Baker's Home for Imaginary Monsters

Hi everybody! Meet Agnes. By day, she's a waitress, but at night, she's a devoted member of her local Monster Fostering and Rehabilitation program, taking poor lost monsters like her doggy friends and giving them a good home!

This deck is designed to use her Heirloom of Hyperborea and the Drawing Thin/Live and Learn combo to draw quickly through the deck until she can commit Summoned Hound to a skill test and then recur it with A Chance Encounter, keeping her from ever having to deal with a bad dog! Then she can use the extra free actions to keep gathering resources and cards, and playing useful events like Open Gate or even the dramatic Storm of Spirits! Her reincarnated-woman's-best-friends will snuffle out any and all clues, and adorably rip out the throats of any threats to their master's wellbeing.

This is set up with the 9 XP for a standalone mission, but can easily be taken in on a campaign. Just cut Charisma, get the level 0 A Chance Encounter, and replace your doggos with a Sixth Sense and a Wither to tie you over until you can get your first bits of XP and bring those good boys home!

You can also vary this deck by running two of the four Desperation cards, and doing a version of the Desperate Duke combo. It's a bit more XP-heavy, since you need a second copy of Charisma, probably two copies of Yaotl, and your draw is a little weaker because you'll be running fewer spells in order to slot in the six or so new cards. But it's also stupidly powerful, and when compared to Duke your dog-searches won't require an action and have an additional stat value.

Upgrades from here include improved spells, especially control spells, but there isn't a whole lot for you to do to strengthen the build. You can honestly spend most of your XP on refilling a pair of Flares, since they also bypass Unbound Beast and help you also tutor Yaotl if you're going all in on Desperation. If you're not playing Desperation, Miss Doyle is a great option for a second copy of Charisma, giving you even more attack/investigate/evade at base 5, plus those wonderful auto-successes when needed. Plus, more imaginary monsters!