Mr. Fairmont,

Your pursuits have been noticed by us. A strange door is closed to others. We watch your actions with interest from our secluded place. Seek within for doom lurking in the shadows. You may succeed where others may not. Begin our ruinous deed, or secrecy endures. You will be called: be ready.

[unsigned]

The difference between genius and insanity is measured only by success

This is a Preston Fairmont succeed-by level 0 deck designed for solo play. The idea of suceeding by any amount (or even succeeding!) may seem rather alien to Preston, our favourite chap with the terrible stats, but the aim here is to leverage his money into assets that provide boosts, events that combine stats and skills which help push that stat even further.

Go high or go home

Here are some of the key cards and interactions in this deck:

• Using Preston's regular source of income lets us power up Streetwise to evade or investigate as needed.
• Otherwise resources will be spent on the fairly expensive event suite, which are also focused around evasion and investigation (often in the same card, such as Breaking and Entering).
• If Preston needs to damage enemies, he can either pay someone else to do it as a Small Favor or he can go hacking with the Meat Cleaver from his well-stocked kitchen. His 7 sanity is probably sufficient to take a few horror if he wants to deal extra damage, but if you are concerned then you could swap out Lucky Cigarette Case for a Cherished Keepsake.
• Cards which benefit from succeeding by at least 1 are Quick Thinking, Nimble, "Watch this!" (a resource burst source if one is needed, e.g. for dealing with Lodge "Debts"), Slip Away and Breaking and Entering. Daring Maneuver can help push you up if you need it. Getting 2 over will sometimes be hard, so heavily-committing skill cards and/or resources to Streetwise is advised.
• Several other cards here give Preston extra actions, like Swift Reflexes, Leo De Luca and Quick Thinking, which take advantage of the whole-turn benefits of Trial by Fire but also give Preston more opportunity to spend or save his Family Inheritance dividend each round.

Playing the long game

Opening hand and mulligan: While this deck is meant to be flexible and for all cards to be variously useful, you may want to mulligan for Streetwise as a priority, and if you expect there to be a lot of enemies in a scenario, having Meat Cleaver in play may be to your advantage. Leo De Luca is not integral to the deck, but if anyone can afford him, Preston can, and having him in play early makes best use of him.

Early game: Preston doesn't need much setup. Play whichever assets you think will be needed, and either get moving to search the map, or take a turn or two to bank your resources so that your coffers will be overflowing by the time you need them.

Mid-game: Unless you really need to, don't bother fighting enemies; just evade them. Use the cards that provide extra actions to get things done fast. Since this is a solo deck it has not got any ways to get multiple clues in one action, as most locations will only require you to discover one clue there, but you could swap in e.g. Pilfer or Intel Report if you want to.

Endgame: Other than Leo De Luca there is no soak or healing in this deck, so if thiings get hairy, consider getting your Nimble feet to the exit and resigning. You could swap in soak such as Leather Jacket/Leather Coat if you don't like being squishy. For any big boss enemies, Preston is not particularly equipped to kill them (Small Favor won't work on elite enemies), so you could either rely on the old Meat Cleaver or sub in some more automatic damage-dealing cards like Sneak Attack or Coup de Grâce.

If at first you don't succeed...

There is advice above on how this deck can be modified in its level 0 form. In terms of upgrades during a campaign (or for modifying the deck for a standalone), here are some suggestions for how to enhance the deck:

• Making the most of succeed-by: Momentum, Opportunist(2), Signum Crucis, Brute Force, Sharp Vision, Expeditious Retreat.
• More ways to boost your stats: Hard Knocks(4), Geas, High Roller, Yaotl, Streetwise)3).
• Upgraded versions of existing cards: Slip Away(2), Daring Maneuver(2), Cheap Shot(2), Lucky Cigarette Case(3).
• Extra actions: Borrowed Time, Ace in the Hole, Leo De Luca(1).

Good luck, and all success to you!

Mr Fairmont,

An issue has arisen and we call upon you. The doctor's reflection between the eyes never rests. Come to French Hill at midnight when the moon is gibbous next. In one word our secrets keep. All pur endeavours depend on your success.

[unsigned]