(New! This deck was made when I was a lot less experienced. See my new take of 2 packs Daniela deck that is no longer reliant on Ally + Accessory soak stacking : Burning Bruiser)

6 dogs and 2 cats? Is this a joke deck? With full collection, probably. With 2 packs? It is quite respectable I should say! Even so, I admit this deck is kinda meme and theme more than anything else.

This deck is extremely heavy in Asset, and cannot investigate at all. (Do not try using it true solo!) She definitely need some support from other investigators early in each scenario, until the setup is complete.

[CORRECTION] I forgot including Unscrupulous Loan in the Side Deck section, which is used in upgrading.

► About "2 Packs Deck Guide"
　A series of decks made with the new distribution model in mind, requiring a Revised Core Set box + just 1 more Investigator Expansion box. ❄ character on the deck's name means the additional box it uses is Edge of the Earth Investigator Expansion.
　It maximizes the chance of newcomers being able to build and learn to play the game, enjoying the story on Standard difficulty ASAP. They can then get into deck-building later if they wished to do so. See other decks in the "2 Packs Deck Guide" series here.

Why should Daniela uses cats and dogs

• You see Rod of Animalism and Sled Dog in your new purchase, thinking they would be fun to build.
• If you have just Revised Core and EotE, you have these Creature Ally in your collection : Stray Cat, Guard Dog, and Sled Dog.
• Those cards are Survivor and Guardian.
• Hmm... who could take both Survivor and Guardian in EotE? Daniela!

While this simplistic thinking without any obvious synergy may not result in incredibly powerful deck, it make the best use possible for what (2 packs) you have without leaving these dogs sad in your collection.

2 Packs Team Compositions

2 Packs Deck Guide : Edge of the Earth series is now complete with the following decks :

• Daniela Reyes: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Burning Bruiser
• Daniela Reyes: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Tanking Cats and Dogs
• Norman Withers: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Double Icons in the Stars
• Norman Withers: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Norman the Miskatonic Tutor
• Monterey Jack: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : The Underworld Bullwhip
• Lily Chen: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Lily the WILL AGI Battle-Mage
• Bob Jenkins: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Short Supply Scavenging
• Roland Banks: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Roland the Real, Authentic Spy
• Daisy Walker: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Guns and Books
• "Skids" O'Toole: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Destiny Draw
• Agnes Baker: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Agnes the "Mahou Shoujo"
• Wendy Adams: ❄ 2 Packs Deck Guide : Wendy Lovecrafting

To help assembling a party made entirely from just 2 packs, I have a tool that let you browse team compositions for 2 players, 3 players, and 4 players, that has manageable amount of card overlaps or even none at all. The result is sorted from low to high overlaps. Click here to see all team comps.

A very important rule regarding "you"

To play this deck, we need to keep in mind this very important rule :

https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Interpreting_You_When_Taking_or_Being_Dealt_Damage

When an ability refers to "you" in response to taking damage or being dealt damage, it also includes any assets you control.

Daniela is a master of countering attacks when enemies attacks "you". With all these lovely pets she has now, they will be "you" instead of you. (Don't tell PETA about this deck.)

The "3 accessories combo"

1. Rod of Animalism •
2. Bangle of Jinxes •
3. Precious Memento ••••

This deck is the most notably that it needs 2x Relic Hunter to function. This is in order to equip Rod of Animalism + Bangle of Jinxes + Precious Memento at the same time. A heavy commitment of 14 XP total if you purchase maximum copies of each! We will go for this first before purchasing other cards.

General idea of the combo is so that when you make your pets tank for counter attacks, you would assign some horrors to the Precious Memento and at the same time jinx Bangle of Jinxes.

Precious Memento's horror can be slowly healed out 1 per turn by over-succeeding. To do this, you would use some charges out of your Bangle of Jinxes and using Bruiser.

The stone can also take damages, but to heal out you need an epic fail. It is better to put some damages on Daniela with her 8 health. Anyway, it is a good idea to let the stone having more than 0 damage just in case you get an epic fail.

