"Tactician" ||Pete

Credit: Jake Murray & Keanu Reeves & Some third-party hands

Pete, after losing Duke and now determined not to lose anyone else, has become more careful, capable of surviving on his own, and now is helping others survive as well, relying on his techniques, on things that he can understand, and on things that he can't.

This time I wanted to create a deck to make ||Pete really shine. Since we won't be using Duke on this deck, I decided to make a full support + enemy management deck that can (and will) solve tons of issues for your allies.

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• How to use Makeshift Trap and Hiding Spot

• Losing your Guitar

• Pros and Cons

• Upgrade Path

• Make Your Own Deck!

• Credits

This deck's purpose is to be a complete support to your team, this deck doesn't work on True Solo and probably won't work on 2P (this deck plays like a really proactive Carson), be warned.

The main strategy of this deck is to use ||Pete's ability to keep recycling Makeshift Trap and Hiding Spot while using Pete's Guitar to push/pull enemies to better spots, stopping attacks, stopping hunter, making them easier to attack/evade and maybe even poisoning them. While doing all that, the deck also counts with several cards to provide all kinds of support to your teammates.

Before I continue, I have to point out how Pete's Guitar might be the most busted card ever printed in this game, in my opinion, it is on the same level as Exceptional Lvl 5 cards. This card can be used to:

• Disengage and push enemies away from you or from your cluevers
• Pull enemies towards your fighters
• Push enemies that are going to hunter+attack (or double hunter) away
• Disrupt patrolling enemies
• Gather them all in the same location that has a Makeshift Trap (said trap that will lock them in place, make them unable to perform AoO, make them easier to attack/evade and maybe even poison them)

All of that, and it starts in play, can be used in any fast trigger windows, AND it sometimes comes with a free resource or horror heal. This card is a gift that keeps on giving and that will maybe get taboo/errata'd in the future.

How this deck supports:

• Use and Abuse Pete's Guitar combined with Makeshift Trap to completely disable every single non-elite enemy in the scenario.
• Provide excellent support for your team with:
  • Cards: Scroll of Prophecies, Shrine of the Moirai (3) and At a Crossroads (1)
  • Healing and Protection: Hallowed Mirror, A Test of Will, Elaborate Distraction, and Hiding Spot
  • Helping with Tests: Map the Area, Pocket Multi Tool and Lucky! (3)
  • Solving location tests: Survival Technique (2)
  • Resources: Schoffner's Catalogue
  • Damage: Makeshift Trap's poisonous upgrade, Long Shot and Elaborate Distraction
• And also trying to be a little useful on your own with "Look what I found!" and Nature of the Beast (1).

So, about Shrine of the Moirai. This card always had great potential but had really tough drawbacks, this deck can solve all of them with ease and turn it into a menace:

• "It draws an encounter card": This deck can help with tests with Pocket Multi Tool, Map the Area, and Lucky! (3), push spawned enemies away using Pete's Guitar or make them useless with Hiding Spot or Makeshift Trap, and, if the drawn card is way too dangerous, even cancel it with A Test of Will.

• "It takes 3 turns in the same location to completely use it, then it is useless": This deck can redeploy it using Survival Technique to use it 2 times in the same turn and to recharge it. Also, you will notice that you will stay still in the same location managing the scenario for several turns (because Pete's Guitar can be used on connecting locations), and you will have time to use it again and again during those turns to recover your support cards.

• "Sometime you and your allies are going to run out of good cards to recover": Actually not! Since we can keep recovering dilemma cards that will instantly play themselves every single turn for several good effects for you or your allies (Cards or actions with At a Crossroads and clues with Nature of the Beast). Also, A Test of Will, "Look what I found!", Schoffner's Catalogue, Long Shot, and Elaborate Distraction are always good cards to keep recovering to either play or have in hand.

Other cards:

• Sparrow Mask: Greatly help us pass almost all tests that we are going to be doing during the scenario (Location, Encounter, and Track Shoes tests).

• Track Shoes: Great card to help us move through the map, helps us with some of our tests and allows us to drop a Makeshift Trap(If it has the simple upgrade) or use Pete's Guitar in the middle of the track shoes's test.

• Elaborate Distraction: Really strong in the right situations, and we usually have the actions to use it easily.

• Refine: Just a great use of our extra actions.

• A Chance Encounter (2): A fun tech to use to get an ally for you if your allies run any non-unique ally or if they are fine with you taking one of their unique allies.

About damage soaking/tanking:

You will notice that this version only has Hallowed Mirror to help us with damage mitigation, and it is actually ok enough! The 0xp version of the deck also has x2 Bandages to help us while we don't have the necessary upgrades to handle the scenario well enough (In form of better trap efficiency, multi tool test help and Map the Area redeployment with Survival Technique), once we have that, we drop Bandages for better support cards.

I felt the need to add a section to explain how these cards work and how to use them. If you want to at least figure out how to use them by yourself, skip the whole bold section!

