Throwing Axes

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
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IdleMuse · 27

Runic Axe with Yorick is borderline broken once you tick Ancient Power. So, let's use In the Thick of It to start with that unlocked. Mulligan heavily for an Axe, and get the second one into your graveyard ASAP, with Short Supply and and Prepared for the Worst to find it.

Now you're set up, you can spend all four charges off the Axe for a 7, 4 damage attack, which will clear most enemies off the board in one swipe. Then use the Yorick trigger to replay the second one from your graveyard, and you're ready to go again. In practice you don't need to do this every round; use inbetween rounds to knock off little enemies without spending all the charges, and use the kills to replay Schoffner's Catalogue instead, as you really need it to afford to replay the axe.

All in all this plays much like a Police Badge or Chainsaw recursion Yorick deck, but starts with a lower XP requirement to get 'online', and, in the case of chainsaw, is just much better. You can flexibly spend the Axe charges to the size of damage vs skill increase you need.

Problems it can run up against: needing to find both axes for the 'full combo' means it can be hard to get started if you get a particularly bad starting hand. Beat Cop and Vicious Blow are good candidates to get a weaponless kill if, for instance, both axes are in the graveyard from Short Supply.

Key upgrades:

  • Bruiser is additional cash to spend on Axes if you're struggling, but more often is just a free +2 .

  • Drawing Thin is the card draw card this deck is otherwise missing. You don't really need a lot of card draw, once the deck is set up, you're really just cycling Axes and Catalogues and don't need much more than that, but, it can be very handy in the first few turns, or if you need additional cash to smooth a turn out. Remember that you can unbury a Short Supply'd Drawing Thin with Yorick even though that is thematically confusing.

  • You can tick one more box on Runic Axe. I like Inscription of the Hunt personally, but there's an easy argument for Heirloom. I think the others are probably too situational to be worth it.

  • Upgraded Lucky, Prepared for the Worst, and Emergency Cache (for the incidental draw) are reasonable purchases, as are survivor staples like Eucatastrophe or Alter Fate

Variants:

  • I've played a version of this with Bandolier instead of Leather Coat, leaving a spare hand for Pocket Multi Tool, which has some neat upgrades to allow you to pass treachery tests more easily, and with Spring-loaded allows you to spend less charges/bruiser tokens on +, saving you money replaying axes in the long run.

  • You could obviously combo this with a Police Badge recursion engine, and just pick and choose what to recur. With that, you probably want Bandolier and some investigation-helping asset, as otherwise you will probably have spare actions unused.

  • The zero-xp version of this deck could also be tweaked based on your party; Stand Together is a reasonable include instead of some of the other Guardian events here, or if you have people using Bless strats, Keep Faith might be a good include to help them out in the early stages of a campaign. One or two Meat Cleaver might help if you are finding it hard to find the axes, or don't have access to Short Supply.

4 comments

Dec 04, 2022 Horo · 36

Good work, but sadly, Runic Axe is unique, and according to the rule:

A player cannot bring into play a unique card if a copy of that card (by title) is already in play,

and as the Runic Axe doesn't discard itself, it isn't possible to replace the Runic Axe in play with the second copy in your graveyard

Dec 04, 2022 Zweizergain · 1

@Horo Act of Desperation can discard the axe before the attack, so it doesn't matter. You may use other cheap weapons for replacing the axe too, like .18 Derringer etc.

Dec 04, 2022 IdleMuse · 27

Is there a ruling that specifies the ordering of the unique rule vs the slot rule? My understanding is that you can do this because the other version has left play already due to the slot rule discarding it. Neither rule is particularly clear regards the timing..

Slots rule occurs 'simultaneously with the new asset entering the slot.' Unique rule says 'cannot bring into play', not 'cannot play'. In absence of a specific ruling I believe this all happens simultaneously in step 4 of appendix 1.

If you interpret it the other way, then as @Zweizergain suggested, Act of Desperation is a good include, and/or a cheap weapon to cycle, like Fire Axe. A probably-too-complicated option would be to Versatile in a Fast hand asset like Switchblade, and play it and Well-Maintained in the post-commit window of the combat, discarding the axe, then use the Yorick trigger to replay the Axe, bouncing the well-maintained switchblade back to your hand. No options to do this in-class, alas.

Jan 09, 2023 Doovies · 608

I thought this deck has something going for it. There are a couple of novel ideas that can fix the issue regarding rotating the axe in and out of play...

  • Improvised Shield: This card can be played from your discard for 1 resource outside of defeating an enemy, as well as from Yorrick's ability. As long as the card isn't defeated, you can cycle it constantly for 2 soak. Replace it with coat in the deck. It's 1 handed, which leads into the next card...

  • Meat Cleaver: superb 1 handed weapon that essentially can deal 4 damage for 1 horror to a 4 health minion. I find more efficient and versatile in this case over Fire Axe. Defeating an enemy allows you to get the runic axe back and ensuring both it and your potential improvised shield are both in the discsard pile to swap out.

This makes the deck much more resource heavy. Act of Desperation, the heirloom upgrade for the axe, and bruiser are probably neccassary includes. Bruiser can also pay for the shield as well (armor trait).

You could run Tetsuo Mori to get your catalogues back. Good soak for your horror you'll be taking with the cleaver.

The only issue i found is getting Improvised shield into the discard pile. Save 1 copy of act of desperation if neither end up in the discard pile. Or run Cornered.