
PACKING A HUNCH - A brief guide to hunches
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It is very important to note that the hunch deck operates on a different form of randomness to your hand. In short cards in your regular deck will show up and can sit in hand for a turn or two while you position to make best use of them, hunch cards on the other hand need to be spent fast before they get shuffled back into the deck. In exchange for access to them at sub-optimal timings, we are given a hefty 2 cost discount and an effective free card draw a turn - a bargain if used well, a hindrance if not.
So how do we get the most from this? Here`s a few ideas:
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Try to make the cards in the hunch deck perform a roughly similar role. That way it matters less which card you draw from the set, and means the function they provide can be relied upon from the deck as a while rather than a specific card showing at the right time.
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Fast Cards are great. Without the need to draw these, they function like a bonus action in a lot of cases.
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Avoid cards that depend on or benefit heavily from timing. Since you are least likely to be able to play these well when they show. Examples:
- Interrogate - suitable enemy needed at the right place.
- Logical Reasoning, important to keep in hand to maintain access when sanity is low and enemies are few, also covers for Frozen in Fear.
- Shortcut Timing that fast move can be crucial to leverage it well such as moving to a clue for Scene of the Crime or dragging an enemy around for Evidence!.
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Where possible pick cards that cost 2 or more A bit of a no brainer. If you are being encouraged to play these sub-optimally timed then the price your paying for their reward usually needs to be lower to compensate (I'm sure there will be exceptions ofc).
With these points in mind, we're looking for sets of cards that match up to common or core deck functions. After a little scoping a few sets stand out to me:
The set picked needs to be considered while building the main deck. Good options include suring up something you lack, or bolster your primary activity. I'm still to get my head around it fully but on paper it looks like a long term a pure clue base will be best (and most thematic). Unfortunately the tools available at level 0 atm (mainly Interrogate) are a bit too circumstantial to pull off a reliable purist auto clue hunch deck just yet.