Parallel Agnes Goes Infinite (by Drawing Encounter Cards)

This is an infinite action Parallel Agnes deck. Although the combo is quite feasible to assemble, it would be extremely painful to play, so consider this to be a thought experiment.

What makes this infinite interesting is that it relies entirely on the encounter deck to go infinite. Every scenario is a slightly different puzzle to solve, but the deck can infinite almost all of them. This deck does not loop its own deck like many infinite decks, instead it loops the encounter deck!

The goal of this deck is to create the following situation:

• Your deck contains any 1 card.
• Your hand or deck contains Deny Existence, 2x Ward of Protection, and Lifeline.
• You have Heirloom of Hyperborea and Purifying Corruption in play.

From this position it is possible to reach infinite actions in almost any scenario.

Using your infinite actions, which also translates to infinite card draw and resources, you can deal infinite testless damage with Lantern, discover infinite testless clues with Drawn to the Flame, perform infinite testless evasions with Cunning Distraction, and 'testlessly' beat any scenario-specific tests with Will to Survive.

The rest of the cards in this deck exist purely to help you draw and set up the combo state.

Explaining the Infinite

The infinite revolves around three key effects not being phase or round limited, and Lifeline not having a cap:

• Parallel Agnes Baker (front) - Agnes may take 1 damage when playing a Spell event to reduce the cost of that event and shuffle it back into her deck.
• Heirloom of Hyperborea - Allows us to draw a card each time we play a Spell. This draw occurs after the shuffle.
• Purifying Corruption - Allows us to draw an encounter card to heal 1 damage and 1 horror.
• Lifeline - Allows us to convert failed skill tests into actions.

The Ward Loop

With these cards in play and Ward of Protection (5) in hand, we can draw and cancel encounter cards infinitely.

Example:

• The loop can start from two states:

• State #1 - 1 card in deck, 2 Wards in hand.

• State #2 - 1 Ward in deck (as the only card), 1 Ward in hand.

• Pay the cost of Purifying Corruption to draw an encounter card.

• Cancel that encounter card using Ward and take 1 horror. Remember that level 5 Ward of Protection can cancel enemies and surge. Use Parallel Agne's ability to take 1 damage and shuffle Ward back into your deck.

• Trigger Heirloom of Hyperborea to draw a card, which will either be the Ward you shuffled in or the other card in your deck (which may be the other Ward).

• Apply the effect of Purifying Corruption to heal the 1 damage and 1 horror you took from the Ward.

You can repeat this loop forever (if you started in state #2, you always end in state #2; if you started in state #1 and drew the Ward, you are in state #1, if you didn't, you are in state #2.). This means you can choose to 'draw' any card you want from the encounter deck, by repeatedly drawing through the deck and canceling every other card.

Adding Deny

Now that we can draw any encounter card we would like on demand, how do we translate this into actions?

Lifeline allows us to turn an infinite number of failed skill tests into infinite actions. So now we just need to find encounter cards we can fail without breaking the loop.

Deny Existence enables this. Here is an example of the Deny loop:

• Start in state #2 (1 Ward in deck, 1 Ward in hand) of the Ward Loop, and with Deny in hand.

• Pay the cost of Purifying Corruption to draw an encounter card.

• Don't cancel the encounter card. Deny whatever it does to you, using Parallel Agne's ability to take 1 damage and shuffle Deny back into your deck.

• Trigger Heirloom of Hyperborea to draw a card, which will either be Deny (leaving you in state #2 of Ward Loop) or the Ward (leaving you in state #1 of the Ward loop).

• Apply the effect of Purifying Corruption to heal the 1 damage and 1 horror. Note that you never took any horror during this loop, so you end up with infinite horror healing through this.

If Deny ended in your deck, perform the Ward loop a few times until you reach state #2 (1 Ward in deck, 1 Ward in hand) again.

I'll explain how to go infinite if possible in each scenario further down, but to give some ideas:

• If any form of action loss is in the encounter deck (Example) - Deny the action loss to gain actions instead until you have infinite actions (don't even need Lifeline)

• If Rotting Remains is in the encounter deck - Fail Rotting Remains and Deny the horror repeatedly. You've failed a test and healed 2-4 horror.

• If Grasping Hands is in the encounter deck - Fail Grasping Hands and Deny the damage repeatedly. You've failed a test, healed 1-3 damage, and healed 1 horror.

• If On Wings of Darkness is in the encounter deck - Fail it and Deny the damage component (healing 1 from Deny then taking 1 to shuffle it back) and take the 1 horror, then heal a damage and horror from Purifying Corruption. In the end you've failed a test and healed 1 damage.

After failing up to an infinite number of tests, end your turn, then use Lifeline to gain actions equal to the number of tests you failed.

