Rita.

She’s always been one of my favorite investigators, and now, with a few key Chapter 2 cards she finally feels like she’s at the power level she deserves.

And yeah… Pete didn’t make it.