The Girl and the Black Hat

Dexter Drake has become one of my favorite investigators as of late. With his slight of hand tricks and pulling various assets out of his hat at fast speed, he has a lot of creative gameplay opportunities both at lvl 0 and XP builds. This specific deck is designed with a lean towards combat and enemy management, but easily can be adjusted to cluing or fighting depending on your team comp or playstyle preference.

I love value, and I believe Dexter has a lot of value to offer with access to his card pool. Most mystics struggle with expensive assets and extensive turns for setup early. This is my attempt to lower his curve, take advantage of his ability, and squeeze out incremental value that will provide tempo throughout scenarios and campaigns. David Renfield is so critical to staying ahead and not wasting actions to get your economy going early. He is one of the best cards in your deck - and potentially the most important. Keep an eye out on the doom track though. Discard him to Dexter's ability before the threshold flips (or play him when the agenda is already going to flip and take advantage of his ability). If you can get 3+ free activations for 6+ resources, you'll be good to go for most of the game... at least, until you have a turn where you need to play Leo De Luca and Shrivelling around the same time.

If you feel like you need more resource generation, add the 2nd Lone Wolf in place of Ritual Candles. If you want more of a burst of resources to play everything out quickly, I'd recommend Faustian Bargain, as it commits to skill tests and provides almost double what Emergency Cache can do for the same card/action. Drawn to the Flame is chosen over Read the Signs for $ cost, as the deck would rather spend $$$ on assets despite Read the Signs' spell trait. Promise of Power over Guts for Switchblade upgrade and flexibility - although no one would fault you for playing Unexpected Courage, Fearless, Defiance, Prescient, or Prophesy instead. Momentum and especially Quick Thinking should also be highly considered.

Molly Dexter's assistant, Molly Maxwell provides an amazing toolbox of cards to search up for whatever the encounter or agenda deck throws at you. This deck has 10+ unique traits to name for Molly to grab exactly what type of asset you need at the time:

1. Tome - cheap card draw Scroll of Secrets
2. Relic - Sword Cane
3. Weapon/Melee - Sword Cane + *Switchblade
4. Spell - Shrivelling* / Sixth Sense
5. Charm - willpower Holy Rosary
6. Sorcerer - draw Arcane Initiate
7. Patron - resources David Renfield
8. Criminal - actions Leo De Luca
9. Illicit - heal horror Liquid Courage
10. Talent - resources Lone Wolf

Upgrade Path additions:

11. Ritual - Haste
12. Terot - Four of Cups
13. *Weapon/Melee/Illicit - Switchblade

Upgrade Path

Recommended Upgrades:

1. Ward of Protection (with Arcane Research)
2. Charisma
3. Haste (x1) from -> Sixth Sense
4. Switchblade (x1) from -> Ritual Candles
5. Leo De Luca (x1)
6. Shrivelling
7. Four of Cups (x1) -> Arcane Initiate/Delve Too Deep
8. Deny Existence
9. Seal of the Elder Sign

Other good upgrades: Robes of Endless Night Elusive Scroll of Secrets Sixth Sense Grotesque Statue Charisma #2 Relic Hunter + Shining Trapezohedron False Covenant Abyssal Tome The Skeleton Key

Thanks for Reading! Comments and thoughts appreciated. Leave a like/fav to let me know if you like it! And happy Dexter-ing ;)