An action movie magician - A Guide for Dexter

"Dexter may seem like a normal-ass stage magician, boss. But believe me he isn’t. He has built up a network and knows the system in and out. He lives by the rules of the street, stranger to the laws of man. Night for night he goes on stage, preforms tricks with a sinister narrative. Behind him a being of insurmountable power."

Dexter has always been a bit of an odd duck to optimize. Like in most mystics you need to decide, how much you want to go all-in into his ability and how much leverage his deck-building. It turns out mystics can be pretty complicated when they don’t comply to the “Every mystic deck ever”-formula.
But let’s get into the fun stuff.

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Role: Very flexy, with options into leaning more into both.

Combat: A lot of flexibility with Sword Cane, Razor and Shrivelling, but not a high Dmg ceiling.

Clues: Good compression and pretty high ceiling.

Resources/Cards: Good consistency with Black Market & Scroll, Renfield and Cheat the System for cash.

Encounter Protection: High innate will, plus PoP and Cancel cards.

Horror/Damage: A little vulnerable at LVL0, but healing and soak provided with upgrades.

Difficulty: Straightforward gameplan. Rewards unintuitive play.

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Click here for the LVL0

Click her for the End-game build

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The Rules of the Street

Piloting

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Mulligan

1. Keep Card draw/Engines (Renfield, Black Market/Scroll)
2. One handling/clueing Spell
3. Stat boosts (Grounded, Pendulum, Prophetic)
   - Mulligan Deny/Ward, but keep PoP; and also, synergy cards

The general gameplan is simple, get your assets down and use to their innate compression for good tempo. Then draw more cards to get more events into the actual (or virtual) hand and play new ones for good tempo. Rince and Repeat. The EotE Spells work very well here, rewarding you for emptying them quickly. Smash most of the tests with very high stats. Good utility cards like CotC (apparently my new favourite card) and Sword Cane can handle tricky situations. Same for the Synergy package and Black Market, providing power plays.
Resources should never be a problem, and you also have a good number of extra actions in addition to the compression you have.
Protect yourself with Ward/Deny and double PoP, together with your high will. Pretty clear for now, but let’s get too Black Market.

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The System

Black Market –review

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Black Market insanely, if the “Reveal 5” can turn to a “Play 5”. Note here that Black Market can reveal cards from any investigators deck and you can choose one-by-one from which deck to choose. I would recommend drawing from your deck though, as it is built around this card.
Play this card only really if you have enough resources and maybe an empty asset to toss. Then this can really pop off. Every asset on it becomes fast on it, and generally we include cards like Premonition as an always playable fast, 0-cost. Then Cheat the System (Uncage basically is) is fast, Call is fast, if you were intending to move, and your cancels are fast.
And this is just the powerplay idea. Early game/Midgame it can be a great tool for Clue-Spells, Razor and Renfield/Scroll to keep your cycle running. Also don’t be scared to use your cancels off of Black Market aggressively, because it just is so much positive value to make Market a “draw 3-4". It also provides a ton of flexibility, especially regarding the option to take cards from other investigators and others being able to use your synergy cards, if you build for it. Call alone provides a lot of play, so those Circle; and System can help with resources. The decisions you can do with this card a basically endless, so this can have an insane ceiling.

Of course, this slightly discourages Promise, as it can’t be played from Market, but I think it’s just a too good card not to play, even if it’s slightly anti-synergistic. And running a deck without skills is also bad

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The Network

Synergy-Package

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Synergy cards are less of an archetype and more of a package you include, if it fits. The strength here is that you can slowly transition into synergy deck, as all of the cards cost exp, as the aforementioned LVL0 has basically only purple cards.
This deck is able to put out all five classes pretty consistently. Mainly due to Prophetic. A card we haven’t talked about yet.
Another stat boost may seem like a bit too much, with Pendulum, Renfield, Grounded and this. But if you pay attention all of these cards have an additional affect. Prophetic effect is that it can also pay for your assets and has the Guardian and Survivor class for the synergy. Mystic is always filled, so is Rogue, due to Adaptable. Seeker is filled by Divination or Scroll. But even if you don’t get all five all of your synergy cards have great value. A fast Circle with 3 charges is already great, Cheat the System as a fast Cache is excellent and Call is sometimes played for only the move and the clue.
The ceiling on all of these is obviously incredible. Five Resources off a Cheat the System off a Black Market, together with a move, clue, double heal and dmg off of Call may be worth the occasional mediocre play.

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Sinister Narrative

Specific card discussion

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Scroll of Secrets: Kinda good card that get even more value in Dexter. As a self-emptying card for 1 resource, it can be used to just to get something down free and fast, by throwing away an empty spell and also as a cheap card too keep a Shrivelling or Cane in hand, for when you need it. You don’t even really need to make it completely empty, before discarding it.

Sword Cane: Same thing as Scroll, as it can trigger without even spending an action. Plus, it’s able to be used every turn.

David Renfield: Stat boost, riskless resource engine. What is not to like? Never kill him off, unless forced too, because that loses a card and an action and also always put a second doom on him the turn your planning to get rid of him.

Rite of Seeking over Clairvoyance: Being pretty much the same card, if think Rite is a little better, due to its only 2 exp upgrade (for a direct Research) and no more threatening downside in the max version. Its downside is also more play-aroundable, but Clairvoyance won’t end your turn and is better on higher difficulties.

Grounded: An absolutely excellent card on all fronts. It’s fast and free, great from Black Market, that for the soak it provides is already pretty good. Boosts all tests on spells, can be a resource dump for hard tests, has soak that is healable with Call. If it doesn’t come from Market, you should also wait for it to get value immediately, to play around its downside.

Signatures

Assets:

Showmanship: Not my favourite sig. With all the stats this deck has it never really gets value. The icons are also not too great.

Molly Maxwell: I don’t personally own this card, nor have I had the motivation to proxy it, but on paper a very strong tutor, as going through the list, you notice that everything (apart from Razor and the Spell assets) have unique trait.

Weakness:

Occult Scraps: Not the end of the world, but a bit of a tempo hit. Guess, you’ll have to play your assets like a normal human now.

Yaztaroth: Also, a tempo hit, but a bit more threatening than Scraps, due to the two actions.

Other Considerations

Lucky Cigarette Case (at LVL0): I prefer Pendulum (the ceiling is higher etc., etc.), but if you play on lower difficulties this might be pretty good. Is in the upgraded version, as soon as the spells are upgraded.

Holy Rosary: If you’re scared.

Thick of It: Let’s you start with Grounded, but a bit much with also Research. Down the Rabbits Hole might be an option, but that doesn’t really net you anything.

Dayana: Sadly, doesn’t work with Black Market, but still ok when Deny and Ward are upgraded.

Feel free to suggest any ideas you have in the comment sections

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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here or on Discord as @Triloth.