Charlie’s Kitty and Puppy [full exp]

Overview

This is a combo deck that provides ability to initiate ANY types of skill test with insanely high skill value. The main idea is to find Bonnie Walsh and other allies including Summoned Hound and Miss Doyle as quickly as possible.

I played this deck in the Dream Eaters campaign, so I added this self-restrictions:

• Only use cards before Dream Eaters (except Charlie Kane of course :))
• Use the Taboo List when the campaign is published.

How to Play

At the beginning of the game, only keep Bonnie Walsh and shuffle other cards. If Bonnie Walsh is already there, keep Mr. "Rook".

At the early stage, draw cards to search for Bonnie Walsh, Summoned Hound, A Chance Encounter and Miss Doyle. Do not play Summoned Hound. Discard it and play A Chance Encounter to put it into play from the discard pile.

Ideally, you have Bonnie Walsh, 2*Summoned Hound and Miss Doyle in play. Smartly exhaust these allies and utilize Bonnie Walsh to maximize your contribution.

Clue Getting & Attacking

Summoned Hound provides ability to fight with enemies and discover clues, and it is which allows you to act more in one round. It initiates the test with basic skill value 5 and can easily come to 7 or more with Charlie's ability. Such a high skill value usually means a stable 1 hurt or clue with no action cost.

Summoned Hound brings its maximum value while being played by Charlie Kane - it boosts Charlie's and to 5, and meanwhile Charlie can trigger his ability to get even more skill values.

Summoned Hound's additional cost (The Beast Unleashed) can be avoided by playing A Chance Encounter. It puts the hound into play from the discard pile without shuffling the weakness card into the deck.

Miss Doyle brings 3 little kitten to either investigate, fight or evade. This card is quite interesting, especially in Charlie's deck:

• Miss Doyle itself will never be exhausted, which means you can exhauste Miss Doyle to get free +2 skill by triggering Charlie's ability without considering the cost.
• Either Hope, Augur or Zeal can contribute at least 2 skill in most of skill tests. For example, Hope can evade an enemy at basic value 5 - that is +4. It can also provide +2 for investigation and fight by triggering Charlie's ability because Hope has skill icon. This design is excellent - just like 3 cats are cooperating with each other and the cat general can boost their ability.

Miss Doyle's three cats are more and more powerful as the deck is thinner and thinner as the game proceeds - you can frequently use cats' auto-succeeded ability by shuffling one cat into the deck, and draw it again.

.18 Derringer can somewhat mitigate the shortage of this deck - only 1 damage for each skill test. It can be reused by Scavenging just like what other decks do.

Skill Value Provider

Bonnie Walsh is the core of Charlie's deck. She is the key of these combo:

• Hope/Augur/Zeal + exhaust The Black Cat + exhaust Bonnie Walsh + exhaust The Black Cat = evade/investigate/attack with skill value 14.
• Summoned Hound + exhaust Bonnie Walsh = two free investigate/attack actions with skill value 8 and 5.
• David Renfield + Bonnie Walsh + David Renfield = (1+2) + next turn (3 + 4) + next turn (5 +6) = 21 resources in 3 rounds.

The Black Cat provides skill icons which is very rare among all ally cards, and The Black Cat itself does not exhaust. Meanwhile, its unique ability can avoid severe consequences from symbol tokens, such as adding dooms and summoning enemies. It also provides +3 Health and +3 Sanity. It is very powerful to protect you at the beginning of the game when you do not have any other allies.

Card Searching

Usually combo decks require fairly more card drawing ability to find all combo components. You cannot get the maximum value if any of the component is missing.

• Bonnie Walsh, the most critical ally, is limit 1.
• Miss Doyle is also limit 1.
• Both Summoned Hound and A Chance Encounter must be drawn to make this powerful ally put into play.
• Charlie is very weak without allies with icons. You need to draw more at the early stage to ensure you get one.

