Parallel Agnes - Fragments of Hyperborea (Deck Guide)

Level 0: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/2261091

29 XP Standalone: https://arkhamdb.com/deck/view/2261209

Introduction

When Agnes Baker first found her heirloom of hyperborea, she received with it a vision of the four sacred relics of Hyperborea. Firstly, the hallowed mirror with its mysterious healing and protective properties. Next, the weathered lexicon with crimson pages of forbidden blood magicks. And lastly an enigmatic atlas with the power to read the signs written in the stars. With each newly acquired Fragment of Hyperborea, her powers grew, and with them so too did her coven. And once all four were within her grasp, she would finally be able to impose her will upon all reality.

Fragments of Hyperborea is a combat-leaning Parallel Agnes Baker deck focused around repeatedly playing potent events such as Spectral Razor, Blood Eclipse, Blood-Rite, Read the Signs, and Soothing Melody.

Why play this deck?

• You want to play as a lethal blood-mage, using your own life force to tear into monsters with Spectral Razors and Blood Eclipse. With the incredible card draw afforded to this deck through Blood-Rites, Astronomical Atlas, Heirloom of Hyperborea, and Arcane Initiate, alongside the ability to shuffle spells back into your deck with Parallel Agne's ability, you'll have no trouble keeping your hand stocked with events for every occasion. Thematically, this deck runs every possible "blood magic" card, including Blood Pact.

• You like to play with doom and don't mind a bit of risk. The deck runs a small doom package of Arcane Initiate, David Renfield, Blood Pact, and Moonlight Ritual. With 2 copies of Ward of Protection, you needn't be scared of early agenda flips from unexpected Ancient Evils.

• You want to play a that doesn't rely on traditional Spell assets like Shrivelling and Sixth Sense. Instead, this deck makes full use of the Mystic Spell event suite, giving it a distinctly different playstyle than traditional Mystic decks focused more on hand/resource management.

• You want to make full use of the intriguing card Mind's Eye. With a base 5 (6 with David Renfield) and the ability to boost heavily with Blood Pact and commit cards from Astronomical Atlas, this deck can beat any type test through sheer force of will. Need to finish off a 1-health enemy? Punch it with Mind's Eye. Take the last clue off of some location? Investigate with Mind's Eye. Draw a deadly , , or treachery? Mind's Eye. Need to evade a big monster? You guessed it, evasion with Mind's Eye. Since Parallel Agnes doesn't need to fill her arcane slots with Spell assets to fight or investigate, she can fit in Mind's Eye without making any compromises. The extreme draw power of the deck also helps replenish the Mind's Eye charges.

• You want to play a deck based around a few rockstar assets whose impact will be felt greatly. In this deck's case, those would be Astronomical Atlas (3), Occult Lexicon (3), Heirloom of Hyperborea, and Hallowed Mirror (3). By using Backpack (2), you can find and play these key cards early in the scenario.

Overview

Role: Fighter (75/25 leaning towards fighting)

• Use Backpack (2) to quickly put your key assets into play, then shred monsters with powerful spells. Agnes Baker's ability alongside Arcane Initiate for card draw provides an incredibly efficient economy, as long as you can afford to take damage to sustain it. Boost your with David Renfield(/card/05035) or Blood Pact, then utilize the flexible Mind's Eye (2) to beat tests of any sort.

• Enemy Management - Spectral Razor, Blood Eclipse, Storm of Spirits, Blood-Rite, punch with Mind's Eye, evade with Mind's Eye

• Investigation - Read the Signs, investigate with Mind's Eye

• Economy - Parallel Agnes Baker's ability, Astronomical Atlas, Occult Lexicon, Heirloom of Hyperborea, Arcane Initiate, David Renfield

• Support/Healing - Soothing Melody, Alter Fate, Ward of Protection, Astronomical Atlas

• Encounter Protection - Base 5 , Ward of Protection, Deny Existence, Mind's Eye, Alter Fate, Promise of Power (while leveling)

Play Tips

• Mulligan: Your priority is to play your Fragments of Hyperborea as quickly as possible. Keep (Backpack, Astronomical Atlas, Occult Lexicon, Hallowed Mirror, Heirloom of Hyperborea) and Arcane Initiate. To handle early enemies, keep one Spectral Razor or Shrivelling. Mulligan everything else (even Mind's Eye).

