Agatha experiments, reads psych books and dresses to impress. She knows just what to say to get her enemies to leave and to motivate her allies

• I built this deck to act as a cluever to play alongside Dexter Drake and Wendy Adams in a 3 handed solo campaign.

• This was my first run trough RtTFA (after a handful of runs through the base campaign), replacing each set with their return-to replacement in their entirety.

• This deck was built during the spoiler season of The Drowned City, before people got their hands on the box and revealed the remainder of the cards.

• More notably, this was my first ever campaign played on Hard, having never even played standhard before.

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Campaign Rundown

• Conclusion

• Before the final reveals of the drowned city Spoiler season, there didn't seem to be many options for seeker Agatha to trigger her ability, and Olive McBride seemed like the most reliable one (Imagine describing Olive McBride as reliable). However, without a +1 in the ally slot, I was worried about Agatha's ability to actually investigate, especially on Hard.

• That's where Forbidden Tome comes in. 2 actions for a move and a clue sounds like a great deal on Hard, and if I'm going to hold many cards in my hand and play events, Farsight is just a natural fit.

• Dream Diary is here to give a boost to her third action or her events if needed and is generally great value for 3 xp total (using Shrewd Analysis). Essence of the Dream can also help with Olive McBride's experiments.

• The deck has a really low cost curve (only 8 resources needed for her entire setup excluding the Ocula Obscura) and 4 resource generator, the extra cash is meant to either replay high power events like Whispers of Doom and Confound or just fund Higher Education

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• Fine Clothes : Provides a good boost to Whispers of Doom and Confound and a helpful point of health soak.

• Ancestral Knowledge is a staple of all my Farsight decks, allowing for more deck slots for events worth playing without giving up on great engine skill cards like Eureka! or Perception ; and helping to fill the investigator's hand in the first rounds to reach/stay at the 8 card hand size.

• Confound : An incredibly powerful event that combines enemy management and fast clue gathering. Easily one of the best things to replay. Fine Clothes makes the test trivial against many targets like Vengeful Serpent, Brotherhood Acolyte, Scholar from Yith, Broods of Yig and unboosted Brotherhood Cultists.

• Correlate All Its Contents : a useful card to provide additional means of triggering Agatha's ability. Agatha herself doesn't care much for the additional secrets/charges, but the Dexter deck this was played alongside runs both Brand of Cthugha and Dayana Esperence. It may have been replaced by Premonition if Agatha's deckbuilding requirements didn't limit her to 10 mystic cards.

• Cosmic Revelation : An excellent card to provide actions or cards to the entire party. The ability to play this card twice (Agatha), at no action cost (Farsight), was just too good to pass up. I'm not sure this one is worth it with 2P, but with 3P, it felt really good every single time.

• Cryptic Writings : Voice of Ra is the deck's main resource generator, but I can't depend too much on it in a 35 card deck. Cryptic writings provides an alternate mean of gaining extra resources, while having great icons if it isn't necessary. And, thanks to Agatha's ability, I can get the best of both worlds, like a reverse Crystallizer of Dreams.

• Drawn to the Flame : A very strong card. The 2 free testless clues are easily worth the extra encounter card, especially on Hard, and makes this card one of the best targets of Agatha's ability.

• Guidance : An extra action never hurt anyone, and this works well with both Farsight and Agatha's ability. It is a very fine card to hold in hand for Farsight and Forbidden Tome until the situation calls for it. I played this card 3 times after adding it before City of Archives, and it was super clutch all 3 times.

• Stargazing : a fun Farsight target for turns without anything more urgent. A single copy can reach the "Max twice per game" limit thanks to Agatha's ability

• String of Curses : Just a great card, and the possibility of playing this twice in a row makes it an Agatha staple.

• Thorough Inquiry : A useful piece of card draw for Agatha in the early game and her team in the mid game, it was chosen over Deep Knowledge and Preposterous Sketches for its awesome icons that can save her or a teammate from a Snake Bite, a tomb or just help with high shroud locations.

• Transmogrify : An awesome tech card for TFA's signature snakes, it becomes even better in the Return to due to how useful it is against both Vengeful Serpent and the Tindalos Alpha, the latter even discarding the event for Agatha to replay it later.

• Voice of Ra : The deck's main resource generation. Olive McBride + Voice of Ra + Agatha Crane's ability to replay it in the same turn got me up to 10 resources for a single action.

• Whispers of Doom : A great, if expensive, event to help with the monster fighting effort and even does a decent number on Elite enemies. It also allows Agatha to wander off on her own away from the rest of the team without needing a bodyguard with her at all times.

