Dark Pete & Desperate Yaotl

Built this for 4-player Forgotten Age with Daisy, Silas, and Diana. My role is the true flex that is ready early while others are ramping up. Pete & Duke are great for this, and a Dark Horse Deck means you aren't dependent on much, even if you haven't drawn DH yet. Honestly I'd like to ditch Dark Horse, but Fire Axe seems like the only reasonable weapon for Pete, and it pairs too nicely with DH to skip.

Basic strat: use St. Hubert's Key be eligible for the Desperate cards. Use Yaotl to benefit from them more than once.

Critical Upgrades:

Yaotl: cheap, and the most important. You can replace Madame Labranche, or get a Charisma. I'm leaning toward Charisma.

Relic Hunter: You can technically recur St. Hubert's Key instead of Cherished Keepsake, which would free up the need for this card and a couple slots for Flashlight or other useful cards. However SHK is expensive - too expensive to pay for more than once. You'll likely keep Madame Labranche to soak some horror, but she's no Peter Sylvestre (who is also amazing, but is usually taken by our Silas Marsh player.

Scrapper: Great card for activating Dark Horse. It's not as good when you're swinging with Fire Axe, but it does boost Duke as well.

Useful Upgrades:

Newspaper: Use that other hand slot and boost your investigating. Pairs nicely with Fieldwork and of course Duke.

Try and Try Again/Try and Try Again: Can protect your big skills from the tentacle auto-fail. This will also be a test for me.

Dark Horse Survivor ends up not needing much XP. Consider some Exile cards for one time use. Some (plus other quality of life upgrades that are DH-friendly):

Flare: get Yaotl quick.

Devil's Luck: for when it really counts.

Alter Fate: Almost Ward of Protection. If you have Resourceful it can be really fun.

Plucky: Pairs nicely with Scrapper.

Cards that merit a chat:

St. Hubert's Key: Big fan. Some sanity protection, boost two stats, and allows the Desperate cards quickly. It made pulling out Magnifying Glass less painful. Since this puts Pete at 5 Willpower, I actually looked through the mystic cards and considered Sixth Sense, Ethereal Form, Read the Signs, Spectral Razor, and a few others that test on Will - especially those that add Will + another stat - but ultimately cut them. Would be interesting to try.

Quantum Flux: This is a gamble. Going to see how useful this is getting my big skill cards back for another few uses. Will likely get replaced.

Fieldwork: I have absolutely loved this card on Pete. Since I'm usually the one picking up stray clues or small-mid monsters, this gives Duke one nice big turn when I get there.

Track Shoes: Mostly trying to boost Ashcan for (micro spoiler) Forgotten Age. Will also pair with Drawing Thin for card/cash gen.

Winging It: Have used several times with Pete and love it for clearing locations with 4+ clues. Duke usually gets a turn, then you discard to let him try again, then you use it from the discard to pick up two more clues (though you'll probably want a skill booster or two).

Notable Absences:

Resourceful: In this deck Scavenging takes care of almost everything resourceful does.

Magnifying Glass: This hurt - and for now only using one hand. It was cut for space and to try Quantum Flux. St. Hubert's Key makes up for it in one card. May upgrade to Newspaper if needed.

Lucky!, Live and Learn: Cut for space. Hoping the desperate cards will make their need much less. I found Lucky! tricky to use with Dark Horse, and Live and Learn tricky with the fail-to-win mechanics. I think they will also conflict with the Desperate skills.