Mental Incursion(Solo Deck)

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Mental Incursion (Party of 4) 1 1 0 1.0
Mental Incursion 0 0 0 1.0
Mental Incursion(Solo Deck) 2 2 0 1.0
Mental Incursion(Solo Deck) 0 0 0 1.0

AegriSomnia · 7913

Hello again! Here we are for another solo deck build, this time for everyone's favorite psychic waitress, Agnes Baker! Agnes is an investigator that provides a high-risk, high-reward experience that will often times push your timing and decision making skills to the limit. When she's good, she's basically unstoppable. When you draw poorly though, or just find yourself in generally unfavorable circumstances, it can be quite a hard fought climb to get back out. Agnes Baker's investigator ability is whenever 1 horror is placed on her, she can deal 1 damage to an enemy at her location. WOW, this is SO damn strong. This allows you to ping down one health-enemies with ease, and you lose no efficiency when disposing of 3 health enemies as well. On top of that, you can trigger this multiple times a round potentially, allowing you to deal wayyyy more damage than most investigators possibly could. To make sure that we exploit this ability as best we can, there's Forbidden Knowledge. This card is a MUST in my opinion. It already costs you nothing and gains you resources, but more importantly it allows you to ensure that you can ping for one damage at fast speed at any time during your turn! This card makes it so you never lose out on being able to use her ability. Arcane Initiate is pretty damn amazing and basically the reason I run about every spell I can get my hands on. She can be a bit of a detriment if you let her stay on the board long enough to advance the agenda, but typically you can get a good 2-4 uses out of her before she needs to go, in which case she's an easy target to sacrifice to either damage or excess horror. She's doubly important in this deck because you NEED to find Shrivelling every game. This card is your only reliable way to fight enemies. Period. We also run Scrying of course, because taking an action to look at the encounter deck and arrange it how you want is bonkers! It gives you insight into the next three rounds when playing solo and that can make a huge difference in how you play out your turns. Drawn to the Flame and "Look what I found!" are our clue gaining options for this deck, providing 2 clues per card is pretty strong. However, because of the potentially huge downside of Drawn to the Flame, though it can be mitigated somewhat by Scrying, basically makes Ward of Protection a must include in my opinion. Ward of Protection is another spell that can be drawn by Initiate, it helps to keep you from getting completely screwed by the encounter deck at times, and it can trigger Agnes' investigator ability. Flashlight and Perception help to make sure we can hopefully always have the option to investigate productively if we want to outside of our main clue gaining cards. Blinding Light is your safety net if you don't have Shrivelling on the table yet. It also deals decent damage when upgraded and provides another draw for Initiate. Holy Rosary and Leather Coat help to pad your stats. This can be exceptionally useful considering Agnes basically uses her sanity as a resource, and generally there's a point in the game where you no longer want to take any more horror if you can help it or it might start becoming trauma! Speaking of which, Fearless is a great card in this deck. Healing a horror essentially means you can deal an extra damage later on, so I think it's well worth the slot to facilitate that. And finally Lucky! and Unexpected Courage are just generally good cards that allow you to succeed in whatever check you need to at any given time.

I don't run Rabbit's Foot although initially this deck did have two copies of it. I eventually decided to cut them for Blinding Light as it competes with the neck slot, and the extra spell makes Arcane Initiate that much better. Baseball Bat actually isn't the worst option for Agnes to fight with, as it puts you on par with at least most enemies fight-wise, and deals decent enough damage. The inconsistency of the card and general lack of synergy keep me from running it. And finally, I just dislike both Arcane Studies and Dig Deep. I feel there are generally better cards for the slots both of these could occupy, and also while these cards are flexible, they're simply more expensive than I care to deal with. There's more cards from Survivor and Mystic I didn't include and if you're really curious as to why I'd be happy to explain in the comments!

You're graced with two of the most efficient upgrade options in the game with Blinding Light and Lucky!. I normally have about 6 experience after the first scenario, for this I definitely want to upgrade Blinding Light first, as it lets you deal more damage AND makes the card cheaper. Next, my highest priority is Grotesque Statue. I will typically take one of these before I upgrade any Lucky!, although that is obviously my next choice. I toss both my Flashlights to make room for Grotesque Statue, as that card becomes much less useful in the later scenarios. And those are basically all the upgrade options I like to take to be honest. People might not like this, but I don't think Book of Shadows is currently that good. It's expensive, I have no other cards to take up that extra arcane slot, and it's SO SLOW considering I'm not Daisy Walker(Although she would probably love this card). Maybe someone can make it work better than I have, I'm not sure. I just know that I personally don't enjoy playing with Book of Shadows at all in my experience and I would recommend that you skip it when upgrading.

Agnes is a beautiful balance between how much damage you're willing to take, and how far you're willing to push her in order to achieve your goals. Often times you will have to subject yourself to overtly detrimental effects in order to reach your desired result; This offers such a thematically rich and mechanically unique deck. It also provides such a satisfying experience of trying to manage the all these bad things and leverage them into an advantage. If you enjoy any of that or the concept of a deck that offers significant reward for sacrificing your well being and complex decision making, then Agnes is definitely for you!

Hope you enjoy my take on solo Agnes!

6 comments

Nov 29, 2016 Azgadil · 34

How necessary is Emergency Cache? I find I don't play it since the resource curve is fairly low. I replaced them with Manual Dexterity.

My game play style generally prefers ways to minimize my need for resources by adding low cost alternatives. Skills (pitch for a boost and card draw require no action) help with both action and resource economies.

Nov 29, 2016 AegriSomnia · 7913

@AzgadilI think that's a fine alternative. I personally would never play a deck without Emergency Cache. The cost curve is relatively low in this deck, but there's also cards that make you lose resources, in which case I'd like to have something that can help me recover. It may be a slightly redundant card in some cases, but I like to be absolutely sure I'll be able to play whatever I need when I need to.

Jan 22, 2017 Vigerus · 27

@AegriSomnia I've just had a game with 2x Emergency Cache on my hand and not being used throughout the whole game. I'm gonna ditch one at least for some skill card i could actually use, like @Azgadil said Manual Dexterity or something.

Jan 22, 2017 AegriSomnia · 7913

@VigerusFor sure. As I stated previously, I think that's a fine alternative, just not my personal preference.

Apr 06, 2017 FlowerKnight · 1

Would you think Ritual Candles would fit in the deck? I think they could make Shrivelling and Blinding Light more consistent, but I don't know what could be cut.

Did you consider Rite of Seeking instead of the Flashlight?

Apr 06, 2017 AegriSomnia · 7913

@FlowerKnightThis list hasn't been updated to include any cards outside of the core set. Every deck that doesn't use hand slots for something else and is able to run Ritual Candles absolutely should. Also, Rite of Seeking should 100% replace Flashlight.