Daredevil Darling (Deck Guide)

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Daredevil Wendy (chirubime copy) 5 5 2 1.0
Infinitely Advanced Being 8 5 1 2.0
Wendy: Black Marketeer 1 1 1 1.0
It heckin' WIMDY 0 0 0 1.0
Wendy(3XP)-Loshin 0 0 0 1.0
Wendy(37XP)-Loshin 0 0 0 1.0
Daredevil Darling --> Forgotten Age LEVEL 0 0 0 0 1.0
Daredevil Darling 2023 (Deck Update) 192 145 35 1.0

chirubime · 25319

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Illus. Aleksander Karcz

Clue: 8.5 | Enemy Mgmt: 7.5 | Treachery: 10 | Tempo: 8 | Consistency: 7.5

Wendy Adams, the Urchin, is this card game's poster child for a quintessential Survivor. The number of uniquely distinct builds we've seen from her over the years highlights her intricacies and complexities. We've seen many iterations of Wendy that have pushed, and more often, broken the boundaries of the game (e.g. Knuckleduster, Premonition, Easy Mark, Quick Learner, etc).

With the release of Parallel Wendy and her set of Advanced signatures, I would like to share my Synergy-based, big money, utility, flexible hypercarry version of her. This deck has a lot of complexities to it, so if it isn't your cup of tea, I urge you to look elsewhere. Here are some general elements to the deck:

  • Synergy: Wendy has access to 2 Synergy cards Cheat the System and Strength in Numbers. Using a combination of Prophetic, Charon's Obol (or Adaptable), and Pocket Telescope, Wendy can cover all 5 classes resulting in a 5 resource Cheat the System, and a 6 icon commit from Strength in Numbers.

  • Pass Any & All Tests: Wendy already has one of my favorite statlines with robust defensive stats of 4s in and . She can use a plethora of different cards to boost and replace her skill value (Strength in Numbers, Lucky!, Prophetic, Money Talks). If you draw something that fails you, you always have a second chance to reroll the token with Wendy's ability.

  • Recursion & Flexibility: Wendy's Advanced Amulet lets you play any event from your discard pile regardless of whether it is the topmost event of your discard pile. With cards like True Survivor and Resourceful, you functionally play with discard pile as your hand in many cases allowing for a lot of reactive troubleshooting and toolboxing.


Click Here for 3 EXP Deck (Option 1)

Option 1 is the recommended one. You take 2 physical trauma using In the Thick of It to access the core engine of this deck using the 3 EXP you gain. This gets the deck rolling a lot faster.

Click Here for 0 EXP Deck (Option 2)

Option 2 is safer but may require you to use Adaptable to adjust the deck later on, particularly for cards like Daredevil that don't do anything without Yaotl.


Piloting

Piloting this deck can be really tricky. Your objective is to prevent Abandoned and Alone from removing as many of your events as you can. That means you abstain from playing events (particularly critical ones) as much as possible. You need to preserve them and avoiding losing them to A&A. A consideration here is to play something like Crystallizer of Dreams to hold some events prior to playing Amulet.

Because of this, your basic weaknesses for this deck can be extremely damaging. Amnesia, Through the Gates, Obsessive can easily break your card combos. You will also have to adjust how you play this deck based on how many weaknesses are in your deck. Also, certain mechanics in Dunwich and Edge of the Earth can either bloat your deck with weaknesses or prematurely mill them prior to seeing A&A.

The core engine requires 3 cards: Daredevil, Wendy's Amulet, and Yaotl. Amulet is searchable via Black Market and Backpack, Yaotl is searchable via Black Market, whereas Daredevil has no tutors. Keep that in mind when you do your mulligans. Prioritize getting 1 copy of Daredevil into your opening hand as well as getting a combination of the aforementioned cards to access the other 2 cards of your core engine.


Deck Combos

Setup

  • Find your Amulet, Yaotl, and Daredevil. Backpack and Black Market function as tutors. Cards you should aggressively use to draw through your deck as well are Perception, Guts, Take Heart, and up to 1 copy of Resourceful to recur Take Heart again.

  • Play Yaotl and Amulet. Then initiate a skill test where you commit a Daredevil. Because you play no other Rogue skill cards, Daredevil will mill every single card from your deck except for weaknesses which get shuffled back (if there are 2 or more weaknesses left in your deck). Note: Hitting your 2nd copy of Daredevil with the 1st Daredevil is not an issue. Your 2nd Daredevil simply continues the milling.

  • Yaotl's 2nd ability discards the top card of your deck. It can be used every phase. At this point, because your deck should usually only include 1 random basic weakness and Abandoned and Alone, use Yaotl's ability during Investigation Phase to mill 1 weakness from your deck, and then repeat this during Enemy Phase to mill the other. You can do this 1 more time during Upkeep Phase if you have 3 total weaknesses in your deck. If your deck has 4 weaknesses, set up Yaotl and Amulet in a prior round, and then commit Daredevil to a skill test in Mythos Phase, milling 4 cards with Yaotl. If you have 4+ weaknesses, it's rare that you will get your 3 cards without hitting 1 of your weaknesses. Basically, wait until you've resolved enough weaknesses so you can cleanly empty the rest of your weaknesses from your deck with Yaotl's mill ability.

