Assassin Finn - Featuring Delilah O'Rourke

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
De Alberto 0 0 0 1.0
Assassin Finn - Featuring Delilah O'Rourke 0 0 0 2.0
Finn Edwards and Ursula in TFA 0 0 0 1.0

matt88 · 3093

This deck is purely theorycrafting but I expect it to work very well, as we 're using high-quality cards and we 're aiming to focus on killing enemies using as few actions as possible, while picking up clues the old-fashioned way.

In this deck, Finn is meant to be a killer, not the main killer of your group, but still a killer and he's aiming to do it well. As said above, being Finn means we can still pick up clues.

So, the main concept is to use Delilah O'Rourke to good ends and her in conjunction with other cards will be able to kill enemies using simply Finn's free evade action most of the time. That of course requires a huge amount of resources spent and we 're trying to cover that part as much as we can.

The level 0 version of the deck is kinda weak, but it can do some stuff. Finn, here, works more like a clue-gatherer but he has can evade reliably and he has good options for dealing with enemies effectively, just don't lean on to combat too much.

Upgrades:

How the deck is played:

Clues

Lockpicks will do its fair share of work with lots of passive boosts, but Dr. Milan Christopher's can help you make regular investigate checks and do more work.

Combat

This is the bread and butter of the deck. Very often you will be able to kill enemies using simply Finn's free evade action. How we accomplish that:

With your passive boosts, you are at 6 which means you can evade reliably. Then Delilah O'Rourke deals 2 damage to an exhausted enemy, but that's not all of it as you can guess. If the enemy has more than 2 health, you can use Hatchet Man to deal 1 more damage and/or finish them off with Garrot Wire, which with Delilah puts you at 6 . And if all this is somehow not enough, Sneak Attack is there for even more damage. So, as you can see, you can easily kill 2-6-health enemies using 0-1 actions, provided that you have enough resources to do so.

If this strategy poses problems (like facing enemies with high evade value for example), you can kill the enemies the old-fashioned way, ie. using weapons. Delilah O'Rourke puts you at 4 which is a respectable stat to make good use of a .41 Derringer (2), a Lupara and of course Finn's Trusty .38 (enter Sleight of Hand here).

Economy and Card draw

Economy and card draw plays a big role in this deck. You need a lot of cards to work with, so you need card draw and you need a lot of resources. As far as economy goes, we have various sources of income. To begin with Dr. Milan Christopher is going to give you a resource every turn as long as you take an investigate action Given that you 'll be using Lockpicks once a turn, that should be an easy task. Then, Lone Wolf plays a big role in the deck. You ARE going to be alone, you don't need help from anyone; as established above you can deal with enemies very effectively and you are good enough at gathering clues. Lone Wolf along with Milan will give you 2 resources per turn, which is a good place to be (in fact I'm not even sure if upgrading Lone Wolf to Hot Streak is a good choice). Pickpocketing (2) is also very important both for the resource and the card draw and this economic setup is boosted further by Emergency Cache/Pay Day, "Watch this!" and Take Heart; which leads us to the card draw, another important part of the deck. Pickpocketing/Pickpocketing (2) is your best friend and Take Heart is another good tool. In fact, I'm not sure if I should have gone 2x Take Heart/1x Logical Reasoning or 1x Take Heart/2x Logical Reasoning as my out-of-faction options. You try it both ways, but I valued the second Logical Reasoning more as I feel that defense is an important part of this deck (see below). And, of course, let's not forget Smuggled Goods, which can fetch important cards like Lockpicks and Pickpocketing/Pickpocketing (2).

Trechearies

This has always been Finn's weak point. And since we 're playing as a fighter we need to be prepared. "You handle this one!" is very important here, as is Logical Reasoning. Fend off from horror-inflicting treacheries or generally stuff that target and use Logical Reasoning to heal horror or get rid of Frozen in Fear. You are going to fight and (mostly) evade a lot so you definitely don't want this thing to mess around with you. This is pretty much generic stuff here, to be honest, but I just wanted to emphasize their importance, because with this build you are going to fight a lot. Oh, and don't forget to commit Take Heart to a test you are going to fail. This is why it's in the deck.

Conclusion

That pretty much covers all of it. As I said, I haven't tried the deck but I think it's very solid and it can do some serious monster slaying, while not neglecting Finn's natural role, which is gathering clues.

Thanks for reading and if you try this out let me know how it went.

11 comments

Mar 10, 2020 thakaris · 194

Very nice Deck yet again. I really like Finn and Delilah O'Rourke seems to be an obvious include. Delilah is basically the damage dealing version of Lola Santiago, speaking of which maybe Lola Santiago is worth considering as an ally with Charisma instead of Trench Coat/The Moon • XVIII?

Mar 10, 2020 matt88 · 3093

Thanks @thakaris. I don't think Lola Santiago is a good option for this deck, as you need to focus your money on Delilah, but if you have the XP to spare, you could upgrade Milan into her. If you do so though, you will lose Milan's money generating ability, which is not very good, let alone it would be too expensive XP-wise.

