Take Heart triggers AFTER Grisly. No combo.

They trigger at the same time and you can choose their order.

Thanks for checking @MrGoldbee, but @StridingCity has it right. I checked this quiet thoroughly with the various rules gurus on discords actually in respect to Try and Try Again (which is the one that kicks in too late). They both trigger on the "if that skill test fails" step, so you can chose the order. Try and Try Again apparently can return take heart, but you wouldnt get the benefit. Eitherway as I say in the text, this could potentially be seen as glitching, it is likely not intentional in the design so i could encourage people to consider other players before you do it. I at least never wanted to use it to get more plays of take heart than the deck could manage without it via Scrounge for Supplies or Resourceful. I guess the main benefit here was saving 1 of those for anther "Look what I found!" or Live and Learn.

It hadn't occurred to me to pair Dark Horse with Stella, but it seems obvious now. The timing of Take Heart ("If this test fails") and "Look what I found!" ("Play after you fail") is such that you can use the former to pay for the latter on the same test, solving the usual problem with saving up for those 2-buck events with Dark Horse out. Neat!

@YenrebI'm pretty sure Take Heart and "Look what I found!" doesn't work. "Look what I found!" resolves on St.6 of the skill test framework, whereas Take Heart resolves on St.7.

I tried playing this deck through the Web of Dreams with a Winifred Habbamock deck (built around Joey (3)), and I was amazed at how many clues Stella got! She also managed to deal the killing blow to the final boss using some .18 Derringer + Live and Learn shenanigans. Super fun deck!

I found it very difficult to use Dark Horse though. I just never had the right number of resources to engage Dark Horse mode after failing. I probably could have planned things out better, though.

Also, as a side note, with all of the draw in the higher XP deck, Narcolepsy was a terrible weakness. I do not recommend. lol.

@KenkakuKnight I'm not sure how this doesn't work. You fail the test at step 6, play look what I found in response, and then you still lost the test? If take heart was committed you would be forced to resolve it? it's not like look what I found makes you succeed the test or ignore the results of the failed test.

@lexatuIt doesn't work in that Take Heart won't pay for "Look what I found!", it will only refund it. This means that you still need to the resources up front to pay for it . It's an important difference that can change the tempo of the game.

@KenkakuKnight Ah! sorry I thought you meant you couldn't resolve them both on the same test. What you're saying makes much more sense.

No worries @lexatu! I was hoping to use Take Heart to pay for "Look what I found!" and was disappointed when the timing didn't work. But there are so many good Survivor cards and combos that I don't mind it not working out.

Can Wingin It -1 be used when the investigate action is triggered through Old Key ring? And then achieve a -2 shroud modification?

@Conalias Winging It and Old Keyring each have their own investigate action so they can't be combined together

@StartWithTheName Just wanted to post to commend your fantastic pun work in your headers. The deck title got me to read in the first place, and you did not disappoint!

hehe - Thanks @HanoverFist. I legitimately have decks i did not publish because i didnt have a good enough pun.

seems #dumb luck is also great addition to stella's deck even with here 4 agility.

By all means give it a bash @serre. The most flexible slots to cut are grit your teeth and dark horse.

I personally didnt take to Dumb Luck in this deck because i was pushing agi high and aiming to pass tests on it without too much effort. This also makes Track Shoes more reliable. The cards doing a similar role to dumb luck in this deck are Lucky!, and Live and Learn which also let you "hedge" on evade checks but are cheaper and can be used on other tests. You can also go very high on agi with Neither Rain nor Snow if needed so theres a lot of ways to pass an evade without needing additional hedges. Of course you dont get the pseudo-kill that dumb luck offers. So it just depends on what you are trying to do woth the slot really. Incase you are interested, if you are simply trying to take the deck more combative, a cheeky 1x Waylay is another option, though admittedly it doesnt play into on fail effect stacking in the same way.

