Solo Zoey

I've been experimenting with solo Zoey decks for a while, and this is the most effective version I've found. Our Guardian cards will let us clear out any monsters in our way. Our five splash cards, together with neutral cards, will shore up Zoey's weaknesses and render her a complete investigator. This deck was tested on hard difficulty, where it achieved positive resolutions on four of five Dunwich scenarios. I make no promises about its performance on expert.

As much as we can, we're going to keep this deck cheap, lean, and fast. That means relatively few assets (really just the bare minimum for Zoey--weapons, flashlights, and allies), but lots of 0-1 cost events (many with the "fast" keyword), and lots of skill cards. Trust me, this plays much better than loading up on assets. You just don't have time in Arkham Horror to dawdle around building up a nice board. You have to get moving from turn 1. This deck is designed to be able to match the frantic pace of this game.

.45 Automatic: This weapon doesn't compare well to Machete. It costs more and yet has a more irritating drawback. Most of the time, the .45's limited ammunition is a bigger problem than the Machete's one-enemy restriction. But the .45 is much better than having no weapon at all, and we just can't count on drawing our Machete. So, overpriced as it is, we'll grudgingly take along the .45. The one agility icon on this card is obnoxious.

Flashlight: Use this card to get three near-guaranteed clues in locations with 1 or 2 shroud. Since you've reduced the test difficulty to 0, you will succeed on everything but the autofail token. That's a huge difference maker for a low-intellect investigator like Zoey, and it means the Flashlight can easily justify the action and resources spent to put it in play. The limited charges are a shame, but in solo, three clues can go a long way. Try not to use Flashlight charges on high-shroud locations unless you have no other option; Evidence!, Drawn to the Flame, or Art Student are better suited for that.

Machete: The premier weapon in the Guardian class. Sometimes you get flooded with monsters and its restriction becomes a real problem, but most of the time it's just great value for 3 resources. It's lovely that there's no need to worry about running out of ammo. We'll take two.

Art Student: Can get a clue regardless of shroud (nice!) and can also soak up 2 horror (nice!). Competes with Beat Cop for your one ally slot, but ultimately both are expendable so that's okay.

Beat Cop: Preferable to the Guard Dog because of its great +1 strength boost and its extra point of sanity. All that, plus the ability to do a guaranteed, action-free point of damage whenever you want, justifies the high price tag. This is going to be at the top of our price curve. We don't want to run more cards that are even more expensive than this, because we just won't be able to afford it all.

Dodge: This can often prevent three or four combined damage and horror (maybe even more, if you're fighting Umôrdhoth!) at a very low cost, which is just terrific. Quite a few monsters (e.g. Yithian Observer) inflict special harms when they attack, and Dodge will cancel that, too. Compare that to the slower, more expensive, and more limited Emergency Aid, and you'll see that Dodge is by far the preferable choice.

Drawn to the Flame: Two clues, regardless of shroud, for the price of only one encounter card? Sign me up. Zoey is terrific at withstanding the horrors of the encounter deck, given her good willpower, sizable health reserves, and impressive capacity to massacre any monster who comes near her. So we'll take the trade of two clues for one encounter card quite happily.

Emergency Cache: As Guardian decks go, this one is fairly inexpensive. Even so, sometimes you will find yourself needing a lot of resources quickly. Having this in the deck will then be a blessing. Plus, we plan to pick up Keen Eye sooner rather than later.

Evidence!: Another great and efficient way to pick up clues. If you can't find any monsters to kill, you can also use this card's two intellect icons to get the clue the traditional way.

Lucky!: A powerful and supremely versatile card. Pretty simple--use it to pass critical tests you would otherwise fail. It can help you do anything (including investigating, where it can act as half a "Look what I found!"). Particularly great on hard, since Lucky can swoop in and negate the terrible effects of some special tokens. You'll love having this in the deck.

Prepared for the Worst: Because not having a weapon can be disastrous. If we haven't drawn any of our four weapons, a turn 1 Prepared for the Worst has an 81% chance of fetching us one, a solid bet. If we draw this card when we're already set with a weapon in play, it has decent icons. Note that running Prepared for the Worst and Machete while skipping .45 Automatic would NOT be a good idea. That's because if there are only two weapons in our deck, Prepared for the Worst becomes far likelier to miss. We'd only have a 55% chance of picking up a Machete. That's not good enough.

