Wendy Adams - Working with what I have

Hey there!

A couple of standout Wendy cards from your collection:

• Miss Doyle (1xp)
• Easy Mark x3 (1xp)
• Fortuitous Discovery - a little wonky to get working, but if you have good card draw, they fit right into a theme of discarding for re-pulls then making use of them from the discard.
• Lockpicks (1xp) - investigate at 7!
• A Test of Will (1xp) - sure, it exiles, but you don't have tons of stuff to spend lots of XP on anyways.
• Charon's Obol (1xp) - Be a real survivor!

Also, from the Core, I'd suggest having a look at Pickpocketing. Burglary is pretty unreliable for Wendy and her intellect of 3, and her re-pull ability favours drawing extra cards when you can, which Pickpocketing facilitates. The extra draw also creates synergy with Fortuitous Discovery as I mention above. I'd also recommend Unexpected Courage x2 here, because of how universally useful it is.

Are you playing in a group with this Wendy deck, or true solo? If you are, I'd suggest dropping Hard Knocks, Baseball Bat, and Overpowers and lean fully into investigation and evasion, like Perception, Lockpicks, Fortuitous Discovery, Dig Deep, and maybe even Plucky.

As for which packs to focus on next... honestly, your focus should be on getting as many playable scenarios as you can, whether it's finishing off Carcosa, completing Dream-Eaters, or starting down a new campaign.

Note: this deck is paired with a Daisy deck: arkhamdb.com

Cards you should consider:

--Crystallizer of Dreams - Wendy already has event synergies, and the Crystallizer allows you to get even more benefits out of them, and (Also, remember that it's optional -- Emergency Cache should go in the discard pile, whereas Easy Mark (1) has skill icons.) You can sort of think of the Crystallizer as additional copies of Wendy's Amulet, in terms of getting extra value out of events. Generally the Crystallizer is better early, and Wendy's Amulet is better later (and committing the Crystallizer cards will put them in your graveyard for later Amulet re-use, and can also keep them safe from Abandoned and Alone). Note that Old Book of Lore/etc from Daisy can let other investigators at your location search as well, so finding the Amulet is easier than normal. Also note that if there's no Crystallizer out, then any Guardian of the Crystallizer you may have drawn gets removed from play, meaning that playing Wendy's Amulet to replace the Crystallizer is a good means of dealing with the Guardian (which spawns exhausted, and enemies ready before you draw a card during upkeep, so it'll usually remain exhausted). Great with Look what I found, Backstab, and Easy Mark (1) that was suggested above, and many other events.

--Sneak Attack since Wendy is going to be your primary enemy-manager and sometimes you really need to kill an enemy, not merely evade them (doom on enemies, boss enemies, etc). You also have access to the upgraded Sneak Attack (2) which is great for saving actions when an enemy spawns on Daisy (or when Daisy can go first and end her turn by moving to a location with a 2- health enemy). Good icons for Crystallizer (including a double- on level-2 for using the Baseball Bat later on).

--I second Pickpocketing as a solid card draw/Wendy's-ability-refuel option.

--Elusive is generally a good card, which is worth considering (although sometimes it barely does anything - but Wendy can always discard mediocre cards). Good icons for Crystallizer.

--Narrow Escape is another event with good icons, which lets you do things like: ignore an enemy while investigating at +2, or play down a Baseball Bat without taking an AoO and then attack at +2 (Baseball Bat taking both hands makes this very relevant), or move a non-Hunter enemy to a safe location and evade it there at +2, or play Emergency Cache/Easy Mark AoO-free in order to get the resources to pay for Backstab (at +2). Pretty versatile, and fits in the Crystallizer.

--Hiding Spot is notable because it 'infinitely' combos with Wendy's Amulet. (Because of the way Hiding Spot works, it won't get Forced to the bottom of your deck by the Amulet, and so can be replayed out of the discard pile again and again. For the same reasons, though, it doesn't work with Crystallizer.) Note that Daisy's Old Book of Lore can help Wendy find the combo, and that aloof is good with Sneak Attack (2).

