Intro

• This deck is built to abuse Written in the Stars. It effectively gives us Amanda Sharpe's text.
• We are setting up our deck to hit both Deductions (2) off Written in the Stars every turn, to discover 5 clues every investigate action.
• We are taking a lot of investigate actions with Close the Circle, Eon Chart (1), and free action Grim Memoir.
• We have unlimited Pendant of the Queen for movement.

Alternate Versions

• An ascetic version that basically does the same thing.
• An upgraded version that can also deal 16 testless damage every turn for 2 actions (and find even more clues).
• Click on the notes tab on each link to see their respective explanations.
• So.. yea this is probably the most egregiously powerful Ascetic deck in the game AFAIK.

How it works (Setting Up)

• Get rid of your random basic weakness. Ideally it's a non cycling weakness or an enemy weakness we can Transmogrify. If not get your team's help to solve it somehow. Best is Black Market trick which we can set up very easily (*see the end of this guide for a rundown on the Black Market trick if unfamiliar).
• We will draw through our deck and play out all the assets. Some assets like the Higher Education and Forbidden Knowledge were just chosen to thin out our deck.
• Once we find Scientific Theory (3), we will use it's soak for Forbidden Knowledge to pay for everything.
• Then, in our second deck cycle, we don't want to play out our draw events. We would love it for a teammate to give us At a Crossroads etc. If not, we can use our drawing assets cards like Grim Memoir or even take basic draw actions (Close the Circle can also be used to draw).
• We want to be left holding 1 × Uncanny Specimen, 2 × Deep Knowledge, 2 × Tempt Fate and 2 × Perception in our hand for the rest of the game.
• If Tempt Fate isn't something you want to play, replace them with 2 more copies of Uncanny Specimen.
• Now our deck cycle only consists of 6 cards: 2 × Written in the Stars, 2 × Deduction (2), 1 × Enraptured (2) and 1 × Scientific Theory (3).
• We will be putting 2 of the 3 skills under Written in the Stars every turn. We will do the Enraptured (2) every 5 or so turns to keep everything topped up.
• Scientific Theory (3) is here to soak the reshuffle horror.
• Be careful not to accidentally fully spend Living Ink, Forbidden Knowledge or Pendant of the Queen as they will discard / RFG.

How it works (Looping)

• At the start of each upkeep phase, we will have 2 × Deductions (2), 2 × Written in the Stars, Enraptured (2), and usually also Scientific Theory (3) in our discard pile + an empty deck.
• When we draw for upkeep, we'll shuffle the 6 cards into our deck and draw 1 at random.
• If it is 1 of the 3 skills, we won't be using it for Written in the Stars this turn and instead just committing it from hand.
• We pass the mythos phase and come to our own investigator phase.
• With 5 cards left in the deck, we use Scroll of Secrets (3).
• Draw 1 of the non-skills. Put any other non-skill on top.
• Use Empirical Hypothesis to draw that card.
• Use the second Scroll of Secrets (3) to draw the last non-skill.
• Play Scientific Theory (3) for soak, and both Written in the Stars.
• To pay the 2 money for both Written in the Stars, we will use Forbidden Knowledge for a money and just put the horror on Scientific Theory (3). We can also play Dr. Milan Christopher for that extra money but he's not necessary and Whitton Greene helps us set up faster.
• An edge case is if we see all 3 skills off the first Scroll of Secrets (3). We will just draw the one we don't want to use (usually Enraptured (2)) and put the other 2 skills on the bottom. Then we just go ahead and use Empirical Hypothesis and the other Scroll of Secrets (3) to draw what we need.
• We will then take up to 7 investigate actions, discovering a maximum of 35 clues.

Black Market Trick

• There is a rule in AH that when a card is shuffled into an empty deck, it fails (and is usually discarded).
• This is to prevent cards like Tommy Muldoon's weakness Rookie Mistake from infinitely shuffling itself back into the deck as the last card and soft-locking.
• When a card put into Black Market tries to shuffle itself back into an empty deck, it fails and returns to where it was.
• That happens to be 'out of play', so it is now permanently out of play.