Together with Rod of Animalism's ability to put on a lot of animals in play, you will have enough time taking care of the stone to last long as well.

Upgrade guide

You will have to make some "stops" along the way because the complete combo set (the "3 accessories combo") is very expensive. You should make yourself better incrementally. And at each step, your play style will change.

				Cost	Total
	Pet adoption				0 XP
	Emergency Cache	→	Rod of Animalism •	1 XP	1 XP
	Unexpected Courage	→	Rod of Animalism •	1 XP	2 XP
	Overpower	→	Precious Memento ••••	4 XP	6 XP
		→	Relic Hunter •••	3 XP	9 XP
	Memento system (1)				9 XP
	Stray Cat	→	Bangle of Jinxes •	1 XP	10 XP
	Unexpected Courage	→	Bangle of Jinxes •	1 XP	11 XP
		→	Relic Hunter •••	3 XP	14 XP
	Memento system (2)				14 XP
	.45 Automatic	→	Ice Pick •	1 XP	15 XP
	Evidence!	→	Bruiser •••	3 XP	18 XP
	Memento system (3)				18 XP
	Medical Student	→	Aquinnah •	1 XP	19 XP
	Medical Student	→	Earthly Serenity •	1 XP	20 XP
	Loan to afford animals				20 XP
	Emergency Cache	→	Unscrupulous Loan •••	3 XP	23 XP
	Toys				23 XP
	Aquinnah •	→	Aquinnah •••	2 XP	25 XP
	.45 Automatic	→	Fire Extinguisher •••	3 XP	28 XP
	Evidence!	→	Protective Gear ••	2 XP	30 XP

(View at arkham-starter.com)

1. Pet adoption

This step is about getting the dog rods and the chew toy (Precious Memento). Everything here costs total 9 XP which is unlikely to get in one stage.

Even if all the dogs at 2 resources with Rod of Animalism, this deck is still very resource hungry! (I often have to devote 1 action to collect resource, so combined with 1 resource I get in upkeep, I can stack 1 more sled dog.) Therefore only 1 Emergency Cache is replaced here and keep an another in.

Later on, we will add Unscrupulous Loan to replace the other Emergency Cache and partially address expensive dogs problem.

2. Memento tanking system

This step is about prolonging the Precious Memento. It has 3 sets of varying total XP price (5,4,2) (each set has cards that are used together) for you to choose which one you want to go first. But after choosing the 1st set, take the loan set.

Unscrupulous Loan is important for this deck, since there are tons of setup assets (allies) that can get going on their own once you put them down together. This is the only big money Daniela can use given just 2 packs you have now, thanks to it being Survivor multi-class.

An example being Sled Dog where just 1 is nothing more than a nice soak, or a single Guard Dog and a supporting Bandages that can last you many turns of peace but requires upfront payments up to 5 without the rod, or you want to put the rod down with some dogs instead of having to wait for the next turn.

Conversely, when you wait for resource drip and play things one by one, you will find the things you played melt away before you could get your system going.

This deck only has lightweight Event cards. Many costs 0 and some up to 1. You will be able to pay back the loan once your setup is completed and you continue fighting and managing health with assets you put down.

The loan is AWESOME.

3. Toys

At this point you have used 23 XP total, and likely you are at mid to late point in the story. Consider things past this point to incrementally make yourself better rather than being a critical piece of the combo.

Congratulations on completing your pet family! You better not remove that remaining 1x Stray Cat though, for style point.

Thinking about tanking

Counter attack damage is always 1. Meaning that you are at more disadvantage the more damages or horrors that enemy could deal.

Elite enemy with 2 damages + 2 horrors for example, you want to attack it normally as much as possible. You may need some other investigator to help evade it until all other enemies dies as they attack you for lower damage.

Inversely, Daniela is good with high enemy count where they each deal 1 damage and 1 horror. (Or even just 1 damage or just 1 horror) The ability procs every time without exhausting. Let them swarm her and soon they would all disappear!