Counterspell

One thing that can mess up this state is chaos token effects. Counterspell exists to fix many of these situations, though using it complicates the loop since you will be taking additional damage, and therefore need either to find treacheries you can heal off of via Deny, or treacheries that don't break your gamestate and can be allowed to resolve without being Warded or Deny (so that Purifying Corruption results in a net health gain). An example of the latter is Mysterious Chanting - we can draw this and not cancel it to heal 1 damage and 1 horror. Then loop the encounter deck, canceling everything else, to draw it repeatedly and heal infinite damage/horror.

Lets look at The Gathering as an example. The only encounter card we should resolve is Grasping Hands or Rotting Remains. The Skull token effect is irrelevant, it does not matter if we spawn every Ghoul in the encounter deck at our location. If we draw a Tablet or Cultist, we Counterspell it (taking 1 damage, putting Counterspell back in the deck and then drawing with Heirloom of Hyperborea to put us back in state #1 or #2 with Counterspell in hand).

Since we have to use Counterspell to cancel chaos token effects, we need to find a way to heal the damage from that. A common way to do that is to find an encounter card we can choose to not cancel, healing 1 damage and 1 horror with Purifying Corruption. In the Gathering, the only such encounter card is Obscuring Fog. However, it attaches to our location. Thankfully only a max of 1 can be attached, so we can keep looping the second copy to heal infinite damage/horror with Purifying Corruption. So, to make this infinite truly unbreakable in The Gathering, we need to either start at the location attached with Obscuring Fog or have both Obscuring Fogs in the encounter deck/discard pile.

You may have noticed here that since Obscuring Fog gives us infinite damage/horror healing and the only side effects of the tokens are damage/horror, we don't actually need Counterspell here at all. We can just use Obscuring Fog to ignore the tokens. In scenarios with other symbol effects (such as discarding from deck or hand), we would cancel the tokens with Counterspell and then do a similar process to heal the damage back.

To summarize, we loop Obscuring Fog for infinite damage/horror healing, allowing us to ignore the token effects from failing + Denying infinitely many Grasping Hands or Rotting Remains. Then we play Lifeline to take infinite actions and finish the rest of the scenario. However, The Gathering does require that we end our turn to advance to Act 3, so we either need to advance to Act 3 before starting the loop or include a second copy of Lifeline in the deck and repeat the loop again after advancing to gain infinite actions for the Ghoul Priest fight.

How to Infinite Each Scenario

From the above sections, you have all the information you need to infinite (almost) any scenario. Each is a different puzzle to solve, so consider giving it a try and checking your answers below if you're in the mood for a challenge!

(Any scenario where I do not discuss Counterspell does not need it since none of the token effects can break the loop.)

Of course you cannot have this deck during a campaign in some of these scenarios due to XP constraints, but I'll go over them all anyway to prove that the infinite is frequently possible.

• The Gathering - See above.
• The Midnight Masks - Only draw and don't Deny On Wings of Darkness. This deals 1 damage/1 horror, which Purifying Corruption heals. Counterspell not needed.
• The Devourer Below - Only draw Grasping Hands, fail and Deny it. We have infinite healing by allowing Mysterious Chanting to resolve allowing us to ignore the Tablet token.

• Extracurricular Activities - Draw Eager for Death, fail and Deny it. We have infinite healing by looping Terror from Beyond to Counterspell Skull and Elder Things.

• The House Always Wins - Wait until Agenda 3; only draw Rotting Remains, fail and deny it.

• The Miskatonic Museum - Draw Ephemeral Exhibits, fail and Deny it for infinite actions. Infinite healing from Denying Twist of Fate to Counterspell Tablets and Elder Things.

• Essex County Express - Draw Broken Rails and Deny it for infinite actions.

• Blood on the Altar - Draw and don't Deny On Wings of Darkness.

• Undimensioned and Unseen - Start the loop while a Brood of Yog-Sothoth is at your location. Loop the deck until a Whippoorwill is at your location. Draw and Deny Ruin and Destruction. Counterspell Cultists. Thanks to Whipporwill, we will fail by 1, so we will end up 1 healing from Deny, which pays for Counterspell.

• Where Doom Awaits - Draw and Deny Rotting Remains. Infinite healing from Spaces Between to Counterspell Elder Things.

• Lost in Time and Space - Draw and Deny Vast Expanse. Infinite healing from Terror from Beyond to Counterspell Tablet and Cultist.

