Abandoned and Alone on Her Own

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet

alexalansmith14 · 680

Fairly thematic Wendy deck which focuses on clues with several options for action compression and damage dealing. For a complement Guardian-ish deck use my Well Connected High Roller Jenny Barnes deck.

Edit — as advised on Reddit, BGG and here, drop On Your Own for Pickpocketing and take On Your Own (you can proxy it if you don't have RtTFA as I do).

This started as a joke when I decided to create full-event deck for Wendy. That sorta made sense because of her amulet, but still was not very practical. Wern212 advised me on DttF discord to use On Your Own, which was thematic enough because of her personal story (she's literally abandoned and alone, living a life on her own). That advice made me thinking about building a thematic but playable Wendy.

Deck doesn't contain much assets — an urchin could find a Flashlight and Newspaper on the streets of Arkham, and Cornered, Pickpocketing and On Your Own sound like appropriate talents for somebody with Wendy's background. I tried to keep up with the same logic when choosing events and skills (even Emergency Cache can be viewed as poor girl's piggybank).

Piloting

It's pretty straightforward, try to get at least one of investigation assets and one of your talents (preferably Cornered) in your starting hand.

Combine Flashlight with Newspaper, Winging It and "Look what I found!" for action compression. You'll have to evade enemies anyway, so Eavesdrop also can push your tempo a bit.

If you got some hunters on your back, Backstab, Sneak Attack or even Waylay them.

Cornered, Live and Learn and Lucky! will provide you stat boosts on demand. If things go south, you have a Last Chance. Don't forget about your Devil's Luck! You can draw them with the help of Lucky! and Pickpocketing.

Wendy's Amulet and Resourceful are here to replay some events you might consider useful. And of course On Your Own is here to provide a special discount!

Campaign starter

For legal campaign starter replace the following:

Cards for consideration

I don't own TCU/TDE/TIC yet, so I can't really advise on its cards, but from what I see here on arkhamdb, you might be interested in the following:

Why not include ...?

  • Lockpicks - I've saved some XP for standalone deck with 19 XP threshold and decided to slow down with resource costs. You're free to upgrade Flashlight into it if you wish!
  • Track Shoes — again, tried to save some resources. You can include it if you feel like the deck needs more mobility.
  • Drawing Thin — don't own it yet, might experiment with it later. I heard, this card has special synergy with Track Shoes.
  • Take Heart — with On Your Own Wendy should be fine in terms of economy, but you can take it if you feel you need it.
  • Lucky Cigarette Case - competes with Wendy's Amulet for a slot, but if you're a Relic Hunter, you could use girl's smoking habit for additional draw.
  • Lone Wolf - again, you should be perfectly fine with the economy thanks to On Your Own, but this card seems absolutely logical for solo play.

Missing a pack or two?

  • The Path to Carcosa - Resourceful effect is pretty powerful, so if you don't have it, I'd suggest something with card draw, especially since this deck relies a lot on events. Perception maybe? You'd be investigating a lot anyway.
  • The Unspeakable Oath - So we need some kind of replacement for our panic button. Elusive and "I'm outta here!" provide similar effect, letting you to get out of trouble before you have to cancel some potential lethal damage or horror. Perseverance is also an option.
  • The Pallid Mask - Waylay is so powerful, I'm surprised it's a 0-level card. Coup de Grâce can help you to finish off an enemy from time to time. Or you can use Think on Your Feet to get out of trouble, if you can't get rid of it.
  • Dim Carcosa - Newspaper is very important for action compression of this deck, but it also works as occasional Flashlight, so 0-level version can do the similar trick. Pay your attention to Belly of the Beast and Followed as they provide action compression.
  • The Forgotten Age - Last Chance can contribute to any kind of test, upgraded Rise to the Occasion can apply similar effect. Eavesdrop does not provide direct action compression (2 clues = 2 actions), but as Wendy you'd be evading enemies pretty much often, so Belly of the Beast and Followed can be replacement options here.
  • The Boundary Beyond and The City of Archives - I'm not sure you'd want to play this deck without its core cards, so... No luck here.
  • Heart of the Elders - Live and Learn became staple card for me, fits the theme very much. If you don't have it, pay attention to double icon skills that can help you to achieve your main goals - getting clues and evading enemies.
  • The Depths of Yoth - Winging It provides useful action compression, so I advice again to consider Belly of the Beast and Followed as possible replacements.
18 comments

Nov 12, 2020 Nenananas · 242

Now all she needs is Lone Wolf and she really is all on her own!

Nov 12, 2020 Calprinicus · 4950

Close Call is a great event dealing with monsters for high agility / low combat.

Nov 12, 2020 alexalansmith14 · 680

@Nenananas You’re totally right, how could I forget that card! Lone Wolf and Pickpocketing both fit the archetype and follow the theme. I need to think how to squeeze one of them or both there. But on the other hand the idea of the deck is to have a few assets so you can start investigating from the turn 1...

Nov 12, 2020 alexalansmith14 · 680

@Calprinicus I agree, I never played this card before, should definitely try it. Although I like Waylay for that purpose... Get rid of the damn thing once and for all, you know (unless agenda make me shuffle the discard pile of encounter deck...)