  • Do you have an empty deck at this point? Good. Now use that player window to immediately play a selection of cards from your discard pile that can be played during any player window. (Keep Faith, Cheat the System, Alter Fate). These cards will resolve their effects and then Amulet will place them in your deck. Great, now during upkeep you won't reshuffle your deck since you draw that 1 card you stacked back into your deck. Don't play Tempt Fate though. It attempts to draw your deck while it has no cards in it, causing you to reshuffle your deck.

Cheater's Loop

  • Play Cheat the System from hand or discard pile. It's at least 2 resources with Charon's Obol and Wendy Adams/Yaotl in play. Prophetic and Pocket Telescope are the other multiclass cards that adjust this value, to a maximum of 5.

  • Forced - Wendy's Amulet places Cheat the System on the bottom of your empty deck.

  • Yaotl's 2nd ability: Mill the Cheat the System from your deck.

  • Repeat this loop once per phase. There you have it, 5 resources per phase, totaling 20 resources gained via Cheat the System per round. Suffer 1 IRL mental trauma.

  • Make sure that you play the Cheat the System after you mill it during Upkeep Phase so that you draw it preventing you from reshuffling your deck.

  • Other great cards to perform this loop with are Alter Fate to remove 4 treacheries in play. Lel. We also use this combo on cards with more limited play conditions to double them or recur them immediately. Swift Reflexes, Live and Learn, Backstab, Pilfer, Money Talks, Lucky!, Scout Ahead.

  • Continue to use Yaotl each phase to flush cards from your deck into your discard pile as any event in your discard pile is basically in your hand for the purposes of Wendy's Amulet.

Black Market Reveals All

  • You can infinitely reveal every player's deck with Black Markets looped in succession as Wendy. The most optimal way to perform this loop is to start with no cards in your deck.

  • Play Black Market A from your discard pile revealing 5 cards from other player's decks. Black Market A goes to your deck.

  • Play Black Market B from your discard pile revealing 1 card from your deck (the Black Market A) along with 4 cards from other player's decks. Black Market B goes to your deck.

  • Repeat this for 1 resource each time alternating between Black Market A and B revealing 4 other player cards and always your other Black Market from your deck. As the Cheater's Loop has demonstrated, money is... not an issue. So you literally can do this and open all 4 player's decks for assets and events to be played by anyone else regardless of location. Suffer 5 IRL mental trauma.

Black Market is Double, Double

  • The Forced ability on Wendy's Amulet only affects you. Here is an example of what that could mean for your team. Your deck has these 5 events that you stacked back into your deck with Amulet: Cheat the System, Alter Fate, Live and Learn, Swift Reflexes, Trial by Fire.

  • Daniela, your teammate, takes her turn before you. She plays Trial by Fire from your Market. She raises her stat to 7. Then she plays Swift Reflexes from Market giving her 1 extra action. Now she has a 4 action turn with 7 in a stat of her choice. She uses Alter Fate from Market to discard her Frozen in Fear and then plays Cheat the System from Market to gain some amount of resources. Then she accidentally fails a test at some point, so she plays Live and Learn from Market to retry the test.

  • All of those events that Daniela played from your Market were discarded to your discard pile, avoiding Wendy's Amulet restriction. Great. It's your turn now. Do the same thing she did. Play all 5 of those events just as she had. :)

  • You can repeat this loop with an assortment of "fast" troubleshooting events. Lucky!, "You handle this one!", "Look what I found!", Narrow Escape, Third Time's a Charm, A Test of Will, Elusive, and Scout Ahead are some other Black Market options for your consideration. Suffer 10 IRL mental trauma.

What Treacheries?

  • Ideally your Black Market reveals the A Test of Will from your deck. Let someone else attempt the test if they are not at your location. If they are at your location, still let them test it, and you can help them pass the test with Lucky, Money Talks, Strength in Numbers, and Live and Learn. That way you have another chance to play the A Test of Will from your discard pile.

  • If the treachery were to disrupt your engine (think Dissonant Voices), you can use A Test of Will on that treachery and during the skill test play Cheat the System which puts itself in your deck. That way even if you fail A Test of Will, you have 1 card in your deck preventing you from reshuffling.

  • Any treachery that ends up in play not attached to an Elite enemy can be removed with Alter Fate (Locked Door, Frozen in Fear, etc). Use the Black Market loops or Yaotl loops to play this card multiple times a round.

Recursion & Card Choices

  • Prophetic: This card helps pay for Spells (Alter Fate), Spirits (A Test of Will, True Survivor), and Fortunes (Lucky, Look What I Found). It can be really useful for helping you pass Test of Will tests in particular. It enables your multiclass coverage for Strength in Numbers and Cheat the System.

