William Yorick "The Graveyard Slasher"

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
Skinny William 5 2 7 1.0
Inspiration for
None yet

FractalMind · 42

Introduction

Hello my fellow investigators! Today I present to you my take on a solo William Yorick deck. The current version is a result of several playthroughs of the first two scenarios of the Path to Carcosa campaign. As such each card that is included in the current version addresses some of the issues I've encountered during these scenarios.

There are two main aspects of William Yorick that have to be accounted for in order to build an effective deck:

  1. We need to take advantage of William's special ability. Assets that are cheap and that provide a solid bonus are ideal candidates, and
  2. William's glaring weakness is his low intellect. We absolutely need to include cards that attempt to mitigate this.

With these two aspects in mind, let's proceed to the card choices! Be warned, spoilers ahead of the first two scenarios of the Path to Carcosa campaign!!!

Card Choices

Mitigating William's Low Intellect

  • Flashlight - Initially this card was "Look what I found!", but from my experience playing through Curtain Call "Look what I found!" didn't do much. With William's measly intellect you will rarely fail an investigation attempt by two or less. At least with the flash light you are guaranteed to succeed on 2 shroud locations. An added bonus is that the flashlight can be recycled with William's ability.
  • Evidence! - This card plays into William's strength which is killing enemies and mitigates his weakness which is reliably finding clues. This card address both! The two intellect icons are an added bonus!
  • Gravedigger's Shovel - I've only ever used this card to snag clues, and the fact that you have to pay two resources and two actions to get that clue is rather abysmal in terms of action efficiency. This card will be on the chopping block if a better card presents itself.
  • Perception - Another attempt to help William succeed at his investigation attempts. An argument can be made to replace this card with "Look what I found!" since they both provide two intellect icons, but pitching "Look what I found!" just for the icons never felt right to me, and the one time I did I failed my check...
  • Lucky! - this card goes a long way with helping William with his investigation attempts, or any skill test really. All around great card.

Capitalizing on William's Strength

  • Knife - I just kept stabbing and stabbing until my enemies were a red ruin at my feet... This weapon is simply amazing in this deck and makes playing it a blast!
  • Baseball Bat - Another great weapon for William's arsenal.
  • Prepared for the Worst - There really is only one weapon that William needs and that's his trusty Knife. This card is included to help you go find it.
  • Vicious Blow - Great action efficient card for investigators who want to kill their enemies.
  • Peter Sylvestre - Spoiler!!! Peter put in some real work helping me wade through the water rushing into the private rooms while also soaking up horror from the Royal Emissary. He definitely kept me alive during Curtain Call
  • Stray Cat - A great card that is cheap, has a nice effect, and takes advantage of William's special ability. Spoiler!!! The poltergeist is a real threat to William in Curtain Call if you do not have a way to deal with it. The cat is a great way to scare off evil spirits!
  • Emergency Cache - You never want to be in a position where you cannot take advantage of William's ability. Emergency Cache attempts to make this a non issue.
  • Survival Instinct - This card was included after I got swarmed by several enemies. This will not be an uncommon occurrence considering his signature weakness is Graveyard Ghouls.
  • Dynamite Blast - This card plays into Survival Instinct and it's also a great way of dealing with the Man in the Pallid Mask.
  • Fine Clothes - I ended up going with fine clothes over the Leather Coat. The 0 cost of the coat is nice, but for a measly 1 resource you get both a damage and horror soak, and an ability that will serve you well if parley tests continue to be a theme for the rest of the Path to Carcosa campaign.
  • Guts - Last but not least. In my opinion, this is an auto include in almost every deck since Willpower checks are so common in this game.

Summary

This concludes my attempt at building a William Yorick deck that will perform well in the current campaign. Every card in the deck is there to address a specific aspect of this investigator. I welcome any and all comments concerning my card choices! Thank you for taking the time to read over my deck. I hope you give it a go. Until next time. Stay sane investigators!

6 comments

Sep 18, 2017 Telosa · 53

Your deck looks like a lot of fun. I'll look forward to trying it myself sometime.

Sep 18, 2017 Sleaker · 2

I'm not sold on Baseball Bat being good when it takes up both hand slats and not being able to get out a flashlight, shovel, or knife when you've played it. How has it been doing? or is knife just way better? Also, thoughts on Resourceful to get back lucky?

Sep 19, 2017 Magnificate · 1209

This deck makes me want to put aside Jenny and do some testing with William. Perhaps run him through the Dunwich campaign? My initial thoughts are:

  1. This guy doesn’t need XPs. He’s deck is solid from the start, so he might play around with Exile cards instead.
  2. "Look what I found!" might not be all that good at the moment, but I’m sure at some point William’ll need to quickly grab two clues from somewhere.
  3. Prepared for the Worst seems like overkill. There are already 6 weapons in your deck.
  4. Dynamite Blast… Eh, it’s so expensive and Yorick already is a capable fighter.
  5. Too much focus on evasion? Being swarmed shouldn’t be that much of an issue if you’re not running Machete. Then again, Baseball Bat tends to break at just the wrong moment.

Sep 19, 2017 FractalMind · 42

@TelosaThanks man! Let me know how it works for you!

Sep 19, 2017 FractalMind · 42

@SleakerThat is indeed a problem, and one of the reason why I believe that Yorick is more suited to multiplayer rather than solo. In multiplayer I would drop the flashlight entirely. But make no mistake, Baseball Bat is a great weapon! It broke on me last night which turned out to be a non issue because after the enemy was slain I immediately brought a Knife into play from my discard pile. I have been considering bringing in Resourceful to recycle cards like Will to Survive, Aquinnah, and Lucky!. I have no doubt as the card pool deepens Resourceful will become a staple in all decks that can field cards.

Sep 19, 2017 FractalMind · 42

@MagnificateThanks for the feedback! To your third point, there are really only four viable weapons in this deck Baseball Bat and the Knife. Gravedigger's Shovel isn't the weapon of choice (unless you need to kill a Whippoorwill) and is only included in this deck solely for its clue gathering ability. To your fourth and fifth point, maybe you're right that this deck has to many evasion elements, four to be exact with Stray Cat and Survival Instinct, but from my experience getting surrounded by enemies is a real threat in solo play, especially when one of your basic weaknesses is an enemy like Silver Twilight Acolyte, Mob Enforcer, or Stubborn Detective. A typical scenario goes something likes this: a hunter moves to your location, then you draw Graveyard Ghouls, and final during the Mythos phase you draw a poltergeist. I think you can see how that can quickly get out of hand. Dynamite Blast is there for two reasons: one, because it synergizes well with Survival Instinct; you play Survival Instinct disengage and move to a connecting location and then toss the Dynamite Blast, which as it turns out will kill all of the enemies listed above except the poltergeist! Not to mention it is a rather efficient way to deal with the Man in the Pallid Mask since he always spawns at the location furthest from you and he's aloof which makes killing him in a single turn very difficult (though I did pull it off with a Knife and Vicious Blow).