When you are engaged with a lot of enemies, you are not able to cycle your Ally because doing so would provoke AoO that you cannot counter. This is a big problem on early scenario as you do not have Rod of Animalism yet to tank long enough for enemy hoards to disappear. Try contributing damage with normal attack as much as possible.

There is a constant mini-game of whether to save action or save your health/horror with Daniela. The way to "speed up" your tempo is by intentionally leaving engaged enemy with 1 HP for the counter to last shot it, because counter always deal 1 damage and technically using enemy's "action" instead of you. Try practice feeling whether you are "behind" or "ahead" of the scenario timer, then adjust your damage taking. The best case scenario is that you always ended the scenario with blood soaking all over at 7 damages, 5 horrors, and Talisman of Protection gone. That means you have already exhausted your tempo advantage to the maximum.

If not nearing the end yet, don't let the damage rack up to 7 if possible, because it will be impossible to Bandages yourself at that point. You must take a damage first to use this item. Using Talisman of Protection will not make it better either once you are at 7 damages since it cancels, not heal. The only way out if you must take up to 7 damages is to heal, which this deck provides several ways to do so.

How to use Mechanic's Wrench

• Remember that means it does not cost action. Therefore, this occasionally means you can deal 1 damage per turn without any action by Daniela's counter attack (it is not an AoO provoke, it is a "real" provoke), but costing your health/horror instead. This is an aggressive attempt to gain tempo since you decided it is not worth it to wait until Enemy Phase for it to attack. I feel it is difficult to weight when this ability is truly worthwhile.
• Exhausting from does not make the 2nd Fight ability disappear, as it does not say exhaust is the cost of that action.
• On Fight, pay attention to target requirement. It says "since the end of your last turn". "Turn" is after you used up your 3rd action and pass on to the other player.
  • For example, if you use provoke inside your turn for it to attack, or some special token or treacheries cause it to attack inside your turn, that attack won't count towards your "vengeance" criteria for wrench Fight on the next turn since it resets as soon as you say end your turn.
  • Enemy that had just spawned fresh on you from encounter draw, you cannot whack it with the wrench just yet, but using first will allows you to do so right away at a cost of your health/horror.
  • Usually the best tactics to deal with enemy spawned onto a typical Guardian is to completely kill it before its first Enemy Phase comes, because you are already engaged and ready to pump 3 actions into it. Wrench's target weakness maybe more annoying than you thought.
• If you used Dodge, the canceled attack never happened. (Just that it initiated. Wrench says "has attacked you", with Dodge, it hadn't attacked.) So you cannot hit it with the wrench. (However Dodge works with Daniela's ability, since it says "even if that attack was canceled" explicitly.) See the Cancel rule for more info.

Early scenario ally slot guide

This deck is very tricky on first few scenarios since your 8 (!!) Ally that we have to include upfront for later upgrades will be competing for 1 Ally slot. And they are expensive to play as well.

When you have Guard Dog down and you draw 1 Sled Dog, it is tempting to not replace Guard Dog when you have not use it up fully. But Sled Dog can stack on to the same slot, it is important that you play one before the other comes. Otherwise, you need to pay a hefty 3 + 3 = 6 resources at once or you won't even get a chance to play any in a big fight.

Therefore in early scenarios you should be aggressive with using Guard Dog, even to dispose small critters. If you get Mechanic's Wrench, use liberally to make it attack Guard Dog for an instant 2 damages at 0 action.

Playing Medical Student will bump out all cats and dogs in early scenarios when you don't have Rod of Animalism. But with horror unable to be assigned to Guard Dog that easily and Daniela having 6 sanity, and you don't have Precious Memento for horror soak, I think having horror healing is very useful in a pinch.

Losing Rod of Animalism

The Slots rule where it says the slot check only occurs when playing or gaining control of ally :

If playing or gaining control of an asset would put an investigator above his or her slot limit for that type of asset, the investigator must choose and discard other assets under his or her control simultaneously with the new asset entering the slot.

Reading strictly this definition, it is possible to play all the Ally you want while having the rod, then equip Bangle of Jinxes to bump out the rod (or losing the rod due to e.g. Crypt Chill), and now you get to keep all the allies since you are not playing or gaining any ally just yet after you lose the rod.

