Agatha Crane as , unlike Core Set's Agnes Baker, offers standard investigation using typical tools and usable 4 . Clue compression is on Rite of Seeking (2) with its built in +2 , Ocula Obscura's help to avoid symbol tokens, and later Enraptured (2) refill to get more value out of that heavy 4 play cost.

Agatha's replays Drawn to the Flame and Working a Hunch for instant clue regardless of shroud. You can perform one extra Investigate at the end of your turn replaying Correlate All Its Contents. Lastly Eyes of the Dreamer, even when you didn't get 2 clues, there's very high chance that a winning token is revealed for you to choose. This can beat high shroud location protected with effects that prevent clue cheating.

Agatha is ready to pick up clues from all sorts of weird locations and situations. It's a beginner friendly deck to get a taste of non-Seeker clue finders!

Accolades : Won The Innsmouth Conspiracy Standard 3P being the only clue finder in the team!

2026 Environment Starter Deck : A series of beginner friendly decks using only cards inside the Current Environment used in year 2026. Currently the exact details has not been released yet, this is based on my prediction that Revised Core Set and The Drowned City Investigator Expansion are very likely to be in that environment.

^^ There's a Michael McGlen deck in there! ^^

(View at arkham-starter.com)

Progression overview

Easy to understand upgrades have been planned for you up to 24 XP!

How to play at 0 XP

I suggest you mulligan like a Seeker (Flashlight, Magnifying Glass, Perception, Deduction) instead of like a Mystic (Arcane Initiate, Holy Rosary). Playing like Mystic will worth doing more after we got 2x Rite of Seeking (2) + 2x Enraptured (2).

Notice that there is no Dr. Milan Christopher in this deck because I want to use the slot for Arcane Initiate / Katarina Sojka instead. The economy depends on Mortar and Pestle (no Emergency Cache either), which if you can get it in play early, will help you put down Breath of the Sleeper and Eyes of the Dreamer down without affecting your resources. It'll take several turns for Arcane Initiate to fetch those up, usually they come just in time you get 2~3 rounds of exhausts on Mortar and Pestle. Unlike Dr. Milan Christopher, Mortar and Pestle can earn even with just "discovering" clues, so try using Working a Hunch and Drawn to the Flame as well.

There are many ways to beat 4 shroud locations in the first scenario. Use Flashlight + Magnifying Glass combo, or Holy Rosary + Eyes of the Dreamer and pick the best token. Cheat with Working a Hunch / Drawn to the Flame.

If you are lucky enough to get Ocula Obscura, resolving the sealed number token often easily nets you a clue anywhere, as well as tailor commit icons to win any test in Mythos Phase due to her 4 + 3 . (The commit for side are on : Confidence, Manual Dexterity, and Unexpected Courage)

Katarina Sojka is a tricky to use ally. She soaks the same as Arcane Initiate for 1 cost higher. The main use is so you had ignored some tokens (without the help of Breath of the Sleeper / Eyes of the Dreamer) and is allowed to replay Drawn to the Flame / Working a Hunch / Correlate All Its Contents in your discard pile at the end of your turn. The other use is to attempt to reveal a lot of number tokens leading up to the symbol when you have Ocula Obscura equipped, so you can seal the best number token there. Lastly, it's an insurance to bump out Arcane Initiate with doom on your own without help from enemies / treacheries. I had risked playing Arcane Initiate on 4~6 doom agenda before and Katarina Sojka kicking the doom out was quite clutch.

Breath of the Sleeper is not very good, you better ignore that +2 damage because it likely won't happen even with 3 charges spent. I think most of the time Shrivelling is better, but I want new players to try out new cards as much as possible. The neat thing about this card is that you can reliably deal 1 damage to an enemy needs finishing off or even a boss with Retaliate, because you get to choose 1 out of maximum 4 tokens revealed, unlike Shrivelling with no accuracy bonus and with risk of rebound horror. So work with your fighters with this in mind instead of trying to repeatedly deal 1 damage to kill the enemy on your own. Also note that it is still usable even when out of charges, you just lose the ability to pick from many tokens. At least she can avoid using her 1 and get a boost from Holy Rosary. Remember that you often qualified to replay Event after fighting with this (so it appears like you are both contributing to a bit of damage and clues), and also may seal something nice on Ocula Obscura along the way.

2 XP : Cosmic Revelation •

This is an insane card in 3~4 players, even if your team want to play cards that doesn't match the even/odd thing you said, they can still draw a card. When played at the end of your turn with Agatha's , this saves an action to play things like Flashlight / Mortar and Pestle and you are ready to roll when the next round comes.

