Preston Fairmont. Richest gravedigger ever.

I've tried money hoarding Preston, and been a little bit disappointed. He seemed to be very slow for setup, and not really fast enough later in scenario.

So now I'm trying money spending version.

Goal of this deck is to investigate reliably. But with Preston's stats and cardpool we had to come with different way of doing it. But let's start with few concepts.

1) Tempo boosting. First challenge for Preston is to boost his tempo to be pretty reliable with acceptable time for setup. Our main tempo boosters are our Alies.

Lola Santiago is probably card that most people starts building Preston's deck from. For good reason. She is perfect for Preston. In this version you don't rely that much on her stat boosting (that's what Dark Horse Preston likes). But you are going to rely on her ability to buy clues.

Joey "The Rat" Vigil now that's a surprise, but welcome one. Preston has money, but he lacks actions. and I believe Joe boost action economy for this deck better than Leo De Luca does. This deck relies on playing many many items, and Joe saves action for each item. Thanks to this you can turn Cherished Keepsake into on demand 2 sanity soak playable whenever you want for 1 resource. We can afford this.

Calling in Favors is there for two main purposes. First to reset damage from soaks, but to be honest that's lesser use. It's main purpose is to bring both alies as soon as possible. Whenever you have one of alies, you play this event, look for second one, then play one you returned to hand. You need those two asap.

2)Scavenging. Yes, I believe this card requires it's own part of description. We have Preston with multiple cards allowing you to get clues/deal damage testlessly. So scavenging is here to return items you need. Sometimes you will have to overcommit test, to pass it by 2, to fire scavenging, and return whatever you need. Money Talks and Rise to the Occasion are here to boost those tests.

3)Clue gathering. We have many tools for different tasks.

Flashlight is obvious, bring shroud to 0, and profit. And let Lola profit as well. Gravedigger's Shovel in this deck this is 3 resources and action for 1 clue regardless of shroud. When you discard shovel, you want Scavenging later for it again. Or return it from Resourceful.

"Look what I found!" and Winging It are here to speed up tempo. sadly you don't have any methods to put it into discard other than playing it. But when you do it, use Lola as well. This way you save additional resource.

4) How does this deck play

Usually I would put this section early in the description, but I believe this deck is weird, and it required some details first.

Early in the game you want Lola and Joe up and going (probably Joe even more than Lola), then start setting up your items. Whenever possible, do it with Joey, actions matter, resources not that much. When you have Joe and scavenging, you can start using Flashlight aggresively, then replace one with another. Or with two shovels. throw it to the discard, then do big investigate to use scavenging to bring it back to hand. same with Cherished Keepsake, you probably don't want to play it for actions. Pay Joe, and he will bring it to you whenever you want. For small price, but again action>>> resources. Speaking of resources, you want to have stash of money in your resource pool (i'd say 5-10). Firstly to play Cherished Keepsake during mythos phase, secondly to pass any agility test on encounter cards. You have to assume that you do not pass any non- agility tests (you rarely test knowledge in mythos). Joey "The Rat" Vigil is also your main damage soak. You don't want him to die tho. That's where you use Calling in Favors, you return joe, then play him again (if you didn't found second copy of him).

5) Things worth mentioning.

Lantern I'm still considering replacing #flashlight with this. Or including it instead of Money Talks. This is repeatable 1 dmg for 3 resources. (with all this scavenging thing). Also, if included alongside flashlight, it should ease discarding flashlight. Probably requires some testing to see how it works. But I guess it is worth considering it. Leo De Luca I'm almost positive that he isn't better than those two included in this deck. Yes, I know I mentioned that actions >>> resources, but Leo gives you bland action. Lola is non negotiable ally, but Joe... you can use him more than once per turn, and also you can use him outside of your turn. I might consider playing 2x charisma, and 3 unique alies, but I don't know what to remove.

Dario El-Amin I do believe he might find place in some deck, but probably not in this one. But with him, and Lola, you will have 3 knowledge, paired with some other cards, it may be worth testing somewhere. But don't try him here. Goddamit, Preston can make some use of so many good ailes (and there still is Peter Sylvestre also boosting stats.

6)Disclaimer

This deck wasn't tested at all. It is based of tests of my money hoarder Preston, that turned pretty disappointing. Even in sceanrio where I had 2x Hot Streak in my starting hand, he was very slow. So this deck has some (well most of those) risky concepts, that on paper seem to work together. It needs testing, it probably needs some refining, but it seems like it can work. And while Preston remains unsolved yet, I find it as interesting intelectual challenge.