John Henreyes

This deck is more thematic than ergonomic, seeking to tank damage/horror while rail-gunning meatsacks with your sledge hammer because clues are for nerds and god does it feel righteous. Its main weaknesses are it has a lot of expensive cards to that end, and ends up needing movement shoehorned in to make the most of the upgraded sledgehammer. The other weapons in this deck are Wrench and Survival Knife, which are OK in a pinch and certain situations.

Weapons are a must in this deck, and mulligan for them or prepared for the worst/Tetuso Mori hard. If your hammer gets discarded, it can be retrieved with resourceful, which will become much more useful as cards get upgraded into survivor.

Movement is handled by Safeguard and Track Shoes, though the latter is only truly useful once you upgrade into Pete and Streetwise (via Versatile).

This deck relies on the high likely hood that you will draw damage/horror soak/avoidance, and most slots are used to this purpose.

Upgrade path:

sledgehammer x1 -> sledgehammer (4) x1

Versatile (2)

• Streetwise
• Physical Training
• Drawing Thin
• Relentless x2

sledgehammer x1 -> sledgehammer (4) x1

Charisma (3) x1

Tetsuo Mori x2 -> Peter Sylvester (2) x2

Beat Cop x2 -> Jessica Hyde (1) x2

prepared for the worst x2 -> backpack (2) x2

dodge x2 -> infighting (3) x2

True Grit -> Precious Memento (4)

Relic Hunter (3) x1

Flesh Ward -> Earthly Serenity (4)

heavy furs x2 -> Protective Gear (2) x2

Something Worth Fighting for -> Five of Pentacles (1)

Calling in Favors x2 -> A Chance Encounter (2) x2

Once the sledgehammers are upgraded, there are cards that become allow better for economy on easy fights, namely Drawing Thin and relentless, which is important because this deck is expensive. These are added in with Versatile along with some potential money sinks to plug holes once your assets are set up.

Next up is upgrading your allies to re-generators, with peter further enabling track shoe triggers. Backpack allows for more general and deeper searching, making up for the loss of Tetsuo Mori.

Infighting is then taken to allow for some more powerful and resourceful-able attack canceling.

Then come generally upgrades to damage/horror soak, with Relic Hunter taken after the second relic. There are arguments for taking Earthly Serenity earlier as it is much better than flesh ward, and there is a 2-exp version stepping stone.

If you find yourself flush with xp, it may be beneficial to grab allies from the grave with A Chance Encounter rather than swap them from your hand with Calling in Favors.