The Pitch

This is a Bob Jenkins Dark Horse deck that's built for multiplayer (but can be adapted for solo; see below) with a heavy focus on being the cluever of the group.

Who needs resources? Once his market stall is set up, Bob sure doesn't. Use Crafty to power Bob's tools and tricks, get clues, avoid enemies, make friends.

The craft of salesmanship

This is the basic deck which you would start a campaign with, but note that I've taken In the Thick of It to start with Crafty already in the deck. This deck runs on Crafty and Dark Horse. How?

• Crafty pays for, and boosts tests that use, tool and trick cards (also insight cards, but Bob's access to those is unexciting, so let's ignore them). Your tools (at level 0) are the Lantern and the Mariner's Compass, while your tricks are Bait and Switch, Ethereal Slip and Scout Ahead. Cards like Bait and Switch are not the best, but when you use Crafty to make it cost 0 and give you +1 on the evade test? Then it becomes more appealing. Using Crafty to boost investigation tests using the tools means that Bob could, by spending both Crafty charges, investigate a location at 6 with a -1 shroud reduction. Tasty. And since Crafty replenishes each round, this allows you to be consistently strong at investigating, especially once you also play...
• Dark Horse. Bob's base stats are pretty good all-round. 2/4/3/3 gives him a fair chance at punching or evading, and investigating is generally easy for him. But once he's at zero resources and Dark Horse kicks in? You have a 3/5/4/4 salesman with access to tool and trick boosts, meaning that you will be frequently effectively testing at even higher skill values.

You could choose not to take In the Thick of It until you have the XP to buy a Crafty or two, of course, but you might run into some problems in that first scenario (although I think it would be fine). (See below for the recommended upgrade path for this deck, but basically your first 3/6xp go on having 2x Crafty).*

Shake my hand on it

The cards you want to see in your opening hand are, in order of preference:

1. Crafty
2. Dark Horse
3. A lantern and/or a mariner's Compass
4. Schoffner's Catalogue
5. If you have none of the items in (3) and (4), having a Backpack will be good to dig for them.
6. Cherished Keepsake. I recommend taking two mental trauma with In the Thick of It, since you can then soak further sanity with your teddy bear, but having the Keepsake out early (especially as it can be played with Bob's free action and it costs no resources) is nice as a buffer against Bob's signature weakness and horror suffered during Mythos (since Bob's low base willpower means he will generally fail such tests).
7. Madame Labranche is the classic Dark Horse ally, and having her out to help draw/get resources is great, but she doesn't shine until you also get Dark Horse out, so she isn't a big priority for the early game - although her 2/2 soak is nice if you need it.
8. Bob's signature asset, Shrewd Dealings, is nice to have if you can afford it, but actually this deck doesn't rely on it, so you can usually mulligan this away.
9. Unless you know that you will need to e.g. deal with an enemy in the first round or two of the scenario, the events and skills in the deck are not what Bob needs at the start. Mulligan them away aggressively to try and find the above cards.

Note that duplicates of Dark Horse, Backpack, and (arguably) the lantern/compass are not useful to you in your opening hand, but duplicates of Schoffner's Catalogue or Crafty (once you upgrade into multiple copies of the latter) will work fine.

Feel free to browse for a bit

The first turn or two should be spent setting up your engine:

• Play Dark Horse and Crafty: Together these two cards cost 6 resources, which is not cheap. But once you've got Dark Horse and Crafty down, you largely don't need to worry about gaining resources again. That is, once you've got these cards down, try running on zero resources wherever possible.
• Get out the clue tools: (Lantern and/or Mariner's Compass). Bob's base 4 is excellent but letting you reduce the shroud of any location without exhausting is really valuable. The compass is efficient once Dark Horse is in play, but if you don't have Dark Horse in your hand at the start of the scenario, the compass (especially given its cost) isn't a priority. Having said all this, Bob can probably handle getting clues while he is setting up, so a good balance is to use Bob's free item action to play a tool, maybe investigate once or twice, or move, and then use a draw action to dig for any of the key cards you are missing. (Drawing into Greed early on is probably not so bad, but be wary of it nonetheless.) Another option is to take resource actions until you have enough money to finish setting up (see the previous point) - but of course playing Crafty first lets you then use it to pay for a tool (preferably on the same turn you play Crafty, essentially netting you both cards for just 3 resources).
• Horror mitigation: If you can, play a Cherished Keepsake so that you have something to deal with any early-game horror tragedies. A failed Rotting Remains could deal you 3 horror, and if you've already taken trauma with In the Thick of It then you're down to desperate range already. The Keepsake can soak a bit and then you can Resourceful it back later if needed.
• Ways of finding your key cards: Playing a Backpack is a great way to effectively increase your hand size for items and to dig for the cards you need (it also thins out your deck and makes it more likely to draw your more crucial cards, if you haven't found them yet). A backpack containing another backpack is perfectly fine! Schoffner's Catalogue is fantastic in this deck, since it means you have a supply of cash to play items which doesn't affect Dark Horse's boost.