• Analysis : Another alternate way of activating Agatha's ability, making it more consistent in the early game especially with the high odds of getting at least one under Ancestral Knowledge. Agatha's ability is rarely worth the clue dropped, but it can be in a handful of cases (most notably String of Curses and Drawn to the Flame)

• Perception, Eureka!, Guts, Promise of Power : Just some staple skill cards to round out the deck and reach the 10 skill cards necessary for Ancestral Knowledge.

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Link to the 0xp deck

• The lvl 0 deck is a bit of a mess. A lot of the deck's key assets cost experience and don't have easy Lvl 0 equivalents, which is on top of the extra work needed to unlock the Dream Diary and Forbidden Tome upgrades.

• Grim Memoir and Mouse Mask are here to help investigate at lvl 0, and Eldritch Sophist is here in the hopes of playing it alongside Grim Memoir and Forbidden Tome to keep the former loaded up and translate the latter without spending ages drawing cards. It is also another ally that can eat a Snake Bite.

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From here, Confound is a highly recommended upgrade, as are Perception and Studious. Any high power event like Cryptic Research or No Stone Unturned will also be a great fit.

Link to the deck at the end of the campaign

Supplies

• Wendy : Medicine x 2 , Provisions x 1

• Dexter : Provisions x 2, Rope

• Agatha : Compass, Binoculars, Pendant

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Return to The Untamed Wilds

• During the first act, Agatha lost a lot of time to Best-Laid Plans and her exploration into Riverside Temple (no chalk). Afterwards, She helped investigate the River Canyon, and used Wendy's Matchbox to clear Circuitous Trail with her own compass.

• A pair of Cryptic Writings helped nail the first parley with Ichtaca, and an kind token pull combined with Ocula Obscura for a sweet 2 for 1 deal, while the last one was won on the back of Dexter's Promise of Power.

• Agatha eventually explored into Overgrown Ruins, which she cleared with Drawn to the Flame and a String of Curses, freeing her from a Pit Viper in a process. Replaying it killed the Serpent from Yoth when combined with Dexter's own. She didn't have to do much to clean the Ruins of Eztli, since Wendy's Matchbox + Flashlight + Sleight of Hand combo took care of it.

• Experience and upgrades : 9 experience gained (Ichtaca, Circuitous Trail, Ruins of Eztli, Overgrown Ruins, Serpent from Yoth, +2 from the Binoculars) (9 total), 8 experience spent

  +1 Higher Education

  -2 Dream Diary , +1 Dream Diary, +1 Dream Diary

  -1 Correlate All Its Contents, -1 Drawn to the Flame , +2 Cosmic Revelation

  I "Interpreted the dreams" during the scenario, and can grab both upgrades using Shrewd Analysis. I don't get the child diary that works with big hands, but given how often Essence of the Dream wound up being the eight card in my hand over the course of the campaign, maybe that's for the better.

  I tend to stay away from Higher Education on standard, but this is Hard difficulty and this deck really needs a way to become a more reliable cluever while I'm still working on identifying and upgrading the Forbidden Tome. Higher Education is simply the best choice available.

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Return to The Doom of Eztli

• Agatha acted as a primary cluever for the entire scenario, notably spending forever clearing the Ancient Hall as more doom kept coming in from both the encounter deck and the . Her compass once again proves to be invaluable.

• She got to use some of the downtime forced onto her by Deep Dark to remove a few secrets from her Forbidden Tome the hard way and lend a small hand with the snakes using Essence of the Dream.

• After running off to the Chamber of Time with the necessary clues and the safety provided by Whispers of Doom (Entombed would have been painful ...), she was rescued by Dexter's rope and the Tomb of the Ancients and was therefore able to skip the deadly Snake Pit on her way out.

• Meanwhile Wendy distracted the Harbinger of Valusia, getting defeated by its alert keyword with her last evade attempt ( -> Wendy reroll -> ... 2 locations away from the Entryway ... with Track Shoes on).

• Experience and upgrades : 3 experience gained (Serpent from Yoth, Throne Room, Delve Too Deep) (4 total), 3 experience spent

  -1 Forbidden Tome , +1 Forbidden Tome

  I had the opportunity to empty the Forbidden Tome over the course of the scenario. Time to start upgrading them !

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  Return to Threads of Fate

• Just Higher Education things. Dream Diary lent a hand, as did a Grim Memoir and the Mouse Mask, but most of the scenario was just spent powering through tests using Higher Education.

• After a quick setup, Agatha wandered off away from Wendy and Dexter to go to Northside, and then to Curiositie Shoppe once the former was Locked, all with the safety of both Whispers of Doom and String of Curses. She also parleyed with Maria DeSilva, and the shoppe proved to be the Relic of Ages's location after she had cleared it, once Dexter reasoned with Harlan Earnstone.

• She spent the last few turns of the game clearing Downtown on Ichtaca's behalf and ignoring the aforementioned Locked Door using Drawn to the Flame twice.

