⌂ 2 Packs Deck Guide : 1 Combat Against All Odds

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Derived from
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5argon · 7780

This is a fighter Wendy deck about actually using her scary 1 and not relying on any attack events. Featuring all the level zero 2 damages weapon : 2x Fire Axe, 2x Baseball Bat, and 2x Knife.

All the combos from Revised Core Set that could land miracle hits are here : Wendy's token redraw , Will to Survive + Leo De Luca, Lucky! and Eucatastrophe.

Then joining from Dunwich Legacy Investigator Expansion, we have 2x Rise to the Occasion, 2x Oops!, and the first + Ally Wendy is able to use : Hired Muscle.

Talents are mix of core set Pickpocketing as usual to fuel her token redraw, plus the new Lone Wolf which provide economy for Will to Survive, Leo De Luca, and Scrapper. With Lone Wolf you can keep Hired Muscle a bit longer, making use of possible 2 damage soaks to get a full Will to Survive turn with the boost.

► 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 The Dunwich Legacy 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.

Upgrade guide

 Cost  Total
   Manual Dexterity  →  Will to Survive ••• 3 XP 3 XP
   Manual Dexterity  →  Will to Survive ••• 3 XP 6 XP
   Emergency Cache    Emergency Cache •• 2 XP 8 XP
   Emergency Cache    Emergency Cache •• 2 XP 10 XP
   Survival Instinct  →  Hired Muscle 1 XP 11 XP
   Survival Instinct  →  Hired Muscle 1 XP 12 XP
    →  Charisma ••• 3 XP 15 XP
    →  Scrapper ••• 4 XP 19 XP
   Perception  →  Eucatastrophe ••• 3 XP 22 XP
   Perception  →  Eucatastrophe ••• 3 XP 25 XP
   Lucky!    Lucky! •• 2 XP 27 XP
   Lucky!    Lucky! •• 2 XP 29 XP
 
Extra 29 XP
   Leo De Luca    Leo De Luca 1 XP 30 XP
   Leo De Luca    Leo De Luca 1 XP 31 XP

(View at arkham-starter.com)

If playing Dunwich campaign, your blind run may get very low amount of XP. Don't worry if you can't even complete 2x Eucatastrophe by the end.

Survival Instinct is actually a very good card inside Will to Survive chain, letting you reposition for free to not waste action for your 100% success works. I was quite sad they have to be removed. You can decide to remove 2x Overpower, 2x Knife, or 2x Flashlight instead. But I like those cards more than Survival Instinct. I have had my fair share of cool Knife moment in this deck...

2 Packs Team Compositions

2 Packs Deck Guide : The Dunwich Legacy series is now complete with the following decks :

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.

Emergency Cache (2)

Emergency Cache (2) is a very important card in this deck, deserving a spotlight why it came so early in the upgrade. You may have read negative review of this card, but my Standard Carcosa run with this deck says otherwise. Synergy is high in this deck, and she will always has hope with 2x of this waiting in the deck.

  • You need resources to play Will to Survive, potentially more than 2 times. This, and Lone Wolf, then you will arrive at good spot to spend 8-12 resources for this event in addition to 6 for Leo De Luca + 2 for Baseball Bat and other weapons.
  • The draw fuels her token redraw .
  • The draw will get you to Leo De Luca, and also resources to play him ready. There will be some scenarios that you don't see Leo De Luca til half way and by that time you maybe short on resources and still no Leo De Luca. You'll be so happy to "open a random gift box" and get Leo out of it...
  • The draw will get you to Wendy's Amulet. I see the amulet almost every scenario now because the deck is used up more each time. Conditional draw like Pickpocketing is not enough in scenario you can't find evasion chance.
  • Quick catch up of cards in hand and resources by playing it, put down Wendy's Amulet, and play it again from discard pile. I was able to get back from near 0 resources and hand (was unlucky with the Lone Wolf) to the state ready to token redraw + play more Will to Survive with this. Try evade and move far from enemy with Leo De Luca when you are trying to get your bearings with Emergency Cache (2).
  • The draw will trigger Abandoned and Alone faster than you can arrange the play for Will to Survive, and you will be glad that discard pile wiped didn't have any Will to Survive.
  • After Scrapper is added it make sure resources gained translates to survival / killing.

Will to Survive tips

Definitely find Leo De Luca!

Baseball Bat is overall the best weapon. When you are assembling the combo and got the bat first, careful not to break it before Will to Survive come. (Take less fighting tests, use token redraw to avoid , etc.)

If you can't reach equal stat to win (like having Baseball Bat but enemy is 4 ) and you are already engaged so you can't draw anymore, try using one of Will to Survive action to evade + Pickpocketing to try getting a miracle single commit card, like Knife or Fire Axe, to keep the chain going.

Good time to play Will to Survive is when Wendy's Amulet is on hand but not played yet. Pad the discard pile with Emergency Cache (2) before putting the Wendy's Amulet down and you will have resources ready complete with a commit to reach higher stat from the draw.

Static boost is king as otherwise you will rapidly lose commits/resource for each action to turn 0% success into 100% success. This is the task of Hired Muscle in addition to weapon boosts.

Then Scrapper is the queen as it covers both kind of actions you are doing in the Will to Survive chain, to fill in that last tiny bit with a resource.

Don't be that stinky fantasizing about epic battle with Will to Survive and hog it for too long. Sometimes simply picking 3 clues for sure from a 3 shroud location is worth it if it is a roadblock or Victory point location you must leave soon.