Mar 12, 2020 The Lynx · 972

I am playing Finn with Delilah in TFA Hard with Ursula right now. Ursula is of course amazing but Finn has done really well himself. Having 3 strong stats has been immensely helpful.

Delilah hasn't been much of a factor yet though. She made a brief appearance before getting shuffled back into his deck due to a treachery in Scenario 2. She also made an appearance at the end of Scenario 3 where she took care of Maria DeSilva. But now she is 2x in the deck and we saved Ichtaca for more stat buffs. Finn definitely starts slow at L0 but he is getting really strong now. Naturally being a 4 offers so much but having Lockpicks really speeds up the clue gathering.

Since it is a 2p game with Ursula I leveraged more combat into the deck with 5 guns. I took Fight or Flight and Lucky! as my off class cards to crank up the and stats. I also really like Slip Away (more than I thought I would) since it will evade at such a high level and won't require a second test the next round. Great for Delilah O'Rourke or for Hunter enemies that you can run away from.

Mar 13, 2020 matt88 · 3093

@TWWaterfalls I didn't think of Fight or Flight as an option tbh, but seems good given that you inevitably will take some horror and Lucky! is of course a good staple. If that works for you, then be my guest but I would stick to Logical Reasoning as I'm too afraid of getting hit by Frozen in Fear and/or dying. Slip Away can be helpful if you can't kill the enemy in one turn, but I'm expecting to get most of the work done within one turn, so I'm not sure how good that would be, but if it works for you then it's definitely not bad.

Mar 13, 2020 The Lynx · 972

I was having problems figuring out how to boost Finn's high enough to regularly pass tests and both of those cards boost it for multiple turns.

I need to review the TFA treachery cards but it seems quite a bit tamer than Carcosa and Dunwich as far as is concerned. There are certainly some but it isn't a constant stream of them. I don't remember anything like the Pallid Man treachery from Carcosa that could crush you quickly. And he has 10 horror soak in allies in his deck.

I am actually thinking about using Adaptable to bring Scavenging into the deck to combo with Lockpicks and get my guns back.

The big plus for Slip Away is that you can put some distance between you and Hunter enemies instead of needing to kill them.

Mar 13, 2020 thakaris · 194

Well, I would like to suggest Track Shoes here instead of the "Take Heart" - in my opinion, Track Shoes are so universally good. I would also not swap out Trench Coat for The Moon, but for High Roller, since you can use it for any kind of test, so you can also boost your Combat with that. The loss of Agility is compensated by the Track Shoes. To get a second copy of the shoes, you could either swap out 1 Logical Reasoning (I would always want at least one, I am to scared to not have it) or you can use Versatility for the second copy and include 2 unexpected Courages and 2 Overpower as well with the increased Deck size. The Deck size is a randomiser though, but with the 2 Pickpocketings you draw power should be nice.

Mar 13, 2020 matt88 · 3093

@thakarisTrack Shoes is another interesting proposition. Getting your Agility as high as possible is a priority it would definitely come in handy. I wouldn't recommend High Roller though, as the large number of assets may clog your deck. Versatile is also an option I would ommit, as you have a few high-value cards that you really want to find quickly and the larger decksize would dilute your deck.

Mar 13, 2020 thakaris · 194

@matt88agree with the Versatile, I am unsure with that as well. With the High Roler though, I don‘t understand your argument. My suggestion was Trenchcoat-> High Roler instead of The Moon, That is Asset / Asset. I just went through Carcosa with Finn ( with Patrice) but with Lola Santiago, since Delilah wasn’t out than. I had Track Shoes ( with Milan and Logical Reasoning ) and loved it.

Mar 14, 2020 matt88 · 3093

@thakaris Oh I thought you meant to add High Roller in addition to all the other assets. If you 're using it instead of The Moon • XVIII, then it's a decent replacement (although I prefer the constant passive buff).

Apr 25, 2020 Erdjo · 323

Finding it hard to justify including Dr. Milan Christopher - when tabooed his return on investment takes 5 turns. Have you considered Gregory Gry instead?

Apr 28, 2020 gothicmink · 1

I really liked the theory so I went ahead and put a slightly modified version of this deck to practice! I coupled it with a "rogue" Mandy (not taking much risk by picking the most amazing build I've played so far) to play through TFA.

Delilah O'Rourke was so much fun and the MVP of the deck, it enabled Finn as a very effective assassin indeed! Still relied on Sneak Attacks/Backstab/Waylay but the action-free damage is very strong. I also got to play Hatchet Man to good effects, which is nice :)

Switched Milan for Peter Sylvestre, mainly for his agility boost, added Lucky Cigarette Case for card draw. I wanted to ensure Finn could evade ANYTHING and then use his killing tools.

I also tried including one copy of Garrote Wire (even got a Relic Hunter so I could still play Cigarette Case), but only got to use it once. I guess there are enough damage output in the deck already and the opportunity cost for using Garrote Wire is actually pretty high, even though TFA's got a few good targets for it (good old Acolyte for instance).

Thanks again for the deck idea!