• Experience and upgrades : 6 experience gained (Miskatonic University, Northside, Curiositie Shoppe, Arkham Police Station, The Hastings Estates, Delve Too Deep) (7 Total), 7 experience spent

  +1 Ancestral Knowledge, +1 Alejandro Vela

  -1 Eldritch Sophist, +1 Stargazing

  +1 Correlate All Its Contents, +1 Drawn to the Flame

  +2 Fine Clothes, +1 Whispers of Doom

  I really like grabbing Ancestral Knowledge before the hand-sized based cards. I add Fine Clothes to pair with the extra Whispers of Doom, and the two cards that were removed to make space for Cosmic Revelation after Untamed Wilds.

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Resupply Point

• Wendy : 1 trauma healed, Medicine x 1 , Gasoline x 1, Canteen, Pickaxe

• Agatha : 1 trauma healed, Provision x 3, Medicine x 1, Chalk

• Dexter : 1 trauma healed, Provision x 2, Medicine x 1 , Gasoline x 1, Pocketknife

Return to The Boundary Beyond

• Higher Education 2 : Ed Higher. To be fair, Dream Diary was invaluable on Sacred Woods, Canals of Tenochtitlán and most of all Lake Xochimilco. Agatha spent nearly half of the Scenario trying to power through it as more clues kept coming from the token.

• Using Cosmic Revelation 4 times really helped Wendy trough an atrocious game, and Transmogrify saved Agatha's Diary from a Tindalos Alpha (it would have grabbed a clue too if it weren't for the )

• I think it is a testament to the sheer amount of resources generated by Agatha (specifically alongside Olive McBride + Voice of Ra) that she could spend the entire scenario relying on Higher Education and still end it with 7 resources to spend playing 2 Whispers of Doom to annihilate Padma Amrita (She actually doesn't have a horror value, making the test very easy while wearing Fine Clothes).

• Experience and upgrades : 6 experience gained (Padma Amrita, Sacred Woods, Canals of Tenochtitlán, Lake Xochimilco, Chapultepec Hill) (6 total), 6 experience spent

  -1 Forbidden Tome, +1 Forbidden Tome

  -1 Eldritch Sophist, +1 Confound

  I finally have both copies of Forbidden Tome. The next step on the upgrade path would be Farsight, but I can't purchase one now, nor do I want to purchase it heading into City of Archives : Time for some luxury upgrades. I grab Confound with my remaining experience, a useful card in general and especially so heading into the jungle once more.

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  Return to Heart of the Elders-A

• Agatha hit the ground running with both Dream Diary and Forbidden Tome. More notably, she locked up a Feathered Serpent with Transmogrify, helping Wendy clear the otherwise difficult Overgrown Ruins in the process while Dexter explored ahead, followed promptly by Agatha's Forbidden Tome.

• With only 4 clues to grab, the scenario ended rather quickly after Wendy cleared Circuitous Trail with Shed a Light and carved a pathway back to the Mouth of K'n-yan using Elaborate Distraction (Adaptable, aging like fine wine !). Still long enough to take out an Apex Strangleweed with Whispers of Doom.

Return to Heart of the Elders-B

• Forbidden Tome continues to be a useful asset here, grabbing a clue with ease for each new location revealed, helping save events, resources and skill icons for Olive McBride shenanigans and high shroud locations.

• While Dexter and Wendy were dealing with a simultaneous encounter with a Vengeful Serpent, a Tomb and a Poisonous Spore, Agatha went ahead to clear Treacherous Depths with Drawn to the Flame and the Descent to Yoth with Higher Education and the Dream Diary.

• Experience and upgrades : 11 experience gained (Apex Strangleweed, Overgrown Ruins, Circuitous Trail, Serpent from Yoth, Treacherous Descent, Ruins of K'n-yan, Descent to Yoth, Delve Too Deep * 2 ) (11 total), 11 experience spent

  -1 Analysis, +1 The Eye of Truth

  -2 Perception, +2 Perception

  -2 Grim Memoir , +1 Logical Reasoning, +1 Guidance

  Still no Farsight. Perception is a very straightforward upgrade, especially heading into City of Archives. Logical Reasoning is a good card in general and for this scenario in particular, Guidance has good icons and a useful ability for all kinds of situations, and Grim Memoir doesn't have a place anymore with Forbidden Tome now upgraded.

  With the five remaining xp, I grab The Eye of Truth to neuter cards like Rotting Remains or Captive Mind. It is generally just one of my favorite luxury upgrades.

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  Return to The City of Archives

• During a first act carried by Higher Education and the skills of Ancestral Knowledge in the absence of her key items, Agatha cleared the Laboratory of the Great Race (despite the handful of setbacks from the and tokens) and parleyed with The Custodian that landed there after Act 1.

