After a few varied deck ideas, I ended up a little tired of seeing a few common combos in numerous decks. In order to challenge myself, I decided to create a set of decks under some restrictions. While more complex challenges were possible, I decided to try to create a set of decks such that a new player could have all of the appropriate investigators pre-made and ready to go when starting a stand-alone game.

It's been a while since my last publish, I've finally finished the write-up for Zoey. Zoey is the third of my Minimalist character set for Dunwich Horror. While I started on her later than the others, she came together very smoothly. The available set of Guardian cards combined with her innate and stats means that she naturally turned into an ally-based combat character, splashing in various horror healing mechanisms to stabilize her stats and provide options when combat isn't an option.

Minimalist Restrictions

The following restrictions apply to these Minimalist decks:

• An investigator of every class in the set must be buildable with a single copy of the Core Set and the set containing the investigator.
• This deck can use up to 9 XP. (Without this rule, there aren't enough cards to create five full decks.)

With that in mind, allow me to present:

Minimalist Zoey Samaras

Ruduen's Minimalist Dunwich Set

Primary Role: Combat

Secondary Role: Healer/Support

Summary

Zoey has a fairly straightforward game plan - she should stick to the group and kill monsters. If no monsters are available, then she should fall back on keeping the most injured allies in good states using Clarity of Mind or First Aid.

Mulligan Strategy:

When multiple cards are in the same line, prefer the earliest available items in the line.

• Always Keep:
  • 1x Machete/.45 Automatic/Baseball Bat/Kukri
  • 1x Zoey's Cross
• Sometimes Keep:
  • 2x Beat Cop/Beat Cop/Brother Xavier/Guard Dog (If Always Keep are both accounted for)
  • 1x Emergency Cache (If cost of other kept cards are 6+)

General Strategy:

Your first priority is to get a weapon out, preparing for combat accordingly. Any of the allies will be good secondary options once you've got a weapon out - all of them are useful in helping to soak hits or doing enough damage to finish someone off. The price is high, but Zoey's ability should give you enough income to afford them.

As the game ticks on, you can transition to helping allies with any spare actions. Clarity of Mind, First Aid and Liquid Courage can all help get someone up if they've taken more damage than they can afford. If you have the resources to spare, feel free to use those to keep the group up and running. Meanwhile, sticking with the group can help you get an occasional bonus from "If it bleeds..." or a good use of Leadership.

Notable Inclusions:

• First Aid/Clarity of Mind/Liquid Courage Zoey has incredibly bad sanity, and precious few ways of relieving it. As inefficient as these cards are, they help her with this weakness, and Brother Xavier means she's as good as anybody to handle a drink. They also give her something to do during her downtime.
• Charisma: While Zoey could using up Elder Sign Amulets to make up for her lacking sanity, her innate resource gain and the power of Zoey's Cross made me want to avoid using up that slot. Instead, she takes advantage of some stronger retaliation/fiat damage options through Beat Cop, Guard Dog and Brother Xavier to fill that niche.
• Teamwork: I'm still debating between this and Taunt. Teamwork works better for group play, but can also be more fussy. Taunt is awkward in the general sense, but is functional in Zoey's hands, especially when dealing with normally Aloof enemies.

Notable Omissions:

• Overpower: While it's a useful card, Zoey has a variety of non-test options for dealing damage. As such, they were given up to help fill "Ashcan" Pete's build in this group.
• Dynamite Blast: This was a tough call, but Dynamite Blast was excluded to fill out Jenny's deck instead. While Zoey has a reasonable amount of income, she doesn't need the card as much. Her innate and slightly lower income meant she could manage most fights without that ace. On the other hand, Jenny's more lacking suite of combat tools meant she could use that damage and afford the cost more easily.
• Taunt: As mentioned, this and Teamwork were difficult to decide on. Teamwork ended up in the posted version, but Taunt can have a place in Zoey's deck.

Recommended Upgrades:

• Vicious Blow: This will help round out and focus on the offensive part of your deck. It was only cut since there were other higher priority cards to synergize with the included allies.
• Stand Together: This is a good bit of support that will see use if Zoey's in the same area as anybody else.

Thanks

Thanks for sticking through this entire write-up. While the other Minimalist decks in this set are prepared, I'm still working on the write-up for them, so keep an eye out if you're interested.

The currently available Minimalist decks for Dunwich are as follows:

• Minimalist Jenny Barnes
• Minimalist Rex Murphy

In the meantime, feel free to check out my other decks:

• Testless Infinite Wendy
• Everywhere and Nowhere (Luke Robinson)
• Shallow Gravedigger William
• Myriad Mandy

Thoughts and comments are appreciated!