True Spirit

Where to begin... at the beginning, I guess? This deck first started life as a thought experiment, about maximising the usability of Third Time's The Charm. Digging for specific tokens, digging to avoid certain tokens... as I considered the list, I realised that Agnes could take Spirit of Humanity, and use it to either heal herself or trigger her reaction ability at will, just like Forbidden Knowledge.

Eventually that original deck got discarded, but I did find myself fascinated about an Agnes 'Spirit of Humanity' deck. SoH can support several deck options - a Curse-based spell alongside a single Spirit, maybe a double Spirit and clues/fighting handled entirely outside the Arcane slots, additional Arcane slots, Ancient vs Paradoxical Covenant... even just Bless (or Curse) Generation for a bigger team.


After some thought, I created the above decklist as a baseline for branching off in different directions. It's gone through several iterations, but I'm fairly happy with the result. I decided to focus mainly on physical fighting and magical investigation. (Though I've already taken Ancient Covenant - there's an argument that can be made for Paradoxical, but I like being able to stop at the first Bless token and saying 'I passed, phew'.)

Read the Signs and "Look what I found!" provide the most direct clue-finding options until Sixth Sense can be dug out of the deck, with Lucky! as a backup option (and Rise to the Occasion can help surmount 4+ shroud locations).

Enchanted Blade might've been tempting (for the +2 combat on an empowered swing) if it wasn't for the fact it takes up an Arcane slot itself. As a result, I've plumped for Fire Axe and Meat Cleaver as the main weapons - though Agnes can also act as her own weapon versus weak-enough foes.

The skills are mainly intended to be general support, leaning towards combat support. Their main use is their icons, rather than any extra effects they could add to tests, so I don't have much to add here - though Take Heart obviously is for failing tests, not passing them.

Having relatively little card draw is a concern, I have to admit - that's the main reason Scroll of Prophecies is in there. Though a singleton isn't all too reliable, I'm not sure what I'd be happy to cut for a second copy. (I don't run Taboo, so Scroll of Secrets would've been a terrible option - but with taboo, it's arguably a better alternative.)

Eventually Curses do become a problem late in a scenario, throwing the reliability of the bag off even with Ancient Covenant, unless you avoid healing with the Spirit at all. There are several ways to build to mitigate this (Harmony Restored and Rite of Equilibrium both come to mind, or maybe an upgraded The Eye of Chaos), but as they mostly cost additional XP I haven't included them in this 'base' version.
Of course, it's not quite completely basic, given I've already taken a Covenant, and Jessica Hyde (for the combat boost and the damage soak)... but that's 4 extra XP, and it's still something you can reasonably make within the first 2 scenarios of most campaigns.

Resource generation is a bit weak, but unlike the draw that's ok; once set up, the deck runs relatively cheaply, and Forbidden Knowledge is (as ever) a great way for Agnes to make actionless money and throw a damage ping in there. Fire Axe can be a bit of a money hog, though.

Dark Horse was tempting, especially given the Fire Axe... I might go back to it, but for now it was cut simply because I was getting hesitant on the number of assets. (At one point the deck had 14, and that felt a little too much.)


Ok - that's enough exposition, I think that covers everything. I hope I've convinced you that Spirit of Humanity Agnes could be an interesting, if janky, take on the core set Mystic, and that you feel inspired to test out something similar :D (Maybe even using the Parallel front, and using the Spirit for actionless healing and curse generation..?)