Dynamic Duo - Agnes "Bad Blood" and Carolyn

Agnes Baker and Carolyn Fern

Dynamic duos!

This deck is part of a dynamic duo series, and is meant to be played together with Dynamic Duos - Carolyn Fern.

This is the alternative, bad blood version of the deck. It's quite the same, but focuses on taking advantage of Down the Rabbit Hole and adding several copies of the same cards.

Oh, this decks works when paired with other investigators too, of course, but you really need to scale back on the horror without a dedicated shrink at your side at all times.

Premise

One of them thrives on taking horror, the other thrives on healing horror. Agnes' excellent damage dealing abilities combined with Carolyn Ferns ability to find clues and heal horror will keep our to heroes rich and safe. There’s also some nice teamwork cards in the pool that goes, such as Leadership, Archive of Conduits and Stand Together.

Weakness: Carolyn and Agnes are both investigators that require some setup to work. Also, both have low agility , which can be a bother in some campaigns such as the Forgotten Age and Return To Circle Undone. Yep, Locked Doors are a pain in the buttocks.

This is the parallel deck with Agnes' Bad Blood back but her original front (because it's horror we're looking for, not blood magic). The advantage of the parallel back is twofold; 1) smaller deck size by 5 will make for more consistant draws, 2) you can run 4 Shrivelling. And possibly 4 Ward of Protection (altho' I prefer 2 Wards, 2 Alter Fate myself).

Disclaimer: Inspired by FBones "A witch and her shrink" decks from 2019. He’s the one to blame for this whole project, really. <3

Synergy

There's several ways Carolyn can heal/move horror from Agnes. The most straight forward one is Ancient Stone. Hallowed Mirror is another and Solemn Vow is the third. Moving horror from Agnes to Carolyn's Peter Sylvestre is really neat.

Agnes on her side can take horror damage from Forbidden Knowledge, from Shrivelling and special tokens, Ward of Protections or just attacks of opportunity.

Upgrade path

Important upgrades, in my order of priority

• Shrivelling should be upgraded ASAP. You're the only damage dealer, and Shrivelling will be your bread and butter so you want 4 of them. Read more below for upgrade options.
• Prophetic is your second most important upgrade. It's frighteningly good for Agnes, as more than half her deck are spells .
• Ward of Protection can be upgraded to Ward of Protection, without replacing the level 0. I think two wards are the proper amount of wards, however, but feel free to disagree.
• When you're running out of targets for Arcane Research, consider Ward of Protection (5). It's a better card than expected. You can't use it on other investigators, but you can discard Deep One Bulls and that's priceless.

Other upgrades (in any order you’d like)

• Alter Fate (1) (or Alter Fate) (2) to get rid of Locked Doors and nasty ongoing effects such as Dragged Under. Note the Spell trait.
• Deny Existence is great, as you have little stamina soak. It's also a source of horror healing in a pinch (read: Shrivelling backfiring).
• Sixth Sense is a great when you have actions to spare.The level 0 is decent enough, but the upgraded one is even better.
• Fearless and Guts are utility cards and cards you can upgrade with the second discount from Down the Rabbit Hole.
• You don't really need more allies, but if you got Xp to burn, Dayana Esperence is a way to get even more milage out of your events. Attaching a Ward of Protection (5) or Deny Existence (5) almost feels like cheating.
• Storm of Spirits is great in campaigns with swarm enemies or just lots of enemies. (In Dream-Eaters B, include 2 from the beginning).
• Robes of Endless Night. The ability to play spells without attacks of opportunity can be a life saver.
• Arcane Initiate (3) is a better card here than most anywhere else, since it starts off with 2 horror that Carolyn can heal.

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  On Down the Rabbit Hole and Arcane Resarch

  Yep, we're abusing the double effect of Arcane Research and Down the Rabbit Hole. I think it's worth it for this deck, as you have lots of targets for upgrades; 16 out of 25 cards. And parallel back Agnes can include more than two copies of each spell, so the sky is your limit.

Note, the -2 Xp discount from your double Arcane Research will trigger off your first spell upgrade. The Down the Rabbit Hole will trigger off the first two upgrades.

And they stack. Thus the first spell you upgrade after each scenario will have to cost at least 3 Xp (unless you upgraded two non-spells firsts, but that's unlikely in this deck). But don't feel bad if you waste a few points of potential Xp here and there. It's fine.

Important! Agnes' "Bad Blood" back let you you keep the lower level versions of upgraded spell cards in your deck after upgrades, but you still can't include more than 2 cards of each level. That's from MJ herself. So you need to upgrade the level 2 Wards to level 5 before you can upgrade your third and fourth level 0 copies to level 2.

This is how I prefer to upgrade my Shrivelling from level 0:

• Use your first discount of 3 (Double Research+Rabbit) to upgrade the level Shrivelling level 0 to level 3 for free. Remove the lvl 0 from your deck.
• Then upgrade the level 3 Shrivelling to level 5 with the -1 discount from the Down the Rabbit Hole; paying 4 Xp. Don't remove the lvl 3. Now you have replaced one copy of Shrivelling (0) with one Shrivelling (3) and one Shrivelling (5), for 5 Xp. Do that two scenarios in a row and you're armed to the teeth.

Important! part 2 You could argue that Arcane Research and Down the Rabbit Hole wont work on parallel Agnes' ability, since the ability states "you may instead pay the full experience cost of the higher level version and leave the lower level version in your deck." I've asked FFG if that's the case, and update this list when I recieve an answer. But 'till then I think you can make use of the discount, since they are discounts on the full price. It's not that important, really; in the example above it's an difference of 1 Xp.

Tips and advice

Let Carolyn draw her Encounter card first in the mythos phase. If it's an enemey you will have a target for your investigator ability if you take horror from your Encounter card or from a Ward of Protection.

Your investigator ability can be used once per phase. That's four times.

The Heirloom of Hyperborea is amazing in a deck that's 40% spells, but the Holy Rosaries are better in the early part of the campaign. You can invest in a Relic Hunter or trade the rosaries for Four of Cups.

Don't be too afraid of the added Doom from Dark Memory. Few campaigns are that time constrained. You can even let it stew in your hand for that sweet but painful horror.