Madame Necronominhcon (Deck Guide)

Make sure to check the bottom of the Deck Guide for detailed explanation of Minh variant builds.

1. Hyper Research Variant - No taboo. Faster and stronger version of published deck with increased deck cycling via Research cards.

2. Priestess Ascension Variant - No taboo. Adds Innsmouth blessed token recursion to published deck.

3. Seekergeddon Survivor Variant - Taboo 2020. Drops taboo'd seeker cards while incorporating Scroll of Secrets. Play this build if you want to play the published deck but complying with taboo.

4. Secretary of Secrets Variant - Taboo 2020. Drops Necronomicon for Scroll of Secrets. Improved support for your team, but less damage.

5. Mariner Minh - Taboo 2020. Dark Horse build that improves clue-gathering via Mariner's Compass

6. Classic Minhfinity Stones - Taboo 2020. Updated StartWithTheName Infinity Stone build.

7. Ariadne's Winh - Taboo 2020. Dark Horse maintained using Ariadne's Twine to pay for stuff and to pull resources off your resource pool.

8. Schoffner's Necronomicon - No taboo. Puts Schoffner's Catalogue in the deck to bolster economy of The Necronomicon.

9. Schoffner's Secrets - Taboo 2021. Uses Schoffner's Catalogue and Eldritch Sophist to drive the Guided by the Unseen engine. Previously Ariadne's Twine simply competed for slots too much with Guided, now it doesn't have to be so.

10. Odd-Kirby Necro Cat MAF? - Taboo 2022. It's almost all exclusively odd-costed cards to maximize recurring Jeremiah Kirby with A Chance Encounter. I don't know, its super jank and gimmicky and I'm actually not even going for Kirby with ACE once my engines are going, I just manly used it on Library Docent for tome loops.

11. Eon Chart Sweeper - Taboo 2022. Extremely lean 27 exp Minh. Eon Charts get Scavenged for extended Written in the Stars plays.

.::OVERVIEW::.

Clue: 9 | Enemy Mgmt: 8 | Treachery: 7 | Tempo: 6 | Consistency: 9

The deck focuses on recycling The Necronomicon using Scavenging(2). Minh is incredible at triggering Scavenging because her playstyle allows her to reach the "succeed by 2 or more" threshold consistently and comfortably. Your primary role is still to be a cluever, but you have powerful testless, actionless damage making you a Seeker that doesn't need to be babysat. You can even play solo with this deck.

The tempo initially can be a little slower than other Minh builds since you will need to take a few actions to set up your assets/engines and you lack treachery negation. However, with so many skill icons, encounters that require you to perform a skill test shouldn't be any trouble for you. If you're really struggling against treacheries, Minh has access to Forewarned(1) and all versions of A Test of Will. This build has the advantage over Ancient Stone builds with consistent and testless enemy management as early as your 2nd scenario. (Ancient Stone leaves you very vulnerable until the 3rd scenario, and that's the best-case scenario.)

The Core upgrades of the deck only require 10 xp:

1. Dream Diary Dream Diary [Dreams of an Explorer]

2. Occult Lexicon The Necronomicon

3. Scavenging Scavenging

.::PILOTING: NECRONOMICON CYCLE::.

Playing Necronomicon - Scavenging(2) saves you an action and let's you play an item off successful investigations, something Minh/seekers are already fantastic at. Ideally, commit The Necronomicon for icons and then play it from the discard pile. (Note: You will not be able to use the Scavenging on the Investigate action you committed Necronomicon, but can scavenge on the next Investigate action.)

Discarding Necronomicon - You run 1 Magnifying Glass(1) to push an empty Necronomicon into the discard pile so you can replay it. You can also use Scavenging(2) to play a Magnifying Glass(1) from your discard pile over your Necronomicon. You can also use Act of Desperation to throw the Necronomicon at an enemy. Act of Desperation + Necronomicon actually lets Minh deal with enemies with 5 health which is incredibly self-reliant as a Seeker primarily focused on grabbing clues. You can even choose the right time to use Mr. Rook to find your The King in Yellow weakness and push the Necronomicon out of your hand slots that way.

Recurring Necromonicon - The deck uses Knowledge is Power to let you save charges on your Necronomicon. If the Necronomicon is already in your hand slot, you can deal 6 testless damage with Knowledge is Power. Scavenging(2) also lets you play it directly off successful investigations.