But I also see someone in the community said that if you lose the rod, then you must immediately kill all allies to your new limit.

I am not sure which one is true, so for now, I use the Grim Rule and follow the worse one that your ally dies down to 1 slot instantly when you lose the rod.

The 5 splashes

Daniela starts out mostly with only 5 , then gradually gaining higher level reds later.

Survivor is a strong class because of many useful level 0 cards available. Very unfortunately, this Daniela absolutely need 2x Stray Cat for theme and 2x Bandages to take care of her other pets. That left only 1 slot hotly contested.

In my opinion, Talisman of Protection makes the cut, and that is reflected in the deck you see here. But it is up to you which Survivor card you like. Here are some interesting options :

• "Hit me!"
• Lucky!
• "Look what I found!"
• Leather Coat
• Rabbit's Foot (You want even more animals?)

1x Stray Cat is going to be replaced (see upgrade guide section). The deck includes 2x Stray Cat for thematic purpose, but actually you can include just 1 and replace the other cat with any in the list above.

Card tips

Talisman of Protection

You are tanker and this helps you not die. Though, be aware that if you let the damage rack up to 7 then you cannot use Bandages on yourself.

If possible, trigger the talisman by adding horror to Daniela when the Precious Memento cannot take it anymore.

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Guard Dog

For the dog to bite, you will assign it 1 damage and 1 horror somewhere else.

This horror is ideally landing on Precious Memento, which when Daniela whack with her high , can be healed off by 1 point per turn. Then you should trigger reaction ability on Bandages immediately to remove damage part from your dog. BFF!

"Get behind me!" can be used to remove horror part from enemy's damage, so you have only damage to distribute.

This dog is a part of big fat combo together with Toe to Toe. See that card's section for details.

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Medical Student

Playing Medical Student will bump out all cats and dogs in early scenarios when you don't have Rod of Animalism. But with horror unable to be assigned to Guard Dog that easily and Daniela having 6 sanity, and you don't have Precious Memento for horror soak yet, I think having horror healing is very useful in a pinch.

All replaced as soon as you start to have Precious Memento and Earthly Serenity purchased.

Can also be used to heal EotE weakness for other investigators.

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Sled Dog

By going to review page of this card, you will be discouraged with a lot of negative criticism. But none of them talks about Daniela. We can make the dogs worthwhile with her.

Normal weapons gives up to +2 accuracy with +1 damage. This is the same as 2 Sled Dog (2 damages is the same thing as +1 damage.) So you "break even" with the other weapons at this point.

Do not try too hard to get 3 or 4 dogs, as Daniela should utilize soaks regularly.

Remember that you also have movement option with the dogs.

In early scenarios where you do not have Rod of Animalism yet, and you have a stack of 2 dogs down, try distribute the damage equally instead of letting it die one by one. If you are pressed to play Guard Dog or Medical Student, you will lose both dogs (due to 1 ally slot). Try fully use their health and sanity for Daniela's counter before then.

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Stray Cat

Its ability is different from letting the cat die and use Daniela's ability for it to be auto-evade because you avoid taking damage instead of taking first then evade. However, Daniela's ability works with Elite enemy as well. Therefore, Stray Cat is great for handling non-Elite enemy that somehow hits for 2 damages or 2 horrors and you don't want to trade that for 1 damage counter attack.

The cat has an another quirk which is its 1 play cost. When you have Rod of Animalism down it became free, which is handy when resource is tight. Play them and let them die fast because the dogs maybe coming soon to take the space.

You cannot use Bandages' in time to save the cat with its 1 health.

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Bandages

Very flexible and agile healing card that can also be used on Ally. The quirk being that it cannot heal horror, and you have to heal at that moment you are taking damage.

It cannot save Stray Cat, and also cannot save you when you have 7/8 damage.

When playing EotE campaign, try not letting your Partner with low health at critical point so you can continue to bandage them if required. This deck got 2 bandages, if you let the health gets to critical then it may means those 2 bandages become useless dead cards in the hand not worth putting down.

