Peep! Peeeeep! Zoey at War

This is a Zoey Samaras deck I built for a four-player team taking on War of the Outer Gods in epic multiplayer this December. It's good to build when one has a brief, and mine was simple: the team had Luke, Ursula and a flexy Winifred, so my role was fight, fight, fight.

Knowing some of the challenges of War in terms of enemy management, I fancied plenty of damage, so my mind turned to Flamethrower. Then I was on to engagement to get the most out of it, and I looked at Taunt, "Let me handle this!", "Get over here!" and the newly released Riot Whistle and Righteous Hunt. Righteous Hunt was discounted early as we weren't playing with bless as a team but the original version of this deck included the other four cards. There's something interesting going on with how these cards interact. The whistle can turn GOH into a bonus action; Taunt is actionless so doesn't profit from the whistle. Do you even need LMHT if you have bonus engage actions from the whistle? And where do attacks of opportunity fit in with engaging enemies while engaged with others? I toyed with Trench Knife, but the Flamethrower more or less precludes taking any additional hand slot assets. There's definitely something to be explored around engagement there with all those cards, but I plumped for the whistle and GOH and left it at that. And, of course, engagement is particularly useful for Zoey because she generates resources for doing it. Purging the unclean in the righteous flames of her trusty flamethrower - what's not to love?

After that, Relic Hunter was vital so that I could whistle and wield Zoey's Cross. To answer some of the challenge of engaging while already engaged (and therefore getting hit) two copies of Flesh Ward were added. As it happened, I wound up taking 4 damage and 1 horror in a single hit at one point (goshdarn Shoggoths!), so the little bolstering boost of the ward felt useful (though not vital).

In terms of events and skills, I wanted to run Overpower, Vicious Blow and Take the Initiative, and so I figured 'well, let's get double value from them with Practice Makes Perfect', one of the most fun and potent cards from The Dream-Eaters. Once I'd settle on that, I looked to other Practiced skills to ensure PMakesP would hit... and turned to Promise of Power for panic evades or mythos protection and Stunning Blow. The latter is incredible for Zoey to a) avoid an attack in the enemy phase and b) get another resource for re-engaging a half-killed enemy. 'But what about the action you have to spend re-engaging an aloof enemy?' I hear you cry. Ahem, I got me a whistle! Peep peep!

The rest of the deck rounded out nicely. Stick to the Plan was to host some flex cards: Prepared for the Worst, Teamwork if I got very rich, Dynamite Blast for a huge hit if needed. Glory and Stand Together were for card and resource economy respectively. Stand Together isn't as potent for setting up as an Emergency Cache but I figured as Zoey got resource-rich, sharing the love with resources through Stand Together and Teamwork was more important than being rich myself. Beat Cop was my ally choice essentially to provide even more damage options; between Zoey's Cross, the cop and the Riot Whistle, engaging a two-health enemy could mince them, all for zero actions. Gotta save that Flamethrower ammo for the big targets! .45 Thompson is in case I didn't see the Flamethrower.

Notable exclusions: well, there's a whole suite of cards around ammo I could have leant into to make the flamethrowers last longer, as well as cards like Ever Vigilant to help get set up. That, of course, is a different build; once I'd settled on the whistle, that became the focus. I'd have loved 2x Safeguard (perhaps by downgrading the Vicious Blows) but deck slots, by the end, were tight. -1 Teamwork (putting a Practice Makes Perfect on Stick to the Plan instead) for +1 Safeguard is an option.

Play this deck if you like a very focused, very killy style that can showboat with its skills and liquify enemies in a burst of flames. Rely on teammates for clues, movement and most evasion!