Doing a morph of this one in Return to Forgotten Age, thanks for the ideas. I also went no Dark Horse, a little more combative and am indeed running Quick Learner - it’s a hoot, like with Stella in general it seems you have to plan ahead for it but it’s great. Since FA favours evading Vengeance enemies I’m loading up on Dumb Luck (2) when the time comes.

Why no quick Learner?

fantastic @Krysmopompas, yeah TFA looks like somewhere Dumb Luck may shine. Can also upgrade into Close Call so the vengeance enemy doenst come back next turn (though you know it somehow will anyway!)

@OzValdo, I breifly cover this at the very bottom of the guide ;)

If im honest my reason for not trying it was mainly that I forgot about it. Though I do like having control about which test I fail as I am usually trying to do so for bonus clues. The other concern (and again this is entirely theoretical and untested) is that the times you have an enemy on you you will usually be using the first action to attack or evade, and these are tests that in this build I am trying to pass. Perhaps this plays more into @Krysmopompass and @serres Dumb Luck approach however. It looks like theres something there on paper at least.

Heads up anyone following this thread. The accompanying broader guides are now published:

• archivosarkham.com (Basic Chaos Bag stuff here)
• archivosarkham.com (How to use On Fail Tech Here)

and Spanish versions kindly translated by The Los Archives guys are here:

• archivosarkham.com (Basics here)
• archivosarkham.com (On Fail Tech here)

Theres a few more still to come from this series, but they are less relevant to this deck. Hope you enjoy them.

awesome thanks `@StartWithTheName. I was mentioning Stella's pack's new card Dumb Luck (2) in particular, as it can throw the enemy right to the bottom of the encounter deck. My first upgrades after a 2xTabooed Drawing Thin and 1xQuick Learner. Good point on Close Call too. Apologies for no hyperlinks.

Thanks a bundle for the elaborate write-up and awesome deck list @StartWithTheName! I'm fairly new to the game (Done Dunwich Legacy and almost through FA right now). I'm going to give this a swing in DE. I'm tempted to take on Quick Learner. I'll let you know how to goes once I'm through!

I and my GF has been playing through all the previous campaigns and are now just starting on Dream-Eaters. We mainly used decks you created and I must say we really enjoy them! Excellent guiding for how-to and upgrade paths, which makes it much easier for us, since there's a lot of cards to know about at this stage.

I have to say Survivors are the most fun to play for me and the GF prefers the Seekers. Though I did see her light up a couple of times Practicing Safe Hex.. I really enjoyed the Faceplanter. But for me, this Stella shenanigans is my new favorite.

We really are looking forward to see what Innsmouth will do to your elaborate deck scheming. Thank you for making it easier for us to enjoy this intriguing and fun game!

Would Fire axe be a better weapon replacement compared to meat cleaver and the like. Easy enough to activate between dark horse/drawing thin.

Thanks @Zanadar and @ramensgood - I appreciate the kind words. Its always nice to hear that folk have got use from these decks.

@siroma - Re Fire Axe vs Meat Cleaver its a bit of a coin flip. This isnt really a Dark Horse focussed build, in fact the current version I run of this simply swaps grit your teeth and dark horse out for some combination of Waylay, Dumb Luck (I came around to this - especially in TFA to move enemies to less awkward locations), Improvised Weapon, and/or Manual Dexterity depending on party composition. In most cases they still get xp`d over early.

I find that once I have Drawing Thin and enough draw to find Take Heart early game I end up with a lot of cash easy enough. Not really through abusing either card, just really by using drawing thin to force fails when needed, so although ive not tried the axe in this build, its not impossible that it might be hard to stay at 0 cash, and also if ive swapped in the Waylays, i want to horde money more. Though dumb luck or man dex could be paid for by on tap drawing thin cash maybe? The other way i use this cash however is to xp over the cleaver with a Timeworn Brand. Its expensive, but its ammo free. So its not far into the campaign that the axe/cleaver debate becomes moot. That all said, as with any survivor these days theres probably a dark horse build to be made somewhere.

