So Skids is one of the more controversial investigators. Some people say he is useless, some people say he is great. I like the guy, but keep feeling I could build a better deck once I have done so. I get into a situation where there are to many competing interests in his deck. Can we talk about Skids a bit?

Here are my thoughts on his strengths and weaknesses:

His main theme seems to be Resource management.

He is able to avoid/evade at will, needing very little help in this area.

He is able to do lots of stuff, but not very well. I will note, I don't see him trigger his ability as often as anyone else and i don't think it should be.

Even though he has access to good/many weapons, his fight is a little low and he needs a boost outside of the weapons themselves to be a great fighter. Maybe he needs to be the B enemy slayer in the group?

Without cards that grant resources, he doesn't have enough resources to handle playing cards, addressing his weakness and taking extra actions. He needs cash flow.

His will of a 2 and sanity of 6 means he needs some help in the Will/Sanity department. He may want to look into neutral for this, but guardian has some options as well.

His intellect of a 3 means he needs some boost to reliably get clues.

Talents. So talents are a quick, expensive way to boost skills, but I need those resources for other things including extra actions. Skills are good and can help compensate for his weird stat line, but they only go so far and eats up a lot of deck space (they do reduce the need for resources). Streetwise seems pretty great for him as for 2 resources (the cost of an extra action) he can get his Evade to a 7 and his Investigate, to a 6 but that is a lot of resources.

So I think the issue I am having is that in order to make an effective Skids deck, you need to mitigate his many weaknesses while increasing his skills to a point where taking extra actions are worthwhile. He is like a complicated puzzle. Adding in a Beat Cop helps him get his fight to where it needs to be, but then I am missing out on other items. There is also the issue that I know when I build a Rex deck, I know it needs to primarily be about getting clues with some cards to help his ability to deal with enemies. With Skids, I am left with: needs resources, needs 3 (or 4) stat lines boosted, needs weapons, needs horror mitigation and needs help investigating.

What are your folks take on what makes a good Skids deck? Is it going heavy skills? Is it just ignoring some of his gaps and making him less versatile? Am I overstating some of his gaps? Do I really need to put in as many resource generators as possible?

I think you're very right to say that Skids has too many competing interests. I'm very strongly of the opinion that the only effective Skids deck is one that eliminates as many competing interests as possible and focuses as much energy into doing one thing very well. In short, he needs to be set up purely for combat.

In the future if Rogues ever get access to any multi-clue potential, you could maybe make him into an Evasion/Clue Gatherer. A cool concept, but right now the cards don't exist to support this. Lockpicks is not good enough.

Skids' access to the Guardian pool makes him a decent warrior though, and going all in on this concept is the only effective skids deck I have ever come across. I do mean all-in, don't include lockpicks, or flashlights, or Streetwise, etc... that isn't what you are there for. You're there to beat up monsters, full stop. Skids does have access to a lot of the good guardian cards, and combining them with Rogue cards is potent. Prepared for the Worst + Chicago Typewriter is pretty much a necessity. Leo is fine for your ally, or Beat Cop. Neck slot is Elder Sign amulet, no argument. He does want money so include Lone Wolf and Emergency Cache/ Hot Streak when possible.

Don't be afraid to use extra actions to gain bonuses on the Typewriter, Skids' personal ability is good for that, as is Leo. Don't worry too much about skill cards that give you extra actions, they aren't worth it. The only skill cards I would take in Skids are Double-or-Nothing and Vicious Blow.

I borrowed this deck along with Akachi to soundly defeat Dunwich (I hope I'm not stealing MOTUX's thunder, but I'm not sure he posts here). It's designed for solo but it worked well. Both of them carried the killing and clueing. I'm not sure Machete is great for Skids, since he wants to evade, but the deck is meant to upgrade to Switchblade(2) anyway. Resources were sometimes a problem. I didn't get Hot Streak until late in the campaign.

1 hour ago, CSerpent said:

I borrowed this deck along with Akachi to soundly defeat Dunwich (I hope I'm not stealing MOTUX's thunder, but I'm not sure he posts here). It's designed for solo but it worked well. Both of them carried the killing and clueing. I'm not sure Machete is great for Skids, since he wants to evade, but the deck is meant to upgrade to Switchblade(2) anyway. Resources were sometimes a problem. I didn't get Hot Streak until late in the campaign.

Very interesting deck to be sure. It seems like it can't get clues quick enough since you have to exhaust Lockpicks to use it. How did you pick up multiple clues/turn? or do you just go for the one and the long shot/occasional Perception bonus?

I am also skeptical on Ever Vigilant, how did that work out for you?

11 hours ago, Jobu said:

Very interesting deck to be sure. It seems like it can't get clues quick enough since you have to exhaust Lockpicks to use it. How did you pick up multiple clues/turn? or do you just go for the one and the long shot/occasional Perception bonus?

I am also skeptical on Ever Vigilant, how did that work out for you?

It's true that Lockpicks is slow. I had Akachi also, so Skids didn't have to do all the clueing, but what he did do was pretty much guaranteed. Lockpicks gives enough buffer that Double or Nothing is usually safe, too. But yeah, quite a few standard Investigates, too. Streetwise helped later, especially in Where Doom Awaits. I think more of my resources went to that than to his ability.

Ever Vigilant usually came out early for me, so it was gold. When came out too late, hey, two Intellect pips.