Nathaniel Punches the Shit out of Everything

This is my first take on Nathaniel Cho. I built this deck primarily for multiplayer as it's ability to find clues isn't SUPER strong and I haven't played enough solo to know whether this deck is even feasible for that. For multiplayer, this deck is designed to absolutely SMASH any enemy that pops up.

The main focus of the deck is fighting but with a twist. Nathaniel Cho deals an extra damage when he damages an enemy with an event card that deals damage or a fight ability on an event card. That means we want a lot of event cards for fighting and to use assets to increase our fight skill.

The first priority is to get Boxing Gloves out as soon as possible as this puts your fighting skill to 6 and lets you search for your spirit event cards. After that you should focus on getting Grete Wagner out to put your fighting skill up to 7. You NEED your boxing gloves. Not just for the fight skill increase, but to make sure you have fight event cards in your hand at ALL times since that is how you are being an effective fighter. There are 8 spirit event fight cards you can find with your boxing gloves.

This first card combination will cost 8 resources. After those cards, focus resources on the few event cards that cost resources. Those are "Get over here!", Dodge, Evidence!, One-Two Punch, and Scene of the Crime. Emergency Cache can help have resources on hand to play these and some want to be played in a combination so look to keep at least 4 resources at a time so you can play some good combos.

Keep two resources on hand for a Scene of the Crime as you must play that as your first action. Plan your location moves to potentially draw an enemy in the mythos phase so you can get the clues and hopefully defeat the enemy after you play Scene of the Crime. Evidence! is there as well for clues after you defeat the enemy. Moving with Safeguard can also help if you partners go first and move to a location with an enemy.

In total, you can discover 12 clues with cards if you go through both Grete Wagner. Talk to your team about when Nathaniel should be getting clues so you use those cards to their maximum effectiveness. You should look at higher shroud value locations to move to and pull enemies toward with "Get over here!". This means you would have to wait until the next turn to get the clues (so taking damage if you're engaged) but probably worth it for a really high shroud value location. (Great upgrade to go for is Lesson Learned for Evidence! so you can move or use "Get over here!" to go to that high shroud location and get the clues for taking the damage.)

There are a lot of ways to hit enemies with this deck and Nathaniel Cho's ability really makes this deck legit. Monster Slayer is 3 damage with Nathaniel Cho's ability, One-Two Punch is a 4 damage card, and Counterpunch is a 2 damage card with Nathaniel Cho's ability WHICH works as a second attack after other fights in the investigator phase since Nathaniel Cho's ability works once in EACH PHASE. Have a 5 health enemy out there? A Monster Slayer in the investigator phase and a Counterpunch takes that thing out.

Only room for six skill cards. Vicious Blow adds damage, Take the Initiative is great for first actions but also for encounter card skill tests, and Unexpected Courage is there for the wilds.

Other things to think about is Hallowed Mirror can help you heal up after taking some hits fighting every monster out there OR you could even use a Soothing Melody on Grete Wagner to get you more clues after defeating an enemy. To me Grete Wagner's ability is a "good to have" rather than a way to get clues you can depend on. One key upgrade is to replace Evidence! with Lesson Learned and you will have that plus Scene of the Crime to find two clues at different locations without even having to defeat an enemy.

Here are my thoughts on an Upgrade path. Its really hard because there are SO many good cards that could be used in this deck and so many good upgrades to include:

Boxing Gloves for Boxing Gloves 6 xp

• This gives you +2 fight and lets you search 9 cards for spirit events and costs one less to play

Lesson Learned for Evidence!

• I think Lesson Learned is a better, more reliable way of getting clues since you should be engaged with enemies all the time. It does force you to take a damage but this doesn't mean you have to wait for the enemy phase. A move to a different location, playing a card, or even drawing a card will trigger that attack of opportunity, use Lesson Learned, and then beat the crap out of that enemy. (Then maybe even use Grete Wagner to get another clue if you have it out!)

Mano a Mano for One-Two Punch

• I don't know if this is the right play but to me auto-damage without a skill test seems better than needing to do a skill test for the damage. Its 0 cost like monster slayer and does 3 damage vs 4 damage from One-Two Punch. The other option here is to just upgrade One-Two Punch to One-Two Punch but its 10 xp for two copies where as Mano a Mano is 4 xp.

Counterpunch for Counterpunch

• Logical upgrade here. Saves you damage and helps you get that finishing blow on an enemy with higher health. Look to combo this with auto damage cards if you find yourself engaged with an enemy with a REALLY high fight value. With a few upgrades you're fighting at 8 or 9 and this adds +2 to your fight skill value for the fight as well. Could help you get past that super difficult enemy.

"Get over here!" for "Get over here!"

• Another logical upgrade. This lets you move that enemy that just spawned in a location to yours IN THE MYTHOS PHASE and engage + fight it. This lets you use Nathaniel Cho's ability for an extra damage in the mythos phase. The only difficult decision here is when to use it (i.e. you may need clues and you have a Scene of the Crime or Lesson Learned so you don't necessarily want to kill the enemy in the mythos phase.

Monster Slayer for Monster Slayer

• This is a 10 xp upgrade. I decided I liked this 10 xp upgrade over upgrading One-Two Punch as the upgraded One-Two Punch lets you do six damage, but Monster Slayer lets you straight up defeat an enemy if you are successful.

Another upgrade I've been thinking about using is Ace of Swords for one copy of Grete Wagner. The best case here is that if you have upgraded Boxing Gloves out and you get your Ace of Swords and Grete Wagner out you are naturally fighting at NINE. I haven't played this deck yet so once I play it through a few scenarios I can decide whether Grete Wagner is more useful (which may just mean if you have the XP, upgrade Grete Wagner to Grete Wagner)

Hope you guys enjoyed this write-up and hope you guys try out the deck. If you are feeling like just absolutely smashing things, I think this is one of the best decks out there to do that. Would love any feedback and suggestions you have.