Darrell Sheds a Light

Introduction:

When I first saw Darrell Simmons, I thought "he looks pretty strong". But after I first played him, I was pretty convinced we'll soon have our second investigator ever that will be nerfed by the taboo list.

I'm surprised that many people just talk about Darrell decks that use the new clue-dropping archetype. Don't get me wrong, that archetype is great, but can be used by main-class seekers just as well, if not better. One of the other new archetypes the Scarlet Keys investigator box brings, however, is just tailor-made for Darrell: Reducing skill test difficulty.

This deck combines that archetype, with a little bit of the tried and tested survivor staple archetype of card recursion.

This is the level 0 version of the deck, upgrades and upgrade priorities will be listed in the description. The deck is supposed to be the dedicated clue gatherer in a multiplayer game.

Table of Contents:

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Core cards

• Upgrade priority

• Cards not used in the deck

Overview:

Main Strategy:

You want to have a Hawk-Eye Folding Camera in one hand, and an Old Keyring in the other. You also want 1-2 Scavenging in play.

Because of Quick Learner, skill tests during your first action will actually have +2 difficulty, so unless you're at a low shroud location (or you have excess evidence or hand cards), you'll usually use your first action to play something, move, or take a resource/card. You can also just make some money/cards off of Take Heart, if needed.

Due to your high base intellect, and passive boosts you might have from assets like Dr. Milan Christopher, Hawk-Eye Folding Camera or Plucky, you can actually investigate most locations as your second action, but unless you can reach 0 difficulty, this is the time to use your Winging It and Fortuitous Discovery instead of Old Keyring

If you use Old Keyring as your third action, you investigate 4-shroud locations with difficulty 0 for an easy two clues. Higher shroud locations can be lowered to 0 difficulty using Darrell's ability or Gumption.

Core cards:

• Scavenging and Old Keyring: Your main clue-getting engine. Keep in mind you can't use the last key of your keyring, discard it and scavenge it in the same investigate action, because Scavenging actually triggers before you spend the last key. It's pretty unintuitive, but unfortunately that's how it works. However, if you have your second copy of Old Keyring in your discard pile, you can scavenge that one and replace the one you just used, leaving you with a fresh keyring with 3 uses.

So you actually need to scavenge a keyring only every 3 investigations if you have both keyrings available, or every 4 investigations if you only have one keyring. For every other time you investigate, there's also...

• Scavenging and Cherished Keepsake / Leather Coat, or even Talisman of Protection: Basically infinite soak. Although you can spend evidence to beat the encounter deck, many times it's not actually necessary. Keep in mind you can play Talisman of Protection under the control of any investigator at your location, even if you play it with Scavenging. I never needed to play it for myself, as you can only trigger it on damage/horror that would defeat you and I was never close to being defeated in any of my test games.

• Scavenging and Schoffner's Catalogue: This deck doesn't need a lot of economy, but this will pay for your keyrings, Hawk-Eye Folding Camera, and for your second copy of Schoffner's Catalogue. Honestly, this deck works 100% without Schoffner's, but it gives you something to scavenge if you have a full keyring and don't need more soak. And trust me, your friends will love you for paying for all their items.

• Hawk-Eye Folding Camera and Empirical Hypothesis: Just more ways to get evidence. You'll want to keep the HEFC at at least 2 evidence to make use of the passive and boosts, but excess evidence can be spent freely. Empirical Hypothesis will be permanently in the "succeed by 3" mode, and while investigating at 0 difficulty does not guarantee an evidence, it's pretty likely to trigger it almost every round. It does not need to be upgraded, as we will be using the evidence primarily for Darrell's ability, but you can use it to draw cards if necessary.

• Shed a Light is a clue gathering machine. Combined with Old Keyring or Winging It it will give you a total of 4 clues, and remember you can commit Deduction before playing it for extra clues. For reasons I cannot comprehend it's level 0, so you can Scrounge it back (preferably as your first action in your turn, as you want to avoid skill tests anyway).

Some other card explanations:

• Short Supply gives us scavenging targets from round 1, and might discard a Winging It or Fortuitous Discovery. We have 2 copies of Resourceful for the unlikely event that both Scavenging are hit by Short Supply, and 2 copies of Scrounge for Supplies in case both Resourceful are hit.

• Forced Learning: Just a wonderful combo with Scavenging, Winging It and Fortuitous Discovery.

• In the Thick of It: Not strictly needed. The core of this deck only needs 18 XP, which is way less than a typical Seeker deck. If you're not a big fan of traumas, you can skip this card and start with two level 0 Old Keyring instead. In my experience, this deck is tanky enough to not care about 2 mental trauma.