  • Resourceful: Because the only components you are waiting for are Amulet, Yaotl, and Daredevil, Resourceful lets you recover Prophetic and Strength in Numbers. I urge you to also use Resourceful to retrieve your 2nd copy of Yaotl as a backup.

  • True Survivor: Return your Resourceful, Strength in Numbers, and Take Heart to your hand. Maybe even Guts, Survival Instinct, etc. The best usage of this card is 1 copy of Strength and 2 copies of Resourceful. Commit the Strength, then use the other 2 copies of Resourceful to recur the Strength letting you stretch 1 copy into 3 uses per True Survivor.

  • Pocket Telescope: This card plays well with Look What I Found since you can fail a skill test in a connecting location and play LWIF during that test as if you were at that location. Pocket Telescope also gives us Rogue and Seeker coverage for Synergy earlier in campaigns when you don't have permanents and Prophetic. This is one of the only cards that cannot be retrieved from the discard pile. You could find a place for Scavenging or Scrounge for Supplies for this card, but its really not a key card.


Abandoned & Alone

Managing this card is the crux of piloting this deck prior to getting to the exploitative game states mentioned above. Make sure to hold critical cards in your hand, especially Cheat The System. Preserve 2 copies of Black Market if you want to do the Black Market reveals all loop. Preserve the 1 copy of Pilfer, Backstab, and Scout Ahead as they are what gives you your flex action compression.

You want to use Backpack aggressively to find Amulet. Once you have Amulet, you can salvage some of your events. Try to move events from your discard pile to the bottom of your deck to keep the nuke from Abandoned & Alone from crippling you hard. I will preface a caveat about Black Market. You can use Black Market to find Amulet, play Amulet, and then next round play the Black Market from discard pile using Amulet. This assumes you did not get nuked by A&A in that time.

There are reasons you might not want to play Black Markets before seeing A&A as well. Some of these reasons are:

  • You could accidentally reveal a weakness from Black Market meaning that weakness won't be able to go back into your deck until AFTER your Daredevil + Yaotl deck nuke. In other words, if Black Market revealed Abandoned and Alone, you cannot perform your Daredevil + Yaotl nuke until A&A is back in your deck in the next investigation phase.
  • Black Market shuffles your deck. Remember how we've been trying to cycle our deck to find our 3 core engine cards while saving events by putting them on the bottom of our deck using Amulet? Shuffling disrupts the order of the cycling and can hurt your chances of seeing Yaotl or Daredevil.

Try to cycle through your deck. Don't be afraid of seeing A&A early. In fact, seeing it early gives you the freedom to play your events from that point onward. You should be using your skill cards to help you cycle.

  • Perception: I took this because it's a cantrip that on investigation actions proactively advance the game state.
  • Guts: This is a 2nd choice if you don't want Perception. It is much more reactive, but you can even commit it to a fellow teammate's spells proactively. There are always tests on treacheries as well. Guts is Innate so you can recur with True Survivor. Guts is great with A Test of Will as well as passing critical asset discarding treacheries like Crypt Chill.
  • Unrelenting: If you have EXP to spare, upgrade your Perception/Guts slots into this card. It is recurred with Resourceful and can be used to draw 2 cards. It also makes Take Heart more likely by sealing the good tokens. It also can be used to deal with some nasty chaos tokens in a pinch.
  • Take Heart: Draw draw draw. If you really need to, you can use your ability to redraw the token if your first token causes you to pass the test. This card can be recurred using True Survivor and Resourceful.

In the Event of ...

A lot of what I've explained about this deck is when things go right. Sometimes, things don't go right. This deck behaves with extreme degrees of variance. The deck is a slow ramp and requires some babysitting from your team as well as some time to setup. Here is a checklist of things to keep in mind ordered by their importance:

  1. Do I have Amulet and Yaotl in play with Daredevil in my hand? If so, check if your A&A (and other weaknesses) are revealed via Black Market and temporarily out of your deck. If not, you can do your Yaotl + Daredevil setup mill.

  2. Have I seen Abandoned & Alone yet? No? Okay, don't play your events unless you can save them. You can save them with Amulet sometimes. Another way to think of this is, try to hoard your events. You no longer need to hoard when you take the A&A on the chin, or can safely disarm it with the Yaotl + Daredevil mill.

  3. If you don't have all the pieces of your Yaotl + Daredevil mill, then play Backpack as well as commit as many of your skill cards as possible in attempts to draw off them. Honestly, you might be in a situation where you spend your first 3-4 rounds just drawing cards. You should just be mindful of how much time you are taking away from advancing the game state. Also, avoid using both of your Resourcefuls to retrieve your Take Hearts in case you need to use Resourceful to recover a spare Yaotl or your Prophetic post-Yaotl + Daredevil mill.

  4. Are you at a point where you NEED to discard cards from your hand for the sake of your ability or upkeep phase? You can discard your 2nd copy of Daredevil. You can discard some redundancies. In other words, if you have 2 Money Talks, 2 Luckys and 1 Live and Learn, you can probably let 1 or 2 of them end up in your discard pile. Are you in a scenario where your fighter can cover all the fighting? If so, maybe you don't need to hold your 1 copy of Backstab for your late game.

