Tip Well, Or Else...

Sat polishing glasses behind the counter, Agnes couldn't help but notice just how quiet Velma's Diner had become recently. At this time of evening the diner should be full of patrons, the atmosphere bustling and the sound of contented conversation filling the air. Looking up at the window, Agnes noticed a few nervous-looking faces peering through the glass. As soon as they saw her looking, they hurried away and out of sight. Agnes sighed. The recent disappearances must have got everyone worried, and now the whispers of the infamous Silver Twilight Lodge probably meant the whole town was uneasy. She shrugged and put down the glass, picking up her axe and beginning to polish the blade. She'd taken to keeping it around at the diner, as a sort of charm. People did seem to tip so much more when she had it around...

Uncaging the Soul

So often in two-player campaigns I find myself drawn to the reliable pairing of a Guardian and a Seeker, the time-tested and trustworthy way to ensure a balanced and effective team. After playing as Zoey and Rex, Mark and Minh, and most recently, Leo and Ursula, my teammate and I decided to try and mix things up. Given the task of building a deck for the more combat-focused character to be paired with Finn, I went through investigators like Yorick and Silas before remembering a character I had barely played since the core set: Agnes Baker. Though I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with this combo, this is my attempt to build a combat-focused deck consistent enough for a two player campaign that is a little out of the ordinary! It served me well though Dunwich and, after being revised a little, is doing even better in a two handed run of Carcosa paired with Minh, killing four party-goers so far with 27xp going into The Pallid Mask. I hope you enjoy the deck!

Axe-nes Baker

As the member of the team dedicated to dealing with enemies, this has to be the main focus of the deck. As a Mystic, Agnes carries the usual tools in Shrivelling and Mists of R'lyeh, the former being imperative but the latter being especially potent in the Vengeance-filled jungles or in certain scenarios like A Phantom of Truth. Agnes' 'signature card' in Forbidden Knowledge is also an auto-include as, with her ability, it gets you both a resource and a testless damage on an enemy - perfect for Whippoorwills, Swarms of Rats, Acolytes or even any odd-health enemy to conserve Shrivelling charges. With two out at a time, Agnes can ping enemies multiple times per round, and becomes incredibly efficient. To deal with all that horror, cards like Fearless which heal horror are great, in addition to providing boosts for using her Spells.

"But I thought you said this deck was a little different!" I hear you cry. Enter Agnes' trusty Fire Axe. Agnes needs serious help with fighting using and Fire Axe does this and more. With three resources Agnes can get up to 8 during a test in addition to doing +1 damage if she has no resources left. As this should be the goal, Dark Horse is a great fit as Agnes will get an addition +1 on almost all Fire Axe attacks. With Madame Labranche and Forbidden Knowledge, Agnes has incredible ability to bounce back after throwing her resources at a Fire Axe test, and since these cards use actions, she won't take attacks of opportunity in the process. Forbidden Knowledge can even deal an extra damage while refuelling your axe! A few more cards really help with this set up, namely Uncage the Soul, which allows you to still play your Spells (including Dark Memory) while at low resources after using Fire Axe, and Fight or Flight which will likely provide a turn with a massive combat boost after Agnes has taken horror to user her ability.

The rest of the deck mainly consists of generally useful cards like Drawn to the Flame, Ward of Protection, Delve Too Deep and Lucky! which don't need any more explanation from me!

Not-So Forbidden Knowledge

This deck can be a little tricky to pilot so I thought I'd give some tips I've picked up after playing with this deck for a while. The main thing to remember is that you may not set up your full rig - and that's ok. The deck has multiple options for combat so you need to roll with the cards your deck gives you and use whichever option you can. The Spells work great on their own but Fire Axe needs Madame Labranche or Forbidden Knowledge to be sustainable.

Hard mulligan for Shrivelling, Mists of R'lyeh or Fire Axe. You need to find a way of dealing with enemies as soon as possible. If you find one of these in your first five cards, other assets like Forbidden Knowledge or (later in the campaign) Peter Sylvestre are great to have down as soon as possible. If Mists is the only one of the three I might be tempted to dig harder for a combat option, though it does buy you more time.

During the scenario, if there aren't any enemies to chop up or shrivel, it's quite often most useful to spend actions drawing. Card draw is almost non-existent in this deck so drawing to find more pieces to help the combo isn't a bad idea.

If you can (and you have the choice) it's best to use the Fire Axe on smaller enemies to save the finite Shrivelling charges. Also, if you have all three of Fire Axe, Shrivelling and Dark Horse on the table, using the Fire Axe first to go down to zero resources and then Shrivelling the enemy with an additional +1 can be helpful.

