Solo Yorick (Carcosa + Core)

A flexible William Yorick for the true solo player using just a core set plus the The Path to Carcosa investigator cards.

A true solo investigator must do the two main things expected by the game:

1. Collect clues.

2. Deal with enemies.

The simplest way to collect clues is have a high intellect and investigate locations. Sadly William Yorick has a fairly lackluster of 2. So we need to help him with that and/or collect clues in other ways. "Look what I found!", Gravedigger's Shovel and Evidence! give auto-clues while the Lantern and Flashlight lower the shroud level of the location.

Yorick's 4 goes a long way toward dealing with enemies. He's also bringing along Beat Cop, Guard Dogs, a Knife, a Machete, a Baseball Bat and Gravedigger's Shovel to boost his combat skills. Fully equipped (with a cop and a bat) Yorick has 7 fight and does 2 damage with the possibility of discarding the cop to add another point of damage. This ought to be enough to handle almost all the early enemies in Carcosa. (See the spoiler list of enemies and note there's a particularly annoying enemy that probably needs to be evaded with a Stray Cat.)

Yorick's ability to recur assets from the discard pile after defeating an enemy means he doesn't mind discarding the Gravedigger's Shovel and Lantern for their effects. Unfortunately, this can be costly in terms of resources and actions. In particular, it's not usually a good trade to spend two actions and two resources for the shovel just to get a clue. The true value of these cards is that they do their jobs without requiring a test. So save the shovel for a high-shroud location and the lantern for high-fight enemies.

Since Yorick's ability saves an action to play assets, they can be more useful in the discard pile than in the hand. Instead of playing your shovel or lantern, commit them to boost skill tests. Same goes for other items or allies. Play Scavenging in order to get the occasional salvaged item while investigating and Resourceful to fish out cards. Just remember to commit assets you just pulled out of the discard to skill checks if you don't have an immediate use for them.

Madame Labranche serves as an inexpensive ally who also helps with either resource or card draw each round. Calling in Favors increases the odds of pulling her from the deck or cycling her out for a cop or a dog. (Hopefully you won't be stuck playing a cat.) Her resource fast ability can help pay for assets, but her draw ability can be even better for moving cards from the deck to the discard pile (via skill checks). Don't be afraid to let her soak up horror and damage since either Yorick's abilities or Resourceful can resurrect her.

For most scenarios, Yorick will want to have his Cherished Keepsake in play as soon as possible. It's the only item he has two copies of in this deck because it's so important. If he doesn't have one in play, that's usually the best target for his ability. Since he has decent health, his Leather Coat isn't quite so critical, but can be a lifesaver late in a scenario.

Yorick prefers enemy encounters to treacheries. On the Hunt powers Evidence!, his recur ability and Bury Them Deep. Since non-survivor events can't be reliably recovered from the discard, these are the rare cards in this deck that shouldn't be used for skill checks willy nilly. They tend to be more impactful later in scenarios, so are ideal cards to mulligan.

Play strategy

Generally mulligan for assets and especially your keepsake and coat. An ally will be useful to facilitate Calling in Favors with Madame Labranche being beneficial to get in play early. Usually having a Flashlight or Lantern helps early on too.

Assets that don't have an immediate use can be committed to skills in order to stash them in the discard. Unfortunately Yorick's lack of investigative skill will keep him from finding clues early on if he doesn't turn up the right cards. Rather than equipping a weapon like the Baseball Bat in the first turn, it might be helpful to use the card draw action to find something useful for getting clues.

As he stashes cards in the discard pile, Yorick will have more options to deal with threats and challenges. Pull out the shovel for especially shrouded locations and grab a bat when the heavies show up. Lean on your mysterious benefactress early and call in your cop friend late. Try to maximize the impact of events by holding onto them for the right moment.

Upgrade strategy

Will to Survive solves a lot of problems for solo Yorick if he can afford it. The big question is what to remove. A solo player is less likely to have 2 clues in a location, so "Look what I found!" might be a good card to ditch.

Upgrading Emergency Cache to the 3XP version is a priority to pay for more expensive cards. (If you have the Revised Core, the 2XP version's card draw might be better than the extra resource.)

Police Badge extends the Will to Survive window and can be recurred after defeating the first enemy in the round. It's unfortunate that the badge takes up an accessory slot that's normally reserved for a Cherished Keepsake. But if you have an ally to soak up horror, giving up one keepsake for a badge seems like a good trade.

Upgrading to Beat Cop (2XP) and Lucky! (2XP) are obvious decisions.

True Survivor is a bit expensive, but combos incredibly well with Resourceful, which is otherwise hard to recur. Incredibly, Resourceful can also pull back True Survivor to use in future turns. Scavenging feels like a good card to sub out.