"Skids" O'Toole: Dreams of Grandeur

I think... just maybe.. I might have made a quite powerful "Skids" O'Toole deck. I've been grappling with Skids for over a year now, trying over and over to tie his disparate facets: his stats, his special ability, his card selection, and his signature card On the Lam together into a neat deck, brimming with possibility and not a load-stone around the neck of the people I play with.

Now, I'm confident enough to publish my findings, along with half a campaign's experience of playing this deck. I hope you get as excited to try this deck as I do to share it with you. At it's core, it's a Crystallizer of Dreams deck, i.e. an event heavy play-style with lots of card commits. But there's quite a few tricks up it's sleeve that I will detail below:

Venture A Guess...

I can imagine the Ornate Bow/Venturer combo is quite well known. Just in-case you don't know, Ornate Bow is a great weapon with high investigators, with the drawback of a single use attack that must be reloaded with an action. Enter Venturer, who as a fast action, can reload the bow for you. No attack of opportunities taking reloading, no lost actions, no sweat if you miss the first time; it's a pretty sweet deal.

Currently, only "Skids" O'Toole, Leo Anderson, and Lola Hayes can pull it off; and, well, one of those investigators has 1, and another is even harder to make viable than Skids. So until that changes, O'Toole has sovereignty over this little interaction.

Oh God It's Got Three Heal... Wait...

Now onto Crystallizer of Dreams, or rather, it's glaring downside; a 3 attack/3 health/3 evade time-bomb, lurking in your deck, just waiting to ruin your scenario. 3/3/3 stats are no joke, and will upend your tempo unless you kill it. And killing it is no east feat, because most weapons (like the .45 Thompson) will only do two damage, so most cases it's two valuable ammo counters and two action to kil -oh wait that's right you've got Ornate Bow.

Yeah, as if it wasn't justification enough to include the rapid-fire bow combo, it also handily deals with the Guardian of the Crystallizer, down-grading it from legitimate threat to minor nuisance. In fact, Rogues have another tool at their disposal to make quick work of three health enemies; Backstab (which I affectionately refer to as lvl 0 Ornate Bow). Both of these together should assuage fears of drawing quickly into the Guardian.

Even if you're unlucky and don't have either of those tools when the Guardian, this deck includes enough damage-dealing tech to make short work of it, and most other enemies, as a combat focused rogue is want to do. Of particular note is the suite of non- combat cards that rouges are privy to. These cards are: Backstab, Sneak Attack, Coup de Grâce, and Hatchet Man. Together, they provide a range of 1, 2, 3 or even 4 damage options that mean you can be efficient with your attacks. Add .45 Thompson or Ornate Bow for a bit of reliable damage, and you're set.

Charge Up, Then Unleash

That's the gist of using the Crystallizer's stored up cards; you build up a big supply of icons, and then use Skids's ability to use them up in a massive four action turn of high-skill fighting, evading, investigating, or a combination of the three. I've included four events with quality icons to facilitate this strategy; Coup de Grâce, Narrow Escape, Evidence!, and "You owe me one!".

The first three have a pair of , , and icons respectively, meaning you only need to commit one card to get a decent skill boost for one test. As you'll see in the upgrade paths's section, pairs of icons are the determiner for whether they will be included or not; four actions and max five cards under Crystallizer means you'll want to ration those card commits, and +2 to a skill is what we're aiming for.

Still, each of these cards are good in their own right: Coup de Grâce has already been justified, and Narrow Escape is nice for it's all-purpose skill boost (especially for an investigator with average , and across the board) and defence against retaliate and alert. Evidence! is the least justifying, but it's easily replaceable with xp cards, which we'll get to in due time.

But the crown jewel of these events is "You owe me one!", thanks to it's play effect. Basically, you play "You owe me one!", then put it underneath the Crystallizer, then you seek out and play another event for a fellow investigator's hand, THEN you add THAT event to the Crystallizer', AND THEN you and your friend draw a card, replenishing both your and his/her hand. One action and X resources (X being your friend's event's cost) for, two cards under Crystallizer, a card effect and two card draws; Now THAT's value!

Of course, there's one other event with superb icons in this deck; "Skids" O'Toole's own On the Lam, in part the inspiration of this deck's theme. On the Lam can also be used to set up that big turn that will happen the round after. And of course, you'll have On the Lam under the Crystallizer when that round begins.

The Finishing Touches

Everything else in the deck keeps Skids alive and shores up his weaknesses, the biggest two being low /sanity, and an enormous demand for resources. "You handle this one!" and Tennessee Sour Mash help with the former (and Venturer can keep you topped up on Sour Mash), while Investments and Lone Wolf prevent the latter, since not only will you be converting resources to actions, but six of those resources will disappear onto Hospital Debts (and again, Venturer can place tokens on Investments should you desperately need it).

The final card, Pickpocketing is just a reliable card draw, something every investigator wants. Despite this, it is likely one of the cards that will be replaced with higher xp cards, so don't get too attached to it.

All these cards are not vital to the deck; so long as a card fulfils one of the reasons that these cards are included, it's a viable alternative.

Upgrade Paths

One last thing that makes this deck an exciting experience is that you have options in regards to how you upgrade it. Right now, it sits on the fence between a guardian role and a seeker role, maybe leaning a bit towards the combat side of things.

However, as you gain xp, you'll have the option to stay in that versatile position, or commit fully to either role. Your choice decides which events get added to this deck, and which get removed.

Regardless of your choice, you'll be changing the .45 Thompson for the Ornate Bow at the earliest opportunity (because that makes sense; why have an automatic rifle when you can have an old bow, amiright?). Even Seekers need to throw off enemies every once in a while, especially if they have one dwelling in their deck. Tennessee Sour Mash also sees an upgrade, though that is not quite as pressing a change.

Now, I will outline the choices of events below, catagorised by their effect on the deck's role. Remember that Evidence! and Pickpocketing are the first up to be swapped out:

For extra and investigative power:

• Contraband (2) (consider Flashlight in the 0xp deck.)
• Ever Vigilant (universally useful).
• Easy Mark (see next section for thoughts on Easy Mark)

For extra and fighting ability:

• Sneak Attack (2) (direct upgrade, doesn't need a swap-out.)
• Taunt (2) (for card draw mainly, though it saves a action or two).
• Think on Your Feet (2) (for fighting with , plus a free Shortcut).

Total xp for the lot (including Ornate Bow and Tennessee Sour Mash): 31. Mix and match to your heart's content.

Bonus: Versatile and Easy Mark

If, like me, you find you want it all, Versatile is a definite possibly. Thing is, I'm convinced Versatile is a Faustian bargain: great avoiding great-building woes, but terrible for your deck, as you lose consistency: Most card game impose a minimum deck size but not a maximum. Still, I think I will indulge in a 35 deck myself: you personal milage may vary.

Only thing; if you do opt for Versatile, make sure you're including a bunch of card-draw, and heavily consider Easy Mark. Not only does it round out the odd number of additional cards, but (and I find this moderately hilarious) Skids can play one Easy Mark, gain two resources, then spend those resources to re-imburse the action spent, and draw a card to re-imburse the carded played. You're back where you started, except there are extra icons underneath the Crystallizer of Dreams. You're not beholden to hang onto one copy of Easy Mark until another comes along, which is it's major downside: it's nice to trigger the ability, but you're not obliged to.

Conclusion

A deck over a year in the making, with many iterations before landing on this one. I may be a bit melodramatic, but all that hard work bearing fruit makes this deck feel more special than average. Still, to me it's a long journey's conclusion, to you, a deck to review and add your thoughts to. Let me know what comes to mind.