  5. Are you still not at your endgame? Yeah. It's okay not to reach this game state. You aren't useless prior to hitting this game state. You might even be better off abandoning this deck strat during the scenario. Most of the events you play in this deck are almost always useful. You can even minimize the number of cards that are contingent upon your setup (like Money Talks) in favor of more copies of Live and Learn, and cantrip skill cards just so that you don't have to rely on the deck combos listed in this deck guide. Other options are to find a copy of "I'm outta here!" from your card collection and play it regardless of whether it's legal. That or flip the table.


Upgrade Path

The more icons, the earlier you need it in a campaign. When upgrading, make sure you have cleared a card with more icons before going to a lower tier if possible.

  • Yaotl: This card is your pseudo-draw 4 card with Amulet out. In the Thick of It gets you 2 copies of this card and 1 Cheat the System. His 1st ability is rarely used in this deck, largely because it gets really convoluted and hard to track what is truly the "topmost" card of your deck and discard pile at any point.

  • Cheat the System: This is your economy engine as well as the thing that prevents you from reshuffling your deck. You could play another copy of this card just in case something happens to your first one, but the return on investment of the 2nd copy is way lower since it is just 1 more usage whereas the 1st copy has a potential of 4 times with just Yaotl.

  • Black Market: Enables deck combos as a core card. Helps tutor Yaotl and Amulet.

  • Backpack: Finding Amulet is super important. Finding Amulet lets you at least use events in your hand to help you smoothen cycling to your Yaotl and Daredevil.

  • Charon's Obol: Covers Rogue class for you and helps you get more EXP. Alternate is Adaptable for less EXP and more deck flexibility/troubleshooting from scenario to scenario.

  • Prophetic: Improving your Cheat the System lets you get to your big money state faster. This helps you pay for Pilfer and Backstab as well as support Money Talks.

  • Lucky! and Money Talks: The draws on these cards are really really nice for helping you play cards an additional time. Additionally they both support your teammates with passing tests. Be careful of when you draw and who would draw for each of those cards so that you don't accidentally reshuffle.

  • True Survivor and Strength in Numbers: Okay now you can play these cards, if your Lucky, Money Talks, and Live and Learn weren't already passing your teammate's tests for them.


Alt Card & Tech Choices

  • Adaptable: Safer Charon's Obol. Lets you swap in the best events for each scenario.

  • Cunning Distraction: If you are in a super evade heavy situation, this card is easily playable with your income. You can even adjust the deck to profit from the evades with cards like Pickpocketing.

  • Breaking and Entering: Another evasion tech that doesn't forgo advancing the game state with investigating.

  • "You handle this one!": You can use it to push enemies or treacheries you cannot deal with onto another investigator.

  • Scrounge for Supplies: There are always going to be a few Lvl 0 cards that you want. Resourceful, Pocket Telescope, etc.

  • Scavenging: You're not exactly playing a Lockpicks deck nor are you really playing Items in your deck. It does recover Pocket Telescope and Talisman of Protection which is Mystic coverage prior to Prophetic.

  • Well Connected: You can Scrounge this card after your Daredevil + Yaotl nuke. You play big money so why not.

  • Narrow Escape: Nice card to pass tests and avoid Attacks of Opportunity.

  • A Chance Encounter: This card has a lot of utility for recovering Yaotl and being usable for your teammates if you reveal it as a Black Market target. You can also mill Yaotl during your Daredevil mill and then play him with A Chance Encounter providing you with a pseudo-search for him. Be careful since this gets played in Investigation phase meaning if you have more than 3 weaknesses, you have a chance of not removing your A&A in time. The level 0 version of this card also works well early in a campaign since you can use Yaotl for the turn to disarm the A&A. You can play something like Scrounge for Supplies for Resourceful in a later turn or Calling in Favors to retrieve Yaotl to your hand. Teammate with Protecting the Anirniq also works.

  • Trial by Fire: Another great target for Black Market. Helps you and teammates hyperpass tests. You play Swift Reflexes so you could find yourself in situations with 4-5 action turns.

  • Will to Survive: Similar to the points about Trial by Fire. This can be really nice with more actions and more certainty.

  • Keep Faith: Yeah yeah. You can keep the bag full of tokens. You are yet another investigator who can play A Watchful Peace every round (pre-taboo). Since you can play 2 Keep Faiths, 1 Watchful Peace, and mill all 3 out of your deck via Yaotl.

  • Shrine of the Moirai: You can consider this card as a way to keep cards from staying your discard pile prior to Abandoned & Alone. I don't think you need it, but if you want it, it does help you play to a much safer playstyle. Same goes for Crystallizer of Dreams which was mentioned earlier.

  • Observed: This can potentially find you The Lovers which will put Yaotl in your hand, or find you The Hangman which gives you additional mulligans.

  • Call for Backup: You can play this a lot with Amulet with Yaotl and this gives you automatic clues and compresses a lot of desirable actions.

