Weethao commits Dirty Deeds with her Dirt Cheap Old Shotgun.

Credit: Borja Pindado

The Old Shotgun design intrigued me from the start, and I find it such a game design masterpiece that I found it sad that it got very little attention so far. So after a few trial and errors, I realised that it fits Wini perfectly: it's fast, thrilling, and efficient.

I am also happy to provide a more fighty alternative deck to Lelel555's more clue-focused one, that I really enjoyed too.

Following the success of the 20k Series, this 30k Series will focus on the investigators that are much harder to solve. Expect some jank, some outside-of-the-box thinking and hopefully some love for the underdogs of this game.

Click here to see all the previous decks. I will keep releasing a new standalone-ready deck concept every week on Friday, so stay tuned and keep supporting the Series by pressing the ♥ button if you want to see more!

Shout out to @Sabreblade and @Founchopf for helping with the playtesting of the many iterations of this deck and helping me find a balanced version. If you are interested in helping with playtesting future decks, feel free to reach out on Discord @Val

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Use the Old Shotgun

• Make and Use Cash

• The The Red-Gloved Man Upgrade

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

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• Use fast draw to cycle Sleight of Hand and Honed Instinct to play the Old Shotgun as soon as you face an enemy.

• Use Pickpocketing (2), "Watch this!", Kicking the Hornet's Nest, and Gregor-it and Run to fuel an infinite amount of Streetwise and Pilfer.

If you are interested in all the ways to (ab)use the Old Shotgun, this ArkhamDB Review (updated with TSK options), and this video by Veronica from Until the End of Time are interesting material to understand how Old Shotgun works and how to use it in your own decks.

• This deck uses 2 main mechanics to use it with ammo:

  • Sleight of Hand first and foremost. Both cards wait in your hand until you have something to kill.

  • With Dirty Fighting and the Old Shotgun's bonus, you shoot with a decent 8 , topped up by the many skill cards at your disposal to guarantee 3 damage per ammo.

• Another way to gain reliability is to use Honed Instinct after any test where we succeed by 3 or more to proactively play your second copy of Old Shotgun during the additional action, giving it 2 ammo.

  • This way, with one on the table and one Sleight of Hand, you can deal 12 damage in a single turn (thanks to Quick Thinking).

• Because you rely on a multi-card combo as your only way to deal damage, the early enemy management method relies on your to evade.

  • This is also good because you mulligan for 2 targets only: Lucky Cigarette Case (3) and Pickpocketing (2), and early evasion will trigger some draw with these 2 cards, speeding up your setup.

  • If you have an unlucky mulligan (you will not find Lucky Cigarette Case (3) or Pickpocketing (2) in ~20% of the cases), you need to then power draw until you get one.

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Getting clues with this deck costs a lot of resources:

• Streetwise is free, which is better than it sounds, but requires you to spend resources 2 by 2. Spending 2 resources in it pushes your to 5, which is pushed further by Perception and other skill cards, allowing you to scoop single clues relatively easily.

• Pilfer completes the set by allowing you to use to investigate clues at a higher pace, which you can also be pumped by Streetwise.

Fuel Your Engine:

Something to keep in mind is that the more you let other investigators deal with enemies, the less fuel you give to Wini. Therefore I would consider this deck as a main fighter, but it can sometimes be overwhelmed with enemies in higher player counts, so ask your teammates to bring some panic buttons if you are the only enemy manager in a 3+ group. On the other hand, the risk of running out of fuel in true solo is probably quite high.

• For this reason, we add Kicking the Hornet's Nest if you ever run out of fuel. Pulling an enemy will feed Pickpocketing (2) while directly providing you with a clue and resources for Streetwising even more clues.

  • In my playtesting, I never needed more fuel, playing 2 with a pure cluever, but I did when playing with another flex. If you feel comfortable that this won't happen, Breaking and Entering is a good alternative for more tempo.

• The best way to generate resource-fuel in this deck is via Gregor-it and Run. This has the raw power to give you 8 resources a turn.

  • Every time you draw Hit and Run, even if you only do 1 test this round, it is worth playing it as you'll see a lot of it, and your hand will be pretty full, forcing you to discard it quite often. This will also use him more reliably to tank the horror of shuffling your discard pile into your deck.

