Mandy - Aces High (Hard/Expert)

Game Plan

Step 1 - Play Cards

Step 2 - Get Money

Step 3 - Get Educated

Step 4 - ???

Step 5 - Profit

Feedback and suggestions welcome

Deck is intended for 3-4 players, for all difficulties (Normal-Expert). It enjoys being paired up with at least one Rogue (or someone that can run rogue cards) that can help run Double or Nothing to get a huge Ancient Stone faster, but can work with any teammates.

For smaller tables, Archaic Glyphs may not be necessary and just keeping in cards like Practice Makes Perfect and Deduction are the way to go.

By scenario 3-4 with proper exp you can end up drawing 10+ cards a turn, and throughout the scenario do 12+ damage from Ancient Stones and pick up 20+ clues with Archaic Glyphs, while maintaining Mythos protection via Higher Education.

Oh and try not to grab a weakness that automatically discards itself, or doomed - you're going to be cycling your deck a lot. Oh and make sure to dump your hand if your deck is about to run out - make the reshuffles as big as you can.

Assets -

Magnifying Glass - Base 5 is great and all, but for the early scenarios where we lack the tools to constantly boost, these are great

Archaic Glyphs - Combine with higher education and you will have no problem stripping 8-12 clues off of a location at a time

Dream-enhancing Serum - Provides a decent amount of free draw (searches also cause you to draw), and will eventually combo with Feed the Mind and Glimpse the Unthinkable. I've had it give as much as +5/6 hand size due to all the myriads and doubles in the deck.

Feed the Mind - Combine with Knowledge is Power for fast free draw

Mr. Rook - More fast draw and deck-thinning. After you get Ancient Stone Rook allows Mandy to kill most 3 hp enemies for free

Events -

Astounding Revelation - Free Money when you get it through Rook. It discards itself, and does not count as being drawn for interactions with Ancient Stone

Crack the Case - It's a bit conditional, but its still fast money

Cryptic Writings - Searches like Rook still count as drawing the card, so this is just more free money

Knowledge is Power - Use on Feed the Mind for free cards, or for additional actions to trigger Archaic Glyphs, or to use Archaic Glyphs for free

Practice Makes Perfect - Cheap fast search effect that will net you additional cards or clues with Perception and Deduction

Shortcut - Fast free movement

Think on Your Feet - If you're alone without Ancient Stone, this can save you a lot of actions in the first few scenarios

Skills -

Deduction - Early game multi-clue that goes well with practice makes perfect

Eureka - Flexible search that you can double up to increase consistency

Perception - Goes well with Practice Makes Perfect for a bunch of free cards

Quick Thinking - With Higher Education, you are going to be overkilling checks. Getting free actions out of it is always nice.

Upgrade Priority -

1 - Higher Education - Encounter protection, money dump

2 - 1x Archaic Glyphs - Multiclue, with all the draw you shouldn't have problems getting to it

3 - 1x Double or Nothing - If you have a friendly rogue that is grabbing this, you can skip it

4 - 1x Ancient Stone - Try to get a difficulty 14+ check on shroud 4+ with Double or Nothing

5 - 1x Ancient Stone - 1 copy with 14+ charges is enough to kill everything by yourself for cheap

6 - 3xSegment of Onyx - With all the draw pendant is almost always on by turn 2-3

7 - 3xEasy Mark - Very efficient economy card that further cycles your deck when you have multiple copies of them in your hand at once

8 - 3xThree Aces - Like pendant of the queen, not too difficult to assemble and provides free resources and cycling. Optional but fun.

9 - 1xFeed the Mind - By the time you upgrade this, you only need 1 copy of Feed the Mind

10 - 2x Glimpse the Unthinkable - This and anything past this point is pure luxury. With Dream-Enhancing serum you can reach extremely high hand sizes even without any other hand-size increasing effects

11 - 2xStudious - Larger initial mulligan to increase consistency and start off with Rook

12 - 2xCryptic Research - More actionless draw. You could also give it to your teammates, but why would you?

13 - 2xNo Stone Unturned - If you really want to help your team

14 - 2xEidetic Memory - Copy Cryptic Researches/No Stoned Unturneds for even more draw

Cards to cut -

2xMagnifying Glass After you get higher education and upgraded Archaic Glyphs, these lose most of their value. You can keep them for a little longer depending on personal preference.

1xFeed the Mind Early on when card draw is scarce, playing out a copy is ok. Later on, this is only here to activate Knowledge is Power

2x Deduction - Obsolete after you get Archaic Glyphs

2x Think on Your Feet Obsolete after you get your 1x Ancient Stone

1x Crack the Case - The most conditional of the fast resource cards

2x Practice Makes Perfect - At this point you're adding in cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable, which are just going to provide more cards then Practice Makes Perfect. PMP is still a great card with perception and Three Aces for additional draw.

2x Perception - If you don't have Practice Makes Perfect, you don't need additional practiced skill cards.

2x Eureka! - This can be cut anytime before or after Practice Makes Perfect/Perception. Glimpse/Cryptic Research/Eidetic Memory will just provide more cards.

Cards that were Considered

Laboratory Assistant - Too slow, having Rook was just always better and more important. Glimpse the Unthinkable also comes in too late to make this worth running early on, and Dream-enhancing Serum does a much better job of increasing your hand size and drawing additional cards without needing you to get Charisma or Miskatonic Archaeology Funding

Celaeno Fragments - Actually very good in the deck - early on Magnifying glass being fast makes it more desirable for investigating, but Celaeno Fragments can boost your Feed the Mind checks. The +1 will for having 10+ cards just never really comes up.

Research Librarian - Same problems as Laboratory assistant, plus after archaic glyphs is upgraded, Celaeno fragments is the only tome left in the deck. He's also hard to get out of your hand and you don't have many chances to pitch him to a skill test

The Necronomicon - Can easily slot in in place or after Glimpse the Unthinkable. Good card, but just more expensive than the alternatives.

Higher Education/Hyperawareness - Gives you a money dump for the early game. You however could also just toss the money cards themselves into skill checks since they all have book icons as well.