47 comments

Jan 17, 2022 gowonnie · 32

I got to admit, I expected to understand what was going on with this deck immediately, but it definitely took me a while to figure out what was going on. But, after I did... I was dumbfounded. This looks incredibly fun and powerful.

Jan 17, 2022 avaira · 1

There are 2 things I love about the deck in particular:

  1. You've managed to find a way to make yaolt a main engine card outside desperate skill decks.
  2. Using black market and amulet to give your teammates a chance to use your events before you use them.

seriously cool <3

Jan 18, 2022 Shakiko · 6

Could run Eon Chart[1] for the Seeker/Rogues slot early on, it's searchable by Backpack as well and it can save 3 actions moving while you are drawing to get set up, so it's abit less tempo loss. I guess the 1 + 3 xp (Relic hunter) make it abit awkward if you aren't convinced of it's usefulness, but 3 actions saved = like having 3 more cantrips, which is huge when setting up combos.

Playing at least 1x Winging it should also be a huge tempo gain, especially if you try to keep your deck empty. (It wont get shuffled in, so you'll get perma-double-clue options - and even if it does, it's easy to get discarded again)

Other than these 2 cents, well written and impressively streamlined towards the BM/Lucky/MoneyTalks/Cheat engine, awesome guide !

Jan 18, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@gowonnie @avaira @Shakiko thank you for taking the time to read through the deck guide. I admit I was hesitant about posting this decklist because I felt like it would be a rather divisive one. I'm happy to hear y'all found elements of it that you liked.

Regarding some of the card choices you suggested Shakiko, I think those are great options, and perhaps more powerful/useful in a slightly different Wendy deck. Eon Chart for purposes of improving tempo can be thought of as 1 card, 2 resources, and 1 action to convert into 3 actions. The 3 actions given don't particularly advance the game state for this deck, since playing Eons Chart doesn't get you to Yaotl, Amulet, or Daredevil faster. You mentioned that you thought the deck was streamlined, and I definitely made a conscious decision not to distract myself with other great cards that a different Wendy might want. As for the multiclass coverage, Telescope/Eon Chart (specifically seeker coverage) is not needed for the deck. Just having Survivor/Rogue is plenty, and with Prophetic you already have 4 out of the 5. Another thing is that because the deck is going to mill all of the cards in your deck once you find Daredevil, Amulet, Yaotl, retrieving the Eons Chart that are in the discard pile is tricky. It's not targetable via Scrounge like Telescope, nor is it targetable via Resourceful like Prophetic. You end up having to play like True Survivor -> Resourceful -> Scavenging -> Eon Chart to even retrieve it, and I don't think I want to commit that much deck space to an engine that doesn't advance this deck's game state.

Regarding Winging It. Its a great card, and for most Wendy decks. However, because resources and passing tests are not an issue, I prefer Pilfer to Winging It for 2 reasons: 1) It gathers more clues, 2) Winging It shuffles your deck which can be really disruptive prior to finding your Daredevil, Amulet, Yaotl if you were linearly cycling, and can be disruptive to the ordering of your deck that you've stacked via Wendy's Amulet.

Jan 18, 2022 sweetpumpkinboy · 36

Never noticed that Yaotl's subtitle is "Lost Son of the Eztli". These 2 orphans really make a dynamic duo.

Jan 18, 2022 Primtoo · 1

This deck blew my mind! Wp op

Jan 19, 2022 Darth Sithius · 1

I love the idea of this deck, it looks both fun and strong. However, as one central idea you claim "Yaotl's 2nd ability discards the top card of your deck. It can be used every phase."

Yaotl specifies that the second ability is "Limit once per turn". Did I miss something?

Jan 19, 2022 Primtoo · 1

@Darth Sithius Hey! There is an official erratum on this card, check the faq when you click on the Yaotl

Jan 19, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@Primtoo Thanks for helping clear up the confusion regarding Yaotl's 2nd ability, I'm glad you enjoy the deck.

While on the topic of Yaotl, during my playtests I struggled to actually use the first ability much, largely because the topmost card of my deck was quite hard to determine after a while since I laid my discard pile out just to be able to see what i had access to.

Jan 20, 2022 darkseid · 4

What do you think of Fortuitous Discovery? It's a Fortune traited card working great with Prophetic. It has built it stat boost too with cheaper cost than Pilfer.

Jan 21, 2022 milo17 · 8

I played one sceniario with this and it felt ridiculously overpowered. gj op

Jan 21, 2022 sweetpumpkinboy · 36

Yesterday I saw some people on MB being dismissive to the creativity and innovation of this deck saying daredevil wendy and amulet nonsense were already nothing new. I want to rebuttal those claims by highlighting how cards are uses multiple ways which is extremely impressive.

Take Yaotl for example. Yaotl isn't used typically in this deck where you try to get icons from the top card of your discard pile. Instead, it used as a way to discard your weakness. It is also used as a way to loop events.

Another example is Black Market. Black Market is both played as a way to support your teammate's decks as well as a pseudo-double double.