This can be used to heal Weakness that says it is treated as 1 point of damage, by taking damage, trigger bandage, but instead of healing the damage you just took, heal the weakness instead and left the damage there. (Your friend may come to your location and beg for damage to happen so you can bandage their weakness away!)

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"Get behind me!"

Daniela wants engagement, but treachery draw rule states that it engages with whoever draws it.

By bunching up at the same location as your non-fighter, if that investigator draws an enemy, with this card on your hand, that investigator can easily "forward" the enemy to you. Making the investigation continues smoothly. (It is as if you have Scrying and had arranged so you as the fighter takes an enemy instead of your clue gatherer.)

Just let that investigator go first in turn, do anything they want (move, investigate, play, etc.) and when enemy is going to AoO as a cost before doing those action, you play this card and take both the attack and engagement. Also notice that Daniela's ability says "except an AoO that YOU provoked.". In this case, the other provokes the AoO and not you. You will get to counter when using Get Behind Me.

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Dodge

When enemy hits hard, you are at disadvantage regarding to counter attack. Among the swarm of engaged enemies, you should only take damages from lighter enemies and selectively skip the hard hitting one with this card. Hopefully things cleared up by then.

You still can use Daniela's counter too since it says "even if that attack was cancelled".

You can play this to Toe to Toe on 2 damages 2 horrors Elite enemy without taking those heavy damages.

If you cancels an attack with Dodge, it does not count that the enemy attacked you. Therefore it may invalidate criteria on Mechanic's Wrench.

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Toe to Toe

Needless to say the cost that enemy attack you is what you want with Daniela. That should go to the pets or asset, then she will be angry and deals 1 damage from innate ability. Then your test-less attack deals 2 damages. Never remove this card!

If the attack you goes to Guard Dog, you can make the total damage from playing this card up to 4 without touching the chaos bag at all and play cost is also 0. Never replace this card when upgrading. Annoying 4 HP enemies begone!

It is easy to forgot to have enough health to use Toe to Toe to Elite enemy. Last-shotting a boss without chaos bag pull worths a lot but you must be healthy enough to survive its heavy attack. Save up Dodge in pair with Toe to Toe makes it a potent sure-fire weapon.

This has small synergy with Precious Memento too. According to auto success rule, it does not mean you skip an entire test and throw damage tokens to the enemy. The test still occurs as normal and it is just that you skip chaos bag pull (ST.3, ST.4) and the difficulty became 0 (ST.6). This is useful to trigger "succeed by" on Precious Memento as with Daniela you have succeed by at least 5 vs. 0 in an auto-success.

Therefore if you are doing the dog + stone combo, the spilled horror from the dog is likely gone as well as the damage that could be healed with Bandages.

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Vicious Blow

You can contribute them when using Toe to Toe to get even bigger damage. Toe to Toe is still a Fight, and Fight is a test of icon. You can surely commit any cards with .

Toe to Toe Fight is automatically successful, and according to auto success rule, you skip only chaos bag pull but you still getting through commit step before that. Making this +1 damage reliable to adjust enemy health (especially bosses) to an exact number you wish.

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Bangle of Jinxes •

This card looks like it was released for Daniela. Remember to use even when assigning all damages and horrors to your ally or assets, due to the "you" rule.

The rule says that the 1 charge meant it starts with 1 charge. It does not mean it also has a maximum of 1 charge. You can continue storing charges as you got hit.

If you have Precious Memento down, the bangle's spare charge should also be regularly used to ensure 2 over-succeed and heal the stone if you haven't this turn. This combo requires Relic Hunter purchase, which actually the Accessory slot will still be contested with Rod of Animalism.

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Bruiser •••

This card is for over-succeeding Precious Memento while fighting normally with , making the stone lasts much longer.

It is also able to discount playing Melee and Armor cards. Not as many as Ally, but still helpful :

• Mechanic's Wrench
• Ice Pick
• Protective Gear
• Fire Extinguisher

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Earthly Serenity ••••

Daniela can heal herself in order to continue tanking and using her innate ability, with her surprising amount of stats.