--As an alternative, Scavenging also works well to fuel Wendy's ability, though with Daisy around you might end up doing much less investigating as Wendy. You would of course have to restructure the deck a bit to include some more items, although with Wendy it's trivial to put one in the discard pile, so you don't need a critical mass like in some other Scavenging decks. You also have access to Scavenging (2) which can open up more play options. Good Scavenging options include Lantern, Leather Coat, Cherished Keepsake, and your Baseball Bat.

--Strongly consider Lantern over Flashlight as a means of doing testless damage to must-kill enemies like Cultists. Some campaigns care more about this than others. If you choose to use Scavenging, that's a combo as well. Wendy's pretty good at preventing failure, so the extra shroud reduction from Flashlight isn't as necessary as usual, and you also have Daisy to do high-Shroud investigation. Note that Lantern still lets you use "Look what I found" on Shroud 3-or-lower locations where you draw the (Flashlight lets you do this on Shroud 4-or-lower).

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Card to consider cutting:

--Rabbit's Foot - perhaps I'm wrong about this, but it's my opinion that this card is just actively bad, outside of a few potential investigators (Stella wants to fail, and Calvin and Preston are both going to fail repeatedly in the first half of any scenario, and so could use the card draw to set up for their endgame while their teammates carry the early game). But Wendy? Wendy doesn't want to fail at all -- instead she gains virtual advantage by passing tests that other people would have failed and by committing fewer cards to tests than other people have to. I think it's usually just a wasted action to play (and obviously it competes with other accessories, like the Amulet and the Crystallizer).

--Fight or Flight seems really mediocre to me. Wendy plays well with situational cards because she can always just discard them, but it still seems underwhelming (no icons, requires a situation where you have multiple horror AND need the one-turn skill boost

--Burglary is just bad, sorry to say. (I think the "upgrade" in Dark Side of the Moon is actually worse, because of the experience cost (plus it can also get fewer resources). I wish they'd simply made it a permanent, or at least made it fast. Such a shame for such a fun roguish concept to be so bad in game. I really dislike that published Taboos almost never include buffs for bad cards (Medical Texts would be another good target). They'll occasionally print higher-level 'fixes' for cards, but the problem with that is that the base card is still bad, and experience is a very real cost that's easy to overlook.)

--Don't bother with Hard Knocks. Resources are better spent on events. Cards under the Crystallizer of Dreams can help with tests, and most of the time your will be good enough anyway (plus the Crystallizer can help with that too, and you already have good ways to

--Given Wendy's 4 willpower, ability to redraw bad tokens, and Lucky, you probably don't need to bother with Guts. (Also, I think Cunning Distraction is an underrated alternative to Guts, since sometimes it's very good (it can even evade Elites!), has more flexible icons, and can be put in the Crystallizer of Dreams, which can be worth the potential-card-draw tradeoff. Also, you get to throw a chicken at an Elder God.)

--Just play Unexpected Courage over Overpower. You don't want to be making many actual attacks, so Overpower is very likely to get 'stuck' in your hand -- yes, you might end up being able to discard it to Wendy's ability, but having the flexibility of committing it to a // test is better.

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Other Exp cards:

--Leo De Luca (1) - he good.

--Lucky! (2) - it good.

--Newspaper (2) is really good clue-support. Very easy to get 6 almost-guaranteed clues out of it, and can really take some of the clue burden off of Daisy (who is good at getting clues, but doesn't have access to a lot of action-compression for getting them). Also an Item if you're Scavenging.

--Close Call (2) -- solid way to "permanently" deal with a troublesome enemy (Wizard of the Order, big hunter enemies, etc). It would even be fine to use this on some VP enemies, as Wendy doesn't benefit from exp that much -- Daisy will have to just deal with that :P -- and your team is light on ability to defeat enemies. Benefits from knowing the scenario/encounter deck well, as you know what cards are good targets, whether you need to save Backstabs/Sneak Attacks for Elite/VP enemies, etc. Fits in the Crystallizer.