• The level 0 version of this deck is fairly similar to the fully upgraded version, except it includes Shrivelling and Sword Cane to provide extra stability. Rather than include the fairly weak Backpack (0), the level 0 deck uses Scroll of Secrets as draw power. Be more conservative with your health when playing this version, as your Soothing Melodies will only be healing for 2 rather than 3 until the mirror is upgraded. Don't forget that the backfire damage from Shrivelling can be placed on Heirloom of Hyperborea!

• Spectral Razor and Read the Signs are your workhorse spells. Always use Agne's ability to discount them, and always shuffle them back into your deck using that ability. Arcane Initiate will quickly fish them back out for you, along with your absurd card draw.

• Mind's Eye allows you to treat any test as a test. The primary use of this card is against treacheries and scenario-specific tests, but you can also use it for basic investigate, fight, or evade actions.

• Due to the wording on specifically the level 3 version of Blood Eclipse, the 1 damage taken to pay for Parallel Agne's ability also counts as damage taken to pay for Blood Eclipse. This means you can pay up to an additional 3 damage for a total of +4 and +4 damage. Although the price can be high, don't be afraid of doing big Blood Eclipses when needed. Spectral Razor does not do its full 3 damage against Elite enemies, but Blood Eclipse has no such restriction. As such, Blood Eclipse is your boss-killing spell of choice, along with the testless Blood-Rite.

• Soothing Melody and Blood-Rite are Spells! This means that they are valid targets for the search of Arcane Initiate.

• Blood-Rite can be used as an economy card in a pinch. It is a versatile card capable of dealing testless damage, drawing cards, and gaining resources.

• Remember that Spectral Razor is a test and Read the Signs is a test. That means you cannot commit icons to these tests. Blood Eclipse however is a test, as are tests using Mind's Eye, so icons can be committed. Remember these constraints when commiting cards from Astronomical Atlas!

• Sometimes, card can get 'stuck' on Astronomical Atlas. For example, Read the Signs is the only way you can commit icons and still expect to pass the test. Most cards can be committed on Mind's Eye tests since it does tests. Don't forget that you can commit cards attached to Astronomical Atlas to tests taken by other investigators at your location! If a card with an is stuck on your Atlas, try committing it to an investigate test done by your Seeker teammate. Some cards can also just be left on the Atlas if you no longer need them, such as Backpack (2) once you already have played your items. This prevents them from diluting your deck, meaning you're more likely to draw your powerful spells.

• Moonlight Ritual can be used very flexibly. Even removing a single doom with it is worthwhile, for example clearing doom off of a turn-1 Arcane Initiate. You can let David Renfield stack up multiple doom to generate resources, then remove them all in one action. Lastly, you can use it together with Blood Pact for massive skill boosts.

• On the turn before the agenda would naturally advance (aka "The Witching Hour"), you can go wild with your doom-generating cards, since any doom you make won't actually make the agenda advance any earlier. That means there's no reason not to put a doom on David and use Blood Pact on every test you take that turn. The Witching Hour is also a great time to play your Arcane Initiate. Just remember that your weakness, Dark Memory, doesn't work like these cards, since it can cause the agenda to advance.

• Since Spectral Razor uses both and , you can trigger both abilities on Blood Pact on a single test for +6. This is usually overkill and not terribly practical, but it is a cool trick.

• Always keep an eye out for good situations to use Deny Existence for healing. You can often choose to tank a big attack of opportunity then use Deny to heal instead. Just remember that Deny can only mitigate either the damage or horror of a card, not both simultaneously.

