Akachi Spellweaver

Deck focuses on using spell assets to fight and investigate - with Akachi's high willpower and extra charge, these will generally be sufficient to carry the day. Other assets augment these spells by boosting willpower and providing more spell slots. Events are intended to mitigate the effects of the encounter deck or support the spells.

Upgrades already made are A) Blood Pact; B) Rite of Seeking (2); C) Shriveling (5); D) Suggestion (for Mists of Ryleh); E) Spirit Athame (for Decorated Skull); and, F) Deny Existence (5).

Later upgrades could be: Book of Shadows (4) for Sign Magick; upgrade Storm of Spirits to (3); Twila Catherine Price (3) for David Renfield; Four of Cups (1) for a Spectral Razor; upgrade Clairvoyance to (3); upgrade Azure Flame to (5), and Robes of Endless Night (2).

Card Choices

Sign Magick - extra slot is key as more than a quarter of the deck is made up of arcane assets (two copies may be excessive)

Spirit Athame - versatile, helps with weak enemy combat tests and can boost any spell skill test (an extra copy may be worth it)

Azure Flame - backup to shrivelling, solid combat spell

Clairvoyance - backup to rite of seeking, solid investigation spell

Rite of Seeking - primary investigation spell

Shrivelling - primary combat spell

Suggestion - helpful for extremely evading dangerous foes and for mitigating enemy attacks

Holy Rosary - willpower boost and sanity shield

Arcane Initiate - essential early game ally for drawing spells

David Renfield - useful ally for resource generation as long as you can wipe the doom or kill him off (two copies may be excessive)

Smoking Pipe - helps kill off allies with doom and helps address mental trauma from arcane research

Thermos - since you will have 2 mental trauma, this heals 2 sanity which is powerful (it is very expensive and may be worth replacing, however)

Arcane Research - allows you to actually afford the spell upgrades contemplated

Blood Pact - allows you to do spell skill test boosts and can be wiped with the moonlight ritual, also great in the round before the agenda would advance anyway

Deny Existence - one of the best threat mitigation cards out there; at the (5) upgrade it can generate resources/cards/actions/heals which is very powerful

Moonlight Ritual - for wiping doom off the allies and blood pact

Spectral Razor - backup attack event (could be replaced)

Storm of Spirits - nice AoE attack when the enemies pile up

Uncage the Soul - must have in opening hand as it powers out withering and rite of seeking

Ward of Protection - great encounter card threat mitigation

Book of Shadows - can provide another spell slot and recharge spells (expensive and could be overkill given the number of charges you will have)

Twila Catherine Price - can recharge spells (could be overkill given the number of charges you will have)

Four of Cups - could provide more willpower boost in another slot (always good, but expensive for effect if not in initial hand)

Robes of Endless Night - fills the chest slot, provides value on spell costs (this deck runs low on resources frequently), allows dropping a spell in the middle of a fight (helpful when your shrivelling runs out of charges and needs to be swapped)