Pete and Duke, Two Against the World

This is a low-resource deck in the vein of Broke-ass Pete's Spooky Adventure and Dark Horse Duke (Solo) - Updated. Because we begin with Duke in play, we can Fight with 4 and Investigate with 4 right out of the gate.

Make our own luck: Like other Survivor decks, this deck has a lot of ways to mitigate bad luck, and this safety net allows Survivors to attempt dicier skill checks. Succeed? Awesomesauce.

Failed the test? Discover clues anyway with "Look what I found!" or cause damage with Oops!. Then draw a card with [Rabbit's Foot](/card/01075 to power "Ashcan" Pete's ability to ready Duke for another action).

Don't want to fail the skill check? Get Lucky!. This works well with the four neutral Skills (Guts, Manual Dexterity, Overpower, and Perception), which let us draw a card to ready Duke.

Finally, Ward of Protection lets us nope out of any particular nasty treachery.

Mens sana in corpore sano: "Ashcan" Pete has the smallest health pool of any investigator in the game (you're not thinking of hurting Duke, are you?). Peter Sylvestre helps with horror so we can play Ward of Protection. Use Leather Coat to soak damage then fish it out of our discard pile with Scavenging.

Reuse and recycle: Scavenging also allows us to draw item cards to ready Duke or to play for skill icons, which are weighted toward . To trigger Scavenging more consistently, we have Magnifying Glass and Dark Horse.

Don't be a slave to money: This deck has a few fun cards to play with but aren't essential. First is Dark Horse, which bumps each attribute +1 if we have no resources. To spend down to zero resources, we can make a big swing with the Fire Axe. Or the second card, Dig Deep, helps with the two most common skill checks in encounters if we don't decide to Ward of Protection it. Third, Lone Wolf provides a trickle of resources at the start of our turn so we can plan ahead when and how we hit zero resources.

Variations: Because Scavenging ties into a lot of parts of this deck (replaying Leather Coat, drawing cards to ready Duke or for their skill icon), we can swap in Flashlight, which is another item we can retrieve from discard using Scavenging.

Alternately, replace Lone Wolf with Dr. Milan Christopher, which provides a similar stream of resources along with +1 . Furthermore, while the taboo Dr. Milan Christopher exhausts after a successful investigation, "Ashcan" Pete's ability can ready him. If we add Dr. Milan Christopher, make Charisma an upgrade priority.