Mr. "Rook" is added into my deck even though it costs 4 more experiences by the Taboo list, because it is the only way to search for A Chance Encounter. By seaching in 9 cards, you are more likely to find Bonnie Walsh or Miss Doyle, which are limit 1 per deck, as soon as possible.

His drawback to draw weakness is also one of his function - Burden of Leadership's impact can be minimized if it is drawn at the correct time. For example, if you do not exhaust critical ally cards this round, you can trigger Mr. "Rook"'s ability to draw Burden of Leadership so that you will not worry about it in the future's tough situation, e.g. when you are engaging with more than 1 enemies and then draw a dangerous treachery encounter cards.

Calling in Favors provides rare ability to search for ally cards. Besides searching for Bonnie Walsh and Miss Doyle, it can also help to kick David Renfield when he has 2 or more doom tokens, and drain the last value of Mr. "Rook" when he runs out of secrets.

Be aware that if Summoned Hound is the only ally among searched cards, you must play it as you cannot stop the process, then you have to shuffle The Beast Unleashed into the deck. See the paragraph below if that happens unfortunately.

Scroll of Secrets is a handy card drawer which takes 1 cost, 1 card and 1 action for drawling 3 cards. It can discard the weakness card, which is rare ability among all cards. It can also help other investigates draw cards with no location limit. In some cases, it would be helpful to kick .18 Derringer to discard pile to trigger Scavenging.

Research Librarian is helpful when you run out of card-drawing cards to draw Scroll of Secrets. It is a good target of Calling in Favors.

Sacrifice is not an efficient card to either draw cards or get resources, compared to Preposterous Sketches and Emergency Cache. Its advantage is that you can play it based on your situation - draw cards or get resources as needed. You will also cry for it when you played David Renfield with more than 2 doom tokens on it, or you were forced to play Summoned Hound while playing Calling in Favors.

Take Heart is efficient in this deck, as you can intendedly fail a skill test for sure with 1 skill value.

Economy

We want to run this deck with faster pace, then we need to gain more resource besides upkeeping.

David Renfield's performance is insane in Charlie's deck. His ability does not consume AP. His drawback to place doom tokens can be avoided by Calling in Favors and Sacrifice. Instead of triggering ability once per turn as is in other decks, he can trigger ability twice with help of Bonnie Walsh, so that he can easily get 4 or more doom tokens in safe situation and get out of play quickly. For example, you can get 3 resources in one round, 10 resources in two rounds and 21 resources in three rounds by following this step:

• (Round 1) Play David Renfield + trigger his ability + exhaust Bonnie Walsh in some skill tests + trigger his ability.
• In the next round, repeat.

Sacrifice and Take Heart is described above.

Survival

As a 1/1/1/1 man, Charlie is quite weak at the early stage without any ally, and is vulnerable to enemies and some treachery cards like Rotting Remains.

Ward of Protection is a typical treachery counter card for . I feel much comfortable when it is in my hand. What's more, IT IS EXPERIENCE FREE.

Dumb Luck is a fairly efficient card to remove enemies, as long as the enemy's is no more than 3 (note that as per the rule, your modified skill value will never be negative, so you will not fail more than 3 in the skill test with difficulty 3). So you will either evade that enemy successfully, or play Dumb Luck and drop that enemy.

Lucky! is one of my favorite survival card - it always take effect when I play it, unlike commit cards. Meanwhile, the failure in skill test is often unacceptable for Charlie because you may have run out of allies to exhaust. Lucky! can save your life in such cases.

What if Summoned Hound is force to be played by Calling in Favors...

No worries. You still have the chance to save your ally. You can discard Summoned Hound first, either by assigning 3 damages, play Sacrifice or play 4 other allies. Then trigger Mr. "Rook"'s ability to automatically draw the weakness (it will be set aside, out of play). Then you can normally play A Chance Encounter to put Summoned Hound into play from the discard pile.

What's More...

I am a mystic player. The reason why I built this neutral class deck is simple - I want to play Summoned Hound. But this card is not suitable for mages - it initiates / tests instead of . Finally I found Charlie Kane.