Full Greed Lola Hayes: the InBestigator (Hard) (2+ Players)

Oh this is fascinating. I would love to see a late/end campaign version of this decklist.

I've been a strong supporter of Lola and have always found her to be strong when played well, having played her through Carcosa on release as a powerful Flex 'gator, so I'm always glad to see more love for her!

The only cards I'm skeptical on here is the survivor package as the events are very reactive which means you want to sit in survivor for them while the survivor assets are all good passive effects you want to not sit in survivor for. I imagine though in hard it is easy enough to anticipate a failure on shroud 2 locations. I would also consider the Survivor permanent as the drawback doesn't do that much except psychologically. There isn't much search in this deck and having cards stuck in the 'bottom 10 cards' is always a situation in a big deck character such as Lola, and it gets you up to 4 guaranteed synergy on turn one. I'd love to hear your thoughts/experience with the red cards in the deck!

Do you have a late-game deck-list made as well? I'm curious how she turns out for you.

@Death by Chocolate The survivor cards are probably the weakest parts of this deck. Cherished Keepsake and "Look what I found!" are the main cards we're running. I like to have some ability to do clues to alleviate the load on the cluever. The Dark Horse is decent in exactly the first scenario, because this is the main time we'll be low on money, before we pick up Cheat the System. Leather Coat is mostly just here until we pick up Ancient Covenant to fill the survivor slot on our board. Ancient Covenant is a later buy for us, more around scenario 2 or 3, so until that time, it helps for that. Generally we don't need to stay in survivor role that long, and it's not that big of a deal if our 1-2 cards get wiped off the board. "Look what I found!" is very predictable on the turns you use it (usually investigating a 2 shroud location.) Lucky! is the last card in the deck, and I just included it as a bad 5th copy of Ward of Protection and Say Your Prayers. You're right, though, all of the survivor cards could be changed, depending on who's in your campaign, and what your group needs. My group had a kill-focused investigator, a cluever, and an evasive support-role character. I tried to make this deck more "versatile" but it landed solidly more "kill" than being able to clue and kill. This deck is pretty versatile, and if your team doesn't need the clues, you don't even really need to be Survivor for your 3rd role. Also, we aren't running any card search because card quantity is better than quality for us. You'd have to be pretty astronomically unlucky to have 3 Sled Dog and 2 Gang Up on the bottom of your deck, but if that happens, you'll be pretty slow. That's why I recommend picking up card draw upgrades after the synergy stuff. The only card that's pretty useful for us to draw early is Rod of Animalism and there isn't a consistent search for it.

@Ledeberge and @slothgodfather: I could post a 3rd/4th scenario build, which is where it is at currently for me in our EotE campaign. Generally, though, I've removed all of the Desperate cards except Say Your Prayers, added in all of the Synergy cards with the exception of Close the Circle, and picked up Ancient Covenant to have all of the roles accounted for on my board. I already mentioned some other upgrade options, and general plans, but my deeper plans depend on how the other players in my campaign end up.

Love it! Made a variation myself, would love to hear your opinion. arkhamdb.com

I like the inclusion of Arcane Research, In the Thick of It and Charon's Obol.

It really helps with not having to play the worst investigator for a complete campaign ;-)

I know sarcasm doesn't transfer well in written text, so just to make sure: this is a joke

@foobar Exactly! That's the true synergy with her! My actual goal was to sucker people into playing this so that they have their first campaign deaths in scenario 1!

No meme, though, it is theoretically possible you just die turn one of the campaign off a bad mulligan into a bad card draw... I think the odds are astronomically low to happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if 10 people played this deck and it happened to one of them. Also if you can possibly get your resident mystic to run Delve Too Deep for you, it's WAY better on them than you...

@Searns Made this deck out of inspiration of yours. Would be honored to have your opinion :)

arkhamdb.com

Hi! Can you post de 3rd/4th scenario build? I i'm playing your deck in my eote campaign anb i'm loving it

Have you thought about using Short supply? Discarding 10 cards can be a boon, and you start with Survival card as well

@Ledeberge, @slothgodfather, @surri76, I have posted a final exp variation of the deck if you are still interested. It is linked in the "Inspiration for" of this deck. Surri, pick up the synergy cards, then the permanents, then the card draw cards, then everything else comes after.

@fifteenth I did! I posted a write up on my reasoning for not taking it in the Lola 'Synergy' Hayes comment section, which is linked under the inspiration for this deck. Basically I wanted to play survivor assets early, and did not want to have to run recursion for synergy cards later, or immediately for the sled dogs.

