John Henreyes

This deck is more thematic than ergonomic, seeking to tank damage/horror while rail-gunning meatsacks with your sledge hammer because clues are for nerds and god does it feel righteous. Its main weaknesses are it has a lot of expensive cards to that end, and ends up needing movement shoehorned in to make the most of the upgraded sledgehammer. The other weapons in this deck amount to a two-handed combo of the Wrench and Survival Knife, which is OK in a pinch.

Weapons are a must in this deck, so mulligan for them or Prepared for the Worst/Tetuso Mori/Backpack hard. If your hammer gets discarded, it can be retrieved with resourceful, which will become much more useful as cards get upgraded into survivor.

Movement is handled by Safeguard and Track Shoes, though the latter is only truly useful once you upgrade into Scrapper (via Versatile->Physical Training) and Peter.

Finally, asnthis deck relies on the high likely hood that you will draw damage/horror soak/avoidance, most slots are used to this purpose.

Upgrade path:

sledgehammer x1 -> sledgehammer (4) x1 (OPTIONALLY DELAY TILL OTHER SLEDGEHAMMER UPGRADE)

Versatile (2)

• Physical Training
• Drawing Thin x2
• Relentless x2

Charisma (3) x1

Physical Training -> Scrapper (3)

sledgehammer x1 -> sledgehammer (4) x1

Tetsuo Mori x2 -> Peter Sylvester (2) x2

prepared for the worst x2 -> backpack (2) x2

Beat Cop x2 -> Jessica Hyde (1) x2

dodge x2 -> infighting (3) x2

Something Worth Fighting For -> Precious Memento (4)

Relic Hunter (3) x1

Flesh Ward -> Earthly Serenity (4)

heavy furs x2 -> Protective Gear (3) x2

Calling in Favors x2 -> A Chance Encounter (2) x2

Due to the expensiveness of this deck, an injection of economy-based cards via Versatile is needed early on. This benefits from overkills, so it is preferred to take on sledge hammer upgrade first--though depending on the campaign you can wait to upgrade both at once later on. Both Drawing Thin and Relentless are important for capitalizing on enemy overkill, and the sooner you get them the better.

Following Versatile, some key holes in your defenses should be plugged, mainly extra soak via Charisma and Track Shoe triggers or evades via Scrapper. After that point the deck only benefits from upgraded Sledgehammers one-shotting most large enemies.

Next up is upgrading your allies to re-generators, with Peter further stabilizing Track Shoe triggers. Backpack allows for more general and deeper searching, making up for the loss of Tetsuo Mori.

Infighting is then taken to allow for some more powerful and resourceful-able attack canceling.

Finally come the general upgrades to damage/horror soak, with Relic Hunter taken after the second relic. There are arguments for taking Earthly Serenity earlier as it is much better than flesh ward and there is a 2-exp version stepping stone.

If you find yourself flush with exp it may be beneficial to grab allies from the grave with A Chance Encounter rather than swap them from your hand with Calling in Favors.