“Skids” O’Toole Chapter 1 Evergreen

I’ve recently been goofing around with limited card pools in order to replay older content without either cranking the difficulty or feeling like I’m cheating. Poking around on ArkhamDB, I noticed there aren’t many decks that combine the original core set with the first set of investigator decks to simulate an “evergreen” Chapter 1 environment. Consider this my attempt to remedy that for the much-maligned rogue of the original core set, “Skids” O’Toole. I tend to do true solo when I’m playing Arkham on my own, and I tend to prefer balanced decks when I’m playing with my buddies, so this deck is designed to do a bit of both while leaning slightly more towards combat.

“Skids” is definitely a challenge to play, and his reputation (for a very large part of the game’s lifecycle) as the absolute worst investigator is well-founded. His mediocre stat line is the root of the problem; because he doesn’t do anything particularly well, there are very few unsupported tests you can reliably expect him to pass. To a degree, this destroys the value of his player ability because what good is an extra action if it’s not pushing the game state forward? This is the trap I ran into when I first started playing him. My natural inclination was to build up a set of assets (ex. Physical Training) to offset the weakness of his stats, but then I couldn’t afford his ability. At that point, what good is an investigator with an unusable ability?

What ultimately ended up working for me with “Skids” was leaning into testless damage (Sneak Attack, Beat Cop, and Dynamite Blast) along with cards that combine two of his mediocre stats into a near unbeatable pool (Cheap Shot and Lockpicks) so that I wasn’t trying to spread my limited number of skill cards across too many tests. To help fund his extra actions or set myself up for an expensive Dynamite Blast, the combination of Emergency Cache (a free resource if I use it in a pinch as my fourth action) and Sneak By (2 resources when I’m already going to evade anyway) feed me enough resources to keep the wheels greased and the deck moving. Since “Skids” can’t reliably trigger Lucky Cigarette Case with this deck, Glory is how I feed myself cards instead.

The choice of weapons here is a bit flexible. I find the deck works best with something that consistently outputs two damage (so that rules out Knife and .41 Derringer), but you can slot in the .45 Automatic for the Machete if you want to lean into firearms for an upgrade path into Sharpshooter, or Mauser C96 if you would rather give up an extra ammo to not have your gun exhaust. Supporting those weapons tests are the passive boost to combat provided by Beat Cop, along with the throw-away support of Overpower, Vicious Blow, and Unexpected Courage (if I haven’t needed to flex it to a willpower test earlier in the game).

Rounding out the deck are two other cards. Flashlight is there to help ensure I get a clue gathering asset in my opening draw and also compensate for a bad draw that breaks my lockpick. “Skids” is by no means the smartest investigator, but his stat value of 3 is respectable when supported by a little light. Since I’m not packing Physical Training in this deck, Guts is there (alongside Unexpected Courage) to help navigate willpower tests from the encounter deck.