So I'll soon be running a demo at my local gaming store, and I plan to run Curse of the Ragarou. I'm very excited, and for the demo decks I plan to use the two core sets starter characters. There's five potential characters but I believe I can only construct 4 decks. With that in mind, which of the 5 starter characters is the least useful? I kinda feel like it's going to end up being either Daisy or Agnes, as the Rogue and Gaurdian cards are just so good I feel like i need them both well represented. What do you guys think?

if you're running a demo, definitely use Wendy and Roland.

There's a reason why they are the starters, and that's because using the other investigators are not as apparent as using Wendy and Roland.

If you give someone whose never played the game before Agnes, chances are they are going to have a confusing, and bad time. I'd reccomend Daisy and Skids. All Factions are then represented quite well.

Agnes is probably the trickiest to play, so I'd leave her out.

I'd leave out skids tbh, Roland does a better job killing monsters and wendy is better at Evading. Give Agnes to a player who is most familiar with board games because I'm sure they'll have a blast with her interactions and spells. And daisy because shes good at the main point of the game.

Assuming you have multiple cores and can build decks for each of the 4, here's my brief run-down of the 5 Investigators:

Roland: Straight-forward, good at combat and has access to a lot of weapons; decent stats elsewhere. Probably the easiest to learn.

Daisy: Extremely good at investigating, but elsewise more of a supporting role. Cannot deal with enemies, and kind of a one-dimensional character. Has great abilities with her books to help other players - scrying/tutoring, healing, buffs.

Agnes: The strongest Investigator, assuming she can get her Spells into play. A bit difficult to manage for gaming newcomers, but very powerful. Can decently handle all aspects of the game -- but again, only with Spells. She can't directly handle Combat or Investigation reliably.

Skids: Loves resources and action economy. Underhanded, he uses tricks to avoid direct combat. He's a bit selfish and might function better in solo or 2-handed; but will provide better direct assistance to dealing with enemies since he has access to the Guardian Weapons, as well.

Wendy: Based around luck. She doesn't mind failing tests, losing assets, since she has a lot of tricks to get them back. Will need help with combat. Survivors (her class) tend to go it themselves, so can't do a whole lot to assist other Investigators. But to be fair, she is the Investigator I've played the least, so my perception may be wrong on her.

The only thing that is keeping you from constructing all 5 decks are some missing neutral cards, unless I am mistaken. Why not prepare all 5 decks, let the players choose whatever character they would like to try and then just shuffle the missing Flashlights, Emergengy Caches and Knifes into the 4 decks that were taken? Should only take half a minute and players would be free to pick a character they like or a play style they are interested in.

You're not mistaken. By the way, that's exactly the method I used for demoing

Wendy: Based around luck. She doesn't mind failing tests, losing assets, since she has a lot of tricks to get them back. Will need help with combat. Survivors (her class) tend to go it themselves, so can't do a whole lot to assist other Investigators. But to be fair, she is the Investigator I've played the least, so my perception may be wrong on her.

Wendy is an evasion tank. Her job is to exhaust monsters to keep the other investigators safe.

Wendy: Based around luck. She doesn't mind failing tests, losing assets, since she has a lot of tricks to get them back. Will need help with combat. Survivors (her class) tend to go it themselves, so can't do a whole lot to assist other Investigators. But to be fair, she is the Investigator I've played the least, so my perception may be wrong on her.

Wendy is an evasion tank. Her job is to exhaust monsters to keep the other investigators safe.

My point is more that evading the monsters doesn't make them go away. With the Core Set campaign, you definitely want some of those monsters defeated.

The only thing that is keeping you from constructing all 5 decks are some missing neutral cards, unless I am mistaken. Why not prepare all 5 decks, let the players choose whatever character they would like to try and then just shuffle the missing Flashlights, Emergengy Caches and Knifes into the 4 decks that were taken? Should only take half a minute and players would be free to pick a character they like or a play style they are interested in.

I actually made proxies for those 6 cards so I could have all 5 decks ready to go. Easy peasy.

im am using Agnes, i cant investigate, or fight a **** thing(if i draw the right cards i can evade ok, and practically auto win any will test, why there are so many cards in the per-contructed deck that give +willpower is puzzling.....have to play it a few times, maybe im getting unlucky draws

seems to me she might be more efficient in a higher difficulty with another character?

im am using Agnes, i cant investigate, or fight a **** thing(if i draw the right cards i can evade ok, and practically auto win any will test, why there are so many cards in the per-contructed deck that give +willpower is puzzling.....have to play it a few times, maybe im getting unlucky draws

seems to me she might be more efficient in a higher difficulty with another character?

Drawn to the Flame, and Lucky + Look What I Found! for investigating.

Shrivelling for Combat.

Blinding Light for Evade, also deals damage for Combat. Plus her inherent Response ability deals damage.

She has a lot of tricks that enable her to do everything extremely well. She can't do it normally from her base stats, but her card pool is incredibly powerful.

Thanks for the tips guys!

I'm leaning toward Agnes as the outcast.

I am not sure if Curse of Rougaru is best scenario to introduce new people. It has for sure more rules complexity than other scenarios. Escpecially rules regardin Rougaru and Aloof keyword make interaction with him quite different than with other monsters. This might be confusing.

I think that The Gathering is probably the is the best introductory scenario, or if you want bigger game, showing the possibilities of the game, Midnight Masks should work well. The only problem with MM is that it doesn't have a climatic conclusion.

I'm running Curse because this is for the LGS and I don't want to spoil the starter set. It may be a little more complex but I think it will be worth it.