Win NotZ with Wendy Adams & Friends (Revised Core Set)

Wendy Adams

"Luck of the Draw"

This multiplayer Wendy Adams deck focuses on adaptably finding clues and dealing with enemies in the Night of the Zealot campaign. his is essentially an improved starter deck. It uses cards only from the Revised Core Set with no overlap when teamed up with Roland, Daisy, or Agnes. Played next to at least one of those decks (especially Roland), it should be able to confidently perform in The Gathering, defeat at least four cultists in The Midnight Masks, and thereby set conditions to win The Devourer Below by disrupting the ritual. Wendy is a good choice to be the lead investigator for campaign-specific reasons.

Inherent Advantages:

• Good Willpower
• Good Agility
• Cancels Bad Chaos Tokens

Your defensive stats are solid. Your high Willpower and Agility will keep you safer than most from the encounter deck. Your health and sanity is average and balanced. Other than your signature weakness, which drops 2 horror on you when you draw it, you'll not likely take many hits.

Inherent Flaws:

• Terrible Combat
• Average Intellect
• Reliant on Card Draw

You are a miserable fighter but can still deal some damage, if somewhat situationally or at least unconventionally. You are mobile enough to dart around looking for clues. Despite that, your natural Intellect is only average. Your signature ability is fueled by cards, so you need to be drawing them often.

Game Plan:

Thanks to your signature ability, you can confidently relax the "+2 Rule", which tells investigators to aim for a +2 advantage, unmodified by the chaos bag, in any skill test. If the chaos bag would cause you to fail, instead cash in a card and reveal a different token! Or... combo off that failure because you are a Survivor after all.

The impact of your signature ability is far-reaching. Even when you have a card that offers a relevant icon for a test, if it only offers one such icon, you're better off discarding it to reveal another token from the bag. Another way to think about this is that it's as if every card in your hand has icons relevant to your next test.

You have the potential to put some damage down with planning and luck. Failing either, defer the bulk of combat to other investigators. You can evade most enemies. When given the option, be the one engaged by a new enemy (especially one with retaliate) specifically so you can evade it, leaving it exhausted for others to slay. Your health can survive a hit just in case.

Action Priority:

• Investigate: Often
• Fight: Conditionally (w/ a synergistic asset/event)
• Evade: Often

Deck Composition:

This section analyzes the proportion of cards in the deck before (and after) upgrades according to their primary role, as opposed to their type, cost, icons, or any other factor. The roles considered include:

• Damage: Cards that primarily help you defeat enemies.
• Discovery: Cards that primarily help you discover clues.
• Mobility: Cards that primarily help you move around and avoid enemies.
• Economy: Cards that primarily help you gain or save resources, actions, or cards.
• Support: Cards that help you or other investigators do things, but don't directly affect the state of play.

6 Damage cards

• 2x Baseball Bat
• 2x Backstab
• 2x Overpower

6 Discovery cards

• 2x Flashlight
• 2x "Look what I found!"
• 2x Perception

6 (↘4) Mobility cards

• [2x Stray Cat]
• 2x Elusive
• 2x Survival Instinct

6 (-) Economy cards

• 2x Emergency Cache (••)
• 2x Rabbit's Foot
• 2x Leo De Luca (•)

7 (↗9) Support cards

• 1x Wendy's Amulet
• 2x Hard Knocks
• 2x Lucky!
• 2x Unexpected Courage
• (2x Will to Survive •••)

Card Notes:

• Flashlight isn't now and will never be flashy, but -2 shroud makes a difference. If you have to drop it to pick up the Baseball Bat, try to do so once Flashlight is already empty. If you're already swinging the Bat and need to keep it around, just commit Flashlight to a test.

• Baseball Bat works as a fine bludgeon in a pinch. You're just a little kid, but with this in your hands, you can definitely break something. Be careful you don't break the Bat (don't worry, you won't... the chaos bag is afraid of you).

• Rabbit's Foot turns one failed skill test each round into a card draw action. That's great insurance when you're out there taking risks. Commit the second copy. The repeatable card draw effect makes this a nice economy card in your deck.

• Wendy's Amulet is your third copy of Unexpected Courage when you either really need the icons or early on when your discard pile has few or no event cards in it. When you draw it late and your discard pile is flush with event cards, play the amulet so you can replay those events.

• Leo De Luca is a minor damage and horror soak that gives you a huge advantage in action economy. It will cost you though. Look to play this cool cat on turn 1 or 2 to maximize his impact. If you don't draw him until late in the scenario, he may just be fuel for your signature ability.

• Stray Cat is the "we have a cat at home" version of Leo the Lion. Leo gives you an extra action every round. This street cat only gives you one free (but test-less) evasion. You'll replace this kitty entirely with something better in upgrades.

• Hard Knocks is the school you attend. You're a runaway orphan, remember? While slow to play and start using, this offers a way to repeatably boost Combat or Agility. It's also just fine to commit to this to a test.