I like the idea of the deck but I feel it is trying to do too many things at once:

-The 4 dogs are not bad, but they need a full deck built around them. Currently, she only has 4 dogs, 2 vicious blow, 1 monster slayer and no way to tutor any of those cards. Even after having found 2-3 of them she will have trouble reliably doing 2 damage. Even on later scenarios when you have Gang up you can handle big monsters, but the small 2-3HP monsters will be painful to handle.

-Gloves are cool, but the deck only has 5 spirit events. I know you do not want to be in Guardian (so you will rarely trigger the response)... but 3 resources for +1 fight feels expensive.

-The same with Dark Horse (whose goal is against the rest of the deck). Emergency Cache and Stand together are obvious examples, but also you need the spare resources for Lucky, Ward of Protection, etc.

-Only one card that can help her find clues will make her useless until there is something to kill.

@Nushura You're generally correct with your assessments. I think you're understating the value of some of the cards here, but I'll reply to each of the choices.

The sled dogs could be helped by some support, admittedly. The issue is I didn't want to run calling in favors because it seemed likely to whiff with the card entirely. I would have preferred to try and find card draw elsewhere. Quantity over quality here.

2 vicious blow is a card that helps us reach damage numbers flexibly. The card is by no means a must-see, but it does help us depending on our dog count and how to hedge our skill tests. I would not remove this card under any circumstance, but I also don't think it's a card we need to tutor for. Monster slayer was the final card added to the deck, but I would remove it if I played this deck again. Maybe calling in favors could fill that slot.

I do not recommend taking out gloves at all. We actually have incentives to fight in guardian role between gang up and vicious blow, so this card often tutors some 1-2 spirit cards from the deck while also giving us a desperately needed stat. I challenge you to find a more valuable use of hand slots, that also provide a static buff to our primary stat. Additionally it gives us our guardian role for synergy. This card is perfect for the deck.

Dark horse, you're entirely correct on. I honestly just wanted to try the card and see how it felt in scenario 1. This could perhaps be better used as a scrounge for supplies, or maybe a take heart? The stats ended up being irrelevant in my scenario 1, but honestly not worth playing awkwardly for. Was my first cut from the deck during upgrades.

As far as clues, I agree. I would like to have dropped the Delve too deeps for drawn to the flames (and eventually did with adaptable). It's really not preferred that this deck runs your value exp card since youre so low on sanity in the early game, and the deck loves to throw sanity damage at you. Drawn would have been way better since it gives you tempo much earlier in the scenario, and let's you help out with those high-shroud locations. Unfortunately, I was our only mystic in the campaign, and I refuse to give up that card.

@searns thanks for the response.

Maybe I was not clear: I obviously think that Vicious blow is great. My point is that this Lola can barely fight. Say you are reasonably set up with Boxing Gloves and 2-3 Sled Dogs. At this point you can only do one attack/turn that does more than 1 damage. A bad token pull on a medium opponent (not unlikely with skill 6-7) and you will be doing attacks for 1 damage for the rest of the turn (or relying on your precious vicious blows).

And this ignores the fact that you will need to pay at least 9 resources and at least 3 actions. Further digging for the final Dog will be hard if not impossible (deck size of 35 with no tutors!).

This deck does damage comparable to a Monterrey Jack or Rita, but Jack can be a main clue finder and Rita has way more tricks to be useful for the team.

My run of Lola died in Dark Side of the Moon. It was a tough scenario for everyone and there was no way to resign. Charon's obal strikes!

I like the sled dogs in theory. They were fun when they worked, but they go quickly when you are taking horror.

I've played this deck for the first three scenarios of Dark Matter now. Some cards I added:

Occult Lexicon (because of increased deck size, you really need ways to draw to find what you need).

Calling in Favors (because you really do need your dogs if you don't have Gang Up).

And since you'll be adding strength in numbers asap, having Ancestral Knowledge is not a bad idea.

@Atreju

Occult lexicon is a good idea, I've mentioned before, but card quantity is a good idea for this deck. Scroll of prophecies might work well as well for a similar reason. Both are awkward with the boxing gloves, but that's just kinda Lola, so it's ok.

Calling in favors is also a pretty good idea. Helps you heal your doggies. A whiff is pretty annoying, though, and semi-likely to happen. I could go either way with the card in the deck. Really good when it hits and pretty bad when it misses.

Ancestral knowledge is unfortunately one of the do-literally-nothing cards in Lola. We'd also like to run stick to the plan, but both have triggered effects before we can pick our role, meaning we can't pick their role and they end up being blank.