How many times does it have to be explained to you that if you cannot realistically expect to win UNLESS you get "all top tier" accomplices AND get lucky after draft in order to win 7/10 times that game balance is wonky? The only way around that? Only playing cards of accomplices that challenge basic stats and spending second chances on those challenges liberally, or cards from accomplices which challenge advanced skills (which don't allow second chances) that you can at least 90% (but preferably 100%). Most non fate spending players can't manage the second option for more than one advanced stat. You can not change your outfit once you start so if you get from draft accomplices that test stats and/or advanced stats that you can't be good at simultaneously you'll be chewing through second chances to pass low victory chance challenges or treating half your deck as dead draws. 73% challenges each time aren't good odds with the nerf that introduced counterplay. Fail two of those? Lack of progress, increased elusiveness, and two levels of poison tolerance for you. All together that's usually a deciding factor for the round if it happens early enough. If you get accomplices that require lots of preperations and can't draft one that builds them you won't be able to keep up with either poison tolerance or counterplay. One of them will build up too much. The players do not design the game. Poorly thought out odds are not on the players.

If all you care about is echoes you get the same payout either way no matter what. If you want anything else? Perfect play i.e. choosing only the best accomplices for your stats from the RANDOMLY available accomplices and hoping that CHANCE is in your favor that you even get accomplices that can work together well when you draft them sequentially instead of simultaneously will only give you a chance, and not always a good one. These chances get worse with every nerf. If you draft a bad team then playing whatever for one round and then resigning that run only makes sense if you're not just playing for echoes. Playing a full ten rounds only to lose at the end is a huge waste of actions when you've already got as many exploits as you need or want but you're not getting that opportunity without a functional team in the first place. There's a reason you're allowed to resign at the end of each round. Perfect play and stockpiling of second chances being necessary for better than 50% odds of winning each round makes for a poorly balanced minigame. "Smoothbrain netdecking" by definition was never possible in the first place when you DRAFT accomplices from a RANDOM pool.

If you don't care about getting distinctions then it doesn't matter. Get whatever accomplices are interesting to you and play for narrative content. It's all pretty good for each of them and you get the same EPA no matter what you do. If there wasn't cool stuff gated behind actually playing the game instead of treating it like a mindless echo printer no one would have any reason to try to win or care about whether they did and this guide wouldn't exist. The outcome wouldn't matter when you get the same result either way. For most things in Fallen London it's the narrative content we're playing for. It's not ONLY the narrative content we're playing for with the minigames. It's only the gameplay that's poorly balanced even for endgame players and it's gotten worse with every nerf. It takes one of two specific playstyles to get around how luck based it is and one of them also requires a stockpile of second chances for good odds if you want the non-generic prizes.

I should have known better than to express an opinion on the internet. It always brings the trolls out in droves.