A perfect first (setup) turn for Bob is arguably: Play Crafty > Gain a resource > Play Dark Horse > Use Bob's free action and both Crafty charges to play a Lantern.

Part of the sales team

Your role in the group is to collect clues, but you can - and should - also use Bob's abilities to help the other investigators set up too, though not at the expense of you getting your engine up and running. Bob can evade OK, especially if he uses his tricks (Bait and Switch, Ethereal Slip), but generally it is advisable for him to stick with a buddy who is able to take on enemies while Bob searches for clues. Bob's bandages and catalogue let him be a team-player in additional ways.

I thought I was getting a bonus this month?

So let's talk the white elephant in the room: Greed. Bob's signature weakness can be punishing in any deck, but when your deck is designed to run on zero resources from the mid-game onwards, then being hit for 4 horror is... not great. However, in my plays of this deck, such a hit has always been survivable. In the level 0 deck, your salvation comes in the form of Cherished Keepsake and/or Madame Labranche, either of which you should not be afraid to let take the sanity hit for you instead of placing it on Bob.

Once you have Mariner's Compass and Dark Horse in play, you can maybe hover at 1 resource in your pool most of the time, using the Compass (or playing any card of course) to clear the pool so that Dark Horse activates. This makes Greed only hit for 3, which is... better?

There are other options that open up to you when you upgrade the deck which make a 4-hit Greed draw less terrifying (e.g. Precious Memento), but at the start of a campaign, at least, Bob will have to fly by the seat of his horrified pants a lot of the time. Nobody said this salesman lark was easy!

Can I interest you in the newest model? (Upgrading the deck)

Bob's access to only cards when he upgrades means that his upgrade path is a bit weird. He can't take any of the level 1+ cards that might flesh out a Dark Horse deck, and he doesn't want the cards that make him richer. So here, from my experience piloting this deck, is where I think your precious XP is best spent:

• Crafty(3) - 2 copies, as early as possible. Having 2x means that not only are you twice as likely to draw it, but you can - subject to having the requisite resources to pay for it - have two Crafties in play at once, which doubles their usefulness.
• Black Market(1). This card is amazing for Bob. Not only does it let you dig for cards (items, but any other cards too), it also lets you potentially avoid Greed for a round, lets you help other investigators find the cards they need, and it thins out your deck for the round (letting you draw even deeper if for some reason all your good cards are deep in your deck).
• Lockpicks(1). Another tool, and one of the few upgradable tools, this lets you test at silly numbers once Bob is set up (base 7 even without anything else, and with Dark Horse and Crafty you're talking about potentially testing at 10). That said, Bob tests so high with Lantern or Mariner's Compass anyway that I have found the Lockpicks to be a bit of an overkill. Nice for very high shroud locations though.
• Joey "The Rat" Vigil(3). I did not put the level 0 version of Joseph Vigil into the deck - largely due to the level 0 restrictions - but the upgraded Joey is a star here. He can let you ditch unnecessary items (say a Schoffner's Catalogue with only one resource on it, or a tool that's outlived its usefulness) and get money to buy more, actionlessly. He can let you play even more items actionlessly. His soak is great and he only costs 2 to play. Obviously, unless you want to make Bob charismatic, you'll probably want to replace Madame Labranche with Joey, but neither ally is absolutely crucial to the deck anyway, so play it by ear and upgrade as necessary.
• Backpack(2). Very much a case of an all-round better version of its level 0 counterpart, you'll never be sad to draw the upgraded backpack during a scenario.
• Precious Memento (from a Former Life)(4). This version specifically because it lets you heal horror from it when you succeed on a skill test by 2+, and once Bob is investigating at full capacity you will be succeeding by loads every turn, meaning that the Memento becomes like Peter Sylvestre in accessory form. The Memento means that Greed is much less scary, even if it hits for 4 horror. You can only take 1 copy, but with e.g. Backpack and Black Market you should be able to find it quickly enough. Really the only downside with the Memento is the cost to play it - and I think overall it's worth it. When upgrading into this, you can probably replace the Cherished Keepsakes, since they compete for the accessory slot, but I recommend keeping at least one teddy bear in your deck, since it's generally useful for Bob to have up his sleeve.
• Savant(1). This skill card is just wonderful for Bob, and a good replacement for e.g. Unexpected Courage, since - barring any scenario effects that reduce your skill values - it will always have at least 3 icons, and probably many more (remember Dark Horse will factor in here and raise the targeted skill). So if you are testing e.g. and Dark Horse is active, then Savant (targeting or ) gives you 5 icons!
• Ethereal Slip(2). This is a great card for Bob to teleport across the map (in an ideal play), and of course Crafty pays for it.
• Slip Away(2). Beefing up your ability to evade enemies is worth considering (depending in part on what the rest of the group are good at). The upgraded Slip Away is a trick so can be boosted/paid for with Crafty, and with Dark Horse you are testing at silly numbers, which makes it very likely it will return to your hand after it resolves, making it a strong and repeatable enemy management card.

