Plowshares to Swords

Yorick. I feel like, along with Akachi, has the potential to be the best of his class. While Duke Pete has the early game strength, Yorick's ability to constantly reuse his assets makes him incredibly strong, and maybe the only character worth putting Bandolier on if you want to go gimmick-y. In this build, I stuck to a pretty simple Survivor/Guardian build that takes advantage of his ID ability, but doesn't rely on it. You are going to be the one that wants to handle most of the combat, and the card choices reflect that. It's why I opted for Lantern over the shovel. Any free damage is good.

As my other guides, I'll go into what I think are 'core cards' and flex slots. As a rule, basic skill cards are always flex slots, but if you're going to replace them, replace them with something that would help that skill in my opinion. The exception is Unexpected Courage. Always run Unexpected Courage.

Probable FAQs

WHERE IS HIS SHOVEL? REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I know, a gravedigger without his shovel. It's weird. You have to pick one, though: the lantern or the shovel. They both are roughly for the same slot; one just gives a free clue, and the other gives free damage. Pick whichever one suits you.

Dark Horse?

It simply can't work with Yorick. It works with Pete because Duke is a one-card kit that costs nothing. Yorick, though, wants to constantly recur and use his cards, and that costs money. As Survivor/Guardian, he also has a fair amount of 1-cost events he'll also want to keep money for. In solo, this is a deck begging for Lone Wolf. While I understand that survivors are thematically supposed to be poor, they still could use some form of in-faction resource generation somehow. Hell, even Guardians have Stand Together, and "I've had worse…". ... What, you don't think I've Had Worse is an economy card? Find an enemy with big damage values and let it get an attack of opportunity on you.

You're a bit light on assets.

I don't think Yorick actually wants that many different assets in his deck; only a few key ones. Remember that he is a / - the two classes with the worst economies in the game. You want to use his ID ability for sure, but you can't overuse it - the game is balanced to prevent you from abusing it too hard.

Core Cards

Beat Cop: I was on the fence between this and Guard Dog for a while, with the idea being that you would upgrade the dog into Brother Xavier. The more I think on it, though, the more I realize that's a terrible idea. Yorick isn't going to make money. Recurring Brother Xavier will be near-impossible. You are far better off upgrading the cop and having him as your primary ally.

Machete: You're not using Fire Axe because you actually want to keep your resources, so Machete is our workhorse 'primary' weapon.

Vicious Blow: Yorick wants to make things dead. Vicious Blow is a necessity in any combat-heavy deck.

"Look what I found!": You may want to eventually replace these (I would highly consider not doing so,) but in starting a campaign, you'll find these essential to clue-scooping. They're essentially Lucky!, but with an added bonus.

Lucky!: The quintessential Survivor card. No Survivor deck should be without it.

Resourceful: It lets you double-down on Yorick's ID ability, and essentially lets you replicate his elder sign effect. It also has a bunch of icons, so it can be used in almost any skill check. Being able to recur things like "Look what I found!" and Lucky! with this is insanely good.

Emergency Cache: You have literally no way to make money, and you'll need a little of it to keep recurring assets. Thankfully, your assets aren't too expensive, but you'll still want the money available. Don't cut this card; there's nothing else to replace it.

Other Picks

Prepared for the Worst: This is a standard pick for me in all decks that can use it. It's not nearly as good as No Stone Unturned in flexibility, but it acts as essentially your fourth weapon slot. Feel free to replace this with a copy of your secondary weapon, but I feel like this is a better card for its skill icons.

.45 Automatic: It was a big toss-up between this and Knife, but this ended up winning out due to the simple fact that it can hit Flying monsters. It's also better value than Knife, but it's harder to recur since it's not as easy to get out of your hand once you use all of the bullets. Lantern can help with this, though. Feel free to replace this with Knife or even .32 Colt for greater damage value, but consider the drawbacks for doing so.

First Aid: This is primary a multiplayer pick, and is still going to get replaced with Elder Sign Amulet later anyway. I would highly recommend replacing this with some sort of way of handling horror (Painkillers is good here) if you do replace it.

Evidence!: Yorick likes to kill monsters, and Evidence likes it when you kill monsters. Replace this with Perception if you'd rather have the card draw over the potential free clue. I highly recommend having some sort of clue-gathering ability besides "Look what I found!", though. Evidence!, even when not used as an event, still has 2 for you to use in a check.

Dodge: You're likely going to end up replacing this as the campaign moves on, but as an early-campaign tool to avoid hits, it makes for a good one-off. This is a bit of a wild-card slot. Put whatever you'd like in here, and expect to upgrade out of it later.

Leather Coat: Completely free, recurable damage soak. This is almost a core card, and I can't think of too many things you could feasibly replace this with for the sheer amount of value it presents you. If you play it correctly, Yorick can easily go through a scenario taking little to no combat damage between this and Beat Cop. If you feel like you don't need it (?!) replace it with a pet card of your choice. It isn't crucial, but it's damn nice.

Lantern: I think this is better than Gravedigger's Shovel for what is essentially the same slot. You will have your main weapon in one hand, and a secondary utility item in the other. The free damage + constant -1 shroud is more valuable out of Yorick due to his ID than the free clue dig. You can make a VERY good argument of the shovel being better solo, but my counter argument is 'Evidence!'. Ultimately, though, I don't think you will be much worse off if you took the shovel instead.

Upgrades

Yorick's upgrades tend to be pretty obvious. What isn't obvious is generally what to replace with them, though. When you cut cards, cut things like Dodge, First Aid, and Overpower first; they're the ones doing the overall least for you here.

A rough priority you should follow regardless of solo or multiplayer is this:

• Police Badge

Replace your Dodge and First Aid with these. They are bananas out of Yorick; borderline broken if Yorick's economy was better. With a fellow Guardian or a Rogue to give him money, though...

• Upgrade to Beat Cop

This is the first thing you'll want to upgrade of all of your cards. It makes it far more useful, gives it a bit more soaking potential, and is just a great value for the xp cost.

• Will to Survive OR upgrade to Vicious Blow

You want to get both, but which you get first will largely depend on the difficulty you're on. Will to Survive is probably the best card in the game, and its cost reflects its power. If you're on a lower difficulty, you can hold off on grabbing this in favor of getting some more straight damage out of Vicious Blow+. After you get one, grab the other.

At this point, your deck is largely complete. An extremely XP intensive, but interesting possibility is...

• Charisma THEN The Red-Gloved Man

Combined with Police Badge, this gains a lot of value. Killing something to recur the Man and get four power actions is pretty great - especially at the end of scenarios. It can get a bit resource expensive combined with all of the other things you'll want to recur - including the Badge itself - so the Man should likely be saved as an ace in the hole rather than a consistent strategy.

You can also upgrade into Lucky!, and possibly pick up things like the Elder Sign Amulet to help take care of horror. Just keep in mind that Yorick is going to be poor, and recurring things is not going to always be feasible; keep your deck balanced, and use Yorick's ID opportunistically rather than leaning on it.

Any suggestions and comments are always welcome! Feel free to check out my Mark and Akachi decks if you like consistent, no-gimmick builds that just play Good Cards whenever they can. Most of the time.