  • You could play it safe and bet the resources 2 by 2, but you get it so often that I ended up just spending 3 resources with each test and even if it whiffs once, it's still a full rainbow Cheat the System.

With Gregor-it and Run and Pickpocketing (2), even while spending 2 to 4 resources for each investigate action, I ended up swimming in 20+ resources.

• When it comes to the card-fuel. Winifred's ability is our primary provider, leveraging the 16 skill cards of the deck.

  • In practice, because you will rarely fail tests, Arrogance will sit in your hand for much longer than you'd wish, and with Opportunist also coming back to your hand, you will have 2+ cards committed to every test, guaranteeing at least one draw.

I had so much draw with this deck that, in fact, instead of running out of fuel, I had to discard cards from my hand almost every single turn (also because Sleight of Hand, Old Shotgun, Gregory Gry, Opportunist x2 and Arrogance take almost all the space).
For that reason, I advise you to play your cards as soon as you have them, for instance, with Hit and Run, Honed Instinct + Old Shotgun, etc... And if you can't better commit a card to a test than discarding it during the upkeep phase.

This deck can be used as a 32xp deck, using the The Red-Gloved Man instead:
https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/3013262

• The The Red-Gloved Man pumps your and to rely less on Streetwise.

  • The fast draw means playing it almost every turn, having him deal with the horror of shuffling your discard pile into your deck or literally anything that can happen during a scenario, including failing treachery tests.

  • While being fast, as it is an asset, it can only be played during your turn. This means no reactive playing during the Mythos Phase, unfortunately.

  • With him in play and Dirty Fighting, you are now fighting at 11 with the Old Shotgun.

• Ace in the Hole complements this deck perfectly by having another turn's worth of actions with the The Red-Gloved Man in play, als, increasing your draw by performing more actions where you commit cards, eventually increasing your chances to play him (almost) every turn.

The main downside of this upgraded deck is that it adds one additional Basic Weakness, which can be a rather big issue as you cycle your deck often.

• If you do not want to or can't use the The Red-Gloved Man (playing The Scarlet Keys), you can always take an alternate path going with a second Relic Hunter and The Red Clock (5) instead, which will deliver excellent results too.

  • Here is what the end deck would look like.

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• Anything You Can Do, Better can be kept in hand for tests, but most often, it's better to just commit it to your first test of the turn or when you want to dig deeper with Lucky Cigarette Case (3).

• Hatchet Man works like a Vicious Blow when paired with Dirty Fighting. Evade, and fight harder.

• Nimble is a good one-of, as it can be good tempo when used adequately.

• Quick Thinking guarantees 4 actions almost every turn of the game.

• Manual Dexterity, Overpower and Perception work amazingly with Winifred's ability to keep your hand full.

Later Upgrades:

• If taking In the Thick of It in a campaign, I advise going for 2 damage as you'll be able to avoid most of them with your high value.

• Honed Instinct can receive Killer Instinct that makes it playable not only when you oversucceed but when an enemy engages with you (which is equivalent to you engaging an enemy), so you can play your Old Shotgun in front of an enemy the exact same way as you'd play Sleight of Hand, except that it doesn't come back to your hand.

• Savant is really good in Wini, giving you at least 4 , and when used during a Red-Gloved Man turn, it literally turns into 2 additional copies of Anything You Can Do, Better.

• Streetwise is tabooed to 6xp, which is a bit harsh for what it does, but that's an excellent late upgrade to free a card space.

• Upgrading Manual Dexterity (2) gives you more card-fuel and bigger successes for your Pickpocketing (2) and Lucky Cigarette Case (3)

• Upgrading Opportunist (2) allows you to keep it in your hand longer.

• Another Day, Another Dollar is a decent way to spend your final experience to get clues earlier in the scenario.

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Disclaimer: This decklist is published in the version that I tested. The upgrade path is just one possible way you could upgrade while maintaining the best experience and value of the deck. As these decks are made to be universally good, feel free to adapt them to your campaign and change the upgrade order around based on your experience.

Link to the 0xp deck

(View at arkham-starter.com)

Link to the full xp deck

To create your own guides, find the template I have created here