Rita Passes Her Hyperphysics Exams.

Credit: Patrick McEvoy and JB Casacop

This deck is posted in collaboration with Justin from the Youtube channel PlayingBoardGames.

If you don't know them already, they have tons of Arkham Horror content as well as other board games!

Rita has received a lot of hype with the latest releases, and I wanted to see if it was justified. She used to suffer from 2 main issues: poor access to cards that truly leverage her and a punishing weakness.

My initial intuition was that Breaking and Entering (2) would be a game changer, using her to investigate, engage, evade and deal one damage/move, but it turned out to be far more unreliable and expected. So another tool caught my eye, one that uses your for _everything, introducing the Hyperphysical Shotcaster. I was unsure about wanting to publish a deck with this card because the community has overall been quite negative about the mere existence of this card. And because I haven't done it yet with Rita, here's another Ice Pick (3) build!

Following the success of the 20k Series, this 30k Series will focus on the investigators that are much harder to solve. Expect some jank, some outside-of-the-box thinking and hopefully some love for the underdogs of this game.

Click here to see all the previous decks. I will keep releasing a new standalone-ready deck concept every week on Friday, so stay tuned and keep supporting the Series by pressing the ♥ button if you want to see more!

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Applied Hyperphysics Understanding

• Crushing Enemies Like Your Exams

• Pass All Your Exams:

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

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• Use your Ability and Track Shoes to open new locations while you set up your assets.

• Stop on the lowest shroud location available and use the Hyperphysical Shotcaster with your 7 to empty all the opened locations from a central point.

  • Use the Ice Pick (3) Scavenging loop to empty your location in the process.

• Use Sweeping Kick and Hyperphysical Shotcaster, boosted by the Ice Pick (3) to defeat enemies.

• Use the Hyperphysical Shotcaster to discover clues at any revealed location.

  • With Peter Sylvestre, Track Shoes and Ice Pick (3) used on the test, you have 8 .

  • This means of course skipping Locked Doors and anything that would happen while investigating said location.

  • Use your Ability as well as Track Shoes to explore the map as fast as possible, then stop on the lowest shroud location available and empty locations from there. You can also stay at the same location and let your group do the revealing work for you.

Pro tip: Every time it is possible, at the end of your turn, use the ability of the Hyperphysical Shotcaster to switch it to its Railshooter form. This will allow you to deal with potential enemies you draw during the next Mythos phase, then switch to Telescanner afterwards instead of being stuck for the whole turn.

• Use Scavenging (2) to cycle the Hyperphysical Shotcaster.

  • The mechanic is too good to be true: on the last Aether, the Shotcaster discards itself, and it can be Scavenged on the same test for an infinite loop.

  • Schoffner's Catalogue finances this expensive cycle.

• Ice Pick (3) completes the loop for an additional clue at your location for maximal efficiency.

• Breaking and Entering is pure action compression.

  • Find a clue at your location, with 7 to 10 Skill value based on your assets in play.

  • Evade any enemy at your location. This means that this is better played on an Aloof enemy to ping a damage

This deck has many ways of dealing with enemies. Remember that they do not all have to be killed. A non-hunter/dooming/VP enemy is as good evaded and left behind as killed using many actions, especially as a killed enemy returns once the encounter deck shuffles.

But for enemies like the KKK, you need to take matters into hands.

• Hyperphysical Shotcaster also fights with your for 2 damage.

  • Add Ice Pick (3) on odd-health enemies to save actions and Aether. This is helpful to deal with the Hoods easily.

  • Another way to delete the Hoods is the simple, yet effective Sweeping Kick. You get 2 damage by the attack plus a 3rd one from your ability. Note that this will still trigger an attack from the pointy hats.

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Because consistency is key, this deck is packed with tutors/deck thinners:

• The reliable Backpack (2) finds the Hyperphysical Shotcaster, Track Shoes, Ice Pick (3), Schoffner's Catalogue, and Talisman of Protection. This is almost all you need to reach cruising speed.

• Easy Mark thins the deck while providing a bit of burst, handy when you don't find your Schoffner's Catalogue early enough.

• At a Crossroads is a free, one action - draw 3. Compare it to Deep Knowledge or even Preposterous Sketches to understand the value. It is a prime target for Resourceful. It even offers the versatility to give you an additional action once you are fully set up and do not need the draw anymore.

• Take Heart is easy to trigger on a 3 or 4-shroud location. If you pull the , well, at least you have one clue! It is a suitable target for Resourceful if you need cash more than cards.

• Peter Sylvestre is truly shining here for his , but also to protect your 5 Sanity.

• Another way to increase survivability is via the Talisman of Protection, which can be Scavenged for infinite recursion. Along with Peter Sylvestre, that's an infinite 3 horror soak.

• Live and Learn is here because we will always try to scavenge Hyperphysical Shotcaster on its last use, and if it fails, it can seriously hinder our progression. For that matter, we pack some protection.

  • Later, Live and Learn will also be a great safety net to Breaking and Entering (2) failures.

• Manual Dexterity supports early tests when Peter Sylvestre/Track Shoes didn't make it to the table yet.

Later Upgrades:

Another Standalone-friendly version of this deck uses 10 more experience, adding notably Dirty Fighting.

• Dirty Fighting makes it quicker to deal with enemies, leaving you more space to get clues and move the game forward.

• Reality Collapser on the Hyperphysical Shotcaster is excellent in most campaigns, allowing you to clear a lot of treacheries with your . Don't forget that you can do it at any location.

• To get more wiggle room in your Schoffner's Catalogue/Ice Pick (3) cycles, upgrading the number of Aether by purchasing Aetheric Link is surprisingly helpful to lift some weight off Scavenging (2).

• Breaking and Entering (2) gives you more value, especially when combined with Dirty Fighting: Clue, Engage, Evade, Ability, and Fight, all in one action.

• Once we have Dirty Fighting, we have assets from 4 classes, making Cheat the System valuable.

• The extra resources are used on Plucky (3) to offer complete protection to and treacheries, as well as additional soak.

• If lacking ways to spend the last experience points, Observed is always a good option.

• We do not take Short Supply in the deck because some cards are impossible to get back, such as Dirty Fighting or even Sweeping Kick and Breaking and Entering (2).

Disclaimer: This decklist is published in the version that I tested. The upgrade path is just one possiblto could upgrade while maintaining the best experience and value of the deck. As these decks are made to be universally good, feel free to adapt them to your campaign and change the upgrade order around based on your experience.
Thanks to @Nicodemus for taking this deck through a campaign and helping me consolidate the upgrade path.

[Link to the 0xp deck](0xp: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/2941305 )

(View at arkham-starter.com)

[Link to the full xp deck](Full XP: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/2941319)

To create your own guides, find the template I have created here