• "Look what I found!" is part of your clue gathering package. Note, you don't have a player window in which to play this after revealing a chaos token and before the skill test ends. After the test fully resolves, if you narrowly failed, then you can play this to trade 2 resources for 2 clues. This also combos well with Rabbit's Foot.

• Backstab gives you a rather expensive but damaging alternative fight action using your Agility stat, but is also a source of icons relevant to your game plan.

• Elusive lets you dodge an entire location's worth of enemies or just get away from one particularly troublesome enemy for 2 resources. Note that this doesn't evade those enemies. If they are ready, they will automatically engage another investigator at the location you just ducked away from. If you're playing with the Taboo List in effect, this card's effect is also meaningfully different from what was originally printed on it. Instead of "a revealed location with no enemies", you instead move to "a connecting location with no enemies", which needn't be revealed yet. This can have a very specific and useful application in The Devourer Below...

• Emergency Cache is useful for many investigators, effectively constituting a single use ": Gain 3 resources". It is especially useful to you because you can play it (again) from the discard pile if Wendy's Amulet is out.

• Lucky! is seriously powerful. With the flexibility to play it after revealing a chaos token to turn a failed test into a pass, Lucky! means you have even more agency over skill tests. The only chaos bag token it doesn't power through is the ... unless you discard it using your signature ability to put those tentacles back in the bag and try again. If you are holding both Lucky! and "Look what I found!", you can combo the former into the latter to pick up 2 clues at a high shroud location.

• Overpower may seem misplaced in this deck, but remember that you can commit a card to help another investigator with a skill test. Overpower also gives you the potential to swing your Baseball Bat at a Combat 5, likely landing a bone-breaking base hit or better.

• Perception gives you relevant icons to your game plan and replaces itself when used successfully. When there are no clues to discover, these are still fine cards to pitch for your signature ability.

• Survival Instinct is in some ways a variant of Elusive. Instead of 2 resources, you're using an action to evade in order to commit this card to the test, but the effect is quite similar. This may also get you past that one specific situation in The Devourer Below.

• Unexpected Courage completes your skill package, but sadly doesn't replace itself in your hand when committed to a successful test like the others. This may often be the one you want to discard when using your signature ability.

• Abandoned and Alone is your signature weakness. It slaps you with 2 horror and blanks your discard pile, nullifying the on-board benefits of Wendy's Amulet. This hurts less the earlier it appears.

• Amnesia is the basic weakness included in the original Wendy starter deck in the Core Set. It winnows your hand down to one card, but you get to choose which card you keep and you should have enough card draw effects to recover from it.

Mulligan Targets:

These are the cards you most hope to see in your opening hand and should consider mulliganing something else in hopes of drawing.

• (Actions) Leo De Luca and Emergency Cache: If you have one, try to get the other because both in your opening hand means Leo enters play in round 1. After you upgrade Leo, the Cache is slightly less important.

• (Clues) Flashlight, "Look what I found!", Perception, or Unexpected Courage: If you have Leo in your opener, you're going to spend all of your resources to play him. Perception or Unexpected Courage will help you pick up the first clue. If you didn't pull Leo, "Look what I found!" is great. Flashlight is always welcome too, but remember your hand slot restrictions with Baseball Bat.

• (Damage) Baseball Bat or Backstab: These both set you up for some damage dealing when the time comes. With Baseball Bat, you'd really like to see Overpower or Unexpected Courage next to it.

Ideal Hand:

You probably don't mulligan anything if you see an opening hand like this:

• Leo De Luca
• Emergency Cache
• "Look what I found!"
• Baseball Bat
• Lucky!

Upgrade Path:

Night of the Zealot is a short three-scenario campaign. You're only going to pick up a spare handful of XP before reaching the finale. At most, you might be able to earn 16XP or so if you're especially successful in The Gathering and The Midnight Masks. This leaves fairly little room to evolve the deck, so these upgrades focus instead on gaining incremental value, emphasizing a key strength or shoring up a weakness. Buy these in any order you wish.

• 2x Stray Cat → 2x Will to Survive ••• swaps Stray Cat's free evasion of a non-Elite enemy for the potential to set up a real grand slam of a round. Will to Survive lets you automatically pass every skill test you take at or above parity with that test's difficulty level. Baseball Bat versus an enemy with fight value 3? Automatic success. Investigate in a shroud value 3 location? Automatic success. Activate a scenario ability that tests Willpower or Agility at a difficulty level of 3? Automatic success... Potential combos with this effect using another investigator's cards are gratuitous. Daisy's Encyclopedia gives you a further +2 static boost for the entire phase. Roland's Police Badge gives you 2 additional actions for your big round.

• 2x Emergency Cache → 2x Emergency Cache •• is an upgrade that allows Emergency Cache to replace itself in your hand when played, adding a card draw effect to an event you may be able to play more than twice.

• 2x Leo De Luca → 2x Leo De Luca • is the same Biloxi-born bootlegger, but at a bargain price. For 1XP per copy, the upgraded Leo costs only 5 resources to play. Critically, this makes him playable with a single action in round 1 and even more of a mulligan target than before.