Jan 21, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@darkseid Funny that you mentioned Fortuitous Discovery! I actually chose Prophetic as my multiclass talent because of that card. The initial deck was sorta built around Discovery. In playtests, it fell short. Basically, trying to hold 1 Pilfer in your hand before dealing with your weakness is easier than having to hold up to 3 copies of Fortuitous Discovery. Plus, this way, you have more deck space for other stuff!

Jan 21, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@milo17 @sweetpumpkinboy thank you for saying so! I'm glad you like it.

Jan 22, 2022 retty · 1

If you're using Black Market, then Easy Mark gives infinite money more quickly than Cheat the System. It can even be shared with other players for up to 6 resources and 3 draws for 1 action. The other advantage of infinite money is that you can afford to play Counterespionage to cancel all non-enemy encounter cards for everyone on top of everything else.

Jan 25, 2022 david6680 · 56

I feel like this deck really needs "Intel report". When you have tons of money, 2 clues without a skill test is amazing. I know you can get 3 with pilfer but the skill test can sometimes screw you with special token effects.

I also think that 1 copy of the upgraded "A chance encounter" should be part of the deck. It removes the need to find "Yaotl" before using daredevil and makes setup easier. It also allows you to only have 1 copy of "Yaotl" so it doesn't take space from other cards in your deck.

Jan 25, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@david6680 Those are actually some really interesting optimizations. Intel Report definitely has value, but then again, you already have such a strong guarantee on passing tests that the additional clue even during a test feels more valuable. Especially since initiating a test is actually more desirable for the purposes of getting draws off Money Talks and Lucky.

The upgraded A Chance Encounter can work with Yaotl for sure. In fact, it definitely removes the need to draw Yaotl in many instances. I think if you're confident that you will always be able to outmill your weaknesses (aka you'll only ever have 3 weaknesses), then definitely go with A Chance Encounter. However, it you are in a standalone or campaign that accrues more weaknesses, Yaotl can only get out a max of 3 weaknesses risking an A&A nuke on your discard pile.

That being said, I think that A Chance Encounter lvl 0 is actually a pretty darn interesting way to add consistency to the deck early. You'll have to also play Scrounge in that deck to get Resourceful for the Yaotl in a later turn after you dealt with your weakness.

Overall, cool ideas!

Jan 27, 2022 david6680 · 56

I made some very minor modifications to the 3 exp deck that I'm going to test when I get a chance.

arkhamdb.com

Jan 27, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@david6680 This looks great! Let me know how it plays!

Jan 29, 2022 Eudaimonea · 1

I have two thoughts after reading this: 1) This is clever and creative. Nicely done. 2) I think Black Market might need attention in the upcoming Taboo list. I don’t mean for the second point to take away from the first, but I think we’re going to see a lot of decks exploiting Black Market in crazy ways.

Jan 29, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@Eudaimonea I honestly thought about which of the cards would get tabooed to break this kind of exploitive deck myself. Thanks for reading the guide, I'm happy you liked it :D

Feb 21, 2022 Cuherdir · 1150

Well, I too think Black Market is too strong, but as for this deck the culprit is easily identified: Wendys Amulet. The regular Amulet already was at least among the 3 strongest signatures, the advanced Amulet takes it to such easy new heights. It basically removes all its restrictions. You just completely lose any need to play around controlling the top card of the discard pile, mostly leading you to restrict yourself to quick, versatile events that are easily played proactively. Now your discard pile literally is your hand...

I do love Wendy, I really enjoy pretty much everything about her apart from the stupidly ridiculous weakness. It warrants a strong signature as for myself, her Amulet is the only viable playstile to avoid NPE. The solution shouldn't be to completely overcorrect and give her by far the strongest signature in the game, it should be to dampen one of the, arguably the worst (or at least restrictive) weakness in the game...

Feb 21, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@Cuherdir I also agree that advanced amulet is the culprit. I don't really know what they can do about it since i can't figure out an errata that would be between the original and the current advanced. So i assumed they would have to nerf her indirectly through the cards she exploits.

I still remember your Last King youtube video where you were memeing Knuckleduster Wendy and I definitely find myself in the same camp you are in. I can't enjoy Wendy without playing around amulet. Its still foreign to me that a lot of people consider amulet as a commit above anything else.

Feb 21, 2022 Cuherdir · 1150

I mean, I would love nothing more than playable alternatives for Wendy, I'd absolutely love being able to explore some ideas like skill Wendy without having to go above and beyond to prevent your weakness from completely wrecking your day. For me, something like that is utterly unplayable with her current weakness

All that while her ability, deckbuilding, statline and now parallel options invite you to explore so many deckbuilding possibilities. Then you end up being Abandoned and Alone...

Feb 21, 2022 Cuherdir · 1150

While I'm at it, concerning your deck. I might have missed it, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't mentioned yet: Scrounge is a great way to get Daredevil back so you can play many events, possibly after your Black market double-tap from another investigator, and then nuke your recycled Daredevil for an effective Action -> draw everything.

