Trading Places - Preston Fairmont (Dark Horse) (solo/MP)

2 things I want to say:

1. I think you would benefit from buying a Hot Streak (the small one) in order to be able to clear Lodge "Debts" easily. From your discription, I understand it's quite a pain when you draw it and have to deal with it.

2. During upgrades, I believe it would be more beneficial to drop "Look what I found!" instead of Intel Report as the latter is more versatile and it fits better in the deck after it gets upgraded. But thats also personal preference, so I guess it could be fine.

That's an interesting thought regarding Hot Streak. Certainly a place to put some spare XP after getting the essentials.

I can see the reasoning for dropping Look over Intel, but personally I feel Intel serves an incredibly similar role to Lola, while Look can be used more cheaply and compresses actions more effectively. In particular Look can be used on rare 3+ clue locations in solo (much less rare in multiplayer) so that you:

1. Play Flashlight to lower the shroud
2. spend 1 or 2 resources on Lola to grab a clue
3. either pass the test and get a clue or
4. fail and Look What I Found into two clues (while also triggering Rabbit's Foot) then
5. Live and Learn to probably get one more clue (two with Double or Nothing).

Obviously this whole chain does not need to happen, but the idea of failing, using Look, and then Live and Learn if there's another clue is really strong action compression.

Intel Report doesn't have quite the same scale and efficiency Look does. It is more versatile, no doubt, but Lola offers plenty of versatility anyway. That's why I personally chose to replace Intel over Look, but YMMV.

"YMMV"??

@matt88'Your mileage may vary' :)

Nice! Very similar to the way I play Preston and have found to be successful. Similar to the deck I uploaded a couple of weeks ago. If you want a variation on this theme check it out: arkhamdb.com

Two main differences are I prefer take heart over rabbits foot - 2 cards and 2 resources that you can almost always use productively and saving you the install action is very nice. Second - try drawing thin - it’s just so potent for resources to boost or extra card draw. Seriously great. And activating it with a single track shoes is quite hilarious.

I take your point about look what I found but having tried both I also tend to prefer keeping intel report - ignoring locked doors, shroud and other barriers to investigation can be really great.

I like the double or nothings and quick thinking!

I also thought about hot streak as a possibility but personally have never found the lodge debts too punishing. That’s another thing drawing thin resources can help with.

I personally don't like having Drawing Thin, Take Heart, and Track Shoes all together in this deck- it crowds out a lot of the useful events I'd rather keep or recur with Resourceful, and it's even more set up time (add on to Fire Axe, Dark Horse, and Dig Deep) for an economy Preston can't make full use out of. I considered Drawing Thin over Rabbit's Foot, but I consistently got an activation off RF anyway and I'd pretty much be using both for Willpower tests. Rabbit's Foot however doesn't have to make those tests harder to get the benefit, so things like Rotting Remains wont hit as hard. Again, with Look, I think Lola already covers things like Locked Doors just fine on her own, and having Intel Report alongside her feels too redundant, so I always preferred keeping Look, but again that's more a preference thing.

And for the record @masomaseI forgot to actually include that it was your deck that helped inspire this one!

Hahaha awesome. I like it. Your version is less set up to get going and a bit sleeker. To pick up on what you say in your description I agree with you and find it really interesting that Dark Horse isn't all THAT important in this deck. For the assets I want to get down I would say Fire Axe > Leo >Dig Deep > Drawing Thin (for you Rabbit's Foot) > Dark Horse > Track Shoes. I think there's space for new cards to slot in if we get some new interesting stuff! Also, I have had good recent success with a single calling in favours once you have Lola and Leo to increase your chances of getting both out.

Calling in Favors is a brilliant idea for this deck, good call! I think the most infuriating thing is not getting Leo in an opening hand (which was the case in something like 80% of my two handed TCU run with Preston and Carolyn). I agree with that priority with the slight caveat that, scenario depending, Leo might trump Axe.

@StyxTBeufordrealy cool Deck.
@masomase i love it, that yor deck inspires People to think about poor Preston decks.
Preston is my favourite charakter and i love to discuss the pros and cons of each card for his deck.
I am planning to post my own version of a poor Preston deck, but my write up still needs some time.

That being said lets talk about the deck presented to us by @StyxTBeuford.

