Thanks to her Ocula Obscura, Agatha reads between the lines to find new Insights.

Credits: Andreia Ugrai, Matthew Cawdery & Rob Laskey

As always, don't forget to press the ♥ if you like the Deck and want to give visibility to my work :)

Finishing this series of 6 investigator decks (all but Gloria), to help people who have little time to deckbuild, or are still getting familiar with the new cards. May these serve as a base for you to build your own decks and adapt to any other campaign or group size.

Disclaimer These decks have been play-tested in 2 teams, yet not through The Drowned City Campaign since they are published before its official release. Enjoy the reading, and I hope you'll have fun with these!

Sorry for the longer waiting time for this deck, but there was a bug on ArkhamDB that had to be fixed first. Thanks Felice for the pull request, making it possible for everyone to create Agatha Crane decks! Be sure to check his incredible work on Arkham.build for a greatly improved deckbuilding experience.

Overall Agatha wasn't the highest on my hype list, but after playing her, I think she is one of my favourite investigators of the new set, and her ability involves a lot of decision making and rewards greatly careful planning and decision making.

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Find the Text Between the Lines

• Make That Degree Worth it

• Access the Hidden Tempo

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Final Thoughts

PS: Thanks @RyanMuQ for helping me using this chart. Let me know if you like it or not, and if you want it added to the Deck Guide Template at the bottom!

• Read between the lines with Ocula Obscura or your Eyes of the Dreamer to trigger your ability

• Spend your income into a Higher Education and pass any test

• Gets piles of clues with your Many High Yield events that you play and replay with your ability

Agatha Crane's ability is extremely powerful but is tricky to trigger reliably, especially on her side. In this deck, we are using two different ways of triggering your ability:

• Ocula Obscura to reveal the hidden text. It is the best option since it triggers your ability by playing the game, with even the benefit of having Premonition every phase.

  • A little word about the Ocula Obscura since it really is the star of the show here. Once it hits the table, you will be almost guaranteed to trigger your ability each turn. The only issue is when you pull symbol tokens, but since your ability counts the whole round, token pulls during the Mythos phase also count.

  • If you have been unlucky with tokens and this is your last test this turn, you can use the Eyes of the Dreamer to pull more than one and increase your chances of finding a non-symbol token significantly. This will not only secure your ability but also give you a known token pull on your next test.

  • Note that the Forced ability of the Ocula Obscura is happening before the ability. So during a test, it is possible to release and seal the same token, effectively keeping it locked with you, as long as you don't test more than once per phase!

• Eyes of the Dreamer is your imperfect alternative. Using the charges one by one should be enough to cover for at least half a scenario, which provides time to find your Ocula Obscura, or the other copy.

  • Because it uses , you will have to spend resources into Higher Education for every test, though revealing more than one token at a time helps. For instance, if there is a -3 and a -5 in the chaos bag, testing at 3 above will cover any pull but the -5 and .

  • The Eyes force you to spend one action for one clue which is slow and can feel quite frustrating when your hand is full of clue compression. But activating your ability is so important that it will be worth it as long as you have a good target in your discard pile.

• Correlate All Its Contents is the last option. It is decent, especially since it then comes back with your for another clue. However, it can lead to some feel-bad moments if you cancel the first token revealed and turn a pass into a fail.

  • The secret refill is a highly appreciated side benefit for the Scroll of Secrets (3)

Since most of our events use and Eyes of the Dreamer uses to investigate, we need a reliable way to boost both stats.

• In the version, we have access to the recently untabooed Higher Education which conveniently covers both stats, and is permanent.

• To use Higher Education, we need:

  • 5 cards in hand. There is a critical mass that you want to achieve with draw. If you don't have enough cards in hand to use Higher Education, you'll be tempted to commit cards to compensate, making it increasingly hard to reach the hand size requirement. So if you go lower than 5 cards, don't be scared to power draw for a little bit, especially since you are likely to find one of your many draw events: Boosted Blood-Rite and Preposterous Sketches (2) which can both be doubled with your

  • Once you can activate it, you need a steady flow of resources to pay for each test. This is achieved with Dr. Milan Christopher, and events like Burning the Midnight Oil, Cryptic Writings and Voice of Ra which can all be recurred with your ability.

Supercharged by your ability, both card count, and resources shouldn't be a problem past turn 2 or 3, and therefore, passing tests either.