Guts: I put two of these in every deck I build. You might think Zoey's 4 willpower is high enough that she can skip this, but this is absolutely not the case. 4 willpower is not enough to consistently deal with things like Rotting Remains, Umôrdhoth's Wrath, and Crypt Chill, and you must be able to deal with those. So this card helps you pass a really vital test, and then replaces itself. It's an (almost) totally free, really important bonus! I think people who skimp on these skill cards are missing out.

Overpower: An auto-include for anyone who plans on fighting with strength, as we certainly do. As with Guts, this provides a excellent bonus essentially for free. Just a really efficient card.

Perception: Less useful than Guts and Overpower for Zoey, but you will have to investigate and parley, and this will help. And it will cost you pretty much nothing! I'm just a huge fan of these skill cards, if you couldn't tell.

Unexpected Courage: This card's simplicity belies its excellence. Properly boosting skill tests is essential to winning on high difficulties, and this card is a cheap and flexible way to make that happen. Like Lucky!, it helps you with whatever you need at any given moment.

Vicious Blow: A Guardian staple. A great card because it simultaneously increases your odds of hitting and makes your hit more effective. It does all that while costing nothing but the card itself. This card often allows you to kill a monster in one less action than would otherwise be possible. If you can kill monsters faster, that means you can take less damage from them, and also have more actions free for investigation, movement, drawing cards, etc.

So we've got quite a few cards (Flashlight, Drawn to the Flame, Art Student, Perception, Evidence!) that can get use clues. At the same time, with a handful of weapons, Beat Cop, Vicious Blow, Dodge, and Zoey's Cross, we're all set to deal with monsters.

Zoey has two weaknesses in addition to her low intellect: low sanity and low agility. The former will indeed be a problem on occasion. Art Student and Beat Cop can soak up two horror apiece, which goes a long way. If you're really worried about this, you could swap in a Smoking Pipe, but I don't think it's necessary. Down the road, perhaps, you could add an Elder Sign Amulet.

As for Zoey's 2 agility... we don't really care. We're going to hack monsters into pieces with a Machete, not evade them. And encounter cards that require agility tests tend to deal health damage anyway (e.g. Grasping Hands), and we've got lots of health to spare. No worries there.

XP: Grab Keen Eye ASAP. It's not quite as good as some of the skill-boosting permanents that other classes get, but it's still great value for only 3 XP. In those unfortunate situations where you just can't draw a weapon, or find your good investigation cards, Keen Eye will always be there to tide you over. And it's in play, totally free, from the start of every game. This makes it infinitely superior to Physical Training, which is a trap card in my opinion.

Next on the list is upgrading Beat Cop. The upgraded version's ability to deal three automatic points of damage is quite impressive. It can buzz through monsters for you, freeing up actions for you to focus on other things. Really useful.

After that first 7 XP, priorities become much less clear. Stand Together is amazing in multiplayer but we obviously can't use that here. Upgrading Emergency Cache is a possibility. Police Badge is useful--being able to take a five-action turn when you really need it can be great--but a little too expensive for my taste. You could replace a .45 Automatic with a Shotgun if you want some more oomph for dealing with bosses. It's hardly necessary, though, as bosses tend not to have that much health in solo games. The current lack of attractive XP options for solo Guardians is one reason we aren't bothering with Delve Too Deep.

A brief note on some cards we are not including. We won't bother with First Aid, which is spectacularly inefficient. There's no time in Arkham Horror to sit around slowly healing yourself like that. Emergency Aid is definitely a better card, but we're just not very worried about health damage as Zoey. I can see an argument for Smoking Pipe, but I think we can get by without it. Zoey is pretty durable.

Taunt, Teamwork, and Blackjack are multiplayer-only cards (though that last is unplayably bad even in multiplayer).

Bandolier and Extra Ammunition are both unnecessary for this deck, but might be playable if you want to go the Shotgun route. Even then, though, they strike me as very slow and situational.

Dynamite Blast is a card I quite like. In this case, though, I think we can dish out enough damage without it.

Guard Dog is a perfectly fine card, but it's not as good as the Beat Cop and Art Student, and we only have so many ally slots.

Manual Dexterity would not be a terrible include, as skill cards are generally excellent. But we will only rarely find ourselves testing agility--and when we do, even +2 will often not be enough to get good odds.

Knife and Kukri are just not good enough to merit inclusion in our deck, however thematic they may be for Zoey. Weapons are only good if they offer extra damage... but the Knife does so only once, and the Kukri does so only inefficiently. Stick to the Guardian weapons.