So I realize Lola isn't actually out yet, but since she is already available on the arkhamdb deck builder (and I plan to proxy her for an upcoming campaign), I wanted to get a conversation going dedicated to her deck building. Note this is a conversation about using her in a group setting, not for solo builds.

Like several other investigators, Lola can be built a variety of different ways, but it has been a real challenge to try to make the most out of her and attempt to remain consistent.

An important thing to note is her signature cards and weaknesses. The Sig card is amazing, essentially it is a fast event of the upgraded emergency cache (cost reduction of 3 and card draw) with the added benefit of changing roles if necessary. Her signature card is equally powerful by making you discard all existing assets of your current role and then discarding a random card from the deck to get your new role. This gives me a few ideas to the deck build:

1. We just role with it and don't really try to do anything to mitigate the weakness
2. Use cards like Old Book of Lore or Scrying to try to mitigate or embrace the weakness.
3. Have your main role be completely (or relatively) asset free to drastically weaken the effectiveness of the weakness.

In the end, a friend and I have come up with 2 builds. The first is focused on clue gathering with a burst capacity for combat. The second is a more combat focused approach with the capacity for burst damage or clue gathering.

The first list, found here: Lola - Clues and Boss hunter , is currently planned to be used in a group with Roland, Maria and Wendy. We don't have a dedicated Seeker (likely a mistake but oh well) so that means I get access to Milan. The main role will be seeker, which puts the assets at risk. However, with the use of Scrying, that will allow me to plan roles for the next 3 turns (assuming no other additional drawing) and let me decide when to trigger the weakness. I feel the Scrying is the most important card to get in your opening hand, but you don't really need to play it until you have assets at risk. The rogue "set" is ideally saved up for a boss fight to use Backstab and Double or Nothing. "I'm outta here!" is handy in a pinch but is more likely used for it's 2 agility pips during that attack.

The second list, found here: Lola - Combat, Boss Hunter, light clues , is currently planned to be used in a group after Carcossa is released. She will party up with a Guardian and 2 seekers, meaning her main role should be a bit more combat focused than the above list, but I'm told clues win games, so she'll still have the capacity for that. Without access to Scrying, the idea here is to use Bandolier to allow her to use Magnifying Glass x2 and a weapon, preferably fire axe. Staying in the Survivor role does put the fire axe at risk, but it also allows her to get the benefits of the Mags without putting them at risk and being able to utilize the Survivor events "Look what I found!" and Lucky!. Oops! is mainly in it for the 2 combat pips but could have it's uses in the Carcosa campaign. This build allows her to investigate and/or fight in the Survivor role while still having the Rogue "set" for high burst damage against bosses. Guardian will also allow some burst damage with Vicious Blow.

Anyways, please let me know what you think of these.

Wow nice one @Slothgodfather - great to start this conversation up. I know on Discord some people have been discussing it, but it's great to get it going here too.

With everything I'm about to say, I should caveat it with I'VE NOT PLAYED LOLA - and I suppose that's going to be the case for almost everyone talking on this thread. So it'll all be theoretical and respond with my own impressions to what you've said, rather than hard evidence. Tricksy position to take on the internet but there we go.

My inclination is your first deck is stronger than your second. That's for a couple of reasons: first, it's more defensive, and I think if your board gets wiped of, say, weapons, that's going to really sting if that's your primary function in a party, so your second list might suffer from that. Secondly, the first list is tighter - only three factions (plus neutral) instead of four. I think a certain tightness/focus of design with Lola is going to be key - otherwise you wind up with a bunch of cards of multiple colours that can't be combined.

On that: neutral cards are 'always on' in Lola. So a simple change in list 2 might be taking the switchblade and switching to knife right away. It means if you want to, say, attack, commit vicious blow, and then switch to survivor to trigger lucky, you can do. If you were a rogue to initiate the attack on switchblade, that wouldn't work (two switches). But that's a marginal point that's really just to illustrate the strength of neutral cards. Similarly: with such a rounded stat line, neutral skill cards seem a decent choice. Good to see you've included a pretty good smattering of them.

That's all I've really got at the moment, which I appreciate is a little vague. Definitely can't wait to try her and see how she rolls and what she can offer.

It didn't occur to me that you could potentially switch roles in the middle of an attack. It isn't an action, but can you really start the round in Rouge role, attack with the switchblade, then before revealing a token - switch into Survivor so you can use Lucky?

27 minutes ago, Slothgodfather said:

It didn't occur to me that you could potentially switch roles in the middle of an attack. It isn't an action, but can you really start the round in Rouge role, attack with the switchblade, then before revealing a token - switch into Survivor so you can use Lucky?

Yes, you have a window in between initiating a test and committing cards.

That makes sense, since we do that already with Scrapper, etc. It just didn't occur to me to switch roles to enable Lucky or other things. Will have to ponder that some more. It makes some of the Survivor "if you fail" events a bit more viable.

So far I have played 1 game (Core S1 and 2) with the clue gathering version and she worked out really well for gathering clues. The mystic package was excellent in letting me scry to setup my draws for the next 3 turns at a time, and I could plan ahead to determine what role I'd need to be in going into the next round. I had upgraded the Shortcut events into Pathfinders, but found that it was sometimes a pain to switch into Seeker to get the use out of the mobility. It was also frustrating remembering I can't commit skill cards to other peoples tests, except for Neutral or the role I'm in. Occasionally I had that would help but couldn't due to the wrong role. I do know I ended up not including the Forbidden Knowledge mystic cards and did not miss it. I can't recall but I think I just went with 2 Guts in it's place to give more chances to commit neutral cards to myself and allies.

Over all she was really fun to play, and I feel I've only scratched the surface of her capacity.

Here is the upgraded Lola after we completed the first two scenarios. Most of the deck is relatively cheap so I like getting to add Pathfinder as another solid target for her signature card (Improvisation). I also like Sure Gamble to try to use on the Backstab + Double or Nothing turn to ensure you can succeed.