What's In The Bag, Dex?

Dexter Drake is an interesting take on a mystic investigator. His passive ability to sac an asset to play another at reduced cost can net incremental value over the course of a scenario. Taking advantage of his ability requires a diversity in assets, but also understanding play sequencing and when to cash in one asset for another.

This specific build focuses on combat first, but his role can easily be swapped to being more of a cluever or balanced investigator by changing up the arcane spell slots. Like most mystics, Shrivelling is the most important card in the deck. Having a reliable damage dealing spell is critical to staying ahead of the board, but one tool Dex has at his disposal is the newly printed Sword Cane in case he does find himself Cornered. The cane provides time to setup, react, and fight. For only 2 resources and the ability to activate itself as soon as it comes into play, while also being immune to AoO, it fits right in with his value-centric ability. Sword Cane alone makes Dexter unique and his ability to juggle assets makes him play very different from the other 5 willpower mystics, Akachi Onyele, Agnes Baker, and Jacqueline Fine.

This decklist is to be paired with Mandy Thompson for a run through the Innsmouth Conspiracy. This build is to take advantage of 2 search engines Backpack for items and Arcane Initiate for spells. Both work wonders with Mandy Thompson's signature ability. Backpack can go 9 deep or resolve an extra target. Upgraded it can search 12 - 15 with Mandy - that's half our deck! Arcane initiate is harder pressed, but for 1 resource and the ability to discard the initiate once value has been had allows us to find our Shrivellings, Sixth Sense, and other crucial arcanes that allow us to run through scenarios with ease. The ability to grab Ward of Protection, Deny Existence, and other encounter protection tools is also great, especially once we've thinned out our deck with a Backpack.

David Renfield is possibly the best ally in the deck, as you can abuse the magic out of his ability and then sacrifice him before the doom threshold hits on the agenda to reduce the cost of another asset you want to play. David can easily net you 8 resources in a few turns, which perfectly sets you up for deploying all your costly assets early, and allows you to land your Leo De Luca for a big push in the mid-late part of scenarios where you really want to have multiple actions to do big damage and move to key locations quickly.