Stabby Leo and his Band of Roving Associates (XP'd up)

"Leo: I'm a lone wolf! (as he's being followed by his army of hired muscle and treasure hunters.)" - Reddit user Lemmingitus

Stabby Leo!

I was looking to make a late-game guardian deck that didn't lean on the standard shotgun or lightning gun shenanigans that I've seen from Guardian in past campaigns. Instead of building toward low use, high-damage fight actions, this deck aims to capitalize on putting out tons of little lower-damage fight actions. The plan is to attack a whole bunch and let the little cuts add up. This is definitely meant for cooperative play. With an of 3, Leo might be able to sneak a clue or two off of a low-shroud location, but it's not really his main thing.

His main thing!

Leo wants to be fighting stuff.

Machete is pretty much universally regarded as the best weapon in the game. What this deck presupposes is... what if it isn't? If you end up engaged with more than one enemy, it's basically a less flexible Knife. But Leo has access to Switchblade. In the right situation, a switchblade is almost strictly better than a machete. It's fast, it only costs one supply, and it has a higher fight boost.

There are two problems with this that the deck needs to address.

The first problem is, you have to crush the skill test to get your +1 damage. To help with that, we've got our friend the Beat Cop, our friend the Hired Muscle, and two copies of Reliable. In the magic christmas land where you get your switchblade alongside all four of these cards, you get to take fight actions with a of 10 before committing a single skill card! Against most rank-and-file enemies, this will get you over the +2 hump almost always. In the less magic, more realistic scenario, you're still pretty likely to get at least two or three of your fight boosters out.

The second problem is, even at a of 8-10, you're gonna run into situations where you get a run of bad pulls or fight a high-fight enemy and you lose out on the +1 damage. If you can't guarantee 2 damage in a single action, might as well guarantee more actions. That's why we've got Leo De Luca. Quick Thinking and Daring Maneuver help with the problem too. Vicious Blow lets you be more confident of your extra damage when you need to be sure it's dead, and Survival Knife covers your ass when you can't quite push through to lethal during your turn.

The economy!

I hate, hate, hate clicking for money. There's just so many better things you could do with an action. I think I've mathed out the deck so that you almost never have to.

By my accounting, over the course of a game this deck will want to spend somewhere between 22 and 30 resources. So how do we get that many resources?

You start with $5. I'm assuming you'll get about $12 more as time goes by from regular upkeep, which puts us at $17 total before playing any cards.

Lone Wolf isn't the most reliable source of money when you're the team's protector, but it's drip econ and I think it's worth the include. It won't fire every turn, but it feels really good when it does fire without requiring an action. It's also hits prior to your investigator ability, so it's good for getting you that one last resource that you need to play an ally. Let's say it's worth $4-$5. Emergency Cache gets you another $3, and so now you're at $24-$25 total.

And I've agonized over Decorated Skull! On paper, it's a really good card. There are times when you simply have no other choice but to draw a card or gain a resource, and this gets you both in one go. It's better when it comes out early, so there's a temptation to include two copies for consistency. But the second copy is useless even for icons after the first one comes out--you're not an evader. And there comes a point where you don't want to be drawing cards at all, for fear of triggering your weaknesses; then your first copy is useless. Maybe I'd chuck it for a second Emergency Cache or for a "Watch this!".

The other cards!

Stick to the Plan is pretty universally great. Having three guaranteed cards available to you all game? Plus thinning your deck by almost 10% to make your draws better? Yes please. In my case, the plan is Prepared for the Worst for when you can't find your knives, Emergency Cache for when you need an econ boost, and Elusive for when shit gets out of hand.

Calling in Favors is a must-have. The deck relies heavily on finding Mitch Brown so that it can get a full suite of four allies out. And if you've found Mitch early, it can still be used to scare up Leo De Luca or any of your other buddies. It feels a little bad to play it, since it means you miss out on your free top-of-turn action. It feels even worse to have to dig for an important ally.

Charisma is equally important. if you don't have an open ally slot, you can't use your free top-of-turn. That's leaving money on the table.

And First Aid and Inspiring Presence are there to keep your allies around once you get them. None of your buddies can take more than a single hit from anything but a rat without dying, and with the Survival Knife, you're going to be taking more than a few hits over the course of the game.

Lastly, Evidence! is a tech card that I'm not sure about, but a free, actionless clue is nothing to sneeze at. I'm not sure if it's a good use of the deck slot.

The downsides!

The biggest problem I have in this deck is that utility deck slots are in short supply. I'd love to include things like "Let me handle this!", On the Hunt, and other "help the team" guardian cards, but the base kit has too many pieces.

I'd also love to get some horror soak in there. If things get horrifying, you don't have much recourse. Maybe an Elder Sign Amulet?

What do you think? Anything you'd move around or change?