Put together for Murder at the Excelsior Hotel (standalone, blind).

General gameplan: stick Lockpicks early, evade enemies, and burst them down via events when necessary. With your amulet out, commit events liberally and play them from your discard. Fund the whole thing with Lone Wolf + some Pickpocketing. Add Track Shoes if you have 'em.

Some thoughts on the list:

• Cat Burglar instead of Pete: I had been looking for an excuse to bust out the burglar, and this was it. It's a really fun card; having that free disengage move honestly feels like cheating.
• Hiding Spot isn't high impact, but it lets you sneak through a location on the cheap, can be recurred forever via the amulet, and has very relevant icons. Might not be necessary given Cat Burglar.
• Economy comes from Lone Wolf (you're exploring by yourself most of the time), Pickpocketing, and hopefully getting double value out of Emergency Cache.
• Pickpocketing also does double duty in giving you card draw to power your ability. In hindsight, I think there might be a place for Rabbit's Foot here too--despite competing for a valuable slot, Wendy makes excellent use of spare cards.

Previously I had a Scavenging + items package here too (playing off the Lockpicks oversucceed theme), but I ended up cutting it. It might be a nice way of getting some extra card draw, but I'm not sure it's worth the setup cost.

Session Report

WARNING - SPOILERS FOR MURDER AT THE EXCELSIOR HOTEL

Wendy teamed up with Akachi (decklist) for a blind runthrough of MatEH on hard (standalone).

At first, all was well--with early copies of Cat Burglar, Lockpicks, and Lone Wolf, Wendy was comfortably grabbing clues near the Foyer while Akachi mopped up some bloodstains and shrivelled a few intrusive staff members. Banking on a non-confrontational start, we both arrived in our finest garments, our charm defusing the suspicions of fellow patrons and Arkham's finest alike. The Excelsior proved rather difficult to navigate: sleuthing around for more information on our leads turned up dead end after dead end. A completely idiotic oversight on our part ("hmm... who's that concerned guest in the restaurant?") lead to an unceremonious (and frankly, embarrassing) arrest with no satisfying answers. R3.

I really appreciate the built-in "do-over" offered by this scenario. As a pure standalone, we would've run this one back regardless, but if you had paid 3XP in campaign mode, walking away here would have felt very frustrating, especially given the variance in finding the correct locations for your leads. (Other than the alien artifact, which is obviously on the rooftop.)

Ooookay... Wendy didn't even have time to start scheming before we walked right out of the jail. Back at it again with a fresh start and valuable information, we were ready to take on the world. Which, of course, lead to us drawing three (?) weaknesses in our first few draws--certainly valuable to get them out of the way, but fighting off an early Overzealous left us on the back foot and nearly depleted Grotesque Statue. Not long after, Akachi's paranoia wrecked her tempo and delayed an important Rite of Seeking. Wendy's opener was missing the staples it wanted, but thankfully Flare found a Cat Burglar, with some good fortune to help with clues. Having knowledge of the initial twists made a huge difference, and we were able to get 6 clues on our vile solution and another 4 on a strange tome!

Of course, putting it that way makes it sound so easy. But the reality is, gathering those clues takes time--even for a mystic as powerful as Akachi. The brass were on our tails the whole time, and it didn't look good for her. The body? That dagger? It would have been foreign in anyone else's hands, but she wielded it with poise and power. Wendy never seriously entertained the thought, but she couldn't blame anyone who did. Her and Akachi shared only one thing, but it was enough to bond them forever: they were outsiders. Both were used to living in the margins, every meal a testament to their ability to survive in a place that seemed cruelly indifferent to those toiling at its edges.

That's why when Akachi was taking longer than expected, Wendy felt her stomach knot as her fingers went numb. With her heart pounding in her ears, she steeled herself. Years of making it on her own taught her one brutal lesson: when it's you or them, always pick you. She owed Akachi, and couldn't let them take her away again. For the first time, she was ready to break that rule.

When the officer rounded the corner, she didn't hesitate. Stepping quietly, she reached to her boot, and plunged the knife into his back. She didn't wait to see the confusion in his eyes before they glazed over. To clear Akachi's name, she stained her own.

...all of that would have been extremely troubling, except for the fact that breaking into Room 212 had revealed the genius brain manipulating what was surely of the town's stranger cults (no easy feat in Arkham). Fortunately, because it is literally just a brain in the jar, Wendy walked over, knocked it to the ground, and rid the Excelsior of an altogether unexpected evil. Haha, no, after miserably failing to ...mentally overpower?... the grey matter in want of skull, it killed Wendy and Akachi dead with brain bolts. Or something.

Look, we didn't win this time, but if that act/agenda has anything other than a QR code linking to this on the back, I will demand a full refund.

Analysis

Honestly, this deck performed better than I thought it would. It was able to pull off the general gameplan, and I didn't feel nervous exploring without having Shrivelling to back me up. For this scenario in particular, I would probably upgrade Sneak Attack instead of Pickpocketing and definitely run a second Fine Clothes if you have it. Track Shoes seems like it would be so good in this deck, and might be necessary for passing those checks on hard.

Overall, I had a ton of fun piloting this (ordering events with Wendy's Amulet in hand, and trying to calculate the probabilities with her redraw ability are brain burners!) and definitely want to experiment with this list some more later.