Cheating at the Casino to Save the World - Dexter 19xp

Theorycrafting a deck intended to nerf the chaos bag, while also carrying some weight as a generalist in a group of 3 or 4 investigators.

Dexter can pitch in fighting enemies and find a few clues, but his main job is tweaking the chaos bag. Spare actions (after fights and catching up to your fellow investigators) are spent setting up one or two Protective Incantations, then using Seal of the Seventh Sign.

Once you have removed the the game will be different. The chaos bag will essentially be full of sunshine and rainbows. You can use the Lucky Dice with impunity. You can use the Chthonian Stone with impunity. Your fellow investigators will thank you.

Toy With Doom, Avoid Consequences

• Your innate power is a weaker version of Sacrifice that you can trigger every turn. So we include powerful cards that incur doom knowing that we can play them anytime, not just at the "witching hour" when the doom would trigger anyways. As long as we have an affordable asset in hand we can reliably dump assets with doom, making Dexter a stand-in for the Sacrifice half of the combo
• Arcane Initiate draws free spells
• Renfield can earn you a tidy sum on agendas with a large doom threshold
• Blood Pact boosts your stats, and it can sit in play indefinitely until you choose to add doom
• The Sickle is the only doom item where you prefer not to replace it, but if you get in too deep it's nice to know you can flush it!

Do Regular Mystic Stuff

• Avoid the worst of the encounter deck with judicious use of Ward of Protection and Deny Existence
• help the investigators get bonus xp with Delve Too Deep
• you won't find many clues, but when you do they'll be testless with Drawn to the Flame. Might as well hit the high-shroud ones!
• Pitch in with combats via Ceremonial Sickle, or at the very least defend yourself

Remove the Worst Tokens from the Chaos Bag

• Incantations can be used to remove the worst tokens, usually it's the and the but it varies by scenario
• Seal of the Seventh Sign removes the token
• Once the Seal is down, it's safe to play the Chthonian Stone and lock down a fourth bad token
• We are tight on arcane slots, so we have to include an obscure tarot asset to carry the third ritual
• Molly Maxwell can really help find stuff: Cursed pulls the Stone, Criminal fetches Henry or Leo, Tarot fetches Hierophant, Charm gets the Sickle (or with less XP also the Rosary), Blessed targets the Incantation, and Ritual pulls an Incantation or the Seal
• Once most of this is in place, Parallel Fates is worth a considering. If you have the Dice then definitely use it

Keep Cash Coming In

• Maintaining the Incantations requires constant cash outlays
• Lone Wolf passively doubles income
• Renfield rakes in up to $3 each turn, and when you get close to the triggering the agenda just use Dexter's innate ability to replace him
• Stylish Coat works with any of the cash-generating cards

Use Downtime to Gamble For BIG Cash

• Henry is similar to 21 or Bust, another card that imitates push-your-luck gambling. The more failure tokens you've removed means you can gamble longer and more profitably
• Lucky Dice (2) gives you re-pulls from the chaos bag, limited only by the cost-benefit ratio of spending $2 for the chance at gaining an additional $1, so quit when your cash is low or when the bag reaches 2:1 ratio of good to bad tokens

Cash is King!

• Well Connected lets you benefit from excess cash
• If you have enough cash to spare, siphon some off for a jump-start on your next scenario

Starter Deck & Upgrade Path

• For the starter deck swap out all 7 xp cards for the 7 cards in the side deck. It's a generic generalist version of Dexter that can do more stuff, but the best you can hope to support Henry is Heavy Furs

• 1 xp Protective Incantation (1) for Sixth Sense

• 6 xp Seal of the Seventh Sign (5) for the other Sixth Sense

• 10 xp Lucky Dice (2*) for Holy Rosary

• 11 xp Protective Incantation (1) for Mists of R'lyeh

• 14 xp The Hierophant (3) for a Heavy Furs

• 15 xp Stylish Coat (3) for the other Furs

• 18 xp Charisma (3) is a permanent, no card is replaced

• 19 xp Leo De Luca (1) for an Initiate

Later xp Ideas

• Chthonian Stone (3) lets you play earlier and keep its out longer in case you play before the Seal
• Black Market (2) is alternate tutoring that could replace the Initiate