I've found that you should almost always continue to take resources in the upkeep phase after playing Dark Horse. Going above three can be problematic for Fire Axe efficiency but you have plenty of things to spend a couple of resources on and getting a massive boost twice to do three damage (not spending to zero the first time) is no bad thing.

Never play Heirloom of Hyperborea. It's too expensive and will almost never be worth it with the number of spells in the deck. Commit it to a test for its useful icons.

Delving Even Deeper

This deck doesn't require masses of xp but functions much better with a couple of key upgrades. Here's a quick guide to spending your experience.

High Priority:

2 x Holy Rosary 2 x Peter Sylvestre II, 1 x Charisma (7xp)

Peter provides great static boosts in and , making Spells even better and making Agnes no slouch at regular evade attempts. The biggest benefit is that Peter can take horror for you almost all of the times you're not using it to activate your ability, allowing you to make the most of your sanity. Charisma is necessary so you can have both Madame Labranche and Peter Sylvestre in play at once.

2 x Fearless 2 x Fearless II (4xp)

More horror healing, more chance for Agnes to use her awesome ability. Great icons too.

Medium Priority:

2 x Shrivelling 2 x Shrivelling III (6xp)

With fewer static boosts, this deck really appreciates the help from the upgraded Shrivelling.

2 x Ward of Protection 2 x Ward of Protection II (4xp)

This is quite team dependant. If your team member can handle most of what the encounter deck throws at them, then this isn't a card worth spending the xp on. On the other hand, if they can't - like Finn - it can literally be a life-saver.

Low Priority:

1 x Guts, 1 x Delve Too Deep Grotesque Statue, Sacrifice

It's really up to you what to cut at this point but these are the cards I'd lose first as well as some good upgrades. The statue is cheap and very powerful while Sacrifice can help alleviate this deck's problem with card draw.

2 x Mists of R'lyeh 2 x Mists of R'lyeh IV (8xp)

If you're really rolling in xp this might be worth it for evade heavy scenarios, but I would consider it most strongly for the Forgotten Age. The boost and extra charge make it much more consistent.

The Exile Survivor cards might be worth the investment for the final scenario of the campaign, most likely Devil's Luck, Flare or Stroke of Luck.

Dark Horses

Cards which didn't quite make it into the final version of the deck but were strongly considered. If you think they (or any other cards) should be included, let me know!

Arcane Research With all the upgrading of Spells this seems like an obvious choice but Agnes' sanity has such high value that I was uncomfortable losing so much of it before the scenario has even started. In the earlier scenarios without Peter Sylvestre or Fearless II, the extra horror would be even more of a problem. Maybe one copy might be a good compromise, but xp isn't so tight that it is necessary.

Shrivelling V If you want big damage, this is your spell. However, in two player I am starting to think that it is rarely necessary. Firstly, there is unlikely to be so many enemies that the action compression of +2 damage is really needed. Even the 'boss' enemies can usually be defeated by steady bursts of 2 damage - their health doesn't seem nearly as problematic as it does at higher player counts. In addition, since you would rely on this as your main damage dealer, the extra damage would often be wasted if you haven't got your Fire Axe out, and you certainly can't wait until you do. This all comes with the massive cost of uncontrolled horror, which Agnes really wants to keep to a minimum. So yeah, I've become a little disillusioned with Shrivelling V but if big damage is your thing, by all means, shrivel away.

Painkillers Another very valid card since this deck lacks damage healing or soak, but with Forbidden Knowledge, you're going to be racking up a lot of horror anyway. This would be one of the first includes if I could find the card slots.

Lucky! Live and Learn Lucky!'s main disadvantage is its antisynergy with Fire Axe and Dark Horse in that it can't be used after you spend down to zero resources. Live and Learn, being 0 cost, can be played then. However, since you take the whole test again, you lose all the skill boosts gained by spending resources with Fire Axe, so you are probably less likely to succeed than the first time!

Rite of Seeking Ordinarily far too expensive for a Dark Horse deck, Rite of Seeking is playable with Uncage the Soul and gives Agnes another dimension for enemy-light scenarios like The Miskatonic Museum. However, it impacts on her reliability as a combat character most of the time and will often be a completely dead cardslot.

Lots of cards would work well in this deck and it would be impossible to list them all, but most things come down to cost or cardslots, which are incredibly tight, especially for the assets. If someone wanted to run a different version and swap out some of the events and skills, they are more than welcome - if they let me know how it goes!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked the deck!