Silas Marsh leading the way

General concept

This deck is an attempt at transitioning a basic albeit heavily skill-based poor man's Silas Marsh deck into a less poor but still heavily skill-based deck that makes use of various card interactions. Note that the XP upgrade paths don't really add up (as you would not normally spend XP after scenario 8). This just serves to illustrate possible upgrade paths.

Interactions

Grisly Totem and Take Heart: As Silas is not a particularly great clue chaser, there will be times when you'd like to do something else that is useful. In this case, you could start a skill test you are aiming to fail, commit Take Heart and use Grisly Totem. Provided the test fails, you can then proc Take Heart and put it back in your hand. This way, you also do not have to make use of Silas' investigator ability. Drawing Thin can help increase the difficulty of a test to ensure it will fail.

Drawing Thin and Signum Crucis: Another great way to add value to the investigation when not fighting is by filling the chaos bag with tokens. Once you get one or two copies of Drawing Thin into play, you can easily start amassing tokens. Just to illustrate the most extreme case: investigating a shroud 3 location after using Drawing Thin twice and playing two copies of Signum Crucis will net you ten tokens in one go.

Old Hunting Rifle or Baseball Bat and Unrelenting: To ensure your gun won't jam or your bat won't break, you can opt to seal when doing a fight action.

Resourceful combines really well with Old Hunting Rifle and Baseball Bat as well, allowing you to take either back if necessary.

Individual cards

Quick Thinking is a staple in any Silas deck. Silas' ability essentially makes sure you get an extra action out of it and it's a real lifesaver in sticky situations.

Peter Sylvestre is simply there to soak up horror in place of Madame Labranche who loses her use in a deck that does not rely on Fire Axe to dish out damage. The upgraded version of Peter Sylvestre is too expensive, hence the level 0 version is used in this deck.

Lucky! is also a staple in most Silas decks and has a nice circumstantial synergy with Drawing Thin where its downside is negated.

Will to Survive is rather expensive, but it synergizes with Old Hunting Rifle, Baseball Bat, Drawing Thin (by making its consequences predictable) and Quick Thinking to ensure success. However, its 4 resource cost makes it a bit more circumstantial. Therefore, it's only included relatively late into the campaign.

Alternative options and considerations

Chainsaw: This is 1 resource more expensive than Old Hunting Rifle and also costs 1 additional xp. As there is no real synergy with any of the cards (adding a supply after a fail is not really a boon in a Silas deck, where you can control tests quite well) I preferred not to use it.

Fire Axe and probably Madame Labranche and Dark Horse: Sticking with your original combo is another option, but I found it to be very limiting later in a campaign. You'll meet many more enemies that have 3 health which will require two successful uses of Fire Axe. With Old Hunting Rifle versus enemies with 4 health, you simply alternate a regular fight action with one use of it, or use your Baseball Bat. In addition, by using Drawing Thin, Silas gets another source of resource generation which can be used on cards such as Will to Survive, Peter Sylvestre and Old Hunting Rifle.

True Understanding: A great card which can be included in the deck if you feel like it should have a way to effectively gather clues. However, it is still quite circumstantial; e.g., it can't be used when performing a standard investigate action to proc Drawing Thin.

Right now, the main downside to the deck is that it is running 18 skills, which is an insane amount. This in itself is not an issue, as these cards are the driving force behind the intricacies of the deck and of Silas' investigator ability. However, I found that it is quite easy to reach 8 cards in hand, many of which will be skills with no real purpose other than to drive the Drawing Thin combo that could lead to more cards. So, it is definitely possible to remove 2 skill cards (perphaps Steadfast) and add something more permanent, such as Track Shoes, Improvised Weapon or Trial by Fire. However, Steadfast, in most cases, adds a solid 3 strength or willpower, which is very useful to counter Silas' low base willpower. I also did not really find any solid alternatives worth the resources.

Positive aspects

• Highly dynamic and fun to play
• High degree of control over the chaos bag
• Very effective at helping with other investigators' skill checks
• Able to handle really tough skill checks

Negative aspects

• Can sometimes suffer from card draw / resource generation overkill
• Most useful with a weapon, meaning you'll have to draw one or mull into one

Any feedback is welcome, as this is my first deck!