Trish Scarborough - What Enemy?

the Cypher is so interesting! I love the synergy it has with Skeleton Key.

@chirubimeThat's right - didn't even think about that. It also works well with Lola Santiago. In solo, you won't often get to use the key more than once or twice, but if those are five or six shroud locations, it's still a good deal.

Now, if you are playing on standard difficulty, I still believe that the sheer dependability of the humble Magnifying Glass might make it a better choice, but the Cryptographic Cypher really does tailor-made to Trish, so I'm bringing it.

@chirubime Oh, wait! The Skeleton Key doesn't work with the shroud-lowering action on Cryptographic Cypher (see the FAQ on The Skeleton Key). However, it still works well with the other ability on Cryptographic Cypher (always two shoud on the free investigate) and with Lola Santiago, so I think it might be worth a late campaign upgrade anyway.

Noooo. Don't lower the shroud, use the quick action with the shroud increasing quick action. It's a fast investigate action at a 1 shroud location that doesn't trigger attacks of opportunity and can give you a free evade.

What do you think of Pickpocketing 2 for better economy (maybe replace Lucky Cigarette Case) and Delilah O'Rourke to kill some low enemies?

@chirubime: Oh, you are right of course - it works both ways. Yes, that's a nice combo.

@Django: In the campaigns I've played with this deck, I haven't found resource generation to be a problem (I've actually always rotated out any Crack the Case or Sneak By after the first couple of scenarios, and certainly by the time I get an Another Day, Another Dollar). Thing is, you only really want one of each asset in play, and most of the events are either free or meant to handle very specific problems that rarely pop up more than once or twice per scenario, so the cost to actually run the deck is fairly low.

That said, if you are going to rely on Delilah O'Rourke, getting a bit more economy seems like a good idea, and Pickpocketing (2) is a good fit.
I can certainly see the idea behind a Delilah O'Rourke build, but she competes with Lola Santiago (unless you have a ton of XP to spend), and I much prefer Lola in this deck, as the skill boosts are better for Trish (IMO) and the ability combos very nicely with her investigator ability. It's essentially: : pay [location shroud] resources to automatically get a clue and evade an enemy or get two clues (when there's an enemy present). That's almost brokenly good in my book. Also, enemy management hasn't been much of a problem for me, especially not after getting a playset of "I've got a plan!" (2), so I don't personally see the need.

Still, don't see why it can't work. Swap in Delilah O'Rourke and lean a bit more heavily on the -boosters elsewhere (maybe getting rid of the Occult Invocations).

sweet deck. i'm wondering.. if you had to substitute out Lucky Cigarette Case and Followed with cards from the core set, what would you suggest? (i don't have those two cards in my collection.) cheers!

@AltarofPanFirst of all thanks! I'm glad you found it useful.

Regarding the cards: I'm going to cheat slightly and assume that you have two Narrow Escape in your collection. Put in another one to replace the Followed. It basically has the same functionality of protecting you from attacks of opportunity while you investigate.
Similarly, the Lucky Cigarette Case can be replaced by Pickpocketing, which also draws you cards. If you have access to Tooth of Eztli, that might also be a valid choice.
Cheers

@Croaker13 Very interesting deck. I have been building one for Trish my self as this deck as inspiration. I have been trying with the Lockpicks, but dropped it after drawing auto-fail both times I played it... :D Its just something about «Watch this» that is so fun, but I think I should drop it for Narrow Escape to trigger her ability more frequent.

@andyhaggis I'm honestly not a huge fan of Lockpicks (0) outside of Winnie, for the very reason you describe. Three cost is just too expensive for something you might not get any use out of.

On the other hand, In my own campaign, Cryptographic Cipher hasn't been too great either, so I've begun replacing them with Lockpicks (1). Most of the time they've simply been slightly worse Flashlights and the combination of Obfuscation, Working a Hunch and Narrow Escape has generally been enough to let me investigate with enemies present anyway.

At this point, I'm honestly skewing towards recommending Magnifying Glass as the go to level zero investigation tool for this deck. Not very exciting, I know, but probably the best and most efficient option anyway.

@Croaker13 Would you mind explaining why you chose not to include Deduction in the deck?

@ddbrown30 I’m not generally a fan of Deduction in solo decks. This is obviously somewhat campaign/scenario dependent, but outside of Dunwich and parts of The Forgotten Age, there aren’t all that many locations with multiple clues per investigator, so it’s often simply a +1 , at which point Perception is simply a better choice.

For this deck specifically, it doesn’t really need anything that Deduction does. It has enough intellect boosters that the +1 isn’t usually relevant and it’s also a very fast deck, so the action compression isn’t hugely important either. Besides, if you really need to grab multiple clues for one investigation, Trish has that ability inbuilt (conditional on having an enemy there).

If I personally was to change something about this deck (aside from switching out the Cryptographic Cipher, which I’ve mentioned above) it would be to add more damage options, which is an area where the deck isn’t all that strong at the moment.

Hope that helps.

Found it weak in terms of will tests. Also to manage a simple swarm of rats.