Hare-Raised Axcelleration

Tired of the boring reliability of Cyclopean Hammer? Come try out Runic Axe's smorgasbord of options and tension of charge management, paired with exciting off-class splashes and all those interesting-yet-ignored upgrades made affordable by Down the Rabbit Hole!

~Main Idea~

The goal of the deck is to get out Runic Axe, prop it up with enough + to avoid using its Runes on Accuracy and instead on fun stuff like extra clues, movement, cards or healing while still thumping your foes.

~Introduction~

This build is the theoretical situation after the initial struggle at the start of Scenario 3, after core upgrades are achieved for 12XP and 4XP Down the Rabbit Hole discounts.

This version of Zoey departs slightly from a straight-killer and embraces the variety and flexibility provided by her multi-class deck building. A summary of what to expect from our Zoey:

████░ - Fighting. This Zoey is good-not-great. With 8 upgrade pips on the Runic Axe-Saga-Scriptweaver-Hunt, your weapon's damage output averages 4 per turn via +3, +1 damage hits. Enchant Weapon adds 1 more per turn. Fortunately, the Axe can store 4 hits and recharges 2 per turn, so the max sustained damage over three turns from full is 16 (8 Axe hits at +1 damage), +2 for Enchant Weapon, plus Zoey's Cross and Vicious Blow.

███░░ - Clue Discovery. Here is the strength versus other Zoey decks. Inscription of the Elders mode on the Axe is a repeatable source of clues, Grete Wagner adds clues and +, meaning you can select the Elders inscription more often. Evidence!(1) and On the Trail(3) are more likely to provide full potential thanks to the Axe's positioning flexibility via Inscription of the Hunt.

███░░ - Encounter Handling and Durability. Zoey is not entirely dead in the water from the encounter deck. You have two First Watch, two On the Hunt, a Ward of Protection, plus healing from Inscription of Glory. Physical Training can provide + to help save the Ward for truly terrible stuff.

██░░░ - Economy and Card Draw. After you blow whatever Stick to the Plan provides, you are on your own. There is pressure to activate Zoey's Cross at every opportunity, and using Inscription of Glory for cards distracts from the grand prize of using Elders to get clues. Embezzled Treasure evens out boom/bust scenarios and helps you pick Elders more often.

███░░ - Utility and Teamwork. There is a lot to like here. Inscription of the Hunt, On the Trail provide extra movement, Stand Together and Embezzled Treasure can help fund others, and First Watch greatly reduces the sting of an encounter phase.

~The Real Pocket Multi Tool~

For the low price of 10XP, the modes of Runic Axe fills the role of so many cards commonly found in decks: Evidence!, Scene of the Crime, Safeguard, Heroic Rescue, "Get over here!", Glory, Emergency Aid, "I've had worse…", Second Wind, Medical Student and more!

What to pick for your Axe -- There is only one way to build your Axe: Scriptweaver/Hunt/Saga/Elders/Glory. You must get both Saga and Scriptweaver since you are pushing the Axe's endurance as a main weapon. Getting only one of Saga/Scriptweaver adds +1 Rune per turn, but the second adds an additional +2 Runes - total of 4 Runes refreshed per round.

The order of the upgrades has some flexibility, but the Rune endurance from Scriptweaver+Saga is key so you can fulfill your role as primary fighter. Elders is the most important Rune, but is a mirage until you get your Rune economy and have Hunt as an Elder enabler. Hurry and try it out before the Elders upgrade gets mutated to 2(or 3!) pips.

Sweet Axtions:

Elders+Hunt clue, move, damage. Hunt can move the attack to a location where Elders has a better chance at firing.

Elders+Glory clue, damage, card-or-heal.

When you pop On the Hunt(3) and choose a low enemy that enables a full Axe turn of 3 clues, 2 moves, 3 resources, and a card/heal as well as avoiding an encounter card and a defeated enemy, maybe throw in some Glory or Evidence! -- that is a good day! Other silly Guardians kill enemies for free.

~Guiding Zoey~

Turn 0: Stick to the Plan triggers Astounding Revelation for 2 resources, and grabs Ever Vigilant, Prepared for the Worst and wherever your intuition guides you among On the Trail (Lv3 only), On the Hunt, First Watch.

Mulligan fiercely for Runic Axe, keeping only Backpack and Ace of Swords.