First, important notes:

Trap's explosive device upgrade DOESN'T work with ||Pete's ability, given that it requires that the trap discard itself, but that doesn't happen when you use Pete's ability. Also, Trap's poisonous upgrade only does damage to one enemy each round, not every enemy in the location. Last thing, Trap's net upgrade also blocks the guitar from moving an enemy out of it, its "cannot" effect is absolute.

Hiding Spot DOESN'T disengage enemies at its location when played. It only prevents disengaged enemies from engaging. You still will be attacked in the enemy phase if an enemy is engaged with you (just like with aloof enemies).

So, HOW TO USE THEM:

Trap's main purpose is to create a 'pit' to throw all non-elite enemies into and let them there to rot. The net upgrade is beyond busted, not only does it allow this by making the enemies in the location unable to move (which includes following an investigator that they're engaged to), it also makes the enemies unable to make AoO, only allowing regular attacks during the enemy phase.

The main uses for Makeshift Trap are:

• Being the pit.
• Making non-elite enemies easier to hit.
• Damaging any enemy (including elites).
• Create a safe spot for you and your allies to perform actions and traverse without being attacked or followed.

Hiding Spot's main purpose is to create a safe spot from new enemies or from enemies that still have not engaged with someone.

The main uses for Hiding Spot are:

• Make the "pit" location safe to enter to reset your trap once it expires (if you still don't have the simple or remote configuration upgrades).
• Create a safe spot for you and your allies to enter and perform actions and traverse without being attacked or followed (It can also prevent attacks if you plan to end your turn there).
• Prevent evaded enemies from engaging in the upkeep phase once they are readied.

Here are the main tips regarding them:

• Be sure to keep resetting your pit's trap every time it expires to prevent any enemy from leaking. Use Hiding Spot to prevent the AoO of the pit from playing the trap (that usually can instakill you later in the scenario) if your trap still doesn't have the simple or remote configuration upgrades. Also, this AoO is the only AoO that you have to care about since, once placed, the net upgrade stops the rest of the AoO.

• You can pull an enemy that is 2 locations away from the pit if you are in the in-between location by pulling the enemy to you, walking into the pit (taking the new enemy's AoO), and then walking out (the enemy has to stay behind in the pit because of the net upgrade).

• Hiding Spot sometimes can become stuck if no ready enemies end the enemy phase there, be careful if you plan to place one in a location that still doesn't have/won't have enemies (You can still recover your Hiding Spot if you have Survival Technique or if the scenario changes).

• Be careful so that your Trap and Hiding Spot don't break on the same round because you can recover only one of them with ||Pete's ability per round (this is a lot easier to manage once you have the improved timer upgrade and/or Survival Technique).

• Trap DOESN'T stop regular enemy attacks from the enemy phase, don't let any allies end their turn there if there isn't a Hiding Spot prior in the location to prevent the enemies from engaging them.

• Placing a trap (or even TWO!) on your fighter when a big fight is about to start is a good practice (easier tests against non-elites and extra damage from the poisonous upgrade).

  ---

Losing your guitar is a real issue for ||Pete. Since it isn't permanent, it can be discarded by Crypt Chill and by other new treacheries in Dunwich, The Forgotten Age, Circle Undone, Dream-Eaters, and several other campaigns.

And... we don't have many ways of avoiding that.

Your first priority should always be putting new assets in play to protect your guitar. If everything fails, I hope you have A Test of Will in hand to protect it. If not. Well, you can only recover it by drawing your entire deck so it gets reshuffled into your deck (It can't be recovered by Resourceful or Shrine of the Moirai since it isn't a Survivor card or have a level).

If you want to have a backup plan (I don't recommend it), you can include a single copy of Salvage (2) to recover it when needed.

Pros:

• Make the non-elite enemies of the scenario completely useless.
• Extremely good economy with guitar, On Your Own (3E) and occasionally Schoffner's Catalogue
• Awesome support capability
• Virtually immortal (You usually don't take attacks, and you have consistent horror healing with the guitar).
• You will get to play with a lot of underused cards in a really optimal way (Shrine of the Moirai, Makeshift Trap, Hiding Spot, Survival Technique, Pocket Multi Tool,...).

Cons

• It does almost nothing against elite enemies (This is the reason, imo, that this deck doesn't work on 1P and might not work on 2P)
• Sometimes it lacks useful actions (since we can't fight/investigate well by default), you will find yourself using the basic draw action (or Scroll of Prophecies's ability) a lot (just like Carson in a way).
• Might make the game a little boring for your allies (just like Gloria)
• This deck requires that you do creative plays from time to time, if that isn't your style, this deck might not be for you.

Link to the 0xp deck

(View at arkham-starter.com)

• ...why aren't you using ||Pete's deckbuilding? It seems so much better.