Now that we know how to pass tests and activate our ability reliably, all we need are high-tempo Spell and Insight events to use and abuse. While playing Agatha, your discard pile will basically act like a second hand, full of great events, that you can pick based on your immediate needs.

Here's a little breakdown of all the replayable events in this deck:

• Blood-Rite, coming from Occult Lexicon (3). Always appreciated for their versatility, they are boosted here by the fact that Agatha can play each copy twice thanks to her ability. Choose anything between 3 cards, 3 resources or 3 damage and then do it a second time!

• Burning the Midnight Oil for a combination of clues and resources

• Correlate All Its Contents for a combination of clues and secrets on your Scroll of Secrets (3)

• Preposterous Sketches(2) for 3 more cards

• Cosmic Revelation for team-wide draw or play action across the board

• Cryptic Writings and Voice of Ra for resources

• Fortuitous Discovery for up to 3 clues

  • Often, it is worth playing Fortuitous Discovery from your discard pile even if there are only 2 copies, instead of waiting for the 3rd that may come when you don't need so many clues anymore. If you can afford to wait, though, getting 3 clues when playing it and 3 clues when recurring is bonkers.

• Read the Signs for 2 clues on a high shroud location

• Seeking Answers for scooping up clues from a distance, bypassing Locked Door or locations with an enemy

• Shortcut for some more team movement

Knowing that all these cards are usually used the first time to land in your discard pile, re-using them with your ability offers incredible compression, and turns when you discover 4 to 6 clues will feel like the new norm.

This is a good moment to discuss one of the things that I love the most about this game: how an investigator's ability can completely change the way we assess a card's value. Crack the Case is almost always better than Cryptic Writings (except in degenerate infinite decks), but because of the strict timing window on Crack the Case, it doesn't work with Agatha's ability, making it a worse option in her deck.

A Little Theorycrafty Note

It seems possible to pilot this deck as follows:

1. Commit all your resource and draw cards during tests
2. Only use play actions on clue compression events
3. Only use your ability on card draw and resource first
4. As you will cycle through your deck a first time, you will have a deck newly formed with only clue compression stuff, that you can then play and recycle

While this seems possible on paper, I never quite made it there when playing the deck, and I think it's only achievable with a certain starting hand, which probably includes:

1. Occult Lexicon to add more draw power in your deck
2. Ocula Obscura, or at the very least Eyes of the Dreamer

However, this strategy comes with a risk. Committing your draw and resource events instead of playing them twice may result in you struggling to reach a hand size at 5 or above for Higher Education, or having enough resources to pay for your events twice, while also having to pay to boost your skill value and pass tests. And once they are removed from the game, if you run out of steam, you'll fall flat.

Instead, the way I have piloted this deck is closer to playing more draw and resources early to build momentum, and then the clue compression later when I have my Higher Education secured and my assets in play.
I would only discard some events with Scroll of Secrets (3) when I was already swimming in resources or had more clue compression than I needed, to thin my deck.
I then used my ability on either maintaining Higher Education and my resources, or on more clues.

• Scroll of Secrets (3) is amazing in this deck for multiple reasons:

  • To draw 3 cards in one play action
  • To try to find and remove Glimpse the Void or your Random Basic Weaknesses
  • To locate Ocula Obscura
  • To thin your deck by discarding a few events so you can access them with your without needing to play them in the first place. The first copy of Fortuitous Discovery is a great target of course, but Preposterous Sketches or Voice of Ra can also be good targets once you are setup.

• Dr. Milan Christopher shining brighter than ever, providing a very appreciated static and drip economy for Higher Education

• Hiking Boots, covering the main action drain which is movement. They feel good because they often give you a move the same turn you play them, softening the action cost. They then move you to another location to investigate as soon as you're done with your current one.

  • The static is excellent since it brings your basic value to 4, which is enough to throw a few evades if need be.

• Spectral Shield to use your extra Eyes of the Dreamer for survivability.

  • In many cases, you will play Eyes of the Dreamer because you find it before the Ocula Obscura, and you want to trigger your as soon as possible. But as soon as you play the Ocula Obscura, the Eyes will become mostly redundant so you are free to use the charges with Spectral Shield.

• Deduction for a little more compression.