It is also very handy to heal other investigators, including their EotE weaknesses that are treated as 1 point of damage or horror. The "spray" property of this card really helps because you may only want to meet up for only a brief moment and then get going.

If you have Precious Memento down, the test can double as a chance to heal horror out from the stone since the difficulty is low, then you can continue tanking more and counter more. Since stone can only remove 1 per turn, you may choose not to spend too many charges even when getting high succeed-by to spread out the healing to multiple turns.

Note that Earthly Serenity won't go anywhere when out of charges, you can still use the and do nothing in an attempt to heal horror from the stone. (There is a risk of losing resource though, and special symbols may hurt the scenario more.)

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Ice Pick •

This is provided as a flexible option. Sometimes, when you have Mechanic's Wrench on one hand and Fire Extinguisher on the other, it feels like one is a backup rather than synergizing with each other.

If you can perfectly fulfill Mechanic's Wrench's Fight criteria, then having Ice Pick on the other hand is better. The same as when you only managed to pick up Fire Extinguisher but not Mechanic's Wrench.

However, if you picked up just the Ice Pick without the other weapon, you cannot deal +1 damage.

You can also exhaust it to improve Sled Dog's attack accuracy. When you are performing 3-4 dogs attack for big damage, you may want to ensure success by having it over the difficulty by 3 or 4 points.

Use it together with Bruiser for boosting to that succeed by 2 required for Precious Memento.

Investigate option can sometimes help in 1 shroud location.

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Precious Memento ••••

Guard Dog and Aquinnah takes only damage to use the ability, the spilled horror should be assigned to this stone. They can then be healed off by over-succeeding later.

Earthly Serenity is great to get succeed by 2 or more to remove horror from the stone, especially the upgraded version that the difficulty is 0 and Daniela has 4 !

Use Bruiser and Bangle of Jinxes for support in taking care of the stone.

Daniela is expected to face tank treachery test. Make sure to not forget the fail by 2 or more and heal the health. (Rarely, you maybe forced to test , but often the forced one is .)

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Protective Gear ••

This deck has no Body slot at all until you purchase this card. But because all the Ally and Precious Memento will help you tank, this can be very late purchase.

It will help with treacheries also because those could be Hazard. But man, this gear is EXPENSIVE to play!

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Rod of Animalism •

The cost of each Sled Dog is a hefty 3 without Rod of Animalism.

Stray Cat is free to play with rod down. The cat benefits a lot from exclusive Creature slot since it should wait in ready for activation while you do other things with your "main" pets.

The deck includes 2x rod for consistency, but notice the star in front of the name. It means the item is unique and there is supposed to be one such thing in the world/story. (Perhaps this is a personal rod of a famous animal tamer.) If one rod is down you cannot play an another one even if you have Relic Hunter. You can throw it away for commit.

Inter-investigator combos

• Protecting the Anirniq : Have someone (probably Seekers) purchase this and fight along side her at the same location (they should be when the party has Daniela). Whenever her pet is dead, capture them into the jar. It also states that it is possible to use reaction ability in response to discarded by card effect, so Daniela can release her Stray Cat straight to the pot and get both test-less evade and draw 3 cards. Massive tempo gain!
• Sneak Attack : Release Stray Cat to auto-evade difficult enemy using Player Window before the action of investigator with Sneak Attack. You can also release the cat in your turn to whack Retaliate enemy safely. Daniela's ability can auto-evade too but it must not be the one you provoked, so that is likely in Enemy Phase, which make it impossible to Sneak Attack before the enemy is ready again in Upkeep Phase up next.
• Bob Jenkins : You can give some Bandages to Bob instead if he is in play, so he can Scavenging and infinitely give them to you. (When you exhaust all supplies, it is auto discarded back to Bob.) Immortal pets army!
• Anyone with the new EotE weaknesses : Gather around Daniela to get healed with her strong-willed Earthly Serenity. (Also Daniela should help kill all the sticky treacheries on others.)