The Queen of Tricks (29 XP Legacy)

Foreword

This deck is part of a series of decks I designed around Hunter's Instinct/Hunter's Instinct(2). I really enjoy what this card brings to the table: rather than building a deck around a single fixed combo, Hunter's Instinct lets you recycle the right event for the situation at hand.

You can find the other Hunter's Instinct decks here:

• Stella Clark | The Chainsaw Chain
• Darrell Simmons | The Hunter Who Doesn't Hunt
• Rita Young | The Queen of Tricks

Deck Overview

“And you have my Longbow.” — Rita Young

The deck revolves around Rita's access to a wide variety of Trick events, turning enemies into opportunities to deal damage, gain resources, discover clues, and control the board:

1. Sweeping Kick + A Sudden Fall → boss-killing
2. Grift + Snitch → resources and clues
3. "Where's the Party?" + Bewitching → engine setup
4. Hunter's Instinct + Resourceful → recursion
5. Loner + Track Shoes → mobility
6. Daniel Jameson → reliability

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1. Sweeping Kick + A Sudden Fall

“One kick to break your balance. One push to finish the job.”

This is your boss-killing combo, as neither event is restricted to non-Elite enemies.

Round 1:

• Deal 3 damage with Sweeping Kick and evade the enemy.
• Deal 3 damage fast (thanks to Dirty Fighting) with A Sudden Fall(2).
• Deal 3 damage with Longbow.
• Reload your Longbow.
• When the enemy readies during the upkeep phase, return Sweeping Kick to your hand with Hunter's Instinct(2).

That's 9 damage in a single round, and you're ready to do it all over again.

Round 2:

• Deal 3 damage with Sweeping Kick and evade the enemy.
• Deal 3 damage fast (thanks to Dirty Fighting) with Longbow.
• Reload your Longbow.
• Deal 3 more damage with Longbow.

That's a total of 18 damage in just 2 rounds. And yes, Rita just kicked a boss to death.

2. Grift + Snitch

“First your money. Then your secrets.”

This combo allows you to have a significant impact on clue tempo as well. Whenever there is an enemy at your location:

• Play Grift for a massive resource boost.
• Play Snitch fast to grab 2 clues.

Later, return these events to your hand with Hunter's Instinct(2) to fire the combo off again.

3. "Where's the party?" + Bewitching

“Find the party. Pick a guest. Work your magic.”

At its most basic, "Where's the party?" allows you to:

• Fish out victory enemies from the encounter deck.
• Draw cards.

But because the enemy spawns engaged with you and exhausted, you can also:

• Trigger Bewitching.
• Trigger Hunter's Instinct(2).
• Get +2 resources from Grift with Dirty Fighting.
• Get +2 damage from A Sudden Fall(2).

This turns "Where's the party?" into much more than a way to find victory enemies and draw cards: it effectively becomes a setup tool for your entire engine.

Depending on your team composition and the scenario, you can set up Bewitching with:

• Dirty Fighting/Sweeping Kick/A Sudden Fall(2) to focus on fighting.
• Dirty Fighting/Snitch/Grift to focus on clueing.
• Dirty Fighting/Snitch/A Sudden Fall(2) is my personal favorite, as it lets you do a little bit of both.

Note: Even your signature weakness, Hoods, can fuel your engine if you draw it at the right moment.

4. Hunter's Instinct + Resourceful

“One instinct fades. Another takes its place.”

Hunter's Instinct(2) works particularly well in this deck, as it allows you to assemble whichever of the two combos described above is needed depending on the current state of the game: either a boss-killing engine or a repeatable source of both resources and clues.

Keep in mind that Rita is the queen of evasion, so you can always intentionally end your turn at a location with an evaded enemy. Engaging that enemy during the upkeep phase lets you trigger Hunter's Instinct(2) again.

Once Hunter's Instinct(2) has run out of uses, Resourceful can recur it, giving you another round of event recursion.

Note: Easy Mark can also be an interesting recursion target if you have another copy in your hand.

5. Loner + Track Shoes

“One small step for Rita. One giant leap for the team.”

Loner and Track Shoes together provide insane mobility. They allow you to:

• Close the gap to a distant enemy.
• Drag an engaged enemy around without provoking attacks of opportunity.

This is extremely valuable when you need to reposition yourself or an enemy before unleashing your engine, whether for fighting or clueing.

6. Daniel Jameson

“There is no failure. Only another try.”

The combos described above involve quite a few high-value skill tests. During fights, you really don't want to fail a 3-damage attack, whether you're firing the Longbow or playing one of your combat events. Likewise, you don't want to fail a Grift test, as it's the only way to play Snitch.

Given Rita's statline, the difficulty of these tests will rarely be an issue. However, there's always the autofail token. This is where Daniel Jameson comes in: he does a great job of protecting you from that one bad token when failing a test would be particularly painful.

Upgrade Path [added after publishing]

Here is a suggested level 0 deck and upgrade path.

For the reason why Scrape By made its way into the deck, see the comment section.

The 19 XP milestone is already satisfying, as by then you've got the core of the Sweeping Kick + A Sudden Fall(2) engine online.

[0 XP deck]

If you still have XP to spare after this point, Ace in the Hole (replacing Loner) is a great luxury option to tuck under Bewitching with Dirty Fighting and Snitch.