In my oppinion it is a bit too focused on buffing prestons stats and trying to mittigate the effects of encounter cards. I find cards like Dig Deep, Rise to the Occasion, Live and Learn and Lucky! to be a waste of cards in the deck because they try to mittigate his main weaknes of having only 1 in every stat.
For clue gathering your stats with Preston are of no importance, between Intel Report, Flashlight and Look what I found! you mainly ignore the chaos Bag in terms of success.
For fighting you heavily depend on your stats, but Fire Axe, Dark Horse and Drawing Thin with one fail test can give you 3 attacks with up 8. And if that isn't enough you can boost your stats even more with Trial by Fire. So normally only the crit fail matters and a Lucky! can't help with that.
I understand, that these cards are mainly focused to help with the encounter Deck, but i prefere just face tanking that. The worst that can happen are annoying permanents that you have to use a Trial by Fire on, or damage and horror for which you can still use a Perseverance if it gets relevant.
Instead of encounter mittigation cards I like to run the tempo package, which gives Preston the momentum to blast through scenarios: Drawing Thin, Rabit's Foot, Take Heart and Track Shoes. Also i found Decoy very useful to help other investigators and close the gap until you get your Fire Axe out.

I understand that it feels weird to just expose yourself to the encounter Deck, but I find it to be worth it.

To wrap things up:
I find the deck you presentet to be an awesome durable poor Preston deck. I find it to be more useful to generate momentum instead of being durable, but i would love to have a further discussion about that.

Did you find my thoughts to be helpful or do you feel that they are not justified? Waht do you think is better: Mittigate the drawbacks of encounter cards or just face tank them and move on?

I look forward to a further discussion ^^.

The thing to consider here is the difficulty you play on. If I didn't miss it the write-up here doesn't specify the difficulty the deck is intended for. Dig Deep is a totally viable choice to have a good shot on passing treacheries on easy and standard difficulty. On hard, it becomes way more questionable. When playing expert, I fully agree with @Joshua_Leo that face-tanking and mitigating the results is way more efficient than trying to pass treachery tests. Decoy or Perseverance become way more viable as well. These considerations apply to Live and Learn and Rise to the Occasion (at least for Preston) as well while Lucky! is debatable and I'd say it remains a solid choice.

Returning to the deck here: I do think it's a solid deck for easy and standard at least. While passing on Drawing Thin I'd still take Take Heart though as a means to quickly recover from a bad spot or to press the advantage otherwise. With "Look what I found!" (and Rabbit's Foot as well) you still plan on failing tests. Drawing Thin on the other hand is absolutely amazing for Preston as it enables him to fight and still be able to play an event or pay for the kicker on Intel Report or Decoy (or Small Favor) in a multiplayer setting. Furthermore, getting rid of your weakness becomes possible in a single turn.

Thank you for the reply and the critique.

Some the cards you see as dead weight I see as helping enable Double or Nothing on combat tests. I specifically mention Live and Learn, Rise, and Lucky! in regards to combat tests, which is where I think they land strongest. I also disagree with using Drawing Thin with Fire Axe for Preston as he begins every turn with 5 resources, meaning you get one attack at +6 and another at +4, the latter being the max one copy of Drawing Thin can get you anyway. You could DT a third time for +2 but that is not worthwhile in my opinion and most enemies don't even have 5+ health in solo. Drawing Thin + Axe is great for people who don't have the extra resources, but Preston does, so the combo loses a ton of value with him.

I think there's a good argument to throw yourself headfirst into the treacheries and tank them, but the issue there is some treacheries do things much worse than simply hurting you once. The Circle Undone in particular has tons of hexes, which you absolutely need to deal with in order to have any chance at beating the scenario. For tests like these you absolutely want to have Dig Deep or Rise in your back pocket.

Additionally I adore the fact that Dig Deep is always the counterpoint to Fire Axe in this deck- you either invest all in to hit something, or invest all in to evade something. Both maso and I swear by the card, it is too good to take out. In particular for true solo, you will eventually need to do a bit of everything. There are scenario critical tests that require Agility, or Willpower, or even Intellect, all of which Preston will be able to pass with this infrastructure. In multiplayer, sure, you can ignore willpower entirely- other people can tank or remove treacheries for you and do the hard tests for you. But in true solo you need to have a solution for almost anything.

Finally I already described why I prefer not to have the fail economy package (DT + TH + TS). Again, it's just too many assets to get going, and in solo, especially for Preston, actions are more valuable than resources. The extra card draw would be nice, but it's not worthwhile in my opinion, particularly when I'd rather have cards that can help me achieve extra actions and action compression with Quick Thinking and Double or Nothing. This deck is already very card efficient (since most clues and combat can be done entirely with Lola and Axe, respectively) to the point that Rabbit's Foot is probably the least important card in the deck.