• Dark Memory is a nasty weakness. It is a Spell, so you can use your ability to discount it. There's no getting around the additional doom added, so just be conscientious of it and try not to cause early flips with Arcane Initiate or David Renfield. It's easy to kill off your allies with your ability once the Agenda gets close to flipping. Be sure to keep track of if Ancient Evils is in the deck, and how many have been drawn. This will help you make more informed decisions about when to kill off your allies. If you have enough sanity remaining and the scenario is close to ending, you can consider trying to simply take the 2 horror each turn and not playing Dark Memory. Since Dark Memory is a player card while in your hand, you cannot use Deny Existence on this horror (though you can place it on Heirloom of Hyperborea). Dark Memory can also be discarded through random discard effects (but not chosen to be discarded). Often though, you will just have to accept the doom. Since you'll likely be drawing through the entire deck every game, one useful trick is to hold Dark Memory in hand until just after you've caused a reshuffle. That way, it goes into your discard pile and you know you won't draw it again for an entire deck shuffle, which is often enough to end the game. Most games, you will only have to play Dark Memory once if you play it after reshuffling. Of course, if you draw Dark Memory early, this isn't always an option.

Upgrade Order:

(0 XP)

• Relic Hunter (3)
• Charisma (3)
• 2x Scroll of Secrets 2x Backpack (2)

(10 XP)

• 1x Hallowed Mirror Hallowed Mirror (3)
• 1x Occult Lexicon Occult Lexicon (3)
• 1x Sword Cane 1x Astronomical Atlas (3)
• 2x Shrivelling, 1x Sword Cane 3x Mind's Eye (2)

(21 XP)

• 1x Storm of Spirits, 1x Promise of Power 2x Blood Eclipse (3)
• [OPTIONAL] Blood Pact (3)

(30XP)

• 1x Promise of Power Alter Fate (3)
• 2x Ward of Protection 2x Ward of Protection (2)

(37XP)

• 2x Deny Existence 2x Deny Existence (5)

(47 XP)

Further upgrade options: Arcane Initiate (3), Seal of the Elder Sign (5), Ward of Protection (5), Observed (4)

Variations:

The 3 card slots dedicated to Mind's Eye can easily be swapped for other Arcane slot assets.

• Sixth Sense (4)/Rite of Seeking (4) - More focused on investigation.

• Shrivelling - Pure focus on combat. Remember that the horrors can be placed on Heirloom of Hyperborea.

• Earthly Serenity - More healing/support (can also heal your teammates).

• Mind's Eye (2) - Maximum flexibility and protection against encounter deck ( tests).

• Seal of the Seventh Sign (5) - Potentially very nice safety to ensure your Read the Signs and Spectral Razors can't miss, but pricy.

For the hand slots, Astronomical Atlas (3) can be swapped for another Item.

• The Chthonian Stone - A bit of token sealing and team support. The original version of this deck ran this over Atlas.

• Scroll of Prophecies - Focused card draw that can also support teammates.

• Sword Cane - Flexible 1-damage pings and evasions, mostly eclipsed by Mind's Eye (2) if you're running it.

Although it is not a Spell and does not benefit from Parallel Agne's ability, Drawn to the Flame is a good option if you want to lean the deck more towards investigating.

Blood Eclipse can be replaced with Storm of Spirits. You lose some single target damage (which is very important for boss enemies - remember that Spectral Razor only deals 2 damage to Elites), but gain some area damage which can be helpful against swarms. However, the 2-damage backfire of drawing a symbol token when testing for Storm of Spirits is quite scary.

A more asset-heavy version of the deck can upgrade into Dayana Esperence and 2nd Charisma immediately before Blood Pact in the upgrade progression. This necessitates cutting some other cards to make space such as one Deny Existence and one Promise of Power (skipping Alter Fate later); any Spell besides Spectral Razor and Read the Signs is cuttable. The main Spells to attach to Dayana are Spectral Razor and Read the Signs, but Blood-Rite, Soothing Melody, or Ward of Protection (2) are also good.