Economy - Take Heart and Act of Desperation help Minh recover resources to replay Necromonicon. When you have more exp to spend, Drawing Thin will allow you to bypass resources as a limiting factor for your Necronomicon loops. Of course, you can use Resourceful to recur any of these survivor cards.

.::MULLIGAN PRIORITY::.

Taking 2 Studious makes Seekers insanely reliable. When you mulligan, make sure you have at least one of the cards in the first category before you prioritize anything below it.

1. Tutors - Mr. "Rook", Eureka!

2. Primary Engine - Dream Diary

3. Economy - Drawing Thin, Take Heart

4. Secondary Engines - Analytical Mind, Grisly Totem, Scavenging, The Necronomicon

.::STARTING DECK::.

I've linked a template for the 0 Exp Campaign Starter deck. Here are the changes if you wish to manually swap out the exp cards:

• Dream Diary(3) Dream Diary(0)

• Magnifying Glass(1) Magnifying Glass(0)

• The Necronomicon(5) Occult Lexicon Gives you testless damage, economy, and card draw to help you get through Scenario 1

• Grisly Totem(3) Rabbit's Foot(0)

• Drawing Thin Rabbit's Foot(0)

• Drawing Thin Crack The Case Extra economy

• Pathfinder(1) Fine Clothes Most campaigns have someone you can parley in the first 2 scenarios

• Deduction(2) x2 Deduction(0)

• Sharp Vision(1) x2 "Look What I Found!" x2 Gives you icons and clue compression prior to your exp upgrades. You can also opt for Winging It, but you don't play extra discard synergy nor does it have icons for your weakness

.::CARD CHOICES / TIPS & TRICKS::.

Arcane Enlightenment - This card I'm still not sold on. The objective of the card is to allow you to dual-wield your Dream Diary and Necronomicon, both essential to Minh, without worrying about losing them to King in Yellow. However, by the time your engine is set up, you rarely have the time to play Arcane Enlightenment. You can swap this card out for a Forewarned, Logical Reasoning, Alter Fate just to have some answers to really really nasty treacheries.

The King in Yellow - You can deal with this card in 2 ways. Early into the game, you can aggressively use Mr. Rook to flush this card out. If you already have your 2 tomes out and haven't drawn King in Yellow yet, I would urge you to use your Necronomicon secrets generously. That way when you draw King in Yellow, you can push an empty Necronomicon out of your hand. Plus, since you will be overachieving in order to get rid of King in Yellow, you can almost certainly trigger Scavenging(2) off the Investigation action you perform.

Drawing Thin - I like to use this card on treacheries I intend to fail in order to gain some economy. Since you will need to overachieve to remove your signature King in Yellow, you can also Drawing Thin on the action you intend to remove your weakness with.

Knowledge is Power - When you are starting a campaign, you can use this card to trigger Dream Diary(0) so that you can grab Essence of the Dream without expending an action. Makes it much faster to achieve your tome side quests. You can combo with Necronomicon's testless clue and testless damage abilities for a total of 3 clues or 6 damage.

.::FURTHER UPGRADES::.

Inquiring Mind The Eye of Truth [Gives your whole team some treachery support]

Unexpected Courage Expeditious Retreat, Brute Force, Survival Instinct [Depending on what campaign you are playing, you may need to find action compression skill cards that can help you and your teammates.]

Eureka! Perception(2), Cryptic Research, No Stone Unturned [Ramp up your deck consistency so you get to your engine cards faster. I value Perception(2) the highest because of the icons. Cryptic Research's lack of icons actually sucks. Plus, you cycle your deck so fast, you are going to see your basic weaknesses and King in Yellow if you are blindly drawing via this card. Moreover, Necronomicon(5) already has lets you draw 6 cards off 1 fully charged tome.]

.::UPDATED DECKS & VARIANTS::.

1. [October 5, 2020] Hyper Research Variant - I got lucky and drew the basic weakness Indebted, so I was able to lean into a much more draw heavy variant of the deck. You will actually see King in Yellow 3-4 times a game, but you can scoop the scenario fast. I could consider this build for other weaknesses such as Atychiphobia, Day of Reckoning, Mob Enforcer, Silver Twilight Acolyte, Nihilism, Stubborn Detective, The 13th Vision, or the Unspeakable Oath hidden triplet. Basically, any weakness that you can either leave on the board the whole game or you can immediately kill using The Necronomicon and Knowledge is Power.

