...if there are such a thing, I like Eupocalypse, any other one you cats like? Thinking for later in campaign purchases...

Edit: started a Silas deck, campaign is on and trying to plan upgrades, might need some salvaging (see further on this thread).

Haha, I'm not sure if you are theoretically saying you would like a more powerful Eucatastrophe called Eupocalypse, or if you've just gotten the name wrong (I like it though!)

In answer to your question, I do like a lot of the survivor cards to be honest. I'm not even that sold on eucatastrophe because you have to get your skill value after modifiers to 0, which you can't always predict. And in some cases, if your elder sign ability isn't great, you can still fail the test.

I really like Alter Fate.. there are just so many good targets for a 1 cost card. The exile cards are actually really solid as well, especially when you consider that you can replace them with a lvl 0 card when you exile them. Survivors have some outstanding level 0 cards.

Will to Survive is excellent, True Survivor can almost be broken in some situations (though expensive to recur with the help of resourceful, still pretty powerful). Survivors are ace.

Well, Drawing Thin is clearly absurdly powerful; the taboo changing it to 3 exp probably should have gone further and if you play without taboos it is utterly ridiculous.

Meat Cleaver and Fire Axe are extremely good level 0 weapons, especially since Machete got taboo'd - Meat Cleaver essentially fills the one-stop unlimited use weapon category that Machete and Timeworn Brand fill, if you can keep up with the horror and don't hit a losing streak, even before considering the combo potential.

Take Heart is a premier economy card, the best level 0 one-off economy in the game (barring a really huge Crack the Case), even before considering being able to tack it onto other tests to make it 0 actions or synergy with Drawing Thin/Lucky Rabbit's Foot.

Eucatastrophe isn't incredible by itself, but in conjunction with Lucky! it means that you absolutely cannot fail a difficulty 3 or less test, and the combo with William Yorick and especially Silas Marsh is essentially degenerate - expect to see it make a taboo list soon.

Peter Sylvestre might be the best ally in the game. Horror is a concern for all investigators at essentially all times (whereas damage is only a concern in specific circumstances), and he boosts agility and, with the upgrade, willpower - the two defensive stats. For spellcasters or Carolyn Fern he becomes even better. Absolutely should at least be level 1 and level 3 (not merely taboo'd - I don't think he should be accessible in level 0 off-class slots).

Will to Survive allows you to completely ignore one of the four ways in which the game makes life hard for you (the others being the encounter deck, the doom clock and the inherent effects on scenario cards like locations and acts). If you can recur it you can trivialise scenarios, and even without doing so it can allow you to pull off incredible plays. It also scales hard by difficulty - not pulling from the bag is OK if the worst in there is -3, but absolutely amazing if the worst in there is -8.

Lucky! is great. You can keep it in hand until you need it, and until then you can test as if you are at +2 to everything (because if you need it, you can be), which can be really great value if you pull a string of good chaos tokens. Ever committed Unexpected Courage and found you didn't need it after all?

Alter Fate is an amazing card that can pull people out of really tough spots, and is my second upgrade after Cornered on Patrice, for whom it is particularly strong.

Now, of those, Alter Fate, Will to Survive, Peter Sylvestre (2), Eucatastrophe and taboo Drawing Thin are exp upgrades, plus you could upgrade Lucky! (though the level 0 version is plenty good enough).

Thanks much....looking ahead for this Silas build.

https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/585635

I would have liked to have had 1xGuts in there (but Steadfast and Say Your Prayers do similar things without the draw; and an Inquiring Mind would have been nice, but I think I'm pushing it with 19 skills. Had to ditch the Cherished Keepsake but I don't want to get a Relic Hunter anyway, so hope to get by for the first scenario until I get Peter (2) up.

And yeah I'm holding out for Eupocalyptika...

I've found that a Silas with adaptable and Eucatastrophe and some economy basically doesn't need any other cards. Everything else is just bonus.

11 hours ago, Krysmopompas said:

Thanks much....looking ahead for this Silas build.

https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/585635

I would have liked to have had 1xGuts in there (but Steadfast and Say Your Prayers do similar things without the draw; and an Inquiring Mind would have been nice, but I think I'm pushing it with 19 skills. Had to ditch the Cherished Keepsake but I don't want to get a Relic Hunter anyway, so hope to get by for the first scenario until I get Peter (2) up.

And yeah I'm holding out for Eupocalyptika...

So your deck has little in the way of card draw, which is a problem - I would absolutely consider 2x Overpower, maybe 2x Manual Dexterity if nothing else, since you want to keep your hand healthy to throw cards into tests.

Since you're a dedicated monster-hunter (having at best a couple of incidental clue pick-ups and no intellect boosts), having only 2 weapons and very little card draw is a problem - what if you can't find your Cleavers in your top 10 cards? Or you find them, but no Peter Sylvestre so you can't use them effectively due to the horror piling up? You could resort to evading in the meantime, but you have very little in the way of evasion tools. On Guardians I routinely run 4 weapons and 2x Prepared for the Worst in my starting deck and even then it's possible to be stuck unarmed for a while. I'd put something in, even just a Knife, or a flashlight so you can pick up some clues along the way.

