Funded by the underworld, Agatha Crane learns necromancy, and sets out to create something that defies contemporary science !

• When writing down my review for Sagatha, I was pleased to discover just how many cards she had interesting interactions with. I started tinkering with different ideas, and yet I always felt like something was missing.

• I needed more cards, and Forced Learning seemed like the perfect way to do it, given how the discard is less of an inconvenience thanks to her . And yet, there were still cards I wanted to try out that I couldn't fit inside that 50 (55 with Ancestral Knowledge) card deck.

• So I went a step further and, as a self imposed restriction, made it a Highlander deck, which was admitedly slightly difficult to fill up towards the end. But now, this deck truly has EVERYTHING !

• For the ultimate flex, take In the Thick of It + Versatile + Underworld Support ! And hey, Call for Backup is kinda worth it now !

• As for the name, I was overcome by the deck's many connections to Frankenstein : A creation made of different dead components stitched together into a gross amalgamation of a deck, blurring the lines of Science and Magic. The question is : Is Agatha the mad scientist, or the monster ? Am I the mad scientist ? Am I the monster ?

• Shockingly, this deck is tested ! I ran this deck through The Feast of Hemlock Vale on Standard to victory (R3 Conclusion), alongside Sister Daniela is Living the Dream ! and Alessandra : Friends Everywhere. Notably, the fighter deck is one that invites enemy attacks, giving more value to Misdirection and Oculus Mortuum than an average fighter would.

• So, what how does this deck work ? What's the plan ? Well, that's the beautiful part : There is no set plan, no roadmap, everything of it will depend on the assets you draw, the windows you find to use Agatha's , what events are in your discard then, what the board state looks like, etc... You have to embrace the chaos !

• Your goal in the mulligan is to find some key assets to give you persistent value :

  • Jeremiah Kirby provides you with a static boost and a burst of card draw (the deck has 2/3 even costed cards) that helps you do you main cluever job.
  • Katarina Sojka / Ocula Obscura / Misdirection can allow your ability to fire off turn after turn. They aren't the best early game options, since your discard often lacks good options at the start of the game, but nice to have going into the mid game. these cards also makes Oculus Mortuum much more appealing as a repeatable source of testless clues.
  • Grisly Totem / Dream Diary / Guided by the Unseen all provide you with great commit options to overcome high difficulty tests : the first by making just about every card worth commiting, the second by giving you a free Unexpected Courage every turn, the third by letting you search for good events to commit, to put in your discard ready for use, or both.
  • Grim Memoir bumps your to a respectable 6 and provides extra card draw to find more permanent solutions. Don't forget to ditch it using Unconventional Method after you are done reading.
  • Research Librarian is the deck's only semblance of consistency, allowing you to find Dream Diary more often.

• Forced Learning offers you with some selective card draw during the upkeep phase, helping you find the cards you need and ditch the cards you don't. For example :

  • Slots already filled : If your Ocula Obscura is already in play, you're unlikely to play Grisly Totem.
  • Economy / clue acceleration events that you don't need, since you can already achieve that using other cards.
  • Expensive cards you won't be able to afford, or events that you won't be able to afford twice (if you're only using them once, why not put them in your discard already) : Connect the Dots, Whispers of Doom, "I've got a plan!".
  • Cards like Dark Prophecy that activate Agatha's , that you don't need anymore after playing Katarina Sojka / Ocula Obscura / Misdirection ...).

• Remember that the events you discard though Forced Learning are out of sight, but not out of mind : They are one token seal / cancel / ignore away from being played like any other.

• However, events that deal with enemies ("I've got a plan!", Whispers of Doom, Drain Essence, Confound, String of Curses, Occult Invocation) are often much better in your hand than in your discard : Having to wait until the end of your turn to use them makes for extremely awkward turns for you and your team.

• Many of the deck's cards and events have been chosen for their excellent icons, giving them a dual purpose to adapt to the many different configurations of the deck. What icons you have on hand or stuck under Ancestral Knowledge is another thing to consider when choosing your upkeep card with Forced Learning.

  • Perhaps the best example is Ghastly Revelation : Normally, you would always discard it, giving you a "panic button" to gather 3 clues in one go and close out a scenario, or save you from a physical trauma in favor of a much more manageable mental one. However, if the card pitched against it is useless to you, you might want to grab Ghastly Revelation to commit it for instead of something less useful.

• How about Agatha's ability, you ask ? Well, it is just as inconsistent as the rest of the deck in practice. Part of it may have been due to bad luck : The one scenario in which i found Misdirection was The Silent Heath which takes a very atypical approach to enemies. During The Longest Night, it was nowhere to be found, and instead Katarina Sojka whiffed multiple times by pulling a symbol token as its first, meaning no tokens were actually ignored .... And when I got a hold of Ocula Obscura early on for The Lost Sister, I still had to wait quite a while before my discard had the events I wanted.

• And yet, despite all of that, the deck still performed well. Even during The Longest Night, a scenario that tends to push investigators to their limits, Agatha still showed up : She was somehow always keeping up with the game, gathering good amounts of clues, taking down enemies like The Twisted Hollow's Ursine Hybrid with Whispers of Doom, Alessandra's Zamacona that had gathered doom with String of Curses during the The Longest Night, pacifying a Crystal Mimic with Existential Riddle, clearing the Fungal Cave with a doublecast of Seeking Answers. She ended the campaign playing Ghastly Revelation for the first time (from the discard of course), gathering just enough clues for Sister Mary and Alessandra Zorzi to finish the scenario without her.

Link to the level 0 deck

(View at arkham-starter.com)

• What I've learned is that Grisly Totem and Dream Diary are insane, since they were able to carry this stupid deck to victory in the latter half of the campaign (the former in scenarios 4/6, the latter in 3/4/5).

• Another thing I learned is just how many events with icons there are, many of which were also useful for their effects.

• An additional takeway is that triggering Agatha's proved very tricky, even when using so many activators. This is something I'll plan much more carefully next time I build a deck for her. Of course, this deck doesn't really have much of a plan for anything, which didn't help...

• And yet, even with many scenarios concluding with about 5-6 uses of her ability in total, some of its uses were so incredibly impactful that Agatha was still able to perform well across the campaign, which shows me that her ability can be just as much about using it on the right targets at the right time, than about making sure no turn goes by without using it.

• It was the first time I used Forced Learning, and it felt incredibly fun to use, even with the frustration that came from repeated Glimpse the Void draws. (I also got the new Disruptive Poltergeist as basic weakness, which thankfully didn't show up too often). I think it could perform quite well in a regular (as in, non highlander) deck to help fill Agatha's discard with great events without having to work hard for it, and this little experiment has shown me that there is no shortage of good options.

• For those of you interested in a much more coherent and stable Sagatha deck, feel free to check this one instead, which I published a few months back and beat RtTFA on Hard difficulty.