2. [October 8, 2020] Priestess Ascension Variant - The new blessed tokens are truly insane. Particularly the way that Survivor class can spam them into the bag with Keep Faith, and then recur them with Resourceful, and Scrounge for Supplies. This deck leans into having Minh play Keep Faith as many times as possible (enabled by the high cycling of the deck and Resourceful). You can then use Beloved across the map to ensure a teammate can either pull pass a critical test or piggyback off your blessed tokens to auto-success. Pendant of the Queen is used to teleport onto your teammates to give them your character ability as well as set up Ward of Radiance and Ancient Covenant. Drops the Necronomicon/damage and favors maximizing supporting your teammates.

3. [October 15, 2020] Seekergeddon Survivor Variant - The day has finally come! Don't worry about Minh, she is a real survivor and dealt with the Seekergeddon taboo of 2020 beautifully. She is still as resilient as hell. Try this new build that uses Scroll of Secrets to manipulate your discard pile (great for Scavenging(2) the Necronomicon) and discard weaknesses. Scroll has extra synergy by discarding Miss Doyle's cats or giving Yaotl +5 intellect via Necronomicon which makes Scavenging Necronomicon all the more easier. The deck drops Rook, Pathfinder, Knowledge is Power. It requires 3 more exp than what is currently shown cuz of the Necronomicon chain.

4. [October 17, 2020] Secretary of Secrets Variant - I'm leaning hard into the Scroll of Secrets(3) build and dropping Necronomicon (for all those who are averse to playing cards that are too OP). We are now playing Charles Ross, Esq. to discount the items you scavenge, Gregory Gry to give you some economy, Arcane Enlightenment to let you wield 2 Scroll of Secrets in addition to 1 Dream Diary (we are playing the 8 card dream diary this time and will try to fill our hand up instead of the 4-shroud one.)

5. [November 2, 2020] Mariner Minh - This one is pretty close to the last two. I haven't gotten a chance to test it fully, but the idea is to keep Dark Horse activated to benefit from Mariner's Compass every turn. Drawing Thin should be tapped to gain resources necessary to play a non-item such as Analytical Mind or A Glimmer of Hope. Use Scroll of Secrets to discard Items and Survivor cards so that you can pick them back up with Scavenging and Resourceful. Ideally, dump the Glimmers into the discard, so that you can pick them back up again. Try to use the Backpack(2) to pull out the extra Mariner and other Backpack and hold in its slot to thin your deck during future cycles.

6. [November 12, 2020] Classic Minhfinity Stones - This is the beautifully-crafted Minhfinity Stones build popularized by StartWithTheName linked here updated with new cards and to comply with the latest taboo list. The most glaring disadvantage is the lack of Mr. "Rook". Scroll of Secrets will not trigger your Ancient Stone, but still has great potential for finding combo pieces. Again, discard Survivor cards like Drawing Thin and Scavenging with Scroll and pick them back up with Resourceful as well as discard items to prep the discard pile. We are playing the fighting Dream Diary to improve our chances evading or fighting when we want to trigger the Ancient Stone without causing an Attack of Opportunity. Some new cards that improved this archetype are Arcane Enlightenment to help you hold potentially 2 Scrolls, 1 Ancient Stone, and 1 Dream Diary, (or 3 of those and 1 The King in Yellow). Backpack and Scavenging saves us actions when searching for items. If you wish to play 2 Ancient Stones to double the damage, simply take out 1 Scroll of Secrets.

7. [May 1, 2021] Ariadne & Dark Horse - This is a pretty cool one. Always take 1 resource during upkeep. As soon as you need to make a test, pull the resource off via Ariadne's Twine. If you ever end up with too much money with Madame Labranche, Take Heart, and Ariadne's Twine, you can pull use the resources to pay for teammate's Items. Everything else functions similar to how this deck already works. This is taboo friendly btw.

I've been waiting for a while for the starters to come out since my favorite investigator is Minh and I didn't have anything to contribute with Infinity Stone, Cat, Dream Diary + Dream Enhancing Serum decks already shared.