Use skill boosts to try to save using Runes on Accuracy. You won't have a lot of boosts until scenario 4 or so, when you have your first Enchant Weapon or Well Prepared.

If there are few enemies around, use On the Hunt or First Watch to manipulate the encounter deck to give you one so your Axe doesn't get lonely with full charge.

Use the Hunt Rune on your Axe to position yourself for best results to get more clues from cards like Grete Wagner, Evidence!, On the Trail.

Once you get the Elders Rune online, you may find it more useful to jostle an enemy 1 health at a time if that means you get more clues.

If you had a fortunate scenario, you'll end up triggering Embezzled Treasure twice, and +2 resources to start a scenario is no joke.

~Upgrade Strategy~

The deck has a screaming need for key upgrades to get online. Expecting to get them after 1 scenario is naïve, but two scenarios is realistic.

Phase 1 Upgrades 2-Scenario Goal: 12 'real' XP and 4 Down the Rabbit Hole XP

Stick to the Plan, 2x Backpack 2x Backpack(2)

Add Inscription of the Hunt, Scriptweaver to Runic Axe (5 pips).

Awkward Scenario 1 XP situations. Banking 7XP for Stick to the Plan is painful and surrenders much of the benefit of Down the Rabbit Hole, but this is the only time you might face it.

4XP or Less: 1x Backpack 1x Backpack(2), Runic Axe-Hunt

5-6XP: How lucky do you feel that you'll have 7XP after Scenario 2? No Luck- Use 1XP to upgrade 1x Backpack and 1 pip on Runic Axe-Hunt. Medium Luck- Use 2-3XP on Runic Axe-Saga or Scriptweaver, Rabbit XP on Axe and one of Evidence! or Backpack(2).

7XP: Stick to the Plan (Use Down the Rabbit Hole to upgrade Runic Axe-Hunt and Evidence! Evidence!

Phase 2 Upgrades 4-Scenario Goal: 20 'real' XP and 8 Down the Rabbit Hole XP total.

Three main goals:

-Use both Down the Rabbit Hole upgrade XP each scenario. Evidence!(1) provides another 0XP outlet when you are reaching to snag Enchant Weapon.

-Get Runic Axe-Saga-Scriptweaver-Hunt to 8 pips to fulfill its primary damage role.

-Get upgrades for cards that are wasting deck slots at their lower level:

On the Trail(1) On the Trail(3). This is a great response to Smite the Wicked and with the positioning provided by Runic Axe you have a better chance of realizing the full potential of 2 Move + 2 Clues.

Physical Training Physical Training(2)

-Get 1 Enchant Weapon, removing Refine. If you have the XP, now is the time to get Runic Axe-Elders to cash in on the large skill bonus.

Future Purchases

Use both Down the Rabbit Hole upgrade discounts, and when you accumulate enough XP, swap in a card like Well Prepared or Enchant Weapon.

Cards Out: Refine, Enchanted Blade, Delve Too Deep

Cards In: Enchant Weapon, Well Prepared, then whatever you feel among more Enchant Weapon, Kicking the Hornet's Nest, Ward of Protection, Astounding Revelation, Brand of Cthugha Brand of Cthugha etc.

--Some cards really come alive with an upgrade:

Physical Training(2) Physical Training(4): Repeatable + for the Encounter phase or + for your Axe. +2 to fighting potentially saves you an Accuracy Rune each round, which can then become a move, clue, card or heal.

On the Hunt On the Hunt(3). Finding the perfect enemy and optimizing your situation can't be beat.

Well Prepared. This is like your second Enchant Weapon with some encounter help to boot!

--These cards gain nicely with upgrades:

Evidence!(1). You've probably upgraded this one already. An extra Fast clue can really help you dip into and out of a situation.

Stand Together Stand Together(3)

Grete Wagner Grete Wagner(3). Axe-hopping really maximizes Lv0 Grete, but you won't go wrong with the upgrade either.

Vicious Blow Vicious Blow(2). I'm on the fence about this one. While Zoey needs more total scenario damage, the extra skill and card draw provided by Daring and Overpower is tempting.

--Some cards fulfill their role without an urgent upgrade:

Ever Vigilant. Stand Together has priority. The deck is about 80% likely to have 3 assets to play on turn 1, so you are using 3xp to generate 1.2 actions and 1.2 resources among your team, which isn't bad compared to other setup boosters like Another Day, Another Dollar.