@StartWithTheName Kudos. This deck is just too much fun to play. Stella has become one of my favorite true solo investigators playing this deck through RttFA. Awesome :-)

Thanks @andyhaggis - always good to hear people enjoying these things. Not tried her in either TFA yet, but that agi makes her look like she`ll handle it relatively well.

Un deck que se me hace bastante interesante al aprovechar cada oportunidad en el juego sea ganando o ganando con fallo XD. ¡Tengo que probarlo! El combo de Heart y Look se me hace bastante bueno y veo otros igualque tengo que probar. Gracias!

Amazing Survivor deck, @StartWithTheName.I am missing Track shoes for this deck. Can you recommend an alternative?

Thanks @andresd6! and after a little trip to google translate - Gracias @FederalCat!

You`ll be fine without the shoes. Some sort of asset from your collection that has a passive +1 would be the easiest swap. Peter Sylvestre comes to mind first. Or Moonstone. Failing that, just Manual Dexterity would work as a slightly more potent one shot.

@StartWithTheNamethank you, you are the best

@StartWithTheName Thanks for building this deck! I ran my own variant of this through Carcosa and a bunch of sidequests in a 4player campaign, and it's easily my favorite deck I've played or seen yet. Couple thoughts on it:

Quick Learner: I took two of these as my second and third upgrades, after getting my first copy of Drawing Thin, and I never regretted it. This card immediately became the workhorse of my deck, always letting me get my early fail at the start of the turn, and then made my remaining three actions so much easier. Basically, this card does what Dark Horse does in your deck, except it does it better and with more consistency throughout the campaign. Especially when combined with Drawing Thin, you'll never accidentally succeed when you want to fail. I recommend taking this card even before Granny Orne. Top tier, gold star card.

Relic Hunter/Grisly Totem: On the flip side, I never took this combo. By the time I was ready to consider it, I realized that I almost never needed to submit cards to checks (thanks mainly to Quick Learner). Outside of Take Heart, Resourceful is the only other card I'd have liked to recover, and I normally save it for safe checks anyway. Because of Drawing Thin and Rabbit's Foot, I always had a card draw engine early, and I never felt I needed to play Take Heart more than twice in a game. I did end up taking Try and Try Again (the budget version of this combo), and even when I got the perfect setup in one scenario, it felt lackluster.

Comedy Chainsaw Throwing: At first glance, this appears to be a fun direction to take the deck, but now that I've actually played it, it actually is EVEN MORE AWESOME THAN I WAS EXPECTING! Seriously, doing 15 damage in one turn, spending a turn reloading, and then doing it all again is bonkers fun, even if it's overkill in most 4-player games.

Déjà Vu: About halfway through, we had done enough sidequests that I had the xp to grab this, alongside Charisma, Flare, and A Test of Will. The Wills were solid, and Flare was a fun, janky direction to take the deck (Leo De Luca is next level good since I had the #Quick Learners out). It worked well, Déjà Vu easily paid for itself about twice over, and it held its own as a viable upgrade path, though that's mostly because the core deck was so strong already. However, it really depends on what allies your other gators are playing in their decks, and how annoyed they get if you take their allies more than once. I don't see the other Exile cards as being powerful enough to justify Déjà Vu.

All in all, great deck, tons of fun to play, and I really think you're sleeping on Quick Learner. Thanks for putting this together!

Cheers @VikingLeif great to hear your experiences.

I clearly need to take the leap of faith and try Quick Learner.

My main concern with it is that it forces the fail action to be the first action when sometimes I want it to be say the 2nd or 3rd. Specifically if you have an enemy on you, you might want to land the fight/evade, then fail somethign else. It feels like it wants the Dumb Luck or maybe even Oops! type cards in there to offset this... And the one time I ran Oops! Chainsaw combos was hilarious if a little high on xp for one joke.

Anyhow - perhaps im still being too cautious - all the more reason to actually try it out one day. The hard bit is finding the time :) Though I do still love stella. Its such a blast to play her.