Due to its convenient icons, you can simply commit this card as a part of Katarina Sojka / Breath of the Sleeper / Eyes of the Dreamer skill test so you had ignored some tokens and play it with Agatha's instead to compress action in crunch time.

There's a little combo when you play this manually, then immediately replay with , choosing different choice of even / odd, so it surely meet the needs to play stuff of everyone in the team. (Plus the entire team can see most of each other's cards, except skill cards which have no cost.)

6 XP: Rite of Seeking ••

Our workhorse clue compression card has arrived! You can feel the reliability of +2 right away and can be even better with Holy Rosary. The standard play is to this only on your last action so the turn ending doesn't matter, and Agatha can consistently perform 2x Investigate before finishing the turn with this.

It's a non-bo with Katarina Sojka since getting symbol would end your turn. However, it's a combo with Ocula Obscura because you know for sure you are resolving a number token. Now you can use your 1st action to win a test and seal a number token, then use the twice on the 2nd and 3rd action to get 4 clues.

Having some resources on Mortar and Pestle to discount this is important as it is quite expensive. To make full use of it, keep the empty spell around and have Correlate All Its Contents refill a charge. Visibly sealed token on Ocula Obscura can help you nail down that succeed by 1 / 3 for a massive 2 charges refill!

10 XP : Enraptured ••

This card joins Correlate All Its Contents in the task of refilling the charges of Rite of Seeking (2). The usage is perfect for Agatha as she can use her 4 + icons to win the refilling test.

Look for teammates with charges and secrets to refill as well. The text says "assets" so you can distribute those as you wish.

At this XP point, Rite of Seeking (2) is now at its maximum reliability and deck feels very complete already. You can change your mulligan tactics accordingly, like keeping Arcane Initiate and Holy Rosary. If you need to slot in a new clue finder deck in an emergency, Ascetic's 10 XP arrives exactly at this point.

14/18 XP: Grotesque Statue ••••

I don't really want to remove Flashlight ever, but I can't find any other space for these. For the same play cost, you can similarly try to win higher shroud with it but by selecting a better token instead of shroud reduction, and +1 more use. But in addition, you are ready to face meaner treacheries in the later half of the campaign! You might even find yourself evading some enemies in an emergency with this.

Its charges can be refilled with Correlate All Its Contents and Enraptured (2) we previously purchased, but remember to not let it falls to 0 charges because it automatically discard itself.

The effect will ignore one token, which qualifies you for Agatha's end of turn Event play.

It's a fine card to get something to seal on Ocula Obscura because it is possible to get two low number tokens and you can choose the best one to seal, while Katarina Sojka on Scenario 5~8 might land on harsh symbol tokens around this point of the story and makes you fail the test.

21/24 XP: Deliverance •••

You'll love this card once you tried it and see what happen. It's not as scary as it sounds even when the text says you can't Ward of Protection anything drawn and you get one extra surge.

• Holy Rosary wins tests, or even soak if you somehow missed.
• I left 1x Unexpected Courage in the deck for this moment, you can flexibly win / soften tests as well. It is likely that it gets committed somewhere in the barrage of treacheries.
• If you do it at the same location as the fighters, getting (low HP) enemy is often a good draw because fighter can still swiftly finish it off with only an addition of friendly fire risk.
• If you have a number token sealed on Ocula Obscura, you usually win the first test you get. (But you must resolve the token, you don't have a choice to keep it for later tests.)
• If you have Arcane Initiate and a doom ready to be cleaned up, it's a good time to pile up all kind of hurts on it. Plus the low play cost of 1 tanking one of the treacheries is pretty good.
• The Ocula Obscura sealing is once per phase, but not the release. So if you had one sealed from the last round, it is possible to use one up, then seal a new one winning tests in the following treachery, and then immediately use the just-sealed token in the following treacheries, resulting in 2 Ocula Obscura releases in one phase! It could occur in 3~4 players.

In my experience, this Agatha often came out of Deliverance unscratched or with better result than others in the team taking them. Then your team get to enjoy predictable next round free of any treacheries!

If you notice the deck uses Ancient Evils, be careful, because you cannot Ward of Protection them in this sequence, so count the copies gone and weight the risk accordingly. If the deck uses Dark Cult set, you may try waiting until it is about to advance to do this, so sudden doom spike is not a problem if you can't deal with them in time.