Pet Sematary - Cats and Dogs Living Together

Sled Dog is a very cool card to build a deck around. Leo Anderson is the natural choice for Sled Dogs: free actions to play allies, discounted cost, and access to Rogue economy cards. Yet he has a difficult time assembling them. I recently read an article by @DerBK that suggests trying out William Yorick.

Yorick lacks Leo's obvious advantages, but he can assemble all the various parts much more effectively. Here's my first stab at a build:

Sled Dogs Require Additional Ally Slots

• Charisma (3) gives you ally slots for any ally AND it starts every scenario in play

• Rod of Animalism (1) gives you ally slots for creatures and discount to play creatures. Given its primacy I opted to start with two copies via In the Thick of It

You Need to Find Enough Copies to Make Sled Dogs Worthwhile

• Scrounge for Supplies draws from discard and it retains utility even if you have already assembled the dog pack

• A Chance Encounter (2) is an action-efficient improvement on Scrounge for Supplies. In one card you find, draw, and play an ally from your discard pile!

• Short Supply lets you start the game with 10 cards in your discard pile. It's the key to using the above "draw from your discard pile" cards. In this way it's a great source for "tutoring" things you need... probably Dogs, but really any other cards you need!

• Calling in Favors lets you search your draw pile for an ally, since most of your cards are there at the start of a scenario. Importantly, sending an ally back to your hand also removes their damage tokens, so a back-door way of healing

• Lucid Dreaming (2) is another way to tutor the draw pile

Kibble Isn't Cheap!

• Madame Labranche helps underwrite the kibble budget, and plays nice with the ability of Fire Axe to spend away an occasional odd resource

• Stand Together helps you and a fellow investigator with resources

• Most players are accustomed to seeing Ever Vigilant (1) used gear up items rather than allies. I tried using it for allies with Leo Anderson deck and noticed it had an anti-synergy, since he already plays allies for discount and zero actions! But for William Yorrick it's pure gold.

• Take Heart is best played on a hopeless skill test triggered by a Treachery, effectively giving you a consolation prize for your trouble. It's a weak card though, so I suggest immediately replacing it once you can afford another Ever Vigilant (1).

Teaching Old Dogs Some New Tricks

• Tetsuo Mori's power is to fetch the important stick that drives the deck ;)

• Inspiring Presence lets the dog pack attack again

Don't Slack on Your Day Job: Killing Stuff and Burying the Bodies

• The dogs get exhausted after they attack, so you'll need something else to use in combat from time to time. A Fire Axe is the perfect choice for a cheap 2-damage weapon. Reaching zero resources shouldn't be hard to achieve!

• Survival Knife synergizes really well with ally soak, dealing 2 damage and saving you an action when an enemy attacks. The 2 XP version isn't a priority in this case, details below.

• Vicious Blow, Overpower, Safeguard, and Lucky! are sprinkled in to accomplish basic goals: kill stuff efficiently and keep up with the fellow investigators.

Early XP Spending

• Charisma (3) is a mandatory first buy, vital when you don't quickly surface the Rod of Animalism (1) early.

• Another copy of Ever Vigilant (1) is next, swap for Take Heart

• A Chance Encounter (2) is a more-efficient substitute for Scrounge for Supplies

Late XP Additions

• Miss Doyle (1) is just irresistible. Her cat army cards are all fast, don't use up ally slots, and do really cool things. And she benefits from the Rod of Animalism. Probably swap out Overpower to make room?

• Lucid Dreaming (2) seems like it's worth using to dig out the last pesky dog hiding in the draw pile. Damned if I know what card to swap out though!

• The upgraded Vicious Blow (2) benefits from over-succeeding in fights. Which is what the Fire Axe and a pack of Sled Dogs are all about.

• The upgraded Safeguard (2) is really handy if your Seeker invests in movement cards

• The upgraded Survival Knife (2) saves your menagerie from needing to soak. But that's a luxury you'll rarely need given the vast soak capacity coupled with the recursion.

Thanks to @DerBK for inspiration, his article is here: https://derbk.com/ancientevils/a-love-letter-to-the-best-card-in-the-game/

It will be awhile before I test this deck, possibly the next time I run Edge of the Earth. Please comment with your ideas and suggestions!