I really appreciate the extended write-up. I’m a newer player who was initially underwhelmed by the Survivor class and you’ve done a great job of showing how to make the most out of it!

@StartWithTheName I understand the worry about Quick Learner, but it was never something that came up in the campaign or the sidequests we played. Maybe it was because we had 4 players, so there was always someone to take care of problematic issues, but mostly because it doesn't matter what kind of check Stella fails. Except for Oops! and "Look what I found!", you really don't care what kind of check it is that fails. Just make an evade, fail, and your second action is just like it would have been naturally, except you have the extra cards/resources that you just drew to help. There were occasionally edge cases where it got tricky, but it was more than made up for the fact that all 2 difficulty tests (and 3-shroud locations with Winging it) were basically auto-successes, without spending a thing.

@VikingLeif I’ve been playing this deck and am intrigued by your double Quick Learner variant. Do you have a decklist for your final build you’d be willing to share?

@captainequinoxSure: deck # 1245068

Thanks @VikingLeif! And thanks @StartWithTheNamefor the great deck! I added Quick Learner in before my group's Horror in High Gear run yesterday, and had a blast. Definitely changes the strategy a little, but man when that -2 difficulty kicks in for the third and fourth action it almost feels like cheating. Didn't even have Granny Orne out and was still raking in clues. My Stella is more clue-oriented, so now I'm debating whether to upgrade "Look what I found!" since the xp version isn't a valid target for Scrounge for Supplies, but I might upgrade Scrounge to True Survivor since this deck is packed with great innate skills already and then I can recur LWIF via Resourceful, which is in turn recurred with True Survivor.

Here's my 26xp version for anyone interested in a cluever variant: arkhamdb.com

@StartWithTheName Have you tried that deck with 1 copy of Scavenging (2) to recur the Old Keyring/.18 Derringer/Leather Coat? The upgraded version is great as it allows you to play your Items fast by discarding them in an 8+ hand and scavenging them to play.

I'm also curious about how to keep clueing consistency in a deck with Chainsaw, therefore loosing the Old Keyring? Is Winging It + Sharp Vision enough?

Have you had the time to run Quick Learner by then? I feel like getting 2 copies in my deck would just push the mechanics too far, I'm still looking for... horror. I'm not going to combo Grisly Totem + Take Heart for the same reason.

True Survivor was not mentioned either, when it's an amazing action compression card: with your Drawing Thin/Take Heart, resources are not a problem, and you can bring back both Resourceful and 1 copy of Take Heart/Neither Rain nor Snow in one turn.

@VikingLeif your deck is no more available, unfortunately...

Oh and I forgot to ask about Unrelenting? It gives you chaos tutoring when aiming at a certain score and gives you 2 cards when you're trying to fail by sealing the best tokens.

HI @Valentin1331

Ive not yet used scav 2 in stella, but i am using it in a huge number of decks recently and enjoying it emencely. I can absolutely see it being viable in stella as she flips back and forth between deliberately failing and hammering int for a pass. Its benefits tend to be on action compression in installing non essential assets (ie you dont mind waiting for the trigger moment to get them in play), or just spare cards you want to recycle. It is also very much limited to mid or late game as any urgent assets you should play from hand. theres a few iDs like ashcan or wendy that can strategically dump them with the plan to install, but stella doesnt sit in that space, at least in this build. Still, it lets you get the value from the pips, especially on second copies of cards, in particular Rabbit's Foot with its wild pip. Ofc this expects a cluier (clueyer? - how do you spell that?) build to get enough tests in to trigger scav at random rather than by force.

As for chainsaw, its basically going the other direction. You sacrifice clue tool use from Old Keyring in favour of a chainsaw. Now, there are two reasons for taking the chainsaw: The first is that it makes you a decent damage dealer, with moderate access to clue events. So you`ll clue enough to carry your weight, and kill a fair bit while looking cool doing it; The second is that its a chainsaw and you'll look cool doing it. Admittedly theres a venn diagram to be drawn here and one of those circles are entirely within the other... but! ... tbh when i wrote the guide I only considered situation 2. And I still believe I was right to do so ;P !