I run my own company (Adapting the deck for solo play)

Coming soon!

I am a quick learner and flexible at different tasks

Tweaking the level 0 deck is possible, since some of the cards here are non-essential, 'nice' cards that can be swapped for whatever you fancy. Bandages, Narrow Escape, Unexpected Courage, maybe Resourceful - these are good utilitarian cards that I think round off the deck well, but you could switch them out for e.g.:

• Fire Axe or perhaps Gravedigger's Shovel if you want to let Bob take out some enemies (probably swap this for the Mariner's Compass). As both are tools they can be boosted with Crafty.
• Slip Away, especially if you anticipate a lot of enemies coming your way (though the upgraded version is considerably better, so I would probably just upgrade into that later).
• Breaking and Entering doesn't stack with your tools, but in this deck Bob has a high chance of triggering the bonus effect, and Crafty can pay for this card, so it's not a bad enemy management option.
• Faustian Bargain - but primarily to give the resources to other players, if you want to lean more into Bob's ability to pay for items for team-mates, and give him a more overt supporting role.
• Pocket Telescope is a tool and so it lets Bob investigate adjacent locations. It doesn't stack with his better investigation tools, of course.
• "You handle this one!" is decent for getting the heat off Bob, even if the resource gain is a little counter-intuitive.

Here are some cards which in my view probably don't really fit in this deck, even though you're welcome to try them:

• Scavenging is a card that I originally had in this deck, but found that I either didn't play it or it didn't do too much for me when it did. However, it will trigger pretty often for Bob in this deck, and so if you find you want to recurse items from the discard pile, this is a good option (perhaps replacing Resourceful or Bandages).
• Level 0 Joey "The Rat" Vigil is an option instead of Madame Labranche if you want to use his free trigger action from the off, though he costs a lot to play and doesn't combo with either Dark Horse or Crafty.
• Sleight of Hand is a trick which could in theory help you bring items in and out of play more cheaply. However, Bob already has an extra action to do that, and there's no great advantage to bouncing his tools in and out.
• Sneak By's evade action can be boosted by Crafty, but you probably don't want the resource gain.
• Liquid Courage is a way to help Bob recover from failed sanity tests, and it's an item, but he is unlikely to pass the test on the card (though he's 3 versus 2 with Dark Horse), so going with soak - e.g. the Cherished Keepsake - is probably a better option. (At least Liquid Courage would let Bob help other investigators if needed.)
• Lucky! is always nice to have, of course. The main types of tests you're likely to fail are ones, so if you are worried about that, Lucky! might be an option. The 1 cost is weirdly off-putting here, though, and it's not a trick so doesn't combo with Crafty. Live and Learn is a Lucky-esque option that doesn't cost anything, so feels better for this deck, though I actually found Bob did not fail enough tests to warrant using up deck slots for these kinds of cards.