Amanda Sharpe Investigates The Fog at Innsmouth

This deck is for an Innsmouth Conspiracy campaign. Amanda is one member of a trio along with Trish Scarborough and Silas Marsh . This is built against a single first edition core deck, so some base card options are constrained to 1 (eg Magnifying Glass), or split across the three investigators.

—Something came out of the fog and tried to destroy us. In one moment, it vanished.—

Deck Walkthrough

Amanda starts with a pitiful stat line—2/2/2/2. Magnifying Glass is a seeker staple and not the most imaginative choice, but it adds 1 book to get to 3. Scroll of Secrets allows Amanda to manipulate the encounter deck, and it's . The Dream Diary gets Essence of the Dream into play, which in turn will unlock the 3 XP Diary cards. Dream-Enhancing Serum is going to allow us to maintain a larger hand size and complements Curiosity and Laboratory Assistant. A larger hand size is going to let us pitch a lot of skill cards into tests to offset the weak stat line. Dr. Milan Christopher is another staple, Amanda wants him in play to enhance that book stat. This and the glass gets her to 4 book, a workable value given the number of skill cards she can throw at tests. Research Librarian will let us get the Scroll into play, and Laboratory Assistant will increase hand size by 2. Strange Solution is kind of dead weight and also a wasted action, but we'll probably be able to meet its condition, and unlock the Solution line for later in the campaign.

For events, Practice Makes Perfect lets Amanda pull in a practiced from the top 9 of deck, use it, then keep it. We have 12 praticed cards in the deck, so are unlikely to not draw one, and also unlikely to have to discard it, with our larger hand size. Shortcut is a staple, and can be used with Amanda's ability to produce 3 fast movements in a turn, great for Innsmouth's large maps.

Amanda is running a lot of skill cards, 16 in total, and as mentioned 12 of them are practiced. All these cards can be used with her ability to pick and card and commit it to each action, so playable 3 times in a turn. Curiosity bumps her head and book statlines once we've got at least 4 or 7 cards in hand. Deduction for an extra clue, but it goes from a staple to a super card by letting her hoover up 6 clues in a single phase with 3 investigation actions. Enraptured is going to let us leverage those overpowered skill checks to collect secrets—good for the Scroll. As far as I can tell, there's no limit to how many secrets the scroll can carry. Overpower and Perception are practiced, bump our punch and book. Plan of Action bumps stats depending on the action count and if she uses her ability with it, it can be used on every action in the turn not just one. Promise of Power is practiced so we can find it using Practice Makes Perfect. It's got 4 $wild wild pips and can be used without qualification. Cards like Rise to the Occasion and Inquiring Mind are more situational and have less wild pips (in fact for this campaign we're giving Inquiring Mind to her colleague Trish Scarborough who has a better way to manage it by moving clues around). We'll put tokens into play as a result, but we'll definitely pass tests. Vicious Blow placed underneath Amanda can add 3 extra damage if she can find a way to effect a punch on her turn. And that is something Prophesy can help with. Unexpected Courage could also work and is more consistent (Prophesy gets +1 pip at 3+ doom and plus 2 at 6+ doom), but we gave it to her Silas colleague. Still, Prophesy at any level works well with Amanda's ability, and it's practiced. Also, one of the most visually stunning cards in the game.

Upgrades

There are so many choices Amanda can make, especially given a larger card pool. Rather than a fixed upgrade plan going into Innsmouth, we can let the campaign outcomes act as a guide, and make choices in context.

• Charisma. A reasonable early upgrade. Amanda can use it to play allies that drive a larger deck size along with allies that improve her stat line.

• Unrelenting. Seems pretty strong for our student given we can run it 3 times in a turn with her ability. Usually it's the mystics that get this kind of bag manipulation, having that available to a seeker should be fun.

• Knowledge is Power. If it goes underneath Amanda's deck with her ability, it lets us use the Scroll of Secrets for free multiple times in a turn, and it's fast.

• Dreams. Dreams of a Child benefits from our ability to have a large hand. We can keep drawing Essence of the Dream since it gets bonded after use rather than discarded, and it gains 3 wild pips to bring it to 4. Dreams of a Madman and Dreams of an Explorer have the same effect with different skill pips. These are all tomes, so our Researcher can pull them in.

• Strange Solutions. Acidic Ichor is a powerful combat card for Amanda, who probably won't need a weapon as a result, plus you can throw in Vicious Blow. Restorative Concoction feels less useful, but Freezing Variant gets evade up to 6, worth our consideration.

• Momentum. It's good as it is, and becomes treble plus good if it gets used three times in a turn by placing it underneath Amanda for her abiliity. Every now and then Amanda will flatten the test difficulties of a turn with it, and even if a test fails and doesn't work out, no matter what it's a 1 wild. And yep, it's practiced, so could be run over 4 actions.

• Pathfinder. Even at the taboo'd cost of 3XP, a great staple for any seeker. It's fast and should help with Innsmouth's larger maps: Amanda can use it to move massive distances with her ability.

• The Segments of Onyx gets us the Pendant of the Queen which is uncontested on the accessory slot and can trigger her investigator ability. We can use Mr. "Rook" to draw them into play. if we upgraded to this, then it might makes sense to also bring along The Red Clock at the cost eating a lot our XP (4 or 10). The Eon Chart (4) might be a less intensive alternative at 4 XP and gives Trish a lot action flexibility. For our campaign we'll want to choose who among Trish and Amanda gets it.

• The Red-Gloved Man sets two stats to six. He goes away, but —he's cheap, he's fast, he takes huge damage blast, he's red gloved man, red-gloved man.

• The Eye of Truth. I mean, just look at it. Being able to pin down a treachery seems very useful although somewhat campaign specific. Four wild pips is something though. And it's practiced so if we draw it with Practice Makes Perfect we can use it twice. Maybe one to add later as an XP splurge.

• Occult Lexicon We didn't start with the 0XP card, but if Amanda wanted repeated access to damage, this lets her shuffle a Blood-Rite back in the deck. But, carrying this makes the hand slot very busy and we're not sure how much damage dealing we need from Amanda yet. So here it is, let's wait and see.

• Three Aces. Amanda's relentless draw ability, increased hand size, and this being practiced, makes it viable for us to get all 3 aces out. And removing them from the game acts to thin the deck. And yet, it's situational—will we get to play an auto succeed when we really need it?

Closing Thoughts

Amanda can lead, and can polyfill. She benefits from access to an expanded card set (this deck uses 11 packs before we start upgrading). Amanda kind of fighting kind of cluing is maybe the most interesting way to go. But starting with a basic deck and make late bound choices rather than plan ahead makes sense especially if we're factoring for what the other investigators decide to upgrade into.