• Dream Diary is invaluable here more than ever, and Agatha even manages to make use of the Forbidden Tome despite the agenda's hand-size reduction (6 + The Custodian + Dream Diary).

• Her Guidance also enables Dexter to do a turn of : Play Tankgewehr + move + shoot + reload, allowing him to gun down a Scientist of Yith on the following turn that would have been meddlesome otherwise.

• Agatha gets away with murder spending the entire scenario with 3 in the bag (the 2 ) and not having to suffer much consequences. Losing a handful of draws and actions to Glimpse the Void over the course of the scenario thankfully doesn't prevent her from recovering her humanity after Confounding a Scholar from Yith and clearing the Towers of Pnakotus.

• Experience and upgrades : 8 experience gained (Yithian Observer *2, Towers of Pnakotus, Yithian Orrery,Interview Room, +2 for a successful process ) (8 total), 8 experience spent

  -1 Alejandro Vela

  -1 Correlate All Its Contents, -1 Mouse Mask, +2 Farsight

  Farsight at last. Alejandro Vela is gone, and so is the Mouse Mask that proved quite useful in the first 3 scenarios. I'm trying to diversify my event options to become less vulnerable to Merging Timelines in the finale, and part ways with my second copy of Correlate All Its Contents to do so.

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  Return to The Depths of Yoth

• Agatha got Farsight in play early and was able to triggering just about every turn for a wide variety of situations. The extra economy was very useful for Wendy, String of Curses took care of the Eater of the Depths, Confound locked up an annoying Vengeful Serpent, the whole deck was really coming together.

• Despite that, the deck's (and team's) lower clue gathering speed came back to bite the team, especially after hitting both Crumbling Precipice and Broken Passage on depth 4, which slowed the game down to the point where Yig himself showed up for the final turn of the game despite a low amount of vengence (9) and the used rope on the first level.

• Agatha's Guidance thankfully saved Dexter from a close encounter with both big snakes, combined with an Essence of the Dream which allowed her to Evade the father of serpents himself (Madman Diary).

• Experience and upgrades : 8 experience gained (Eater of the Depths, Serpent from Yoth, +5 for the final depth level) (8 total), 8 experience spent

  +2 Studious

  -1 Drawn to the Flame, +1 Seeking Answers

  I grab 2 copies of Studious to compensate for the lack of Torches heading into Shattered Aeons. I also replace Drawn to the Flame with Seeking Answers. The encounter deck of Shattered Aeons is quite nasty, and the ability to discover clues at adjacent locations has never been more useful. Plus, it's one less discard target for Merging Timelines.

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  Return to Shattered Aeons

• Agatha got off to a solid start with the Ocula Obscura, enabling her ability without the risk that comes with Olive. Her events and Explorer Diary help clear the Nexus of N'kai and the City of the Unseen, doing the work that Forbidden Tome is unsuited for in this scenario, while Farsight was just as good as it was in Depths of Yoth.

• After insulting Alejandro Vela, Agatha got to work alongside Wendy on Mending the Shatter. She cleared Atlantis with a Drawn to the Flame, and Plateau of Leng with some Higher Education boosts. The Guts and Promise of Power I had kept under Ancestral Knowledge helped repair these locations for good.

• Meanwhile, she also helped Wendy escape an ambush in the Ruins of New York with her Guidance (Agatha played it for free to speed things up, before the trap was sprung), before the orphan cleared it and Mu with two Matchbox + Shed a Light combos.

• The investigators win the campaign (R1)

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• The deck was very successful, utilising the Forbidden Tome that I never found a use for before while really showcasing Agatha's strength and being the best experience I've had with Farsight that didn't involve the completely busted Ravenous Myconid. It was a fun and unique deck that felt quite different from the unfortunately common "just test vs shroud" seeker gameplay loop.

• I'm very happy with how Higher Education ended up. In Threads of Fate and Boundary Beyond, it had completely warped my gameplay around it, but by the end of the campaign, Forbidden Tome, Farsight and Dream Diary all helped turn it into more of a useful sidearm as opposed to my main asset. It still came in handy when boosting Whispers of Doom or Transmogrify, making Olive McBride's experiments succeed or as mythos protection, but it was not the center of my gameplay like it used to be.

• However, the deck's ability to gather clues is not the one you would expect from a main cluever like Daisy Walker or Darrell Simmons, often playing a lot more like a Support / Flex character than a typical cluever. The deck's lower clue gathering ability is compensated by the extra cards, actions or mythos protection provided to it's partners, or by the extremely efficient enemy management tools (Whispers of Doom, Confound, String of Curses, Transmogrify), the first of which even allowed her to significantly contribute to Boss Fights.