Shrewd Joe Diamond in the rough

Premise

The concept of this deck is a rather simple one. Joe Diamond has access to all the Unidentified cards, so what this deck tries to do is to identify both the Strange Solution and the Archaic Glyphs during the first game (and possibly the Ancient Stone in the second game).

From then on our dear gumshoe can use Backpacks and No Stone Unturned to find the tool he need for each situation.

When you manage to idenfity the Solutions/Glyphs/Stones, you can use Shrewd Analysis to upgrade them. If you feel lucky that is. The payoff is potentially huge (11 "free" Xp!) but a worst case scenario really sucks.

Upgrades

Joe has a lousy Agility of 2, so Archaic Glyphs (Prophecy Foretold) is actually rather good for him. It's often more action efficient to evade than fight a 3hp+ monster (or a monster with Vengeance and/or a high fight and Retaliate. Archaic Glyphs (Guiding Stones) is a less expensive Fingerprint Kit that doesn't take a hand slot, but doesn't yield+1 Intellect. So if you get those, you might want to switch out the the Fingerprint Kits.

As for the Strange Solutions. The Strange Solution (Freezing Variant) is mediocre. It's not an automatic evade, but testing at 6 Agility should work out fine most of the time. The Acidic Solution is a better weapon than anything Joe can get his grubby hands on, so that's your best bet for killing stuff. Restorative Concoction is the worst of the bunch, since you have 8 Stamina and a few meat shields, while the Empowering Elixir is great for your mates but mediocre for you (albeit it might be nice if you can't seem to find Dr. Milan Christopher or you really need cards for Higher Education).

In a perfect world, Shrewd Analysis yields 2 Prophecy Foretold and 2 Acidic Ichors. Worst case, 2 Restorative and 2 Guiding Stones. The safest possible route is to buy each upgrade individually, at least for the Strange Solutions, but that's up to you.

The deck itself

The rest of the deck is a rather typical one. You have way too many hand slot items for your first run, but that's fine. You need to toss some of them to identify the Archaic Glyphs anyway, and with the Detective's Colt 1911s in play (or the single Bandolier) you can go to town. Just remember that the Bandolier clashes with the Backpacks, so only use it in an emergency.

Upgrades

As for upgrades, this deck does need some experience to really get going. You want Charisma and upgraded Beat Cops (replacing the Laboratory Assistants), since fighting at 5 is sub-optimal. That might change, of course, if you decide to buy two Acidic Solutions. But the +1 Strength is deeply necessary if you want to fight using ordinary weapons and the 1 damage effect allows you to kill 3 Stamina monsters in one action.

Higher Education is always great, both for investigation and to be able to pay your way out of Willpower tests. And of course, you really want to buy two Ancient Stones to complete your collection. I would also consider either upgraded Shortcuts or Pathfinder to get more action efficient. I personally prefer Pathfinder, but upgraded Shortcuts can go in the Hunch Deck.

Ever Vigilant is an interesting card for this deck, that also might be worth considering. Emergency Cache (3) is a great upgrade for the Solutions too.

The first few games

The concept is to sacrifice speed in the beginning to get more powerful in the long run. Yes, the first game will be a bit ackward. You have two backpacks, two lab assistent and enough card draw in your Hunch deck to power through a bad opening hand. Remember, in a clinch you can do fine with just a Machete, Dr. Milan Christopher and a Magnifying Glass.

Sanity loss (2 Willpower and 6 Sanity) is bad for you, but you have a few meat shields and 2 Logical Reasoning. You might want to eventually invest in an Elder Sign Amulet or a Key of Ys (if you feel cheesy) to keep yourself sane in the long run.

My suggested hunch deck

• 2 Logical Reasoning (Joe have 6 Sanity and 2 Willpower...)
• 2 No Stone Unturned (To find the cards you need or help your team. And the upgraded version is fast too)
• 2 Preposterous Sketches (3 cards for one action is nice. I'm thinking about swithcing these with Scene of the Crime though)
• 1 Shortcut (Always nice to save an action)
• 1 Truth from Fiction (to help with Archaic Glyphs). Replace it when you can.
• 2 Working a Hunch (It' s fast, which Scene of the Crime isn't. Scene of the Crime is also a bit harder to pull off.)
• 1 Unsolved Case (Not the worst weakness most of the time. Of course, 2 resources, 1 action and possibly 1 clue misplaced is bad, but at least you can plan for it (the hunch deck is just 11 cards large after all). And if it goes off, well, at least it's not a mental trauma. EDIT: Dreadreaper pointed this out in the comments: You don't need to have a clue to resolve the Unsolved Case. To quote him: "it's an effect and not a cost".Thanks for pointing this out, Dready.

In action (mild spoilers):

I played this deck (with some proxies) in two first scenarioes in Return to the Night of the Zealot (normal difficulty, hard special tokens).

It was quite interesting, as I went in "blind" along with Roland and Norman Withers. The first scenario was hell, because of the ghouls. OH SO MANY GHOULS! The whole game felt like a horror movie, with two and three enemies spawning every single round (we had a three basic weakness monsters too).

Both Joe and Roland went down due to unlucky circumstances; four missed attacks on the retaliating Ghoul Priest. But at least Joe only got a Physical Trauma. In the end, Norman saved the day with his last Shrivelling charge.

I did manage to translate the Glyphs and the Solution but only got 6 xp and thus only upgraded the Solutions with Shrewd Analysis for one Acidic, one Freezing solution. I also picked up two Ancient Stones - not optimal but this was a test run after all.

The second game went better. We got almost all the cultists, but Joe felt awfully slow and I longed for a Pathfinder. He also got some serious damage from treacheries, which was to be expected but still hurt. I identified the Ancient Stones for 5 meager charges and shrewdly got one of each Stone. We haven't had time to play the final scenario yet, but I think we have a decent chance to make it.

All in all, a decent run. I'm not sure I would run a deck like this in Forgotten Age (not sure I would use Joe in Forgotten Age at all to be honest), but I think it would be great in Path to Carcosa. Dunwich should be fine too - the campaign is stingy with Experience, but Shrewd Analysis helps a bit.

Conclusion

All in all a fun deck to play, with plenty of options. I prefer my decks to be multifaceted rather than just being really good at one thing, so it's perfect for me. It's NOT a hyper-optimized Rex deck, but Joe can holdt can hold his own in a fight, investigate just fine and get some nice milage from his hunch deck.