Dynamite Blast(0) Dynamite Blast(2) Dynamite Blast(3)

Safeguard. This card may not even make the initial deck.

Emergency Cache. Its benefit is that it is findable with Backpack.

Prepared for the Worst Prepared for the Worst. It doesn't help you find any more Axes on setup, and the extra action is relevant only 10% of the time (see Mathcraft below)

~Make the Deck Yours~

There are plenty of ways to customize your Axe-Zoey.

Not convinced by the damage output? Dump one or both On the Trail or Ace of Swords for Brand of Cthugha.

Looking for more axcitement? Try String of Curses or Kicking the Hornet's Nest.

Did you have friends growing up? Call your buddies Guard Dog and Beat Cop with some Motivational Speech.

Safeguard more your style? Let go of Refine, but be aware you could tick Runic Axe-Hunt mid-scenario to get those movements back.

Need more economy? Swap Dynamite Blast for another Emergency Cache. Zoey's Cross is like Dynamite Blast anyway, but spread out over several turns.

Don't touch that Embezzled Treasure.

~Mathcraft: So Your Deck Has a Lynchpin~

You need that Axe - How many search enablers do you need?

Enter the Hypergeometric Distribution: https://www.omnicalculator.com/statistics/hypergeometric-distribution

Let's say you are starting scenario 3, and hopefully you've earned 9 XP. You use 7XP on Stick to the Plan and 2XP plus 2 from Down the Rabbit Hole to upgrade two Backpack. Thanks to Astounding Revelation, your mulligan pool is down to 26 cards.

In the Hypergeom calculator, enter:

Population Size: 26

Number of Success States: 2 (one for each Axe)

Sample Size: 10 (Hard mulligan for Axes only, you look at 10 different cards. Sorry Ace of Swords, Stand Together, Enchant Weapon, etc)

Number of success states in sample: 1 (how many Axes do you need)

What to compute: P(X ≥ k) (odds of getting 1 or more Axes)

The Result is 0.63 (63% chance of getting the Axe). But we would love to keep key cards we get in the first five - what is our risk? Change Sample size to 9 (keeping 1 card, looking at 9 total), or 8. Here is what you get: Keep 1 card of the first five-58% Axe; Keep 2-53% Axe.

That isn't good enough! What other forms of insurance do we have? The next round of defense is the Backpack. You use Ever Vigilant and play the Backpack. What to expect?

In the Hypergeom calculator: Population size is now 24 (33, minus 4 from Stick to the Plan, minus 5 cards you drew). Sample size is now 12 (or 6 if you are dealing with lv0 Backpack. The odds are pretty good - 76% of the time you will see the Axe(Level 0 Backpacks aren't actually that bad - 44% odds of an Axe). If you have Stand Together, play it before Backpack -- Adjust Sample Size to 14 and the odds go to 84%.

What are the odds you'll get a Backpack and no Axe? If we firm-mull for either Axes or Backpacks (keeping 1 other nice card) - compare the success rate when changing the Number of Success States from 2 to 4. The Result goes from 58% to 84% -- the 26% difference are cases where you get at least one Backpack and zero Axes. The remaining 16% is zero Axes and zero Packs.

What are the odds you will find 3 valid targets with a Backpack? Change the Number of success states to 6 (items/Supply in the deck), and Number of success states in sample to 3. There is an 81% chance of a full Backpack.

Your overall approx odds Keep 1, mull 4:

63% Axe from mulligan, minus ~5% for every key card you kept from the first 5 (Backpacks, Enchants etc). Let's say you kept 2 - 53% Axe.

26% Backpack and no Axe from mulligan. Backpack(2) finds Axe 76% of the time, and finds the other Backpack and no Axe 13% of the time . 0.760.26 + 0.78.13 = 30% more Axe (83% total Axe)

83% odds isn't enough - I don't want to start empty handed 17% of the time! Enter your last chance: Prepared for the Worst. From the calculator(24-2-9-1), you have a 62% shot for the Axe. 0.62*.17 = 10.5% additional Axe.

Your final odds of hoisting the Axe on turn 1: 53+30+10.5 = 93.5%. About the same odds as not drawing the .