Dexter, the Degenerate Gambler Ascetic | ft. Henry Wan

I just beat the Dream-Quest mini campaign on Expert with 3 Ascetic decks, one of them featuring Henry Wan. It was the first time I won Where the Gods Dwell and Henry played a pivotal role there, so I’m writing this post is to give him some love.

Here are the decks I played:

Dexter - https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/5017062

Daisy - https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/5018677

Mark - https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/5018740

The whole idea was to make use of Henry Wan combo. Here's how it works:

1. Put Henry Wan, Lucky Dice, and Seal of the Seventh Sign into play.
2. Get to X resources, where X = # of bad symbol tokens x 2.
3. Activate Henry Wan, ignoring each symbol token with Lucky Dice.
4. Get a bunch of cards and/or resources.

Each activation of Henry netted 8 cards/resources on average. To break that down a bit, in TDE side A on Expert, there are 12 good tokens (such that they give you a card/resource with Henry), 3 symbols and an autofail. Autofail gets sealed, so at worst Henry gives you 6 cards/resources (= 12 good tokens - 3 bad tokens x 2 resources). Sealing one symbol token increases that number by 2, and since Daisy was usually sealing 1-2 tokens, an average activation generated about 8 cards/resources.

Now, how to convert those resources into progress? Simple, just pay to win - Well Connected + Lucky Dice allows one to pass any test (with enough money). Granted, activating Henry eats away at your tempo, though you can buy that too with cards like Pilfer.

While the combo is expensive, it does come with a significant passive effect of sealing the autofail for the whole table, so I think it's worth the cost.

XP-wise, it only takes 9 XP to pull this off, so I decided to use Ascetic for Dexter, and after some thought, for everyone else. Why? Because I’m going to basically skip the first scenario, which means missing out on a ton of XP, but with Ascetic I don't care about losing that XP. But why skip? Mild Beyond the Gates of Sleep spoiler: if you don't advance the act in Beyond the Gates of Sleep, you don't get 3 skull tokens, which is good because:

a) it makes the bag in Where the Gods Dwell considerably less harsh (because skulls eventually get to -7)

b) it makes combo work without requiring extra sealing (12 good tokens and 6 bad ones amount to 12-6x2=0 cards/resources per Henry activation)

The only price you pay for this strategy is 1 trauma of whichever type you prefer (provided you pass a will 3 test).

So in Beyond the Gates of Sleep I did what I just described to enable my strategy.

Then, I got 6/10 signs of gods in Search for Kadath, which is a fine result. Dexter took whole agenda 1 to set up due to unlucky draw order (Lucky Dice was at the very bottom along with Molly Maxwell, the only card that can tutor for Dice) but afterwards he was cruising.

In the Dark Side of the Moon I was behind on tempo, haven't won that scenario yet.

In Where the Gods Dwell, Dexter put 3 copies of Nyarlathotep in the victory display thanks to the combo and Spectral Razor'd the 4th copy that Mark fished out with On the Hunt. Victory in the very last round!

All in all, Henry enabled a janky yet capable flex build. Yes, there are many decks that can do much better. But man oh man is it fun to draw 10 cards or gain 10 resources in 1 action every turn!