It really is pretty good, giving you access to really cool cards to play around with (like Dynamite Blast (3), Ambush (1), Under Surveillance (1), Shortcut (2), On the Hunt (3), ...) while also giving access to tons of good lvl0 cards.

BUT, I really wanted to include Scroll of Prophecies in this deck (it uses a free slot, makes good use of our extra actions, has support potential and even the discard effect is ok for our entire team because of Shrine of the Moirai, it fits like a glove) and be able to reach 10xp on both trap and pocket multi tool, and ||Pete's deckbuilding doesn't allow that.

So, here are the strengths of each deckbuilding if you are considering using the other:

Regular Deckbuilding:

-- Trap and Multi Tool can reach 10xp (parallel only allows for 8xp for trap and 6xp for tool).

-- Scroll of Prophecies. (just an insane card)

Parallel Deckbuilding:

-- Cool cards (Dynamite Blast (3), Ambush (1), Under Surveillance (1), Shortcut (2), On the Hunt (3), ...).

-- Access to a lot of off-color 0xp cards that can be useful (Shortcut, Safeguard, Stand Together, Barricade, Solemn Vow, Motivational Speech, Breach the Door, ...).

• What about [Insert cool attachment card here]? I'll make a list describing why I'm not using each of them that I can remember

  • Breach the Door: Cool card, but hard to set up with base fight value, and I never could fit it in the deck.

  • Under Surveillance (1): Cool card, the evade effect is a little useless, but the free clue is always welcome. Just a little expensive. This card is one of my planned upgrades if I decide to use the parallel deckbuilding.

  • Ambush (1): Cool card. This card is also one of my planned upgrades if I decide to use the parallel deckbuilding.

  • Lure (1/2): Just seems weak and not really useful.

  • Snare Trap (2) and Fend Off (3): The evade effect is really useless in this deck.

  • Grievous Wound: Seems insane in theory, but it requires us to attack an enemy with a melee asset (which is a problem), and it can only be used against non-elite enemies. All that for a recyclable Vicious Blow that will let the attached enemy attack at least once before taking effect.

  • Handcuffs and Bolas: Weird and situational. Might be good with allies that benefit from having enemies around (Trish, Alessandra, Power Word users, ...).

  • Barricade (0/3): Just bad. A card that can (and will) be discarded easily, requiring constant attention, for an effect that is useless given the guitar.

  • On the Hunt (3): Cool card, if I ever needed this much economy.

• What about [insert cool support card here]? I'll do the same as the list above:

  • Shortcut (0/2): Both excellent cards and a must-have on the parallel deckbuilding.

  • Safeguard: So, this deck doesn't want to keep following their allies all over the map. We can do most things from connecting locations (Pete's Guitar, Makeshift Trap with remote configuration, Hiding Spot, Elaborate Distraction, Long Shot, At a Crossroads (1), Nature of the Beast (1)), which makes this card not really that useful.

  • Matchbox, Bandages, most skills, ...: These cards suffer from the same issue as the last card. We don't usually stay together with our allies to always be ready to use these cards for them.

  • Earthly Serenity (1/4): Cool cards, hard to fit in and expensive xp-wise. I would consider running them if I have a team that lacks enough soaking/healing.

  • Stand Together, Fighting Lessons and Motivational Speech: Cool cards, hard to fit in.

  • Keep Faith (0): Cool card, even tho it is a great target for shrine and can receive On Your Own's discount, it is also hard to fit in and not that impactful. Unfortunately.

• To end this, all add a list of weird cards that might have a place in this deck:

  • Painkillers: Weirdly works, it is cheaper than Bandages, provide more damage soak than Leather Coat, and recharges our Sparrow Mask. The only issue is that it puts a lot of extra pressure on your horror healing, which can be problematic on some scenarios/campaigns.

  • Solemn Vow: Good card to help us make good use of our reliable horror healing, but it is definetely hard to find space in the deck to fit it in.

  • Dynamite Blast: So, I've been thinking about this card for a long time, I've read people saying that they never could use this card while playing ||Pete. Fine, it is expensive, situational, and will reintroduce enemies back in the encounter deck (which can be free draws for your allies or future problems), but it can really help against elite enemies in desperate situations. Idk, it is up to you if you want to use it. Imo, it has its place. Also, @RyanMuQ has a cool deck around it that you should check out!

  • Making Preparations, Heed the Dream (2), Fickle Fortune (3), and Predator or Prey: All the other dilemmas might have a place in this deck, it is up to you. (Note that Predator or Prey has a weird interaction with the Trap. If all enemies are non-elite and are stuck in a trap and you draw this card, you have to choose the second option (given the "must change game state" revelation rule)).

  • Meat Cleaver, .18 Derringer or Fire Extinguisher (3): If you ever need a weapon, I recommend these or Duke. But that would be really unthematic of you.

Thanks @RFreitas for all the feedback through out all versions of this monstrosity, @Valentin1331 for the template, and @my_group for putting up with my shenanigans.

To create your own guides, find the template here.