This works for the following pairs: haste/slow, blessing/curse. It does not work for: joy/sadness, luck/misfortune.
By the way, regarding misfortune. Despite the factors that lower luck, such as visiting a looted pyramid or casting the misfortune spell, luck never drops below zero in battle (or rather, the luck factors show "-2" for the spell, for example, but in reality, luck never goes below zero during the battle).