Arkham Deck Tech: Can Agatha really do this?
Basic mystic Agatha Crane deck with probably too many token manipulation cards.
This deck will be paired with this Marion's deck for my blind run of Drowned City.
Why go with the Mystic side of Agatha and not her Seeker side? Because Mystics are more fun! Let's be honest, if you were searching for a super optimized deck to beat the game on Expert, you were never looking at my decks in the first place. 😉
Agatha Crane's reaction ability let her play a Spell or Insight event from her discard at the end of her turn if she sealed, canceled or ignored one or more token during her turn. This means two things: one, we need tools to manipulate tokens; two, we need a fair number of events. Let's first look at here tools, thankfully, Drowned City added several of them.
- The Chthonian Stone: Straight enough token seal.
- Olive McBride: Forgotten Age had some good token manipulation ideas.
- Katarina Sojka: More token manipulation goodness. I also expect her allies to soak damage, hence why I'm going with two in the deck.
- Sign of Xelotaph: Another symbol seal, although with charges.
- Ocula Obscura: Agatha's signature card, it also seal a token!
- Oculus Mortuum: It's not as simple as token manipulation = clue, but it's very doable if Agatha sticks with Marion. Spoiler alert: she will!
While looking at events to add to this deck, one thing struck me: many of them are time-sensitive. Considering Agatha's reaction occurs after she has completed her turn, it limits what she can do. I think the idea is to have a good selection of events to maximize the possibility of playing one.
- Burning the Midnight Oil and Read The Signs should help gather clues.
- Correlate All Its Content has multiple purpose. It should get a clue, allow some token manipulation and replenish a charge on success. It's like this card was made for Agatha.
- Spectral Razor a good fighting spell to have at hand.
That's eight events, I wanted to go for ten. I was stuck at this point, nothing seemed to fit the direction of this deck. I finally chose Drain Essence for its skill symbol and for the odd chance the healing aspect could be handy.
With token manipulation and events taken care of, I think we need more tools to gather clues. I'm going with two spells and one tool.
- Sixth Sense: I like this chargeless spell, and I think I should be able to seal a symbol to fully use this spell.
- Eyes of the Dreamer: Yep, even more token manipulation while gathering clues!
- Mouse Mask: Agatha's willpower and intellect are at 4 and none of the base spells I chose boost here stats, the mask should help with this. It might also allow investigating with her intellect if needed.
At this point, I've already used 8 out of the 10 Seeker cards allowed. The remaining two cards will be Mortar and Pestle. It seems to be an interesting economy card. Rounding up the deck are three skills cards, Perception, Guts and Enraptured. I can definitely say the latter will be upgraded, it's far too strong to be passed on.
This deck should be fun. Is it optimized? Absolutely not. I might have gone overboard with all the token manipulation cards. 🤷 The important thing for me is this deck feels different from any other Mystic deck.