Nevertheless, in mechanical practice there is a balance to be struck and it basically depends on party composition. If you are short on damage dealing, channel your inner Bruce Camble, and take Chainsaw after Granny Orne (3). In this deck you are usually aiming to play "Look what I found!" on a location you have reduced the shroud to 2 or lower, so the main use of the Old Keyring is actually to fail the test on a high shroud location. Ie make a 4 shroud into a 2 shroud, fail and keep the keyring "key" (resource token), then play "Look what I found!" and get 2 clues (We then recur "Look what I found!" via Resourceful and Scrounge for Supplies). However Granny Orne lets us fail by 1 less, so we can use it on 3 shroud or higher unless we actually pass the test. Her passive +1 gives you a bit of a bonus on the 4 shrouds, and I guess from time to time you`ll just have to live with the fact she makes you pass things occasionally. The other side of her is that she may as well be a passive +1 on the first fight test you fail by 1 a turn... which cant be that many in the long run when you have +3 from the Chainsaw itself.

Ofc if the party needs clues more, stick to the cluieyer (yes I know thats wrong) side.

Unrelenting on the other hand was released after this write up was made and I am using it in a lot of decks mainly for the draw. Ofc here it will shine, both aiding the fail and spamming the draw to refresh your hand. Its a card I can imagine getting an extra xp added in taboo one day since it seems to do this even in non bless decks... still its not so far off the scale to worry about abuse in large amount. Here it feels like the compromises made to accommodate a "fail on tap" tool set has earned its benefits. Its also fun to pull it all off and see the engine land so perhaps its working as intended here.

ive never used True Survivor in any deck. Mainly because it looks slow. in this deck it may strive for space. Resources are plentyful but actions are still actions and if you can draw hard enough you`ll see another "pass/fail this" tool in time. even for grabbing a Resourceful to grab a "Look what I found!", you could have just used the action used to play True Survivor to just get a clue with a big int buff basically. Though as I say ive not tried it.

what would be a good rogue partner for Stella? :)

Hi @Millenhero. I imagine most will work well. This build is flexible with a slight leaning towards clues, and most rogues end up flex anyway unless you really focus the build around something (perhaps Trish is the clue heavy exception). I would be inclined to pick someone that looks fun, can stand their own, then build them as a flex with a slight lean towards damage if matching with this. Also this build is a bit old now. I would drop the Dark Horse and the Grit your teeth, and bring Manual Dex x2 and dumb luck x2 in their place. Have fun!

heja, me again :) would a mystic be a good choice? like agnes or Jacquiline? so stella is the seeker and the mystic is the fighter?

Yeah mystics are also very easy to build in any direction these days. Even seeker and guardian can be built flexy quite easily. I guess its more about just making sure the team as a whole is broadly balanced. I would also always try to make sure everyone can do at least a little of everything. There are times the game demands it by splitting up the party or telling everyone they need a clue etc, but its also just more interesting. If you just have one character doing damage and one doing clues, it can get a bit algorithmic on some turns. Can specialise a bit each but be careful not to over do it unless you like that sort of thing.

Now that Edge of the Earth is out, would you recommend adding Short Supply at creation?

Hi @GeneralXy. I have been playing a lot of short supply decks recently and I honestly think I wouldnt use it here. Though i would be very keen to hear if others have tried it, or even just disagree based on some logic ive missed.

Im finding it is a card for very specific decks rather than a general method of potentially getting winging its (and the like) in the bin to start with. I have had slightly too many runs with Bob where all but one copy of resourceful started discarded along with its target (in bobs case scav). And while i have seen people talking about the 10 cards discarded as being no different than if they are in the bottom 10 cards of the deck, it isnt quite the same. This is for 3 main reasons i can think of (at least that effect this deck): (1) when the deck flips the 10 cards get shuffled in with the rest of the discard pile, (2) Winging it (or similar) keep padding the deck as they get replayed; (3) it messes with search cards like Rabbit's Foot (3).

