Akachi is a Slot Machine

I know what you're thinking: that's entirely to many assets, and.. you would be right. In theory it shouldn't work, but I played a variation of this deck in a 4-player run of Innsmouth and not only did it work, it was a lot of fun and the feeling of having half your deck on the table is exhilarating.

I believe this was possible in no small part thanks to the fact I was the dedicated fighter in a high-player number campaign, which allows for a lot of "downtime" if you're efficient enough in vaporizing enemies as soon as they appear.

A correct mulligan is essential and your team should be ok with you setting up an entire turn (sometimes even 2...). Aim for 1 blasting spell, 1 money-printer (either Prophetic, Spirit-Speaker or the all-powerful Red Clock) and possibly 1 extra slot (The Hierophant • V is obviously the best, a Binder's Jar is fine, but ditch the Dragon Pole if you don't have the other pieces already). If you didn't find any blaster, chances are you have an Arcane Initiate or an Eldritch Initiation to dig deeper as your first or second action. Resources can be a bit of a problem, admittedly, if you don't find the right cards, but I was lucky enough to be friends with a rogue and a seeker who gave me a bit of allowance here and there.

The Red Clock is an absolutely incredible card all around. If you manage to get it in your opening hand you can play it with 1 charge on it already, move twice the following turn to make up for the lost time and get 2 bucks the turn after to play something else. You rarely prefer the extra action over the 2 moves, and resetting it early makes for a steadier income. Really cannot overstate how strong this card is.

Don't discard enemies for the Jar, you want to tuck in the first thing on the field to get an early slot and then the nastiest thing the encounter deck has to offer and never let them out ever.

If you ever find yourself short on charges and cards but managed to get most of your stuff out, the Dragon Pole will hit like a truck, I got through a scenario with an empty Shrivelling and all the other attack spells at the bottom of the deck by whacking fishmen with a hefty +4 bonus.

Besides other more straightforward choices, Living Ink started in the deck as a way to fill more arcane slots. I found it overkill in the long run, but a free boost that lasts as long as you need it is nice and makes for a fun xp dump if you get much more in the late scenarios. Both it and the Holy Rosaries could be swapped out for some skill cards, if you didn't want to completely commit to the greedyness this deck entails.

If you're allergic to clues like I was, Blur makes for a nice alternative to Divination, as do the Mists of R'lyeh. They add another way to manage enemies, both for the initial mulligan or if you don't want to kill something for some reason (I was lucky enough to draw My Worst Nightmare at the start as the almost-sole fighter of the group so upgrading a bit into evasion seemed like the right choice). Costing 1 resource less makes them a lot more affordable with Prophetic and the extra actions/moves feel very good when you spend so much time playing cards from your hand.

In general I'm not a fan of healing since I believe in the church of "the only hit point that matters is the last one", but Earthly Serenity can spread the love in one go and Meditative Trance can get to really good numbers in this deck.

The choice of synergy spells is in part because I love the assurance of only spending charges if successful, in part because when you get to that point, the free move and play actions from Close the Circle are a godsend. It also hurts less to lose their charges to your weakness while the extra charge from your passive is still useful.

Speaking of, it's also worth noting that Angered Spirits becomes a non-issue. Either you draw it early and have plenty of time to feed it with your copious amount of assets or you get it at the end and pretty much solve it in one go since none of your spells exhaust on use and you might have 4 out straight away.

Most of this sounds pretty evident when I type it out, but I still wanted to highlight some of the good bits and explain my thought process.

Thanks to Valentin1331 for the deck that gave me the initial inspiration.

Click here for an idea of how the 0xp version was. I kept on adding assets 'cause I kept getting away with it in the following scenarios.

Take it for a spin an let me know what you think :)