In rare situation you will need to boost inside Will to Survive. But since this deck is a fighter Wendy, there are just 4 cards with icons : 2x Leo De Luca (one should be in play) and 2x Flashlight. A spare on hand is worth keeping to reach 4 to swipe some clues off 4 shroud to mix up with clearing enemies, over discarding for token redraw . (e.g. When have a choice to discard Manual Dexterity or extra Leo De Luca for token redraw , I would keep Leo De Luca for his rare icon.)

She can go around and fix sticky scenario card or Forced tests. (Though it expires before you can do the one saying "at the end of your turn" like Frozen in Fear because this one is "until the end of your turn".) They are often not higher than 4 or 4 , so she just win these easily. Remember that you can on other member's threat area of the same location.

The Hired Muscle 2 damages trick : It having 3/1 soak means you should use 2 damages before letting go. You want as many actions as possible with Will to Survive. Even with Leo De Luca sometimes you hate to spend one to walk into the enemy before you can go super saiyan. So it is either waiting for Hunter to walk here and tank 1 hit, or you walk in as your final action and tank 1 hit, waiting for the next turn you have full actions. Hired Muscle's 3 health let you do just that, soaking 2 damages, to prepare for 4 burst hits the next turn. (Be careful of horror as you have Abandoned and Alone. The only soak is Leo De Luca.)

  • Flashlight can drain supplies and vacuum hard location.
  • Since you can't fail you are very good Retaliate destroyer without even evading.
  • Lucky! can be used to win higher difficulty tests in a pinch, essentially Unexpected Courage with 1 cost, that Wendy's Amulet can dig up.
  • Eucatastrophe is even more Unexpected Courage with its to succeed at different kind of hard tasks. Commit then play from discard with Wendy's Amulet. (Taboo remove this card from play so you cannot play twice with the amulet trick.)

The 6 Weapon Cards

All these level 0 weapon cards are not removed ever. Let's get accustomed to them. These applies to all weapons :

2x Baseball Bat

This card might as well be Excalibur with Will to Survive. You prevent the bat breaking on all hits, as well as reaching 3 . Get Hired Muscle and you get the only repeatable 4 in this deck to play with Will to Survive. You can perform 8 damages turn with Leo De Luca on the boss if it happen to not have more than 4 . (True story from my Standard Carcosa run.)


2x Knife

The discard option is good for sniping some specific combat value to proc Lucky! or Oops! while the other hand is using Flashlight. It can fill some niche that Baseball Bat and Fire Axe can't.

More interesting is the basic +1 for 1 damage option. Normally that will not make much difference but in Will to Survive environment, going from 1 to 2 is a massive difference, since enemies often starts at 2 . Will to Survive is either 0% hitting or 100% hitting. The first option let Wendy starts 100% hitting some enemies that are good at but weak at .

Then with Hired Muscle joining to get you repeated 3 on the first , you can perform "combo attack" with Will to Survive by using the knife throw only on the final hit, for maximum of 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 damages with Leo De Luca.


2x Fire Axe

This is like a more difficult Baseball Bat as it deals 2 damages but it does not give a boost. With Hired Muscle, you maybe able to reach 2 enemies on Will to Survive turn after you use accurate swing to 0 resource on a higher enemy first.

Repeated 2 damages with +0 (like .32 Colt in Carcosa pack but unlimited and cheap to play) is quite special for Wendy to do tricks with Eucatastrophe. Eucatastrophe asks for it to be reduced to 0 which is easier with her 1 and +0 boost.

The unboosted 0 resource swing is handy vs. 2 with Oops! since you cannot fail more than 2.

Talents

Lone Wolf

Get rich so you can have Leo De Luca, play Will to Survive many times, afford Hired Muscle, and pump into Scrapper.

When playing multiplayer and you start the round together, simply play later and have the other player left first to still get a resource.


Pickpocketing

Put down so you have healthy amount of cards to perform token redraw . Scrapper's + can help get you more evades, trading resources into card draw.

Early scenario tips

It will be hard before we get Hired Muscle and Will to Survive. Your attacks are numbered by these 6 cards : 2x Oops! (commit), 2x Overpower, 2x Rise to the Occasion. Consider them "ammo" for your unlimited use weapons.

This concentration of skill icons gets better when Will to Survive () and Eucatastrophe () joins later.

A commit and spending 1-2 resources down to 0 resource to land Fire Axe, or use Baseball Bat can get up to 5-6 . From there, your token redraw should be able to land the hit on 3-4 enemy. Keep healthy hand with Pickpocketing.

Oops... here in the discard pile again

This card looks like a lot of fun, but even in this deck geared for it, it is HARD to use.

The primary function of this card is improving commit icon density of . 2x Oops!, 2x Overpower, 2x Rise to the Occasion, 2x Eucatastrophe, 2x Will to Survive (only commit when going to play with amulet) = a lot of chances to 5+ for dry Baseball Bat. Giving Wendy a choice to kill when 2 HP enemy arrives, instead of just evade.

Commit is nice, though, it gets very annoying in the discard pile. It is very hard to "get through" Oops! to something valuable like Lucky! or Will to Survive behind it with Wendy's Amulet since you must find 2 enemies first, and it cost 2 resources too!

So plan ahead when you have to commit for if it would obscure something you want to replay or not.

Willpower icon drought

Another notable weakness is how this deck has 0 commit icon, no pump (unlike that Scrapper covers), and no Unexpected Courage!

Her 4 will be serviceable together with token redraw and Lucky!. But a couple of unfortunate failures will hit her hard on the horror especially you have to account for Abandoned and Alone too, and only Leo De Luca can take 1 horror safely.

Eucatastrophe joins much later so you can use its commit. But if you are worried (e.g. playing Carcosa campaign), changing Rise to the Occasion / Knife / Pickpocketing to Unexpected Courage / Dig Deep may help with that. (Removing Pickpocketing will reduce how often she can redraw tokens.)

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