Dexter Drake: The Prestige | Chapter 2 Deck Guide

The Prestige

These are replacement decks for Chapter 2 investigators. All have been playtested in Chapter 2, and also extensively in Chapter 1. If you want to support my work, give it a like ❤︎ and a favorite ★ on here!

It's Chapter 2 time! Here Dexter performs classic Mystic duty, with high and spell assets for damage and clues. When he's not pulling rabbits from hats, he's vanishing assets with both his ability and Prestidigitation. In true Prestige fashion, remember: making something disappear isn't enough... you have to bring it back.

NOTE: There is an error where decks containing newer versions of cards cannot be posted currently (e.g. Overpower vs. Overpower). I won't be able to change the deck retrospectively to the new Ch2 cards, so please click this link for a version of the deck with the Chapter 2 cards.

At a Glance

Stats
Clue-finding:	★★★☆☆
Consistency:	★★★★★
Enemy Management:	★★★★☆
Encounter Defense:	★★★★★
Survivability:	★★★★☆
Simplicity:	★★★★☆

_{I thought I'd implement a Valentin-style rating system to make these guides more accessible. "Consistency" covers card draw and resource economy. In essence it's an outcome measure of "does the resource economy cover the costs of my asset engine and desirable events, and can I find my engine and play it?"}

Overview

• The refreshing bold taste of Mystic: With Jim in play, Dexter investigates at a 6 using Second Sight and kills things at an 8 with Cosmic Flame. With the inimitable Ward of Protection, he cancels treacheries he doesn't like. Fearless and Guts reward you for your willpower tests with healing and card draw, while making Necronomicon easier to handle. It doesn't get more mystical than this!

• For my next trick... consistency: For clue assets you have both Second Sight and Thieves' Kit. While Thieves' Kit isn't too strong at 3 it still serves as a backup and usually refunds its cost on standard difficulty. Add in "For my next trick..." and you have a 88% chance of drawing at least one with a hard mulligan. With Jim Culver and Lucky Cigarette Case (i.e. assets which draw cards to find other assets), then at least one odds are 99% in a hard mulligan. As such you either have a clue-finding asset in your opening hand, or you're not waiting long to draw one.

• The part we call "The Prestige": In terms of bringing things back Prestige-style, with his ability Dexter does this in spades. It allows you to play an asset and then return a drained spell or a poorly Jim and play them fully-charged or healthy in a later action. You can pull off similar hijinks with Prestidigitation, playing a Cloak of Resonance or Lucky Cigarette Case at a discount and returning a Thieves' Kit. If any of these cards have doom from Will of the Cosmos, it goes poof when its returned. Will of the Cosmos can do a lot of heavy lifting if used right, e.g. going for the clue ending in Brethren of Ash, using both copies I scooped up 4 clues with this in two player (with the doom going on Jim, which I fed to the big baddie - sorry Jim!).

• Cash money: The core engine here is Lucky Cigarette Case, Second Sight and Cosmic Flame, which total 9 resources. Emergency Cache and "For my next trick..." provide an 8 resources, in addition to the starting 5. For assets like Jim or Cloak of Resonance (or replaying spells), the dubious Paint the Town Red can provide a bit more cash - there is a 4 health Elusive enemy in Brethren of Ash so that's the best use case (resource actions are otherwise better most of the time). With Prestidigitation you can play Cloak or Case at a discount and return Thieves' Kit (which has usually refunded itself).

• Enemy Management: Combat is upgraded Cosmic Flame with Cloak of Resonance coupled to Soul Link for more damage. Charges can also be spent off Cosmic Flame for extra damage that you can apply to any enemy at your location. When not fighting, you have 9 and icons each to support basic evades (a lifeline when you draw Necronomicon while engaged), including Manual Dexterity.