I agree with some critical tests but they can be done with Rise to the Occasion and Lucky! while having 3 Willpower using Dig Deep isn't going to work on higher difficulties. And on the ones that happen during your turn, you can use Trial by Fire here.

Having the repeatable option of Dig Deep is good but I think you're usually foregoing too much if you try and use something like 4 of your 5 resources in a turn to get to a manageable 6 Willpower (for crucial tests on higher difficulties, 3 isn't going to work in my opinion). Rise to the Occasion is a solid card, I just think Dig Deep isn't worth it on higher difficulties.

@Drawing thin: same problem with difficulty, I'd say. You have one attack with 8 (using Dark Horse) and one with 6. If one of them fails you can only fall back on Rise to the Occasion as you don't have a backup strategy. Using Drawing Thin, you can Evade the enemy for the money and attack another time for 8. Also, your cap with Trial by Fire is 2 attacks with 8. Just as I said, it's absolutely enough to destroy anything on lower difficulties, with an expert chaos bag you're screwed if your two attacks don't work. Same for evasion, you only have a single worthwhile attempt per turn.

I don't want to sound condescending, I just want to add my take why I disagree on some choices for high difficulties that are totally fine for lower ones. That doesn't mean playing on lower difficulties is bad.

Then adapt as you see fit for higher difficulties I suppose. I didn't have a particular difficulty in mind when I made this, but I primarily play standard.

My argument for Dig Deep is you don't always have access to Trial (or you'll need it for another stat), so having Dig Deep there helps out a ton. Drawing Thin in particular has huge anti synergy in this deck with Lola's ability, with Double or Nothing, and for the most part will function as Rabbit's Foot anyway. If I were running Track Shoes, sure, it'd be a good cog in the engine, but the entire point of the deck is the lower amount of set up so that you don't spend actions to draw cards when you really don't need to draw cards- Lola and Axe take care of the vast chunk of the work for you on their own. In regards to failing a combat test, again, Live and Learn is there as a fallback. +2 from L&L and another 2 resources means you can still hit at +6 if you miss the first time.

I don't think we'll agree on Drawing Thin then (I think it has synergy as you'll be able to pass that treachery, kill that enemy or do something else and still be able to afford Lola with actions to spare for movement. Or be able to deal with your "debts" in a single turn without killing two whole turns for you and mostly losing the first turns progress if an enemy pops up).

For its intended difficulty, I think the deck works fine and I really appreciate the work you put into your well written write-up.

It still takes essentially two turns and doing nothing else in them to kill debts with DT (you can make it one turn with Take Heart, sure). I think there's a valid argument to be made to replace Rabbit's Foot with Drawing Thin, but certainly at lower difficulties Rabbit's Foot is favorable since you can more easily pass hard willpower tests during the Mythos phase. I'll admit for higher difficulties DT is probably better for its versatility. Thank you for your criticisms.

@StyxTBeuford thank you for the quick reply and awesome that we have a discussion about these things, since I think this is the real issue with Preston, just how much encounter mittigation are you willing to include.

I think your way to go is a really good one. And I see why you put in these specific cards. You made a really good point for your oppinion and i see that you thought a lot about your deck.

I still disaggree and here I want to tell you why.

I love the Double or Nothing turn ^^. This is one of the best things about playing Preston. Just kill a 4 health enemy, put in a Quick Thinking and a Resourceful and get 2 cards, and 2 actions out of the kill, truely awesome. That being said i think the only enabeler you realy need is Trial by Fire. With Trial by Fire, 3 Resources, Dark Horse, Double or Nothing you are already at 13. I usually save my Quick Thinking and Resourceful for that turn, so with both of these you are at 15, which is even enought to kill a 4 Attack enemy at expert level.

Coming to again discuss the DT+TH+TS+RF(Rabbits Foot) combo. I personally think Drawing Thin is overpowered, to an extend that I try to nerf it in my home group. First the question appeares how valuable is an action for Preston. Since he can easily play Leo he has 4 actions a turn.
Your clue gathering depends more on drawing the right cards to do that, than the actions it needs.
In terms of fighting, you need the resources to get out your big swings. More than once i found myself in the position, where i had to deal with a lot of enemys to the point where i had to make 3 attacks a turn. The only way to do this consistantly without Drawing Thin is Trial by Fire of which you only have 2 in your deck. But with Drawing Thin you just fail the first test on purpose, get 4 Resources and a card from RF and then swing 3 times for 8. You investet no cards from your hand and even generated one. You can repeat this every turn if nescessary.
And maybe more importantly, without Drawing Thin every round you have to fight, you only gather clues with Flashlight, since otherwise you need resources.
Aditionally Drawing Thin allows you to get rit of your weakness in one round of efford.
But most importantly it helps so much with consistancy, since you depend on Fire Axe for fighting and want to get your Leo and Lola out quickly, if you don't have them on your starting hand, you can still get them quickly with this combo. And if you empty your hand with a Double or Nothing round, next Turn it is again full of options. And since you need your events to gather clues more efficiantly you want to draw them as much as possible.
I must admit I think Track Shoes aren't nescessary but if you are already moving you can get an action free fail test with them, which is nice.