• Eureka! for more consistency, and they commit to both and tests

• Promise of Power to have any player in your team pass any scenario test

Early Campaign

The deck is really similar, except for:

• Guts and Perception to pass tests without spending a resource in Higher Education and thin your deck, as you wait to purchase Preposterous Sketches (2) and Scroll of Secrets (3) to dig deeper into your deck.

• One copy of Mouse Mask and one copy of Fieldwork, because they cover the same niche but work well when on the table at the same time. For more explanation of why this is better, here's a link to DerBK's article on one-offs. They both help lifting a bit of weigh off your resource pool, helping you with your skill values for both and .

Late Campaign

As we get more experience, the deck remains almost exactly the same, and we are only going to add more consistency.

• Studious increases our starting hand. This offers both a better mulligan and an easier start for Higher Education

• Ancestral Knowledge gives us a card draw per turn for the first 5 turns of the scenario, and most of the cards are cantrips, therefore thinning the rest of the deck.

• Cryptic Research is still a fantastic (broken?) card, except that the fast effect doesn't matter for your ability, so it is a little expensive compared to Preposterous Sketches (2). Being able to use it on allies or being fast in the first place still feels incredible and it is a solid late buy.

• Perception (2) and Deduction (2) are great upgrades since they attach to Ancestral Knowledge for a high tempo even early in the scenario.

Group Size

• In 2 (or if you try this deck True Solo, which could work if you replace Dr. Milan Christopher by Research Librarian to find Occult Lexicon (3) asap and keep the Blood-Rite for damage), you don't really need Cosmic Revelation. It's not bad, but you can do better. In this case, I would keep one copy of Mouse Mask which should then be easier to replenish, and add one copy of Stargazing instead.

• In 3+ , Cosmic Revelation is an obscene card for this little experience, and being able to play and replay it should make it a rather high priority in your upgrade list!

Notable Exclusions

• Sadly, after really trying to make it work, Uncanny Specimen didn't make the cut. It's not that it's a bad card. It synergises well with Ocula Obscura by cancelling symbol tokens to hopefully turn them into something that the Ocula can seal. But in practice, I often chose not to cancel symbol tokens because they usually meant passing the test, and I was too afraid to turn a pass into a fail.

• At a Crossroads isn't here because it felt better to be able to kick my draw at the moment I chose, rather than anytime. Timing is crucial to Agatha since you often try to plan what you are going to do with your ability and losing an action next turn may make it much harder to optimise. On top of that, it doesn't work with her , so it's a good opportunity to let go of the card for once!

• Backpack (2) was in my deck until late testing. I decided to remove it because if you already find your Ocula Obscura, or at the very least Eyes of the Dreamer, it can turn into a dead draw. So I'd rather invest in pure draw, which will give me value no matter the state of the game, including by increasing my hand size for keeping Higher Education online. Finally, I am also keen on reducing its use because Return to The Forgotten Age is now increasingly harder to find, and I suppose a lot of players will not own this card going forward.

• Deep Knowledge looks like Preposterous Sketches (2) but at 0xp, right? As Agatha struggles a bit with her skill value, adding to the chaos bag can be more detrimental than usual. Plus using them with your leads you rapidly to 8 in the bag, which is not negligible anymore. If you like consistency like I do, then you'd rather avoid it!

• Another one is Thorough Inquiry, and the reason is again that it is complicated with your , so I'd rather focus on cards that combo with your special ability!

• Farsight, because it's 4xp for the equivalent of one extra action each turn. For comparison, Hiking Boots gives me roughly the same output, for 1xp.

Link to the 0xp deck

(View at arkham-starter.com)

Link to the full xp deck

The Agatha was an interesting challenge. She didn't come with many ways to reliably trigger ability, but this is a good balance to how powerful the events are that she can recur. Compared to Agatha, this deck is less versatile and more focused on emptying locations before others have the chance to come in. I am really happy to have both decks shining in different use cases, rather than one strictly better than the other.

It has been a pleasure to build and play with Agatha overall since she really changes the way we assess events. It feels nice to replace staples that do not work with her with less used cards from the card pool.

Finally, this deck's power will vary a lot between average players like me and experts who will play her often and learn how to pilot her based on each starting hand and the momentum of the deck. I gave her an A+ rating as she is a strong A Tier in my hands, but I have no doubt that some better players will make this deck an S Tier contender.

To create your own guides, find the template here.