If you are going the Eucatastrophe route, you absolutely want 2x Resourceful since it's a crucial part of your combo and having a second copy lets you bank it for times when you would rather use your Elder Sign to pull something else back.

Belly of the Beast just isn't very good, that can be dropped happily. Defiance is OK but I'd probably take Unexpected Courage instead. 1x Say Your Prayers isn't doing much, either double up on it or double up on Fearless instead. I think Steadfast can be happily dropped, you want a second Resourceful, and I think Leather Coat is a better option than Painkillers hands down (cheaper, proactive, doesn't rely on having Peter Sylvestre out).

Be warned: Eucatastrophe/Drawing Thin Silas Marsh is the most bored I have ever been playing Arkham Horror, and my fellow players found it incredibly frustrating that I could just do anything with little to no risk.

Going to agree with Allonym here. You really, really need Adaptable. And consider putting some fireaxes in there, too.

16 minutes ago, Eldan985 said:

Going to agree with Allonym here. You really, really need Adaptable. And consider putting some fireaxes in there, too.

Silas can't take adaptable though, no? He'd have to pay xp for any of those upgrades (even lvl 0)... unless he buys an exile card and uses it and replaces it with, say, resourceful after the next scenario.

46 minutes ago, Soakman said:

Silas can't take adaptable though, no? He'd have to pay xp for any of those upgrades (even lvl 0)... unless he buys an exile card and uses it and replaces it with, say, resourceful after the next scenario.

I assume they mean Resourceful.

But re-reading it, I think that I misunderstood the previous post - I assumed it was "here's my build, critique it", but as you say, it seems to be more "here's what I've already played, upgrade it".

With that in mind, I'd say that 2x Timeworn Brand (if going that route) is the obvious and immediate choice, as that will make you a far more consistent monster-killer. However, if the group is small and you want to be able to cover more ground, 2x Drawing Thin and 2x Eucatastrophe are also obvious choices for first picks. Either way, a Silas Eucatastrophe build wants all three cards. Once all three of those upgrades are in the deck, can go for Peter Sylvestre (2), Charisma + Jessica Hyde, upgraded Emergency Cache, and upgraded skills (Fearless (2), Brute Force and Rise to the Occasion (3) are great picks). I also agree that exile cards to pick up other level 0 cards for "free" is a good choice - probably Stroke of Luck or Flare, and the pick up a second Resourceful when replacing the exiled card.

He probably meant Resourceful and Eucatastrophe.

Silas gets 6exp and becomes The Most Broken Deck in the Game. In our recent Hard Mode Carcosa playthrough, my Silas deck beat the entire Dim Carcosa scenario by himself. H-dog didn't stand a chance.

Conclusion: Silas Marsh is the Chuck Norris of Arkham Horror.

Gah, yeah, I mean resourceful. Why were we saying Adaptable?

Hey thanks for all the comments gang. Just started playing with the deck as is, so yes unfortunately it's a 'look at upgrades' deck.

We already have Tommy as (probably) the premiere monster-hunter, and two rogues with seeker-lite builds. It's my first Silas deck and wanted some new skills in there, hence Daring (in place of Overpower and Manual Dexterity, at least fighting -wise) which is part of the draw pile with Eureka! and Take Heart.

I've aggressively mulliganed and ended up with the Cleaver, Sylvestre and Track Shoes, but realize that won't happen every game so Flare isn't a bad idea.

As far as upgrades go, I'm hoping to avoid Drawing Thin (we're playing new taboo list) so was looking at the following, with Dunwich Legacy in mind

1st: Peter Sylvestre (2) x2, Brute Force

2nd: Timeworn Brand, Brute Force, Alter Fate

3rd: Eucatastrophe, A Test of Will (for the exile; could also make it Flare)

- go into side mission-

4th: Alter Fate, A Test of Will

5th: Eucatastrophe, Grisly Totem (3)

6th: True Survivor

7th: Defiance (2) x2

8th: Grisly Totem (3), A Test of Will x2 (replacements)

I don't plan on failing many tests with this one, and with the exiling I might rework a couple of skill cards (another Resourceful for instance). and why the heck didn't I get the coat instead of Painkillers...

I like having a Cleaver (for healing) and a Brand, I realize it's only 2/30+ cards but the Brute Force will make it effectively 4/30+ cards.

The Say Your Prayers is anticipating getting to 3 Sanity regularly and should help in Undimensioned and Unseen.

Anyway given the current state of the starting deck isn't changing, and I'm trying to understand Eucatastrophe (is it always easy to get to "0" with all my skill cards in play?), happy to hear if I'm crazy or other brilliant thoughts to 'salvage' my deck planning -

here's the deck I'm doing scenario 1-B with again, so buildout has to happen from here. https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/585635

cheers and tx all

I just found out I was misunderstanding Silas' ability - I thought he could use a skill card, trigger its effect, then take it back into his hand anyway. With the exception of one or two skill cards, I was wrong...so I really did need 2x Resourceful among a host of other cards. Crap...well, live and learn...will try to add in another Resourceful and a couple of other cards ASAP by replacing Exiles.