• Curtain Call - Draw and Deny Rotting Remains.
• The Last King - Draw and Deny Marked by the Sign. Denying The Pale Mask Beckons is infinite horror healing. This allows us to Deny the damage component of Fine Dining for infinite damage healing, enabling Counterspell for Tablets and Elder Things.
• Echoes of the Past - Draw and Deny Descent into Madness, then Ward the card it surges into. Infinite healing from Mysterious Chanting to heal the extra damage this sequence produces.
• The Unspeakable Oath - Loop to spawn a Maniac/Seer of the Sign at your location. Draw and fail Dance of the Yellow King. Infinite healing from Straitjacket to ignore Cultists and Tablets.
• A Phantom of Truth - Draw and Deny (if needed) Hunted by Byakhee.
• The Pallid Mask - Draw and Deny Grasping Hands. Counterspell Elder Things. Infinite healing from The Shadow Behind You to Counterspell Tablets and Elder Things.
• Black Stars Rise - Draw and Deny (the action loss) Crashing Floods. Infinite healing from Mysterious Chanting to offset the damage.
• Dim Carcosa - Draw and Deny Rotting Remains. Deny's heal will outpace any Cultist tokens (and also, any accumulated horror does not matter due to scenario mechanics).

• Untamed Wilds - Draw and Deny Snake Bite.
• The Doom of Eztli - Draw and Deny Final Mistake.
• Threads of Fate - Draw and don't Deny On Wings of Darkness. Draw and don't Deny Mysterious Chanting for infinite healing to ignore the Cultist effect.
• The Boundary Broken -If Pnakotic Brotherhood is one of the included encounter sets, loop until you draw a Brotherhood Cultist, then draw and Deny Shadowed. If not, then draw and Deny A Tear in Time. You can only deny 1 action, so take the remaining 2 as horror. Draw and Deny Arrows from the Trees for infinite horror healing to offset this.
• Heart of the Elders-A - Draw and Deny Pitfall. This will outpace Elder Things (though you also have infinite healing through Denying Low on Supplies if needed).
• Heart of the Elders-B - Draw and Deny Pitfall. This will outpace Elder Things (though you also have infinite healing through Denying Ill Omen if needed).
• The City of Archives - No infinite because you won't have access to Parallel Agne's ability.
• The Depths of Yoth - Draw and Deny Lightless Shadow. Infinite healing through Denying Low on Supplies to Counterspell Skulls. Since you can only advance at the end of the round, not a true infinite.
• Shattered Aeons - Draw and Deny Wracked by Time.

• The Witching Hour - Advance the first act before starting (or have a second Lifeline). Draw and Deny Rotting Remains. The Tablet effect could break the loop, you wouldn't fail the Rotting Remains test triggering it if you drew a Tablet.
• At Death's Doorstep - Draw and Deny Trapped Spirits.
• The Secret Name - Draw Evil Past, then Deny it when cycling the deck. Each deck cycle, allow each Fate of All Fools to resolve (placing a doom) to heal any potential damage from the Tablet effect.
• The Wages of Sin - Worldly deck: Draw Evil Past, cycle the deck and Deny it. Spectral deck: Draw and Deny Trapped Spirits.
• For the Greater Good - Draw Evil Past, cycle the deck and Deny it.
• Union and Disillusion - Draw and Deny Eager for Death. Infinite healing from Fate of All Fools.
• In the Clutches of Chaos - Draw and Deny the damage half of On Wings of Darkness. Counterspell Elder Things with the healed damage.
• Before the Black Throne - Draw Ultimate Chaos, deny half of the attack on the third draw, ward the surges (unless they are into good cards). This cannot be canceled by Ward, so you will need to use the rest of the cards in the encounter deck to heal with Deny. Counterspell Cultist, Tablet, and Elder Things. Allow the following cards to resolve and Deny their effects: Whispered Bargain (Deny the damage), Mysterious Chanting, Fate of All Fools, any Acolyte or Wizard of the Order that fails to spawn (stay at the starting location and don't put any into play, and 2 of these will keep cycling and be free draws).

The math on this one:

• Ultimate Chaos (copies 1&2) - Take 1 damage/horror from Ultimate Chaos. Take 1 damage and 1 horror to cancel the surge. Heal 1 damage and 1 horror from Purifying Corruption. Total: -1 health/-1 sanity twice, so -2 health/-2 sanity

• Ultimate Chaos (3, Azathoth attack) - Take 1 damage and 1 horror from Ultimate Chaos. Take 1 damage and 1 horror to cancel the surge. Take 1 damage to cancel the horror from the Azathoth attack to heal 3 horror, take 3 damage from Azathoth. Heal 1 damage and 1 horror from Purifying Corruption. Total: -5/+2.

• Total damage/horror from drawing 3 Ultimate Chaos: 7 damage, 0 horror.

• Whispered Bargain (cancel damage) - Heal 3+1-1 damage, Take 3-1 horror = +3/-2

• Fate of All Fools (3 copies) = Heal 1 damage, Heal 1 horror = +3/+3

• Acolyte (2 copies whiff) - Heal 1 damage, Heal 1 horror = +2/+2

• Mysterious Chanting (2 copies) - Heal 1 damage, Heal 1 horror = +2/+2

• Total damage/horror from drawing beneficial cards: Heal 13 damage, heal 5 horror. You're on average greatly outhealing the Ultimate Chaos.