• Dr. Milan Christopher is also not strictly necessary. You can replace him with Jeremiah Kirby, a more defensive ally like Dr. William T. Maleson, or any other ally really. You don't need the economy or the intellect boost, but having extra money is never bad and the passive boost can help you investigate in your first and second actions. You can even choose to upgrade into On Your Own and get some more expensive Survivor events like True Survivor (more Resourceful equals more Shed a Light) or Will to Survive.

• Exploit Weakness can help you deal with an enemy in a pinch. It's not great synergy though, as you usually need to deal with an enemy as your first action (unless you're helping someone else, or the enemy is aloof) so going down to 0 difficulty in your first action can be tricky. If spending evidence and committing Gumption is not enough, depending on the enemy you can just take an attack of opportunity and do something useful with your first action, and then deal with the enemy afterwards. It's not ideal, but the effect is great. You can replace this with "I've got a plan!" or just not run any enemy handling cards at all. That's what you have a fighter for, after all!

• Map the Area is in the deck for very high shroud locations, for locations where you expect a boss fight to help your teammates, or even if you anticipate to stay at a single location for a large part of a scenario. I found it situationally helpful, but can easily be replaced by any other card of your choice. It's probably the least important card in the level 0 deck. Even though it does not discover clues, it's still an investigate, so you can trigger Milan and Scavenging if you succeed (by 2, if you want to scavenge)

Upgrade priority:

Top priority

• 2x Old Keyring

• 2x Scavenging

• 2x Quick Learner

As explained above, this is the core of the deck. At 18 XP, it's actually quite cheap, so this deck is viable to start mid-campaign if your old cluever met an untimely death.

All of these upgrades either replace a lower level version, or are permanent assets, so up to this point no cards need to be removed from the deck. For all other upgrades, you can basically remove any card that's not a core part of the deck, based on personal preference and what the group needs.

• 2x Gumption: Darrell's ability is once per test, this helps to lower the difficulty even further on very high shroud locations, or if you need to do a test as your first action.

Next upgrades

Depends on your campaign, what your group needs, and whether you know what's coming or not. Basically none of the following upgrades are required, it's just luxury upgrades from now on. Some good choices include:

• Lucky! (3) - While I don't particularly like the level 2 upgrade, the level 3 version is great. Dropping the cost from 1 to 0 is very good, and being able to help others basically beat any token except the auto-fail is insane.

• Alter Fate (3) or its little brother Alter Fate (1): Better in some campaigns than others, but it rarely finds no good target. It's just never bad and a very fine luxury upgrade.

• Plucky (3): The level 3 version offers passive and boosts, and this deck has both the economy to utilize the ability on Plucky and the soak to protect it. The only problem is, it doesn't need it. Can be a good purchase in -heavy campaigns to give extra protection from the encounter deck.

• Deduction or Sharp Vision if you need even more clues. Sharp Vision can't be combined with other investigate-cards like Winging It or Old Keyring.

• Eucatastrophe or Nightmare Bauble if you want protection from the auto-fail token on your 0-difficulty tests, if you don't have Shed a Light. The Dream Parasite aren't a big problem to get rid of if you draw them, but they make Forced Learning a bit worse.

• A Test of Will (any level), Forewarned or Nine of Rods if you want even more encounter deck protection. Keep in mind, Nine of Rods does work on enemies.

• Ancient Covenant if someone in your group generates bless tokens.

• Blasphemous Covenant if someone in your group generates curse tokens.

• Pathfinder and Shortcut for mobility. We don't mind spending our first action to move, but being more mobile can't be bad, right?

• Fortune or Fate. You have the money and XP to play it, and the card can buy you another round, which can sometimes win scenarios.

• Precious Memento or Precious Memento for more soak. The catalogue can pay for it, but it's unlikely you need more soak.

Cards not used in the deck:

• "Look what I found!" (both version): It seems so obvious to include, but I tried it, and it just sits there in your hand for the entire game. If I want auto-fail protection, I'd rather buy Eucatastrophe.

• Crafty: Although our main investigation tool is, well, actually a Tool, we need neither the skill boost nor the economy. I know, it also pays for Shed a Light, but I've never had economy problems so far, and an upfront cost of 3 XP, 3 resources and an action is just too much.

• Upgraded Cherished Keepsake and Leather Coat - anti-synergy with scavenging. We want those things in our discard when they served their purpose, not exiled.

• Ice Pick: Would be great in this deck, but we can't spare the hand slot. HEFC is just too good with Darrel, and Old Keyring is the cornerstone of the deck. It's not terrible to buy 1 or 2 of those, in case you don't find your keyring, but between Short Supply and Forced Learning, it's not that hard to find at least one keyring.

• Flashlight: Reducing difficulty would be something we actually want. It could even be combined with the Old Keyring, but just like with Ice Pick, we don't have a hand slot for this.

Thanks to Valentin1331 for providing the guide template! To create your own guides, find the template I have created here