Darrell - Steady-Handed Photographer | TSK/TFoHV/TDC Only

I would like to introduce the Cluever deck I used in The Drown City campaign. As a main cluever, Darrell collected 80% of total clues on average, and has proven himself a brilliant skill-value supporter in a 3-player game.

This deck is built upon the CURRENT card pool limitation, which only uses packs from TSK, TFoHV and TDC, core sets and investigator sets.

This deck has two main strategies on investigating:

• 0-difficulty investigating, which is what Darrell's typical strength thanks to his ability. Old Keyring + Scavenging and Shed a Light are here to provide impressive clue compression. A skill test with 0 difficulty will always success regardless of modifiers except auto-fail.
• Over-success and precise. Use Grim Memoir to trigger the abilities on Empirical Hypothesis, Scavenging and Alton O'Connell. Steady-Handed and Fine Tuning are here to improve the stability.

While the 0-difficulty strategy is doubtless for Darrell, the over-success and precise strategy might be somewhat surprising. The main advantages are:

• Grim Memoir provides a early-stage choice of investigating when the 0-difficulty components are not ready. It starts to work without any other dependencies because you can investigate at 7.
• Empirical Hypothesis is a very nice evidence generator. It is more reliable than Darrell's Kodak, and much more sufficient with Fine Tuning. It starts working even when you have 0 experience - just you succeed at a test by 3 or more is enough.
• Empirical Hypothesis and Grim Memoir are also excellent card-draw engines. Empirical Hypothesis can support your teammates with Peer Review upgrade so the evidence is never wasted.
• Alton O'Connell is a good balance between over-success and 0-difficulty. When you use Old Keyring to investigate, you can trigger O'connell's ability. In this way, it uses the modified shroud value, which means you can get a free clue with 0 evidence cost when the original shroud value is 2 or lower.

• S-tier comes from the very smooth component setup, impressive investigation efficiency and ability to auto-succeed ANY 4-or-lower-difficulty skill tests for ANYONE at your location.
• The only weakness comes from short of actions. Surprisingly, Darrell have 0 choices of action compression given the card pool limitation. I really wish to have any of Pathfinder, Hiking Boots, Shortcut or Eon Chart but I cannot. But if you are in the TDC campaign, it would not be the problem.

Mulligun Strategy

Mulligun for Grim Memoir, Empirical Hypothesis, Hunting Jacket and all other card-draw and resource engines. Secondly, keep Scavenging.

In-game Strategy

Collect as many evidence as you can by Empirical Hypothesis, Darrell's Kodak and Alton O'Connell. They are triggered usually by the of Grim Memoir. You can expect 2 to 4 evidence gaining for each round.

• Use Steady-Handed.
• Fine Tuning targets on 1) Empirical Hypothesis and 2) Steady-Handed.

Investigate by Old Keyring when you have sufficient evidence.

• For locations with 0 to 2 shroud value, you can also trigger Alton O'Connell's ability during this investigation to get a free clue with 0 evidence cost.
• For locations with 3 to 4 shroud value, use Darrell's ability to decrease the difficulty to 0 to get extra clues.
• For locations with 5 to 6 shroud value, Gumption is here.

Scavenging can recur Old Keyring, Grim Memoir and Hunting Jacket.

• It is triggered usually by Grim Memoir and sometimes by Shed a Light.
• Since its triggering is pretty sure because we are centered on over-success, you can even regard the extra Old Keyring as a simple commit card with .
• Unconventional Method helps you to actively drop Grim Memoir.
• A small tip: Cryptic Writings's can be triggered by attaching it to Hunting Jacket and then defeating Hunting Jacket.

Support Your Teammates

When you have exceeding evidence (it is pretty common since Empirical Hypothesis + Fine Tuning generates 2 evidence every turn), you can use your evidence to decrease other one's still test difficulty. And remember, a skill test with 0 difficulty will always success regardless of modifiers except auto-fail.

Gumption additionally boost the power of Darrell's ability. You can use an evidence and then commit it to the skill test. In this way, the difficulty is 0 as long as the original difficulty is 4 or less. This actually turns Darrell into a qualified Flex that can pass almost all skill tests. But since this deck is short at action compression, such skill test is usually performed by other person, and Darrell is just the one make the 0 difficulty magic.

Why don't you add Scavenging (2) / Pathfinder / Eon Chart / Hiking Boots / Deduction (2) / ...

Because I am applying the CURRENT card pool limitation that only allows cards in the core set, the Scarlet Keys, the Feast of Hemlock Vale, the Drown City and Investigator packs.

Upgrade Path

The 0xp deck is here.

(View at arkham-starter.com)