A Witch and her Shrink: Agnes Deck SUPER FUN!

NOTE: These decks are Taboo-friendly. They are not affected by the Taboo list: no Milan, no Machete, no Higher Education, no Streetwise, no Elusive. And yet they are still effective on Hard/Expert difficulty. (Though they will run into trouble on first scenario of TCU.)

This is a special deck to be used as part of an Agnes & Carolyn Fern Combo (Carolyn Version here) that is SUPER fun and pretty damn effective on Hard or even Expert difficulty. Using these decks (with 9xp each) we were 2 clues away from winning Rougarou the hard way on Hard difficulty, which is very difficult if you are only using 2 players. (Had we played the scenario using pre-existing knowledge we would have actually succeeded---we wasted two clues engaging Rougarou to find out what we needed to win, and then you have to use 2 more clues to engage again to win, and have 8 clues left over; we were 2 clues short because we engaged twice). Instead we just had to kill The Rougarou.

The basic idea is that you have a ton of direct damage ability, mostly from Agnes Baker special ability (which can be triggered at will from Forbidden Knowledge or Painkillers), but also from Alice Luxley's ability, and this is supported by Carolyn Fern's massive healing ability, which at the same time gives you tons of resources. Agnes does all the monster slaying. Carolyn does most of the clue finding---the only exception being that Agnes has 2 Drawn to the Flames to pick up clues on high shroud locations.

The upgraded Clarity of Mind is exceptionally good for Carolyn, because you can split the horror healing and each investigator gets a resource from Carolyn’s investigator ability.

Carolyn is exceptionally hard to balance, I was literally up to version 0.26 of her deck before I was happy with it. In addition to balancing clue-finding versus resources versus fighting and assets versus speed, you also have to balance how much healing to have and how to use your budget of 15 seeker/mystic cards.

I was surprised how much I liked Wither. Initially I thought it was just a crappy excuse for a card, but in this deck I actually prefer to get it in my opening hand compared to Shrivelling. The point being that early on (before Agnes gets power-ups) failing on Hard difficulty is a real risk, and every time you fail with Shriveling you lose a precious ammo. But Wither does not have this issue. Given all the direct damage options, being limited to 1 damage at a time from Wither was not too bad.

In your initial draw you either want either Shrivelling, Wither, or an Arcane Initiate. Secondary, but still important, is Holy Rosary, and cards that let you trigger your ability---Forbidden Knowledge and Painkillers.

For early upgrades, mostly go for willpower buffs (Four of Cups, Spirit Athame, and the excellent Recall the Future and Ward of Protection to help Carolyn, who can be hurt from early skill tests, especially hand-destruction tests.

Astral Travell is important because you never want to be separated from Carolyn for long.