As I primarily use Resourceful and Scrounge for Supplies to recur "Look what I found!". Having to spend one to get the first use of a target card loses one use of it. So when the LWIF is in the bin, you get a slightly earlier play of it instead of an extra play of it if you see what i mean. On paper, this looks like it could be nice in a small way when it works but really bad when it doesnt.

But as i say, ive not tried it in stella.

Hey, you probably not heard of us yet. But we making the biggest and coolest website for Arkham horror the card game. Check out the website www.arkhamhorrordutchblogger.com We started a new chapter of testing decks that make it to the hall of fame or our attention. And we almost finished a card review of Stella Clark and with the article almost finished we want also to ad a deck for Stella. So we gonna use this deck so we can combine this with the new chapter! If you want we can mention your name! greetings team DBC!

hi @Dutch blogger company, Yes by all means please do feel free to spread the list around. I would possibly swap Grit Your Teeth and Dark Horse for Manual Dexterity and Dumb Luck these days, but that doesnt change the core concept much. You might also find the articles linked to at the top of the write up helpful if you are looking for more content.

Is it worth to play one fireaxe ( instead of the cleaver) and one compass ( still wondering how to fit it in) at LV 0 deck to have a staple way of having an optimal effect and interaction with dark horse with mean/above mean results? No more than that but just to be flexible and have nonresource ( compared to .18 Derringer or old keyring )good interactions with enemies and clues at 0 xp deck?

And different topic. You never considered Quick Learner cause it makes you play more on success then both on failing and passing tests? Is it a bait or it might work Ina different kind of Stella deck? Thank you for the nice guide, for the puns and for the funs.

@Menegone For what it's worth, I upgraded into 2x Quick Learner in this deck and it was super powerful. The deck author is correct that it kind of gives you less flexibility on which test you're going to fail (it's probably going to be the first one) but having 2 easy tests at the end of your turn is pretty fun. I was in a 4 player campaign, though, so I had plenty of friends to help out if, for example, there was a monster pinning me down that I didn't want to fail a test against.

Also I removed Dark Horse pretty quickly, as it didn't seem to be doing much for me.

I don't think Take Heart is a valid target for Grisly Totem's ability because there's no skill icon to duplicate. I don't think it matters whether it resolves earlier or not.

@StartWithTheNameDo you have any plans to revisit this list and perhaps swap in cards from Edge of the Earth/The Scarlet Keys? I see this was originally published in 2020 and was wondering if maybe some of the new cards would improve upon the deck's formula.

Thanks @batterypowered7. Im afraid ive been a bit too busy to make or maintain decklists for a while. In general I never did plan to update old decks. I used to post guides for decks I had made, played and enjoyed with the intention of showing my logic and what had worked/had been fun for me. Sort of showcasing the principals of a deck rather than specific list with the hope people could take those ideas and build their own, or just use what i had ended up on. As such I dont really plan to keep them updated. As new cards come out I hope others would understand my logic and build on it, probably making better or tbh just more varied decks.

The old decks are my logic at the time they were written, using the FAQs/taboo lists of the day. I think i did it once update a deck diana, but that was because I was still playing it at the time and i think its the exception. If you have ideas on how to improve this using new cards I would love to see it.

Just word of warning. I am currently playing this deck in 2ppl Dunwitch campaign. So the deck was clearly built around Drawing Thin asset. And DT is clearly broken card (looks like it somehow was not properly playtested by designers before relase) that should be simply removed from the game (look online for disscusions regarding this card) therefore you have 2 options: 1 do not play with DT but then whole deck loose its core mechanics 2 play with it, and simply hack the game.

I was very enthusiastic with the idea of finaly playing deck based on controlled tests fail, but imo as for now game is still missing cards to make this strategy really powerfull option.