Wonderful Winifred's; Winning Windlass

I had the opportunity to try this Winifred deck as a flex investigator in the Circle Undone and have been having a blast so far. Every asset and event is used to thin your deck so you can get down to just your high value skills that you can consistently commit to keep the momentum going.

You really only need the Lucky Cigarette Case and a pair of cards with matching symbols to commit to get going. If the sum of the relevant symbols on the pair of cards you commit to every test + your stat are greater than the tests difficulty + biggest or second biggest negative in the bag just go for it. Do not be afraid of commiting assets that you don't have the actions or resources at the time to get going you can always play them later. The goal is to just use your talent to keep taking tests and sprinting forward through the scenario until the dreaded shows up. Then just get a new pair of cards, get back up and run recklessly forward again commiting a pair of cards to every eligible test.

To help with achieving your forward momentum with Winifred's ability the deck uses either Opportunist to (hopefully) return to hand post test or Daredevil to pull a random skill. Manual Dexterity helps as always by replacing itself and "Watch this!" helps you afford all your assets.

Pickpocketing is generally considered to be a bad card but with a base 5 your chances at successfuly evading especially when you are likely commiting another pair of symbols means you can trigger Dirty Fighting. This makes evading enemies a card positive action while helping to maintain momentum.

Lockpicks are used over Thieves' Kit in the base deck because of how important succeeding by 2/3+ is to maintain momentum. Once you have a couple scenarios under your belt you should consider buying Thieves' Kit this will let you commit cards instead of to your investigation checks and allows you to use your tools to get more than one clue per turn consistently.

if you find yourself fighting ghosts or on the fighter end of the spectrum for flex Ornate Bow should be prioritized over the thieves kit but otherwise grab whichever makes you happy first.

Don't forget to use "I'll take that!" to play your items both quickly and cheaply assuming you can find some humanoid enemies or a low shroud location. The event attaches to your item taking it out of further deck cycles until you lose your picks or replace your gun when you need to reload as an added bonus.

Eldritch Tongue is used to fill an uncontested slot and have one less card to cycle but also to pull Grift out of the deck for future card cycling and to recover from a failed test using Watch this.

A case could be made for Trench Coat over Fine Clothes if you don't expect a lot of parlay tests in your campaign. Sadly the clothes don't help with grifting and are only part of the deck again to have one less card to cycle but also as a target for Hidden Pocket.

Starting trauma from In the Thick of It should be both damage as your Sanity is your weakest point due to your low Willpower.

Early upgrades are on the sideboard. Versatile adds Track Shoes for another stat boost to your most used stat. This does come with a trade off of having five extra cards to cycle but Hidden Pocket is fast, cheap and has your two most commonly used icons for an extra commit to fill some of that space. Well Connected can be used to help pass Willpower tests. I didn't include it in the base deck as until you get Moxie or Precious Memento you might have to play Leo De Luca multiple times a scenario as you use him as sanity soak in addition to the extra action and while "Watch this!" on repeat generates a lot of resources, the occasional or having to pay for Leo again just to keep your sanity up from deck cycling is a bit pricey in the early scenarios.

One last note, I was "lucky" enough to get Dark Pact as a basic weakness. If you get something that doesn't cycle this deck will function a lot better. That weakness does beg to be played but you can just hold it in hand until close to the end. If you get Doomed or something on the other end of the spectrum maybe go outside, take up knitting, or just think about cute puppies for a bit instead of trying this deck. Or maybe you can take up the gauntlet and try and get The Bell Tolls out in the first scenario. I am sure your teammates will appreciate it.

I hope this rambling mess inspires someone else to play Wini. Go ahead start running it only stings a little when you find the