Marky Mark's Crowbar Flex | HC 7.5k Guide

Marky Mark's Crowbar Flex

I'm continuing my series with a deck each Sunday using the new Drowned City cards. Here Mark uses a Crowbar and Wolf Mask to bust high shroud locations, doing this twice a turn with his trusty Batman-esque utility belt. Plus, he also kills things...

Overview

• Two Crowbars with a Tool Belt and Wolf Mask is a fun little combo for clue-finding which pairs best to high investigators, allowing Mark to persistently clue-find without always drawing on Sophie (though she does a great job filling in the gaps while you're waiting for the combo to come online). For the great debate of whether you should use Bandolier in the place of Tool Belt, Tool Belt is more scenario-agnostic (Polar Vortex and Snowslide can't target it) and I found the symbol on your spare to be more useful. While soak on the Bandolier can help in a pinch, realistically it's not soak you're ever going to use as then you discard your second Crowbar. Ultimately, use whichever you prefer.

• Beat Cop does it's usual thing of dealing damage and allowing Mark to pick up a card, and pairs excellently to the new Hunter's Mark allowing for 3 damage with both Cops in play. Enchant Weapon, Vicious Blow, Strong-Armed, The Home Front and Hunter's Mark all allow for more damage when doing Blessed Blade attacks, while the Blade itself gradually adds and softens the chaos bag.

• Card draw is Mark's ability coupled to Beat Cop and Sophie, which is enough so that fairly often you'll cycle. Healing is Hallowed Mirror with Emergency Aid, and as Mark gets through his deck reasonably fast you will see Soothing Melody a decent amount. As Mark can only investigate twice per turn with the Crowbar combo, there are plenty of opportunities to spend some time healing when enemies aren't around (or play additional assets, given this is an asset-heavy deck).

• Resource economy is decent for a Guardian, with Emergency Cache, Kicking the Hornet's Nest, Leadership and Ever Vigilant. Dynamite Blast is included as a resource sink which can make dealing with groups of enemies or Elites at an adjacent location easier, and it saw a lot of use in the campaign I played. It pairs to Elusive to allow you to get to a connecting location safely, and/or with Hunter's Mark for another testless damage if starting at the enemy's location.

• The remaining things to mention are Kicking the Hornet's Nest doubles as a clue event, helping to further support clue-finding with your Crowbars. Sophie of course does her usual thing of allowing Mark to pass tests he has no business of passing (and stacks nicely with Wolf Mask for tests). Prepared for the Worst on Stick to the Plan does double duty on this deck, as it can find both your Blessed Blade and your Crowbar if you've not started with them (or your second copy of Crowbar when you have Tool Belt out).

Campaign starter and planned progression

With In the Thick of It this is a 29 XP deck, both trauma should be health. 0 XP deck is below (and link here):

A recommended order of purchases/upgrades is:

• 1 x Practice Makes Perfect → 1 x Beat Cop ••

• Stick to the Plan (load with Prepared for the Worst, Ever Vigilant and Practice Makes Perfect)

• Enchanted Blade → Blessed Blade ••••

• Charisma (19 XP here for standalones)

• 1 x Prepared for the Worst → 1 x Enchant Weapon

• 1 x Overpower, 1 x Machete → Hunter's Mark

• Clean Them Out → Leadership ••

• 1 x Overpower → 1 x Strong-Armed

Final thoughts

I think Mark is the most natural Guardian to pair to Crowbar for three reasons: (A) he's a 5 investigator who lacks other strong clue-finding options, (B) Sophie gives you breathing room until you assemble the Crowbar combo fully, and (C) The Home Front partly lends itself to lower damage weapons (if you have a big gun on Mark, you don't need the extra damage to get stuff done - though Home Front's healing is always nice). Lower damage weapons are often one-handed, and the reason why you'd be using a one-handed weapon is usually because you want something useful in your other hand, e.g. a Crowbar.

I guess the larger debate is whether a Guardian should be using Crowbar to flex in the first place when they could just be using a bigger weapon to manage enemies better. However in this particular case you have a lot of tricks up your sleeve for extra damage (Beat Cop, Dynamite Blast, Hunter's Mark, Enchant Weapon, Vicious Blow, Strong-Armed and The Home Front, plus tactics like Practice Makes Perfect and Elusive which support these) so Mark doesn't feel punished for not running a bigger weapon and Crowbars don't take away from his core role - they're a pure value add.

As a flex enjoyer, I liked this deck a lot. Given Sophie makes Mark flexy, even more flex feels synergistic rather than a distraction. What are your thoughts, and which investigator are you planning to use Crowbar on?