_{Thank you: 5argon and their thumbnail tool; Valentin1331 for his support over the years; the community creators of ArkhamDB (kamalisk), Arkham.Build (Felix) and Arkham Cards (zzorba) - linking their Patreons!}

Campaign starter and planned progression

In terms of side deck, you could keep Unexpected Courage in the deck long term instead of Manual Dexterity, but I like the card draw of the latter a little more. 0 XP deck is below (and link here):

A recommended order of purchases/upgrades is:

• 1 x Cosmic Flame → 1x Cosmic Flame •••••

• Unexpected Courage → Fearless ••

• 1 x Cosmic Flame → 1x Cosmic Flame •••••

To compare the starter and fully upgraded decks, one copy of upgraded Cosmic Flame is taken early (with "For my next trick..." it's like you have two copies). The upgraded Cosmic Flame is a massive improvement, giving you a +2 boost, a passive +1 damage, and the ability to spend charges for an extra damage. Then Unexpected Courage is replaced with Fearless. While Fearless can't be committed to any test like Courage, the horror healing is just too good. Soul Link rather than Courage is retained due to the synergy with Cloak of Resonance. Finally, a second copy of upgraded Cosmic Flame is added to your deck.

Explain Yourself!

As a pretty straight forward Mystic deck, I don't think there's much to explain! The most contentious choice is perhaps going for Thieves' Kit as a backup clue asset, as it is slightly sketchy on 3 stat. Equally I don't think there's an alternative, as you're often dead weight without a means to find clues. While you could run Olivier with Charisma to boost the Kit, it's too pricey for me. This of course all works best on standard difficulty.

I really don't like Paint the Town Red, but it's the "best" of a lot of bad options for money (which Dexter needs to pull off cool stuff). At least with Cosmic Flame you can easily kill any enemy that Paint draws (or if you draw an Elusive enemy, they get out of your hair quickly anyway). No Lucky Charm as with Dexter's ability to ping back soak assets then moving damage or horror around isn't needed (and it clashes with Lucky Cigarette Case).

New starter deck additions: "Watch this!" replaces Paint the Town Red. I'm sure I'll make the change so fast it'll leave scorch marks on my table! Out the Door replaces Manual Dexterity, providing more sorely needed resource economy (you can upgrade Out the Door as well). Favor of Baalshandor with Cosmic Guidance form a nice dyad, I might be inclined to remove Soul Link and Cloak of Resonance for them. Upgraded Jim is awesome, so I would include him too!

With the much improved resource economy, I think you can nix Emergency Cache for Arcane Initiate. Lockpicks replaces Thieves' Kit, possibly using upgraded Lockpicks as well. Upgraded Second Sight could replace Second Sight as a luxury upgrade, but doesn't provide innate clue compression so it's less needed. Arcane Experience can be useful if you want a spare arcane slot to house The Necronomicon, whether 4 XP is worth it is up to you! Functionally this plays very similar but with much more money to hand, more consistency with Arcane Initiate, and a much better back-up option for clue-finding in Lockpicks.

Final thoughts

I was a bit dubious on Dexter at first, but when "For my next trick..." was revealed that all changed. It's non-fast No Stone Unturned for spells and items which let's you play them at a discount. Given that he's already a card draw wizard (pun intended) with Jim and Lucky Cigarette Case, Dexter's sheer consistency really caught my eye. I guess the only slight problem is a lack of resources, but there is still about enough here to make the deck work.

I'm also a big fan of The Necronomicon as a weakness. I think the hidden drawback of it is just how many resources it effectively wastes by discarding a spell asset (assuming you have both arcane slots filled), especially as Second Sight and Cosmic Flame aren't exactly cheap. If it's drawn at a crucial moment it's totally brutal - I know I've stopped activating Lucky Cigarette Case after a point for fear of pulling it out my deck when my engine is set up already...

Anyway - that's my last deck, I hope you've enjoyed my take on Chapter 2! Honestly I'm pretty impressed with the amount of deckbuilding there is to do right out the box with just Chapter 2, as there's a few ways to build most investigators without any being subpar - definitely a design feat. Any thoughts let me know!