Now to the last two points: solo play and encounter card management.
In solo play it is even more important for Preston to get out his Fire Axe as fast as possible, so the combo discussed above is even more valuable in my oppinion. You really need to do a bit of everything, but this is what you have Trial by Fire for, and later Red Gloved Man, which I find one of the strongest upgrades for Preston. This also applys to encounter cards, the worst are those you get into your threat area ... with these you have to deal with or they ruin your game, therfore I find Trial by Fire even more valuable in solo, where you rarely deal with more than one enemy at a time as Preston and can use Trial by Fire to deal with these encounter Cards. I never really needed more.

Again thanks for your deck and the discussion. I can totally see the legitamacy of your choices. Even when I disaggree it is only to discuss a topic I find realy important for Preston, that is, how much you want to deal with the encounter deck. Thank you very much for your contribution to that and I hope this helps both of us in understanding the ins and outs of Preston deck building even better.

I can say personally between Dig Deep, Trial by Fire, and Fire Axe, dealing with enemies in solo has so far never been an issue for me. Doing a hard mulligan for Axe means you'll get one in your opening hand I believe about 50% of the time, and if not, you'll almost certainly have one of the other two cards there. I've also never encountered as has been described a turn where I truly felt I was out of resources and had to waste actions with the exception of having to deal with Lodge Debts.

I'm fully aware of how Drawing Thin operates. I don't disagree on Drawing Thin being generally overpowered. Certainly one of the big advantages is being able to even stack two of them together, something you can't do with Rabbit's Foot. Still, for the difficulty I play on I preferred to use Rabbit's Foot as I was able to more consistently activate Double or Nothing and more consistently pass treacheries. That said it's not a hard switch to sub out RF for Drawing Thin, Dark Horse for Track Shoes, and maybe Rise for Take Heart. But that's not how I want to play and I find the set up for that, at least on standard, is too slow for a deck that doesn't need the resource generation or the card generation.

I see now people are very passionate about Preston Fairmont strategies, and I have to admit it's quite intimidating. Keep in mind this is my first stab at publishing a Preston deck, but I have made decks with the fail economy combo before and understand how powerful it can be. Personally, I think for at least standard difficulty, this deck is faster without the economy cards and not nearly as hungry as you might expect it to be. But like any deck on here, you're free to sub out as you see fit. I fully see the merit of those cards and can see why on higher difficulties the extra card draw and resource gen might be favorable.

I am very sorry if I am intimidating. I am very passionate about Preston strategies but I don't want you to change your Deck or your oppinion. I really like your Deck and I hope you have a lot of fun playing it. I think you made some really good points and I'll keep them in mind as I advance building Preston decks.

It's okay, no worries! I'm trying to take the criticism in stride as best I can, there's just a lot of it so it's tricky to think through it all. I do genuinely appreciate the criticism and hope that, even if this deck doesn't get run often, it at least inspires some kind of new strategy or idea for someone. Who knows? In the future Drawing Thin may very well become taboo'd (and honestly I kind of think it needs to).

@StyxTBeuford Just to clarify it again: don't feel discouraged to publish further decks! I love the game and I love discussing it with others. Others might have an other playstile so I'm always intrigued to hear about it. And as it's not a competitive game with tournaments, it's hard to leave ones own gaming group bubble apart from discussing online.

I just wanted to add some thoughts to the deck and as it wasn't clear, the difficulty I think it'll work for. I totally appreciate your effort and do think it's a well thought out deck.

Keep going, decks with a detailed though process in the description are exactly the kind of content that one is delighted to read on ArkhamDB.

I decided to add an addendum with `@Cuherdir and @Joshua_Leo's comments taken into account addressing the DT combo. I think the swaps make sense, but let me know what you think.

This is a nice wrap up of what we were discussing. The swaps are good, although i personally would leave Lucky! in the Deck not Rise, since I think being reactive in that matter is better, but it is very much a question of taste.
I hope to see more decks of you in the future ^^

Edited to swap for Rise instead of Lucky, thanks for the feedback!