Cluefinder Finn (Multiplayer Expert)

This deck is designed for high-level multiplayer play. Finn's combat abilities, which are rather weak on Expert, have not been developed. Instead, Finn focuses intently on his two greatest strengths, and should be an excellent cluefinder and evader. This deck is best paired with an investigator who can fight. If that investigator can also cancel encounter cards for Finn or pull them away, so much the better.

The first 5 XP basically have to go to the cards chosen here, so I went ahead and included them. For the level 0 version, you could run Hard Knocks instead of Lockpicks (although I don't ordinarily like Hard Knocks, this deck needs it pre-Streetwise; you need something on which to spend your enormous piles of Milan money.)

This deck will not really use Finn's unique gun much at all. If you'd like to be able to fight a little more, feel free to slip in a couple Overpowers, which will probably be useful for boosting teammates in any case.

The plan for this deck is pretty simple. Finn gets Milan out, spends most of his actions investigating, and rips through the Act deck as if he were a Seeker. He can also really efficiently evade stuff, which is a nice bonus and something no Seeker brings to the table. This deck also includes a bit of mitigation for Finn's 1 Willpower. We won't be trying to pass the Will tests--which is simply not possible at this level--but we will be bringing a few cards that let us avoid them.

A quick explanation of my choices:

Flashlight: Not an essential card for this deck. But useful for the auto-success on 2-shroud locations (beating the -6 and -8 tokens), useful with Double or Nothing, and sometimes useful for cracking very-high shroud locations (Lockpicks is better, but you might not draw it, and it's limited to once a turn.) It's also just generally important to get a second asset out in addition to Milan; you really, really don't want Milan to be discarded by the encounter deck. Running 6 assets or fewer is a bad idea for that reason. Feel free to replace this with Pickpocketing II down the line.

Lockpicks: A very strong card to help you past investigation checks, which is the main point of the deck. The once-per-round limit is irritating in multiplayer, but the card is still worth it. Great for Double or Nothing and for high-shroud locales.

Dr. Milan Christopher: By FAR the most important card in the deck. Always mulligan for him. Since you will be spending the vast majority of your actions investigating, you can easily trigger him 2 or 3 times a round. He makes your investigation actions way better AND generates piles of money, which can be plowed into Streetwise, which in turns makes your investigate and evade actions (the two kinds of actions you want to be doing) far, far better. He is the key to everything, and you definitely want this guy over Leo De Luca. On Expert, fewer high-quality actions are way, way better than more low-quality actions. Leo De Luca offers the latter; Milan, the former.

Liquid Courage: For emergencies only. Finn's Willpower and Sanity are just low enough that I think this is helpful (even though you will assuredly be failing the Will test), and it can also be used on a teammate should they get into horror trouble. Obviously, don't waste actions on this unless you really need to.

Streetwise: A grossly overpowered card that this deck can take full advantage of--even more than a Jenny deck could. Obviously, buy this first.

"You handle this one!": Lets you deflect terrible stuff like Frozen in Fear, Rotting Remains, etc, thereby significantly increasing your durability and usefulness to the team. Also, it's hilarious.

Backstab: Won't wow you with its efficiency, but sometimes useful in an emergency. Can be pretty effective in conjunction with Streetwise and occasionally even Double or Nothing. A card to cut for XP cards (like Sure Gamble) down the road.

Eavesdrop: A little situational, but can act as a quasi-Deduction (and, if you're lucky, a shroud reducer.) Finn needs as much tempo as he can get in his clue gathering, so we'll take it along.

Elusive: Finn has little trouble escaping from enemies, but this card is still worth it. Teleporting you across the map for 2 resources is a great, great deal.

Emergency Cache: To help you set up faster; can also prepare you for a big Streetwise test.

Logical Reasoning: It may be overly cautious to include this card over something that accelerates your tempo, like Deduction or "Look what I found!". But Frozen in Fear is so incredibly painful, and so common, that I like to have one answer to it in my deck. ("You handle this one!" is only an answer if drawn before Frozen in Fear; Sure Gamble is another answer I recommend purchasing down the road.) The horror healing can also be useful, of course.

Lucky!: A great utility card that will help you do whatever's needed to win.

Sneak Attack: A very nice card for Finn. Avoiding the chaos bag and dealing 2 guaranteed damage is quite useful, and he has no problem exhausting enemies.

Double or Nothing: Offers great clue-finding tempo. Use it with Lockpicks or Flashlight, or possibly on its lonesome on a 1-shroud location. Can also be played to good effect on a teammate's big cards, e.g. Lightning Gun.

Manual Dexterity: These cards have excellent efficiency, and if you can be confident you'll be testing the stat in question frequently, I think you should take them.

Perception: See above.

Quick Thinking: You usually want to dump this on a Lockpicks investigation or similar. Turning a card into an action is nice, as you can often very swiftly turn that action into a clue. It's good to use this card to get to +6 on Expert; that gets you another token and gives you great odds at succeeding by 2+.

A few common Finn cards I did not include:

Burglary is way too slow, and we need to spend our investigate actions actually getting clues.

"Watch this!" just becomes a little dubious on Expert. You often have to spend Streetwise resources to feel comfortable about getting the benefit and then the math obviously doesn't work out. It can be fine with Lockpicks on a low-shroud location but it's all just a little unnecessarily clunky and risky. I prefer the reliability of Emergency Cache.

Lucky Cigarette Case: A poor draw late in the game, but this deck will take a fair number of heavily-boosted skill tests, so this would be an OK play on the first couple turns. If you're not worried about horror (maybe your teammates are bringing along the healing), feel free to dump Liquid Courage for this.

Charon's Obol: I don't think the risk-reward works out with this card, especially not with an investigator as naturally vulnerable as Finn. Finn actually has relatively little need of XP beyond the first 15 or so in any case. But if it suits your playing style, don't let me stop you.