Monterey Jack has some Far Sight

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Monterey Jack has Far to Travel 0 0 1 1.0

GreatGopher · 608

Overview

This is the Monterey Jack deck I recently took through The Feast of Hemlock Vale, playing alongside a fighting-focused Lily. It ended up being wildly strong, and a lot of fun to play, so I thought I'd share the list!

Center to the strategy is Farsight, one of my personal favorite cards which I feel doesn't get enough attention. Jack's got tons of ways to keep his hand full (especially with the recent addition of Gabriel Carillo) and a great suite of events to take advantage of the ability in almost any situation.

As mentioned, this deck is designed for multiplayer. Your strengths are clue-getting and evading; outside of Sneak Attack and the Bullwhip, you have no ways of actually removing enemies from play. However - I do think this deck could easily be adapted for solo play (see the "True Solo Variant" section below.)

Seeing Far with Farsight

Farsight is a killer tempo engine when it gets online, but it needs two types of fuel to run: plenty of card draw to keep your hand at 8, and enough event variety to have something useful to play every turn.

Card draw: Between Monterey Jack's investigator ability, Lucky Cigarette Case, Gabriel Carillo, and later on Ancestral Knowledge, it's super easy to race your hand size to 8.

Event options: Get clues with Burning the Midnight Oil, Intel Report, Breaking and Entering, or Seeking Answers (2). Evade enemies with Sneak By or Breaking and Entering (again). Push damage with Sneak Attack, get resources with Faustian Bargain, or zoom across the map with Scout Ahead. You're all but guaranteed to have something you want to do that Farsight can help with.

Card Upgrades

  1. 2x Diabolical Luck 2x Farsight (8xp) Core upgrade.
  2. Higher Education (3xp, permanent) Covers Jack's biggest weakness (). With his ability + multiples econ cards in the deck, you'll usually have resources to feed to it.
  3. 1x "You handle this one!", 1x Intel Report 2x Pathfinder (2xp, or 4xp with taboo) Just an unbeatable card for this character. Between these and Farsight, you can commonly get 5-6 action's worth of stuff done each turn.
  4. Ancestral Knowledge (6xp, permanent) Five guaranteed, on-demand extra card draws is fantastic for making sure your hand is at 8 whenever you need it to be.
    4a. When purchased, you'll need to add five level 0 cards to the deck, at least 4 of which are skills. It honestly isn't even that important what you add here (we just want the extra draws) so pick your favorite rogue or neutral level 0 skills. If nothing else inspires you, 2x Unexpected Courage and 2x Manual Dexterity would do just fine.
  5. 1x "You handle this one!", 1x Breaking and Entering 2x Seeking Answers (2) Great, cheap clue acceleration that works with Farsight

Bonus: If you've printed out the parallel Monterey Jack investigator cards, I highly recommend taking the advanced signatures. The weakness does take an extra action to clear, but the upgraded Trusty Bullwhip is a huge improvement over the original.

True Solo Variant

The published list is intended for multiplayer, but I do think it would handle great in true solo with a couple tweaks. You're already great at getting clues and evading, so all that's missing is a bit of extra damage for times when something really needs to die. I'd recommend swapping "You handle this one!" for Backstab as a start, and then upgrading another card into "I've got a plan!" (2) at some point. I'd also consider swapping Deduction for Curiosity to help with willpower protection in the early campaign, when you'll most miss "You handle this one!"

5 comments

May 07, 2024 knoxb · 26

Even though it's a double card, it seems like a miss to not include Thorough Inquiry on a big-hand deck. Especially since this isn't getting a ton of fast-draw seeker shenanigans. With Thorough Inquiry you can have emptied out your hand playing assets during setup and immediately be back in position to play farsight

May 07, 2024 GreatGopher · 608

@knoxb Considered it (as well as Deep Knowledge, which fills a similar role) but ultimately decided against it, and after playing the deck I stand by the decision. The card draw in the deck as-is is more than enough to easily get to 8 and stay there (and if you spent a whole turn playing out assets, chances are you've got Gabriel and/or Lucky Cigarette Case in play). I found it more important for the events in the deck to be things I wanted to play after Farsight was online, rather than even more tech to get it running.

There could however be a place for it if you're playing in a bigger group, and want to lean a little bit into a support role!

May 09, 2024 Andy · 25

I find for Hemlock Vale at least "Testing Sprint" has been great since a lot of locations are in a grid. Monty could easily afford the move to a central location and then Testing Sprint for a ton of clues.

May 09, 2024 GreatGopher · 608

@Andy that's a pretty good option! Normally the problem with that card would be needing to have a bunch of locations that you've been to (so they're revealed) but still have clues on them, but with Monterey Jack you want to be zooming around anyway, so it's a good fit.

Jul 10, 2024 ChrisSF · 1

Thanks for posting! I'm having a ton of fun with this deck in a 2 player run of Innsmouth. The advanced Bullwhip is one of the best signature cards I've ever seen. You are automatically fighting every single attack at a 7 AND you can do an extra damage and automatically evade the enemy you attacked once per round AND there is no ammo so it can be used unlimited times during the game. Really unbelievable. Monterey was supposed to be the cluever, but he is also outshining the main fighter (Dexter) in enemy management. Monterey Jack with this version of the whip could be a monster solo investigator, you'd just need to prioritize Higher Education or something to compensate for his 1 Willpower.