Agnes Baker rejects her past lives

(Card pool pulled from: Core Revised, Dunwich, Carcossa, Scarlet Keys and starter decks).

Decided to make a deck based around the empty arcane slot package of Scarlet keys and struggled. Originally I was going for Daisy Walker who doesn't need arcane slots at all and could utilise the extra hand slots a build like this could give for more tomes but that's just a regular Daisy build. A general issue with this style of build is trying to do things without spell assets means you're generally trying to use your worse stats or rely on events in a class with low draw power, then I remembered the core rule of Arkham; doesn't matter what your stats when playing survivor.

The combo of Fire Axe, Forbidden Knowledge and Agnes Baker's own ability leads to potent enemy handling anyway and with Explosive Ward to help with higher heath enemies and Peter Sylvestre for the evading you handle that side very well. Between high willpower, Ward of Protection and A Test of Will you also handle treacheries well and can leverage this with Drawn to the Flame to get value out of it. Unlike what I usually find with Mystics the combo of Eldritch Initiation, Forbidden Knowledge and Take Heart give you pretty nice consistency and economy which can work around Fire Axe. Finally the clue side is handled by the previously mentioned Drawn to the Flame as well as Old Keyring, "Look what I found!" and Dowsing Rod. Chuck in some more support and skill boosts and you have yourself a build (turns out level 0 survivor is pretty great).

The side deck is full of good upgrades which I think are worth looking at. Astral Mirror is quite expensive but the deck is generally cheap enough to justify it meanwhile Binder's Jar provides good defence as well as extra value from your level 0s, either of these can be 2x but as they don't stack consider how important it is to get them out. The rest are good defensive cards and support that allow you to better utilise your abilities or upgrades to previously good cards.

Some good options not present in the deck include St. Hubert's Key for the stats or Holy Rosary as a cheaper option, Familiar Spirit or Madame Labranche for extra allies with either Flare or Calling in Favors to find them (and Charisma of course), dark horse if you wish to go cheaper and finally Power Word is good option for any mystic build like this (even with the taboo if you play with that). At higher levels you can look at utilising any of the good exile cards, Flashlight and Shed a Light (option at level 0 without taboo) or maybe even the dilema cycle as you work suprisingly well with options like Nature of the Beast and Heed the Dream (if you team doesn't mind the discard).

Overall this is a pretty fun deck for someone who wants to do mystic things without feeling like a 5 willpower spell bot or chaos token support, the upgrades are somewhat limited in scope so perhaps not fit for a higher xp campaign and the fact a lot of your events aren't spells means you don't utilise Heirloom of Hyperborea that well (although I imagine this changes with the dream eater mystic cards if you choose to) but very nice overall. The utility and resilience of the build means it can be adapted into solo if you cut some of the more supportive options but in most campaigns this should be able to provide good results at least in the earlier scernarios at which point you can choose to piviot into using your arcane slots with Shrivelling and other high xp spells if the slotless style isn't suiting you anymore.