Thin Minhts

This is a deck that I have been tinkering around with since I saw Drawing Thin. The deck plays around drawing lots of cards and committing a lot of cards to skill tests. A lot of the new (and upcoming) cards offer Minh some new tools to draw even more cards.

The decklist:

• Fire Axe: Minh's best option for an actual weapon. Minh is not reliant on having a large resource pool, so triggering the +1 damage is very easy.
• Magnifying Glass: Solid card for the hand slot. Cheap and gets the job done.
• Grisly Totem: Having the new 3XP versions spoiled, Grisly Totem functions as most of another Analytical Mind, drawing you even more cards. It can also help deal with The King in Yellow. Without the upgrade, the card is decent but not spectacular.
• Mr. "Rook": Another incredible new card for Minh. Allows you to dig through your deck for the key pieces (Analytical Mind, Drawing Thin, Grisly Totem, etc). Once empty, you can use him as a damage soak before playing the next copy. Also allows you to deal with your weaknesses when you have 2-3 actions to handle it, rather than having one pop up before you draw an awkward encounter card as well.
• Analytical Mind: Extremely key card for Minh in multiplayer. With it out, you can use the wealth of cards you have to assist your fellow Investigators at other locations. Provides an extra card per turn.
• Drawing Thin: Incredible economy card that very quickly pays for itself. It effectively allows you to convert a card in your hand into 2 resources, as most cards you commit will have 2 or more icons due to your ability or Grisly Totem. It can also provide you with more card draw should you need it. It also can provide an effective +2 fight with Fire Axe, or +2 skill with Higher Education.
• Lucky!: With Drawing Thin and Minh's ability, you can effectively set the odds on your skill tests. Lucky! allows you to spend fewer cards/abilities/resources, running at a lower chance to succeed, knowing that you have Lucky! should you fail. It also can serve as an emergency boost for a critical test.
• Preposterous Sketches: Effective card draw. You can never have too many cards!
• Winging It: A card that improves as you get further down into your deck. You want to find ways to get rid of this card from your hand, since playing it from your discard is where it gets most of its value.
• Working a Hunch: Flexible slot. This is a decent card to pick up from a high shroud location, pick up the last clue on a location, etc.
• Deduction: Gets a clue. Commits to skill tests. Exactly what you want.
• Eureka!: Helps you or your allies filter through their decks initially. Can be committed to almost any skill test.
• Inquiring Mind: A 3 ? card in most circumstances. Really helpful for handling The King in Yellow.
• Perception: Can commit to your most common skill test. Draws a card.
• True Understanding: Maybe not so good in solo, with Analytical Mind in multiplayer, you are almost guaranteed to find an encounter card test that you can help with.
• Unexpected Courage: 2 ? that can be committed any time. Just a strong card.
• The King in Yellow: Your signature weakness. You want to find it from Mr. Rook, or early in the turn so that you can deal with it before a Treachery card messes you up. 6 matching icons is actually more like 4 with Grisly Totem and your ability.

Upgrades:

• Cornered: While it seems like anti-synergy with Minh and Grisly Totem (and The King in Yellow), it can convert the least useful card in your hand into any skill. With Drawing Thin, it means that any card can be converted into 2 resources. This means you can discard Winging It for some value, rather than trying to find room to play it.
  • If you play a Winging It from your discard while you deck is empty, so that it is the only card in your deck, you can discard the other copy to Cornered. Then when you play the other copy, you can draw with Analytical Mind after you commit 1 card, drawing the first copy of Winging it. You can then discard that Winging It to Cornered before you pull a token. This leaves you with 1 Winging It in your deck and 1 in the discard, allowing you to do it again next turn, as you will still have a card in deck to draw during the upkeep phase. This means you have an action to move, then play Winging It twice if you need to just suck up clues quickly.
  • Cornered also can discard extra copies of cards that you don't really need, and don't find a good place to commit. Cards like Fire Axe and Grisly Totem can be discarded to get a different icon.
• Ancient Stone: Turns out, when you draw a lot of cards, being able to do free damage is pretty good! Keep in mind that Drawing Thin boosts the amount of counters you get when you identify the stone on Ancient Stone. Should be pretty trivial to get between 8 and 11 counters if you can get your Drawing Thins out.
• Cryptic Research: Fast card draw with Ancient Stone is great, since it does not provoke attacks of opportunity if you get engaged. This means you can easily blow away a 4 health enemy if you have a charge on Mr. Rook.
• Grisly Totem(3): Another source of card draw.
• Higher Education: Now that under the new Taboo list, it costs 8 XP, this can be put off until later. Cornered+Lucky! will get you pretty far in many tests, anyways.

Why not...

• Fingerprint Kit: This has a pretty sizable up-front cost and takes a hand slot. Playing this means cutting Magnifying Glass. Winging It + Magnifying Glass ends up performing a similar job, and doesn't have as much cost associated with it.
• Crack the Case: Once you have your engine set up, you don't really need more money, since you can convert cards into money with Drawing Thin. I suppose this could replace Working a Hunch if you start running a more expensive deck.
• Dr. Milan Christopher: The stat boost is nice, but Mr. Rook just does more for you than Milan. You just don't need resources that much once your engine is set up.
• Guts: Not a bad card, but it's hard to justify 14 skills. You could maybe argue for the removal of one of the other skills (True Understanding in solo, for example).