Minh for Forgotten Age

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Minh for Forgotten Age 0 0 0 1.0

CaiusDrewart · 3093

A build for Minh Thi Phan in the Forgotten Age campaign. It's designed for high-level multiplayer. Use it with teammates who are good at fighting and/or evading.

You'll spend most of your time investigating. Dr. Milan Christopher and Magnifying Glass can get your Intellect up to a nice base value of 6, with Newspaper and Deduction providing further tempo and support. And, of course, Higher Education is there to help. Milan + Higher Education is one of the most powerful combos in this game, so we'll be taking advantage of that.

Disc of Itzamna is a great card in Forgotten Age because it's amazing against those really awful enemies that have both Hunter and Vengeance. This is one of the best answers in the game to something like Boa Constrictor. You can use Scavenging to recycle Discs. Milan and Emergency Cache should provide the resources to do this.

Remember that reation triggers are optional, so you don't have to use the Disc unless you want to.

In addition to getting the Disc back, Scavenging also has a nice interaction with the double Intellect icons on Newspaper. Obviously, Leather Coat + Scavenging is going to be great for staying alive in the damage-heavy environment of FA.

You have Higher Education to help you trigger Scavenging and just generally pass Intellect and Will tests. Your 4 Will + Higher Education + generally good durability makes you pretty decent at exploring.

Choosing Acidic Ichor over Freezing Variant in Forgotten Age may raise a few eyebrows. But I think Acidic Ichor is just the more powerful card, even in FA. Moreover, the Ichor gives a totally new dimension to your game, allowing you to be effective against Victory enemies. There's still plenty of fighting to be done in Forgotten Age. But if your teammates have a lot of firepower but not much evasion, you can take Freezing Variant instead.

If you really wanted to be bold, you could reasonably use Shrewd Analysis here, since all three Strange Solutions are viable in FA (although I still think Restorative Concoction would be the weakest of the three.) If you don't expect your party to generate much XP, that could make some sense. It's up to you.

Overpower, Guts, Manual Dexterity, and Perception all go great with Minh and Higher Education. These are really efficient cards that allow you to commit skill cards to take advantage of Minh's ability, while still keeping your handsize high. Including these cards also gives a nice amount of card draw and helps us find our best cards. It may seem like Minh can't use Overpower that well, but this card is excellent if played on our teammates, and it also really helps to make Acidic Ichor connect.

Lucky! is not particularly synergistic with Minh, but in my opinion it's far too powerful to pass up. It's simply much better than Unexpected Courage, even in Minh. Plus, we have some high-value skill tests (Acidic Ichor tests, Deduction tests) that we really don't want to fail, and Lucky! is great insurance here. It's also great against treacheries.

If you have more XP, Deduction II would be a great add, as would Emergency Cache III to reload Acidic Ichor. Eventually, it would be nice to get the treachery cancellation cards in there, too. Way down the line, No Stone Unturned is of course really powerful.

6 comments

Sep 05, 2018 mogwen · 253

Very nice deck! It seems really efficient on harder difficulties, I just have 2 questions:

-Why Newspaper(2)? I don't get the logic except for its icons.

-Why not Archaïc Glyphs (guiding stones)? It looks like on harder difficulties you want to take as few tests as possible, seems good for it and you're the prime cluever. But I think that's just a matter of taste!

Sep 05, 2018 CaiusDrewart · 3093

@mogwen:

Newspaper: this is a bit of an experimental choice (i.e., quite possibly incorrect.) It's pretty good if you can play it before investigating, as you can expect at least +2 to 2 Intellect tests and 2 free clues from it, which is worth playing and OK for the XP cost. And you get the upside that it will be considerably better in some scenarios (like Threads of Fate), plus the solid synergy with Scavenging if drawn late.

But it's 4 XP, so that may well not be good enough. If you want a higher-upside play, I think your suggestion of Guiding Stones is a good one.

Guiding Stones: This card is excellent and I seriously considered it. My thought was that deciphering Archaic Glyphs was going to be a big ask, especially since the first two FA scenarios are very difficult, and the third one, while easier, is quite frenetic. But this card is really powerful and this deck is certainly poised to take advantage of it (mostly because of Higher Education, though Minh's ability also helps), so it's a pretty good call.

Sep 05, 2018 CaiusDrewart · 3093

Although now that I think about it, Heart of the Elders: Part 1 might be a pretty good time to do some glyph-deciphering... hmm.

Sep 06, 2018 mogwen · 253

Well, Thank you, this scavenging Minh is a good team player! And she can scavenge Archaïc Glyphs too! Disc of Itzamna is fantastic but expensive, that said, in this campaign It's a must have! Good call. I'd like you to check on my William Yorick build and give me your opinion and advice if you have time!

Sep 06, 2018 duke_loves_biscuits · 1243

For the same reason the skill cantrips are good, I find it hard to ignore Eureka! in any Seeker deck. It basically gives you a 28 card deck with a free mini-search for Milan/Ichor/Scavenging.

Is Emergency Cache needed? I get that it's Higher Education fodder, and that many plays of discs are expensive, but its not feels fairly tertiary.

Other than that, I really like the deck. You call it "Forgotten Age", but really it's a Mihn for all ages, and would be suitable for any campaign. It's also a good blend of simple game play with a little bit of combo - its a good learning deck.

Sep 06, 2018 CaiusDrewart · 3093

@duke_loves_biscuits: Eureka! was one of my last cuts. I really love these deck-thinning skill cards (as you can see from the fact that I ran 8 of them), and they're especially good in Minh. But ultimately, you've only got 30 cards, so you can only run so much thinning. If I wasn't in FA I would definitely take Eureka! over Manual Dexterity, and if I didn't go the Acidic Ichor route, I'd take it over Overpower.

But you may well be right that Emergency Cache is skippable. I have had good experiences with this card in Seeker decks; on high levels, heavily boosting your tests is really rewarding, so I'm often OK with spending an action and a card to money for Higher Education. And obviously when I need a fistful of cash to play a Disc of Itzamna I'm very happy to have EC.

So those were my reasons, but Eureka! does synergize much better with Minh, and I think you're probably right that you could get away with the swap. It's a good suggestion.