--A Test of Will (1) is extra nice in a high-exp/low-scenario-count campaign like the Dream-Eaters mini-campaigns, especially since it can protect Daisy if you travel together. And there are always going to be very bad treacheries to deal with.

--Infighting (3) seems extremely situational (just count how many ways it's worse than Dodge...) and costs a lot of EXP, but it does have pretty good icons (whether used by itself or with the Crystallizer), which could be valuable.

--You should feel free to proxy Charisma (3) and Relic Hunter (3) whenever you want, if you have the spare exp and something to benefit from it -- e.g. story assets. (Although note that if you do so with Relic Hunter, you can no longer do the play-Wendy's-Amulet-to-discard-Crystallizer-and-despawn-the-Guardian trick. The Crystallizer and Amulet also don't work that well when in play at the same time, since Amulet's Forced effect happens before you can put things in the Crystallizer.)

Note: it's okay to play both Emergency Cache and Easy Mark (1) at the same time, since you can use the resources for events or just discard the Emergency Caches to Wendy's ability if you don't need them.

From packs you don't have:

A Thousand Shapes of Horror: Very little, unless you're trying to Scrounge for Supplies. Versatile (2) could probably offer some weird deckbuilding possibilities, but a) the cost to deck consistency is very real, and b) it's a deckbuilding permanent, so just proxy the effect if you really want to try it out. If you do come up with some combo using it, at least Daisy's Old Book of Lore could help Wendy assemble it. (Shout out to my absolute favorite Tony card Brute Force (1), but it is not a Wendy card.)

Point of No Return: I adore A Glimmer of Hope. It's basically an Unexpected Courage that starts weaker but gets more powerful and lets you redraw it over and over again. For Wendy, though, it also works very well as a way to just draw 2-3 cards for one action, to dump into her ability.

A Phantom of Truth: Pickpocketing (2) is in this pack, a great upgrade to Pickpocketing, especially in terms of generating resources for showing off with various events. Madame Labranche is also here.

The Pallid Mask: Waylay is a valid means of permanently dealing with enemies. Note that since it defeats the enemy, you can get VP this way. It does require non-Elite, but there are plenty of non-Elite VP enemies, and also plenty of troublesome/VP enemies with low evade score. (E.g. there are some enemies in NotZ and in both Dream-Eaters campaigns like this -- in fact, there's actually an enemy in one of the Dream-Eaters scenarios that you have which can be defeated by Waylay and by almost nothing else, which I find amusing. Not this-is-a-great-include-for-that-enemy situation (no VP on that enemy), but rather just an amusing interaction.) It's pretty useless against swarming enemies, however, unlike Backstab/Sneak Attack, although to be fair evasion is very strong against swarming enemies. Still, if you plan to defeat Elite enemies, you will need something other than Waylay. This is another card that gets much better when you know the scenarios well -- and even more so when you have access to or decide to proxy in the permanent Adaptable (1) (unlike with Charisma, there's not even a point to keeping this card in your play area, since it only affects deckbuilding, so definitely feel free to proxy it when replaying campaigns). Still, Waylay would be a reasonable choice for Wendy+Daisy, when mixed with other enemy-management options. "Watch this!" is also a notable card if you need more resource generation; however, it's underpowered if you're not playing with actual friends present, because then you don't get to turn to them and say, "hey, watch this."

Dark Side of the Moon: Sharp Vision (1) is great, although do note that it doesn't work with Lantern or with the Crystallizer; it can work well with Newspaper (2), but only on 2 locations. Moonstone combos with Wendy's ability, but I've actually been underwhelmed by it (played it in Pete), finding it expensive and not that helpful when defensive stats were already high. Here it would also compete with Crystallizer/Amulet (or even Rabbit's Foot if you do want to keep that).

Where the Gods Dwell: Nothing Left to Lose (3) looks like an excellent card for Wendy. Lots of resources for your events, and lots of cards to pitch to her ability.