Feb 22, 2022 david6680 · 56

@chirubime I agree that the amulet is a strong card (either version). However, you need to build your deck around the amulet to take advantage of its strength and that takes up space in your deck.
You can build strong Wendy decks without abusing the amulet using that extra space. The benefit of these other decks is that they don't rely on finding a single card in your deck so they are sometimes more consistent.

Feb 22, 2022 Svartigaldur · 31

Wow, amazing effort @chirubime I'm so intrigued and excited about this deck that it kills me that I'm having such a hard time understanding it. I've read everything about 8 times already, I've tried segmenting the info and going through it bit by bit, yet I just can't seem to understand how, when, why nor where!

English is not my 1st language and that may be somewhat of an obstacle here, though I doubt it since I'm generally considered quite versed in the English language and speak it somewhat fluently. More likely the trouble I'm having comes down to me being to slow. Either way I really want to understand this deck completely and fully comprehend the whole mechanics about this build.

So... I wanted to turn to this amazing community and see if there is anyone here that would have the heart to do me a massive favor? Obviously I have trouble envisioning and understanding these written instructions (something that honestly has always been somewhat of a nousance). Is there any gold-hearted individual that really understands this and could lend me a part of their time to link up with me on discord/zoom/hangout or any platform to have a quick discussion regarding this deck and how it supposedly functions?

I would be immensely thankful and would definitely buy you a "virtual" beer for the effort.

Regards, The slow yet optimistic Icelander

Feb 22, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@Svartigaldur sure, add me on discord and I'll go through your questions with you

discord: Tofu Mushroom#6686

Feb 22, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@Cuherdir yeah! Scrounge is great idea for the deck. When I playtested this deck, my partner ended up getting shrine of the moirai and Everytime I used it, I basically grabbed 2 daredevils with it. Definitely a great way to quickly flush a bloated deck of events and reset the loops on cheat the system, swift reflexes, etc

Feb 22, 2022 Svartigaldur · 31

@chirubime thanks mate. Just added you

Mar 02, 2022 Andy · 2

With such big money you could potentially counterespionage everyone's treachery no? Play the first counterespionage, let them draw extra card. Goes to deck, play the second counterespionage, draw from your own deck, and from here you can loop it. Might be an upgrade to a test of will?

Mar 03, 2022 Andy · 2

Also if adding in ace in the hole. Pretaboo I believe you can have infinite turns with even just Easy Mark added, post taboo is still a +3 actions per turn.

Mar 03, 2022 Cuherdir · 1150

I mean, with this kind of firepower and the cardpool nowadays, there for sure are several infinity options. Even without the need to go into the Easy Mark infitinity discussion (whether it works or not), you could go infinite with just 1 XP in a different way:

Cheat the System + 2x Swift Reflexes + Daredevil + Scrounge for Supplies

  • play Cheat the System for 4
  • play Swift Reflexes to play Scrounge on Daredevil
  • play Swift Reflexes to take an action that leads to a test
  • commit Daredevil, you're back to the same gamestate regardless of success

-> now add whatever else you want, like a second Cheat the System for infinite resources, Will to survive (even (0) suffices) for true infinity ignoring any bad token results in the bag, Money Talks as just one of many ways to pass any test, Elusive to add fast movement, as you mentioned you could go for Counterspionage for the whole team or just never draw any encounter cards again and play Versatile+Guidance for infinite actions for the whole team, etc. etc. etc.

Mar 23, 2022 Semicolon42 · 1

My mind is blown! Still wrapping my head around the Daredevil + Taotl + Advanced Amulet combo. Takes a bit to setup, but once you're set you are soooo set.

Mar 25, 2022 foobar · 74

Do you have an empty deck at this point? Good. Now use that player window to immediately play a selection of cards from your discard pile that can be played during any player window. (Keep Faith, Cheat the System, Alter Fate). These cards will resolve their effects and then Amulet will place them in your deck.

How does this work with FAQ entry 1.13:

A single card cannot be shuffled into an empty player deck or encounter deck via card effect.

Aren't you trying to do exactly that?

Mar 26, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@foobar A single card cannot be shuffled into an empty deck. Both the original and the advanced Wendy's Amulet places events at the bottom of your deck. Place =/= Shuffle

Apr 09, 2022 ricu · 1

This deck turns the game into a broken mess. It has to be tabooed. The most problematic card is probably wendys amulet

Apr 09, 2022 david6680 · 56

@ricu Wendy's amulet has always been game breaking if you build around it. Go check out the knuckleduster Wendy YouTube video to see the base amulet allow Wendy to trivialize combat. The advanced version makes it more game breaking but the ability to control what is in your deck can be ridiculously powerful.

Jul 25, 2022 chirubime · 25319

So the new card Salvage(2) that's coming out in Scarlet Keys has really turbo'd this deck's set up. You no longer need to grab Backpack(2) for Amulet. Instead as long as you have 1 copy of Salvage, Amulet or Resourceful, you can get set up really fast. That means you have 5 copies of Amulet in deck.

