Wini Learns to Fly|RC+Starter|Always Current

Wini Learns to Fly

I'm launching a new mini-series looking at balanced, somewhat flexy decks which are "always current". These use only the revised core (RC) and standalone starter packs. There will be a deck for each class, with each deck being compatible with at least 3 others in the series. In this deck, Wini hits an effective 7 to fly through scenarios...

Overview

• The Cat's Meow: Two Cat Burglars with Charisma boost to an effective 7, allowing you to evade with ease and supporting your Lockpicks •, Pilfer and Backstab tests. Cat Burglars are also action economy, providing a group-disengage-plus-move when you need it. These actions are not considered a move action per "action designator" rules, so you can move with this regardless of Frozen in Fear - twice with two Burglars (you don't need an enemy in play). Lastly the Cat Burglars are soak, paired to Elder Sign Amulet to take horror from cycling and treacheries. Anything You Can Do, Better, your other skills and a copy of Guts help with treacheries generally.

• Clues: Lockpicks • provide consistent clue finding that also leverages Wini's great . With two Lockpicks you can get two clues a turn on high shroud locations, and it pairs with Opportunist to help trigger both Wini's ability and the skill's own recursion. Flashlight is a back-up, giving you an 81% chance of at least one clue-finding asset in a hard mulligan (and an symbol otherwise). Perception enables these tests and basic investigate actions too, with Pilfer allowing for separate clue compression.

• Economy: Card draw is Lucky Cigarette Case, Pickpocketing, Emergency Cache •• and then (pairing to Wini's ability) on the skill side there's Manual Dexterity ••, Perception and a Guts. Two copies of Lucky Cigarette Case and Pickpocketing are used to help find one early, and so support your card draw engine. For Pickpocketing in particular, this should typically be played early or not at all as it's more situational than Lucky Cigarette Case. Resource economy is Emergency Cache •• and Hot Streak.

• Committing to Tests: While there's a modest amount of skill cards here for Wini, there are a lot of helpful symbols across your assets and events. In particular, Flashlight, Sneak Attack and Pilfer can be used for occasional commits, and Pickpocketing, Backstab and Pilfer can be used for additional commits. Hot Streak provides an extra when you're already rich.

• Combat: When something needs to die rather than just evading it there's Sneak Attack and Backstab, which you can also save up for a big damage turn. Basic fight actions with skill cards allow you to kill nuisances like Swarm of Rats or finish enemies off.

Campaign starter and planned progression

0 XP deck is below (and link here). In terms of side deck, I thought about further skill cards such as Nimble. However, Pickpocketing offers the same icon and solves a larger problem for Wini - e.g. how to get her card draw engine online as soon as possible. For this reason, the deck will want to use asset and event cards to commit to tests more often than some Wini decks.

A recommended order of purchases/upgrades is:

• Lockpicks → Lockpicks •

• 1 x Leather Jacket → 1 x Cat Burglar

• 1 x Liquid Courage → 1 x Cat Burglar

• Charisma

• Sneak By → Hot Streak

• 1 x Guts → 1 x Elder Sign Amulet (18 XP here for 19 XP standalones)

• Relic Hunter

• Emergency Cache → Emergency Cache ••

• Manual Dexterity → Manual Dexterity ••

Final thoughts

This isn't a deck that would have ever been built previously, as by the time Wini was released The Moon • XVIII, Lola and Delilah had all been released too. The Moon made it cheaper in terms of XP to hit 7 with Cat Burglar (no Charisma required), and if you were running Charisma the latter allies offered additional benefits when combined with Cat Burglar (or each other). However, none of those cards are current environment, and so for now this becomes the only way for Wini to access 7 agility.

In terms of what 7 offers, it makes scenarios easy. Lockpicks • will almost always hit a 2 over-success on 4 shroud locations on standard difficulty, making these convenient tests to commit both copies of Opportunist (netting a card from your ability, and then from Lucky Cigarette Case). This rapid fool-proof card draw gives frequent access to Pilfer and Backstab, where 7 agility again comes in handy to get these costly events above the threshold where they could fail (barring ) so long as you have even a single card committed. I guess Anything You Can Do, Better isn't just Wini's signature, it's a way of life!

On the Mini-Series Overall: I think providing a set of decks that you can pick up and play while also having them fit the new "current environment" is very handy. If you don't want to deck build yourself, or you're a new player with just the revised core and starter packs, or you don't want to fork out on investigator expansions - then these are ideal for you. If you do want to factor in cards from the 3 latest investigator expansions, then these decks provide a solid foundation to modify with the new stuff. I wanted all of these to be flexy specifically so you could give one of these to a new player and they would be able to do a little bit of everything regardless of class - they're all easy to have a good time with.

I'd also say from playtesting this series I think the decks are not excessively worse than using the whole card pool. In discussion of current environment I've seen a prevailing sentiment that it will be essentially a punishing "challenge mode", but it really doesn't feel that way to me having got stuck into using just the revised core and starter packs. It's also nice to not have over-centralizing cards available to you (e.g. Stick to the Plan) and have to find other ways to make decks consistent. I guess what I'm saying is, I kind of like it...

For some final thoughts even if FF change what is considered current environment, I'd imagine the revised core and starter decks will remain current considering the recent FAQ. As mentioned each deck here will work with at least 3 of the other decks in the series, so it's very easy to mix and match. Hope you enjoy!