The Greatest Trick of Dexter Drake (Infinite/10xp/taboo ok)

Disillusioned with his failed quest to find real magic, Dexter returns to the stage for one, last trick, which is to be his greatest one yet. In the trick, he repeatedly saws not one woman but two in half, and makes them reappear seemingly unharmed over and over again. And just when the audience thinks they got it figured out, one of the women turns into a man. The show is a huge success, making Dexter unfathomably wealthy.

EDIT: Removed unnecessary suggestions of using Obfuscation.

This is a silly thought exercise of an infinite combo for Dexter: infinite resources, infinite actions, taking tests at infinite level, infinite health, and infinite sanity, while still being legal according to the latest taboo (2024-02-20).

In its current form, the deck is not actually solo playable to survive long enough to land the combo, but might work if you have someone else to look after you. Why would anyone agree to that, it's beyond me... Still, with a little more sensible choices of assets, you might be able to make this into a solo version that survives long enough for the combo to land, if you really want to try it out.

Part 1: Infinite Resources

Setup:

• Table:
  • Either Olive McBride or Alyssa Graham aka "the assistants"
  • Cards of at least 4 different classes, here that means both Pocket Telescope and Talisman of Protection
• Hand (at least):
  • 2x Cheat the System
  • 1x Hit and Run
  • 1x the other assistant
  • 1x Swift Reflexes
  • 1x Sacrifice
  • 1x Protecting the Anirniq. The other can be in the hand or in the discard pile.
• Deck and discard pile: At most 2 cards in the deck. At most 4 cards in discard pile + deck. For the first cycle, it's better to start with less cards in discard pile + deck. If you have more than 2, you need some starting resources because you will be playing less Cheat the Systems on the first cycle.

Cycle:

• Play fast cards until there's at least 2 cards in discard pile, and 2-4 cards in discard pile + deck:
  • Play Cheat the System and gain (at least) 4 resources.
  • Play Cheat the System and gain (at least) 4 resources.
  • You have some room to more fast cards to discard pile here e.g. Obfuscation discarding the existing Obfuscation.
• Play Hit and Run to put another assistant on the table.
• Play Swift Reflexes to play Sacrifice.
  • Discard the assistant with horror on her. There should now be exactly 4-6 cards in discard pile.
  • Sacrifice allows you to choose how much to draw cards vs. take resources. Draw so that you shuffle and your deck will have exactly 3 cards left. Take the rest as resources.
  • When required to shuffle the deck, put the horror on the surviving assistant.
  • Put Sacrifice and Swift Reflexes from limbo to discard pile.
• Play Protecting the Anirniq. Draw the remaining 3 in the deck. By now you should have drawn the second Anirniq.
• Play Protecting the Anirniq. Shuffle and draw Sacrifice, Swift Reflexes and Anirniq. Put the horror on the surviving assistant.

The cycle should leave the discard pile with one Protecting the Anirniq. From now on, each cycle if you just play the cheat the systems, you gain 9 resources, while the cards cost 5, so you net 4 resources. Repeat until you are satisfied with your bank account.

If you play that extra card e.g. Obfuscation on top of another Obfuscation, you get your deck+discard pile to 6 cards which is the most you can draw with one Sacrifice and Anirniq. Other cards you might consider is another Leather Jacket or Talisman of Protection. But Obfuscation is far more fitting to the theme of the deck; it even has Dexter's picture on it. And it allows you to reload the Obfuscation to ignore any potential attacks of opportunity, while still netting 1 money every cycle if you do, so you can start earning infinite money even when engaged with 3 monsters (even though Swift Reflexes is fast, you still take AoO when taking the action to play that Sacrifice).

Important feature about Sacrifice: The post-then aspect of an effect has timing priority over all other indirect consequences of the resolution of the pre-then aspect. (For example, if an effect reads: "Draw an encounter card. Then, take 1 horror," and a player controls an ability that reads "After you draw an encounter card," the post-then "take 1 horror" aspect occurs before the "After you draw an encounter card" ability may initiate.). This means you cannot interrupt the Sacrifice with Anirniq.

Note: if your rule reading is that Swift Reflexes should go into discard pile before Sacrifice is played, the loop works nevertheless.

Note: if your rule reading is that Swift Reflexes should go into discard pile after last Anirniq, you will need two alternating Swift Reflexes; the loop is slightly different then, but can be made to work.

Part 2: Infinite Actions

Setup:

• Table:
  • Either Olive McBride or Alyssa Graham aka "the assistants"
• Hand (at least):
  • 2x Hit and Run
  • 1x Leo De Luca
  • 1x the other assistant
  • 1x Cheat the System
  • 1x Swift Reflexes
  • 1x Sacrifice
  • 1x Protecting the Anirniq. The other can be in the discard pile.
• Deck: Empty.
• Discard pile: 1-2 cards.

Cycle:

• Play Hit and Run to put Leo De Luca into play.
• Use the action from Leo De Luca to do whatever you want. If you do something that causes damage and/or horror, you can put as much of that as you can on Leo to kill him. Additional damage can be put on Leather jacket or your investigator; if you somehow manage to get defeated, use Talisman of Protection.
• Play Hit and Run to put one of the assistants on the table, replacing Leo de Luca if he is not dead already.
• If there's less than 5 cards in the deck+discard pile: Play Cheat the System
• Play Swift Reflexes to play Sacrifice.
  • Discard the assistant with horror on her. There should now be exactly 6 cards in deck+discard pile.
  • Shuffle the deck, put the horror on the surviving assistant.
  • Draw 3 cards.
  • Put Sacrifice and Swift Reflexes from limbo to discard pile.
• Play Protecting the Anirniq. Draw 3. By now you should have drawn the second Anirniq.
• Play Protecting the Anirniq. Shuffle and draw Sacrifice, Swift Reflexes and Anirniq. Put the horror on the surviving assistant.

The optional step of playing Cheat the System gets your deck+discard pile to 6 cards; skip it if your action caused you to lose e.g. Talisman of Protection or Leather Jacket. Alternatively, you can just take one resource and draw two cards from Sacrifice to achieve same effect. Putting more than one extra card (e.g. both the jacket and the talisman) in the discard pile can break the loop, as you might not draw the second Anirniq in time, so try to avoid that.

Note the FAQ on Leo de Luca: On the 'additional action': When spending actions during your turn, the first action you spend each turn takes up the 'additional' designation. If Leo De Luca is discarded mid-turn, you do not lose 1 action from your total pool of actions for the turn. If you then play a second copy of the card, you gain a further additional action.

"Fun" Stuff to Do with the Infinite Actions

• Ignore all attacks of opportunity with Obfuscation
• Boost your stats with your infinite resources as needed, by using your talents.
• Play Premonition to know exactly how much you need to boost (make sure you don't end up with too many cards in the discard pile)
• Blackmail all the enemies you don't bother killing
• Remember to reload the Fox Mask when you move out of a location with an enemy.
• If you manage to get Leo De Luca killed or if you kill an enemy, celebrate their death by putting a charge on Decorated Skull
• Don't bother going into nasty locations, but use Pocket Telescope to investigate them

Handling Weaknesses

Keep your Occult Scraps on the table. If your Basic Weakness is of the annoying type and threatens to ruin your deck cycling, you need 6 more XP to buy Charisma and Ikiaq. Put the annoying weakness under Ikiaq.