Basically, you 'should' be able to survive the un-cancellable Ultimate Chaos cycles, but if you draw all 3 back to back AND each one surges into something you must ward, it might break the loop unless you can Counterspell a token drawn on one of them. You can survive this a few times with Heirloom and Initiate's help, and also place up to 9 doom on Azathoth instead of taking attacks. It's unclear whether you would get statistically unlucky enough to die before going infinite, but my gut feel is that it would work.

• Beyond the Gates of Sleep - Draw and Deny Dreamer's Curse.
• The Search for Kadath - Stay at the starting location, draw and fail Zoog Burrow. This is the only skill test in the entire Encounter Deck! Infinite healing from Whispers of Hypnos to ignore the Tablet. However, you can only advance at the end of each round, so you cannot go fully infinite. However, you can acquire infinite resources before continuing. No full infinite.
• Dark Side of the Moon - Draw and Deny Dreamer's Curse. Healing should outpace Counterspells on Cultist and Tablet tokens.
• Where the Gods Dwell - Draw and Deny Dreamer's Curse, infinite healing from Whispers of Hypnos to cancel Cultists.
• Waking Nightmare - Draw and Deny Rotting Remains. Infinite healing from Whispers of Hypnos to cancel Cultists.
• A Thousand Shapes of Horror - Draw and Deny Grasping Hands. The healing should outpace the damage from Counterspelling Elder Things.
• The Point of No Return - Draw and Deny Grasping Hands. The healing should outpace the damage from Counterspelling Elder Things.
• Weaver of the Cosmos - Draw and Deny Will of the Spider-Mother. Don't start the loop at the location of an Ancient One enemy, so we can ignore Cultists.

• The Pit of Despair - Draw and Deny Macabre Memento and Fractured Consciousness. This should keep up with the Cultist and Tablet tokens.
• The Vanishing of Elina Harper - Draw and Deny On Wings of Darkness. Infinite healing from Denying Hunting Shadow to ignore Tablets.
• In Too Deep - Draw and fail Pulled Back.
• Devil Reef - Start in a vehicle and without a key at your location. Draw and Deny Horrors from the Deep or Shapes in the Water.
• Horror in High Gear - Draw and Deny Fractured Consciousness or Macabre Memento.
• A Light in the Fog - Draw and Deny Rotting Remains. Infinite healing from Syzygy (alternate between Denying resource loss and not Denying to heal 1 damage) to ignore Tablets and Cultists.
• The Lair of Dagon - Draw and Deny the horror on Secret Gathering. Infinite healing from Mysterious Chanting to ignore Tablets.
• Into the Maelstrom - Draw and Deny Fractured Consciousness. Infinite healing from Syzygy to Counterspell Tablet, Cultist, and Elder Thing.

• Ice and Death I/II/III - Draw and Deny Ice Shaft. This should be enough healing to Counterspell Cultist and Tablets.
• To the Forbidden Peaks - Draw and Deny the action loss of Nightmarish Vapors for infinite actions.
• City of the Elder Things - Draw and Deny Crumbling Ruins. This outpaces the damage from Tablets. In v1 or v2, Draw and Deny the action loss of Nightmarish Vapors for infinite actions is slightly easier.
• Heart of Madness I/II - Draw and Deny the action loss of Nightmarish Vapors for infinite actions. During part II, can only advance the act at the end of the round, so not a true infinite (but an extra copy of Lifeline would make it true).
• Fatal Mirage - Draw and Deny the action loss of Nightmarish Vapors for infinite actions.

• Riddles and Rain - Draw and Deny [Figures in the Dark] to gain actions.
• Dealings in the Dark - Draw and Deny [Figures in the Dark] to gain actions.
• Dogs of War - Draw and Deny Beyond the Pale.
• Dead Heat - Draw and Deny Grasping Hands. Infinite healing from Touch of the Beyond to Counterspell Tablets and Elder Things.
• Dancing Mad - Draw and Deny Swift Retreat attacks. Infinite healing from Conspiracy in Red to Counterspell Tablets and Cultists.
• On Thin Ice - Draw and Deny [Figures in the Dark] to gain actions.
• Sanguine Shadows - Draw and Deny [Figures in the Dark] to gain actions.
• Shades of Suffering - Draw and Deny [Figures in the Dark] to gain actions. Since the act can only advance at the end of the round, not a true infinite (however a second copy of Lifeline is a true infinite).
• Without a Trace - Cannot go infinite.
• Congress of the Keys - Finish the first part of the scenario normally (or have a second copy of Lifeline). Draw and cancel Rotting Remains.