His ability is weird. As neat as it is, he's one investigator I don't even want to bother with because I feel like it's a bit broken in some cases because of how it works with certain cards like defiance and eucatastrophe. But with your interpretation, he would be superman!

49 minutes ago, Soakman said:

His ability is weird. As neat as it is, he's one investigator I don't even want to bother with because I feel like it's a bit broken in some cases because of how it works with certain cards like defiance and eucatastrophe. But with your interpretation, he would be superman!

Ha, yeah on reflection he would just be nuts. Anyway my error means I built a kind of spastic deck, which maybe is appropriate for a survivor anyway...will have to fix it on the fly as best I can!

1 hour ago, Krysmopompas said:

I just found out I was misunderstanding Silas' ability - I thought he could use a skill card, trigger its effect, then take it back into his hand anyway. With the exception of one or two skill cards, I was wrong...so I really did need 2x Resourceful among a host of other cards. Crap...well, live and learn...will try to add in another Resourceful and a couple of other cards ASAP by replacing Exiles.

There are a couple of exceptions to this - the effect of Defiance will still work even if you return it to your hand (though you won't get the +1 from the wild icon) and the effects of Nautical Prowess will still work even if you return it to your hand (though obviously the icons won't help so it's pretty much just the card draw). This is because the timing point for their effects is before the timing point for Silas' ability, whereas the timing point for most skills is in step 7 of the skill test.

18 hours ago, Krysmopompas said:

I like having a Cleaver (for healing) and a Brand, I realize it's only 2/30+ cards but the Brute Force will make it effectively 4/30+ cards.

The Say Your Prayers is anticipating getting to 3 Sanity regularly and should help in Undimensioned and Unseen.

Anyway given the current state of the starting deck isn't changing, and I'm trying to understand Eucatastrophe (is it always easy to get to "0" with all my skill cards in play?), happy to hear if I'm crazy or other brilliant thoughts to 'salvage' my deck planning -

here's the deck I'm doing scenario 1-B with again, so buildout has to happen from here. https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/585635

cheers and tx all

Can't agree with the Brute Force part - certainly, having Brute Force will cover for you while you don't have a weapon, but it only lasts for one test so it's not a substitute - it's not like Guardians drop down to 2 weapons in deck when they pick up Vicious Blow. Then again, since you have a dedicated guardian already, might be OK.

I worry that you'll end up finding that you are a bit superfluous - Silas' strength is in monster-handling, and your team already has a guardian and two rogues. That said, a skill-heavy eucatastrophe build can pass more or less anything so you could be a generalist - perhaps pick up a few investigation tools like Sharp Vision?

Eucatastrophe is very easy to trigger if you are trying to do so - it is easier to trigger if your skill value is lower, and easier to trigger on higher difficulties. You can combine Lucky with Eucatastrophe to make it so that you will pass any test of difficulty 3 or less - any token that reduces your skill total to 2 or 1 will allow you to use Lucky to get back up to 3+, and any token worse than that will bring you to 0 and let you use Eucatastrophe, committing a skill with at least 1 matching icon (i.e. all valid skills other than Take Heart) to bring you up to at least 3. You can use cards like Lantern, Flashlight, Improvised Weapon, Winging It and Impromptu Barrier to reduce the difficulty of tests (rather than give you bonuses), which will increase the range of tests in which you are unable to fail. You need a lot of resources to keep this going indefinitely, but Survivor can assemble powerful resource engines. You can indefinitely recur Lucky! and Eucatastrophe by using your elder sign effects to recur Resourceful.

I forget how monster-heavy Dunwich is...there are a few scenarios (like the Express) where you need to get rid of them ASAP and a couple (the Museum? Undimensioned and Unseen?) where you deal with monsters in other ways. I guess the team is expecting I'm a bit of a monster hunter since I picked Silas. Both rogues have one weapon or less, and are built as clue-gatherers for the most part. So having two monster hunters out there isn't a bad idea I hope.

I did ditch "Look what I found", and with misunderstanding Silas' ability and having to quickly get another Resourceful in play, I'm not keen on spending a lot of xp on 0xp cards - and doing the buy Exile-use Exile-replace with 0xp card will take a couple of scenarios.'

So a bit of a challenge to salvage the deck...but your comment underlines I should probably go for Eucatastrophe ASAP. I'm still paranoid enough to want to upgrade Sylvestre first.

On 1/24/2020 at 12:02 PM, Krysmopompas said:

Both rogues have one weapon or less, and are built as clue-gatherers for the most part. So having two monster hunters out there isn't a bad idea I hope.

I may pick up a Timeworn Brand down the road, just so I can do regular attacks for more than a single point of damage, but first things first, I think.