  1. Daredevil in hand commit to a skill test, commit Resourceful during this test as well to return the Salvage that was discarded via Daredevil.
  2. Salvage Amulet for 2 Resources.
  3. Then Play A Chance Encounter(2) from the discard pile using Amulet to play Yaotl for 3 Resources. Now you are set up.

Aug 05, 2022 david6680 · 56

I was messing around with this deck and realized that scavenging could also be a way to get Wendy's amulet.

Play scavenging, commit daredevil to an investigate, succeed by 2, and add the amulet to your hand from the discard pile.

Risky because you could fail to succeed by 2 but if you do you can prevent a disaster by Chance Encountering Yaotl and discarding the weaknesses that are all that remains of your deck.

You will take a horror when you need to reshuffle and lose the daredevil from your hand when this gambit fails but it could significantly speed up finding the amulet in some cases.

Sep 07, 2022 chirubime · 25319

@david6680 Too risky. Play Salvage(2) over Scavenging. Retrieving Salvage with Resourceful during a Daredevil mill is safer since you don't have to pass an investigation test by 2, you just need to pass the test.

Sep 13, 2022 Hitokori · 2

Short supply consideration? It can go wrong, but can also expedite the weakness discard. And if you mulligan for daredevil scrounge or salvage or backpack you are almost guaranteed turn 1 amulet

Sep 13, 2022 david6680 · 56

Sorry supply could go horribly wrong. You could discard the amulet at the beginning of the game and draw Wendy's weakness before finding salvage. I'm don't think I like the chance to completely destroy the combo my deck is built around to setup faster.

Nov 23, 2022 Jspiz · 1

I dont think this has been brought up, but as I play through a 4P Normal mode EotE campaign, I noticed the biggest pain in this deck is being able to reliably draw Daredevil. Well, where we didnt have any focused tutor for it before, with the release of Scarlet Keys, we've been blessed with Friends in Low Places.

Since Daredevil has traits of Fortune and Practiced, you can take your pick based on what else you'd be looking for in case Daredevil isnt within the cards you look at. Personally, I chose Fortune since that relates to Lucky!, "Look what I found!", & Keep Faith; which can all at least help to advance the board state as this deck gets setup. I chose the Clever upgrade on Friends in Low Places in case the search reveals non-Daredevil cards that are useful, such that you can zip them to the top: Wendy's Amulet and Black Market. Friends in Low Places also helps scout for ye ol Abandoned and Alone or other weaknesses near the top of your deck and shuffle them back in (hopefully towards the bottom).

Other upgrades on Friends in Low Places can make it Fast or use it to help your teammates (assuming they have Fortune cards); or dont grab Clever and spend 3 xp for Experienced to increase the total dig to 9 cards. Be warned, since Wendy Adams can only take 0-2 Rogue cards, she can only apply a max of 4 xp to Friends in Low Places upgrades. Personally I'll be taking Clever and Prompt (Fast play added).

Hope this helps folks play this incredibly fun and versatile deck! I do recommend playing with Taboo lists ON and avoiding gamebreaking combos like Easy Mark-infinite money; unless you enjoy defying the eldritch gods...no way that'll come back to bite you.

Dec 19, 2022 TheRTist · 7

I recently ran this deck, and I saw the pieces start to click together. I didn't run True Survivor and Strength in Numbers. Despite having Through the Gates, lordy is this deck scary. Me and My friend have been considering doing a 2 man double-hand run into a campaign we both agreed we wanted to break over our knees with busted cards. And this is going in along with Mandy Thompson. This deck being able to fill the bag with blesses, get tons of money, proceed to share money with others to make sure at least 1 other player never has money problems with you is absolutely bonkers. We called this deck communism because of how busted and scary it was. Consistantly dumping cards off the top of decks (which doesn't always have to be yours) is scary. Can it blow up?

Yes.

If it doesn't?

The game yields to you.

Be prepared for your games to run longer unless you know how to rapid fire your communism (Black Market).

Jan 29, 2023 Emmental · 81

As @Jspiz said, Friends in Low Places is a great addition.

With Prompt + Versatile, you can draw Gambit and Favor cards, notably :
Friends in Low Places itself
Swift Reflexes
Money Talks (2)
Daring Maneuver (2)
The latter two are chosen because they make you draw, so you can replay Cheat the System and pay for the infinite combo.

Also you could add that with two Lucky! (3) and one card in your deck (Cheat the system for example), you can loop Lucky until successing, i.e. passing every test except on .

Apr 14, 2023 chirubime · 25319

Yep @Emmental @Jspiz. Finding Daredevil is harder than any other card in the deck.

Since TSK I've also been running Friends in Low Places for Practiced and running 2 Perceptions and 2 Unrelentings for deck thin and as non-Daredevil targets for Friends.

I take Prompt and Clever so that should I have early access to Yaotl and/or Amulet. I can reorder my deck and decide/know exactly when I'm about to draw Abandoned&Alone if it is among the cards looked at. After you've used Yaotl to mill A&A. You can just manually mill yourself to the empty deck condition with Yaotl without needing to hoard cards until you see Daredevil