Nov 12, 2020 chirubime · 25325

This build also makes Crystallizer of Dreams extremely favorable :3

Nov 12, 2020 chirubime · 25325

Especially when you can get your Guardian of the Crystallizer into the discard pile for Abandoned and Alone to remove from the game! While holding onto your events to help you manipulate whatever event is on the top of your discard, and how many are even in your discard to avoid being all removed from game. Of course you'd need Relic Hunter

Nov 12, 2020 Valokiloren · 22

`@alexalansmith14You can add Lone Wolf into the deck by swapping out your On Your Own to the alternative permanent variant: On Your Own. It costs the same amount of experience but frees up 2 cards in your deck, while simultaneously being available all the time as opposed to costing 2 resources & subject to your draw.

Nov 13, 2020 alexalansmith14 · 680

@chirubime you're right, thanks! Added it to "Cards for consideration" section.

@Valokilorenand you're right too! I'd add Pickpocketing instead, with On Your Own Wendy should be fine in terms of economy, and this deck could use some draw.

Nov 13, 2020 red.hexapus · 26

@ValokilorenWhat do you mean On Your Own costs the same as On Your Own? The pernament one is Exceptional so it costs 6XP not 3XP and you can have only one in your deck, so you need 3XP to replace the non-permanent one + 1XP to replace the second one with a Lone Wolf. Or am i missing something?

Nov 13, 2020 red.hexapus · 26

Posted a wrong card in comment above, look here: On Your Own (3XP, non-Permanent, non-Exceptional) On Your Own (6XP, Permanent, Exceptional) also: I've forgotten that the Exceptional card will force you to throw away both non-Exceptional ones from your deck, so no additional cost for Lone Wolf, disregard this part above.

Nov 13, 2020 red.hexapus · 26

Sorry for triple comment - I wish I could have edited my other comments. Somehow I've missed that it is a standalone deck, probably because I always play from 0XP and build up and my brain just omitted this part. In the case of a standalone deck swapping 2x On Your Own for On Your Own is a good advice indeed :)

Nov 14, 2020 The Lynx · 952

Love this deck. I am surprised to see that Dark Horse wasn't used but it does make it a lot more difficult to do damage without the Rogue events. I think leaving it out was a good choice. I think Pickpocketing and to a much lesser extent Lone Wolf is key to making this whole deck work. This deck's success is based on card draw imo. Adding Lucky Cigarette Case (or even the boring Rabbit's Foot) and Relic Hunter as mentioned would also be a big boost.

I don't really like Crystallizer of Dreams as much in this deck. Wendy doesn't want more Hunter enemies and most of the events have single skill icons. They will often frequently be discarded rather than played to fuel Cornered or Wendy's Amulet.

Great thematic deck though.

Nov 15, 2020 alexalansmith14 · 680

Thank you, @TWWaterfalls! I have this idea in my mind for Rabbit's Foot — when I get The Wages of Sin, I want to experiment with Drawing Thin + Take Heart + Rabbit's Foot combo. Not sure yet if the deck needs this, but the idea itself is interesting for me. I could also throw Track Shoes in the mix and have free test each round for this combo, but the addition of 8 new cards (and inevitable exclusion of another 8 cards) will change the deck drastically.

Nov 16, 2020 The Lynx · 952

I am not sure it is completely necessary to max out the draw power of this deck but it would be nice to have a little extra draw power to fuel her Amulet and Cornered. Both Lucky and LCC accomplish that.

One concern I would have especially if you went heavily into draw is her weakness. It is okay to get her weakness but you don't want to blow through her deck too quickly and then potentially cycle it a few times. I almost wonder if Cornered isn't a great card for her since using her Amulet and Cornered each round is going to blow through cards quickly.

Nov 16, 2020 alexalansmith14 · 680

I think Cornered and her Amulet supplement each other. When you fuel the card from your hand to Cornered, you're basically moving it from your deck to discard pile. And when you activate her Amulet, the card goes in the opposite direction (from discard pile to the bottom of your deck).

So if you used both abilities during one round, your hand becomes one card short, discarded cards amount stays unchanged and your deck gets one more card.

Nov 16, 2020 The Lynx · 952

Sorry. I was thinking of her signature ability. I can't see how you would ever have enough cards in hand to fuel both her signature and Cornered.

Nov 16, 2020 alexalansmith14 · 680

Oh, yeah. That's the thing I should've mention earlier and also should put it in deck's description or even a headline.

The thing is — most of the time I play on Easy (about 80% of plays) and the rest (about 20%) is Standard (my SO doesn't like min/maxing strategy and prefers playing for plot and story). When you play on lower difficulties, you don't need to use Wendy's ability way too often, sometimes I play the whole round without triggering it.

More to say, I used to trigger it a lot in my early AH LCG days, when I learned the game and how to play it, and now it seems kinda boring (maybe not the best word here, overused?). So this deck was built with an assumption that Wendy's signature ability is something like "panic button", a mean of last resort, if all other instruments has not worked well.

I understand that this strategy may be not optimal for this particular investigator (developers has put signature abilities here for a reason), but this is the way I kinda make the game a bit more challenging to myself without actually putting hard to beat tokens to the chaos bag. I've yet to play Cornered (got TFA not so long ago), I've got this idea for thematic deck, so.... That's it :)

Jul 08, 2023 MarcMF2 · 3

I find funny that the theme of the deck is On your own, but there are only four events that cost two money or more. If you count the number of survivor events, it is 11, 2 free event 5 1-cost 4 2-cost or 3-cost I expected Will to survive or True survivor