The Knife has multiple advantages compared to other melee weapons :
- You don't need to have a melee weapon (so you can keep and play a ranged weapon instead).
- It does enough damage to one-shot commons (even monstrous), while having a cleave large enough to handle hordes (since the December patch).
- Because of these two last points, you don't need to play Weapon Scavenger in your deck, nor cards that boost Melee DMG.
- Also it can't do damage to your teammates.
The Knife is excellent against hordes, not good against Tallboys. But against them you can use your ranged weapon instead (preferably a Shotgun), or an Axe.
I myself choose to use a Shotgun, which is why I putted the Quick Kill + Mag Coupler + Shredder package, so I have an accurate Shotgun that can debuff Tallboys and handle other mutations easily. If you prefer to use an Axe against Tallboys, put some cards like Batter Up, Ignore the Pain and/or Heavy Hitter instead.
From my experience, if you play as Holly, Meth Head and Brazen are enough to not have Stamina problems. If you're playing as another character, you should put Adrenaline Fueled higher in the deck.
I find Down in Front to be mandadory if you don't want to be shredded by your teammates while you are handling hordes in front of them, but with a good team you can drop it. Meth Head and Face your Fears are also key cards for melee, which is why I have the Knife as the 4th card only (I just use another melee weapon before then).
I put the DMG resists cards rather late because I find that the high amount of temporary HP you get is enough to keep you alive.
Breakout is a tech card which is especially useful for the last map of Act 3. You can swap it for something else.
