The Stealthy Journalist

As the title implies, this deck relies on two things:

Being a Journalist, you obviously want to be good at gathering information and clues, which means numberous items will boost your investigations abilities.

As a Stealthy Journalist, you want to avoid confrontation at all costs and avoid being seen. I mean, I highly doubt that those cultists members would appreciate to have their cult on the front cover of any journal or magazine you may publish. This means the inclusion of cards that boosts your evasion abilities, and others to ensure the job is done quick and without anyone noticing your presence.

Now that you have a brief owerview of the idea behind the deck, let's discuss each card in detail, starting with all the cards that are meant to help you evading enemies or surviving the encounter deck :

Stealth: Obviously a Stealthy Journalist wouldn't be stealthy without a card named Stealth ! It's your main way of dealing with all those pesky monsters. I consider this to be a better choice compared to the Baseball Bat or the Fire Axe, as you will be collecting clues so fast that spending multiple actions to potentially eliminate an enemy seems to be a waste of time. In addition, at least a third of the enemies in the game have only 2 or lower evade, meaning that any evade attempt will be a success ! And if you are asking : " And what about hunter enemies ? Since they are not exhausted, they will attack you ! " , I will answer you that since you can collect all clues in a location in one action, it's easy to evade, investigate, and outrun them by moving twice (which is possible with cards such as Shortcut or Quick Thinking). Fieldwork may also help in those cases (see below).

Mind over Matter: Pretty straightforward. For only one ressource, greatly boost your evade . It may also boost fighting , which can be useful to kill small enemies such as Whippoorwill or Acolyte.

"I'm outta here!": Maybe by seeing this card included you may be thinking that I've suffered a few mental traumas, but at least let me explain before doing so ! As you may have noticed, this deck is all about quickness, and this card may save quite a few turns in scenarios where you have to resign at a given location in order to achieve victory. Also, with many scenarios offering a resign ability, this card provides an easy way to avoid any trauma. In the case where there is no resign abilities at all, it still has 2 agility icons, which is really useful.

Inquiring Mind and Unexpected Courage: A few cards to help either for evasion, against a nasty effect from an encounter effect, or to be sure to succeed an investigation by +2 if you do not already have a few assets to help you for that. Even if you will often clear all clues from a location, I have found that Inquiring Mind still has seen numberous uses and has proven it's place in this deck (you can't go wrong with 3 wild icons anyway !).

Guts and Manual Dexterity: A little bit of help againt the encounter deck or enemies can't hurt. Increasing your odds of drawing the desired card by drawing more doesn't hurt either.

Now let's see all the cards that are meant to make your job (investigating in the adorable presence of monsters) slightly easier :

Magnifying Glass: A cheap and efficient way of boosting your investigations.

Flashlight: A no-brainer. Greatly helps investigation, moreover the ability to collect two clues in a single investigation almost nullifies the limited uses.

Dr. Milan Christopher: Another obvious choice. Even with just the investigation bonus it would be a strong include. It's ability to generate more ressources may help playing those key assets such as Flashlight or Stealth.

Fieldwork: A really interesting card. In this deck the primary use of this card is to ensure that you collect all clues from a location in a single investigation (since in solo play there is no more than 2 clues on a location). However, it also serve as an evasion booster : If an enemy spawned at a location you want to cross, it will almost guarantee that you evade the enemy. With an evasion value of 5, you may even attempt to evade hunter enemies without using stealth so that they don't track you (due to the fact that they are exhausted).

And finally, let's take a look at the remaining cards, which will drastically speed up your game :

Preposterous Sketches: If you want to be as fast as possible, you want to quickly play a few assets that will ease investigations and a few cards to evade enemies. Since this deck isn't too ressource dependant, trading 2 ressources for 3 cards is a good tradeoff.

No Stone Unturned: Another card to dig faster into this deck. Compared to Preposterous Sketches, this card lets you dig faster through your deck, and the fact that you can keep only one card isn't a problem since you only need a couple of cards to get rolling (and it also help avoid drawing those weaknesses !).

Shortcut: I think that everyone can agree on the fact that this card has proven it's usefulness. A free move action is pretty powerful on it's own. However, remember that our dear Rex Murphy can collect all clues in one action. This means that you can move, investigate (and hopefully gather all clues on the location), and repeat in a single turn. This card also help get away from hunters enemies.

Quick Thinking: One of the strongest rogue card in my opinion. An additionnal action is always useful, especially in this deck. The succeed by 2 or more isn't a problem, as you should be able to pull that off easily by investigating.

Emergency Cache; In case you need ressources fast.

Now that you have seen the power of the Stealthy Journalist, here is your s̶h̶o̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ upgrade list to become even more quicker and stealthier:

Cryptic Research: With this card you've just upgraded your Preposterous Sketches with a Fast keyword and a 0 cost. This may not seem amazing at first glance, but saving an action is always useful, especially in a deck where you can clear a location from it's clues in a single action. The lowered action cost is also a nice addition. Sure there are decks that are way more expensives than this one (Poor , even while fighting abominations they have to think about stretching their dollars as much as they can ...); but you want to have a few ressources to play cards such as Stealth or Mind over Matter when you need to run for your life (If you're not convinced, think of how much cash and fame you will receive by bringing the hottest (and unbelievable) news ever to the eyes of the world... yeah you definitively want to survive).

Pathfinder: A good replacement of Shortcut. Sure, it's not Fast and cost ressources, but as i have described in the Shortcut description, a free movement is priceless, so the ability to gain multiple free movements is extremely powerful. And if you draw this card in late game, where playing it may not be worth it, it still has an evade icon.

In the Know: Having more safety measures is never a bad thing. Some enemies spawn in precise locations, and if you have revealed it before, you can just move away, and investigate it from a safer place (also stealing clues from a baddie's location knowing he is harmless is somehow satisfying). Note that contrary to Seeking Answers, you're considered to be at the location, meaning that if you succeed by+2 (and you will), you will also discover the additionnal clue in the investigated location. Remove both Unexpected Courage to make room for it.

Magnifying Glass: While being a small upgrade, reducing the cost for playing is a good thing, especially as two of the cards we previously added cost 3 ressources.

Higher Education: What??? This isn't the first choice ???!!! Yeah this is definitively not the most important. First of all, you have so much ways to boost your investigation that you don't really need to add even more. Second, burning all of your ressources on this is tempting, but as explained above you need your money for others cards. Finally, while the ability to boost Will is interesting, remember that you will act really fast, meaning that you will only draw less encounter cards compared to another investigator.

Emergency Cache: If you are a drawing maniac and wants even more drawing, then this may be a good choice.