Expert Minhfinite|30k Series|Deck Guide

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Lolfinity | 30K Series Takeover! | Deck Guide 47 30 20 1.0
Expert Minhfinite|30k Series|Deck Guide 0 0 2 1.0
Rex Errant: Jailbreaking the Necronomicon 57 44 4 1.0
Expert Minhfinite|30k Series|Deck Guide SEBASTIAN LAST SCENA 0 0 0 1.0
Expert Minhfinite|30k Series|Deck Guide SEBASTIAN LAST SCENA 0 0 0 2.0

Valentin1331 · 65070

The unassuming Assistant finds a Grim Memoir and through its Knowledge, gains infinite Power.

Extensive-Research-Andreia_Ugrai.jpg

Credit: Andreia Ugrai


Introduction

Many of us were baffled when playing high-draw decks for the first time, occasionally enjoying this guilty pleasure with Amanda. Yet, one thing that Amanda didn't necessarily have was infinites in:

  • Clues
  • Fight, including Aloof enemies, skipping engage actions
  • Move
  • Healing

So let's see how Minh takes over the title of the most bonkers investigator from Amanda.

Disclaimer: This deck has the capacity to tear apart the fabric of ~~ Silas's Shirt~~ - reality... This is better played true solo because its sheer power can make anyone at your table feel like they came to The Minh Show.
In multiplayer, you can limit yourself or, better, self-tabooing Knowledge is Power as a non-fast event. The latter will make it a very good deck, just a bit more... balanced. If doing so, you can add a Scavenging (2) to cycle the Grim Memoir and keep your Knowledge is Power for fighting and healing.


After the 20k Series and its success, this 30k Series will focus on the investigators that are much harder to solve. Expect some jank, some outside-of-the-box thinking and hopefully some love for the underdogs of this game.

Click here to see all the previous decks. I will keep releasing a new standalone-ready deck concept every week on Friday, so stay tuned and keep pressing the button if you want to see more!


Table of Contents:
  • Overview

  • Main Strategy

  • Knowledge is the most powerful weapon against the Mythos

  • The rest of the game

  • Random Basic Weaknesses

  • Other Cards

  • Upgrade Path

  • Postscriptum - Taboo Suggestion


Overview:
 
Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆
Enemy Management: ★★★★★
Clue-getting: ★★★★★★
Encounter protection: ★★★★★
Survivability: ★★★★★
Economy: ★★★★☆
Card Drawing: ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Main Strategy:

Knowledge is the most powerful weapon against the Mythos:

Clues:

  • Use Knowledge is Power on Grim Memoir, committing Unrelenting and Perception (2) to cycle your deck.

    • Use Analysis during the test to drop a clue and reroll any inconvenient token, such as the -8 or .

    • This means dropping a few clues occasionally, but that also means as long as you have clues to drop, you are sure to succeed, even in Expert.

    • As Analysis was my appointed card during the TSK Preview season organised by @Veronica, I am thrilled not only to find a home for it but actually have it as a cornerstone of such a powerhouse deck.

    • Commit Eureka! for a cantrip that searches your deck. This is especially good when you just played your Knowledge is Power, and your other copy is in your deck among 3 other cards. Eureka! will allow you to keep going, greatly mitigating the risks of breaking the loop because of the lack of draw.

    • Commit Deduction for acceleration (otherwise, it takes a loooong time to collect the clues one by one).

    • Practice Makes Perfect helps if you haven't found Perception (2) or Unrelenting to maintain the loop, or Analysis to make your test failproof.

    • Cryptic Writings pay for Practice Makes Perfect.

Fight:

Absorb the horror:

Move:

  • Shortcut.

  • If you need to move further than 2 locations away, you can investigate (even on an empty location) to trigger a deck cycle and find your Shortcuts again.


The rest of the game:

Scenario Tests and triggers:

These are the only ones that will spend your actions.

  • Because of Perception (2) and Mind over Matter, anything that is not a test is easy to pass and will maintain the loop for the following test.

    • If doing a scenario action that involves a test, you can initiate the loop during this test, which would be your last chance to do one during your turn.
  • For tests, Minh benefits from her great base stat, and we can use Analytical Mind, Eureka!, Unrelenting to go to high values and Analysis as our failproof tech.

Set up:

As a rule of thumb, the fewer cards you use during your first cycle, the faster you'll be ready to loop. The encounter cards you will draw will determine how many cards you will need to commit.
Overall, it's worth being a bit slower, taking damage/horror early, and even if it means power drawing during your first 2 turns, it is all worth it since you'll then be unstoppable later.


Random Basic Weaknesses:

The heavy-drawing mechanic can be heavily affected based on the weaknesses that you pull. Here are some leads on how likely it is to happen if using this deck and how to mitigate most of the unfortunate weaknesses:

RBWs that threaten the loop and ways to mitigate them:

Standalone Mode: Breaking the loop: 2/37 - Impacting the gameplay: 6/37

  • Narcolepsy: Complete blocker. You lose all your remaining actions every time you cycle. It's unlikely that you will keep this one, though, as you probably won't play this deck in full intensity in multiplayer.

    • A fun interaction would be that if you draw Narcolepsy while drawing multiple cards at the same time, and this causes your deck to shuffle, the horror from the shuffling will kick out Narcolepsy.
  • Through the Gates: Complete blocker. You lose more and more key cards with every deck cycle.

  • Amnesia - You could try to keep Cryptic Research in your hand. You will lose the infinite loop but still win the game because of how fast you draw.

  • Dread Curse: Add Fey and commit 2 to each test to mitigate the weakness significantly.

  • Overzealous: It can be challenging. Pack 2 Forewarned, and since you heal with Earthly Serenity, you should be fine.

  • Enemies: Existential Riddle disables them, so you can leave them on the table and forget about them.

Campaign Mode only: Breaking the loop: 3/43 - Impacting the gameplay: 8/43

Conclusion:

  • Campaign mode: 16% chance of having a detrimental weakness and 13% chance of having one of the 3 weaknesses that will kill the deck's mechanic.

  • Standalone Mode: 25% chance of having a detrimental weakness and 10% chance of having one of the 2 weaknesses that will kill the deck's mechanic, 5% if you are going true solo.


Other Cards:
  • Scroll of Secrets is a good set-up card that basically reads: 1-cost, 1-action, draw 3 and discard any weakness that is drawn. It will be pushed away by The King in Yellow

    • Once the combo is fully running, it is nice to have the Scroll of Secrets on the table as our second hand slot, alongside The King in Yellow, so in case we are short on our loop, we can use the trigger to get a chance to fuel the engine again. We can keep the Grim Memoirs in hand as Knowledge is Power targets it there.

    • This becomes much more powerful if we upgrade it to the Scroll of Secrets (3) to increase set-up, prevent disruption in the loop, and cancel early weaknesses that would be revealed.

  • Dream-Enhancing Serum is your main big-hand enabler. It also gives an interesting card draw during the set-up.

  • Laboratory Assistant is your second big and enabler. What we are trying the most to avoid with these 2 is to have to discard cards when your turn ends, which will clog our discard pile and slow down our cycle loop.

  • We use Keep Faith to bring tokens in the deck to enable the seal mechanism of Unrelenting. If you are playing in Multiplayer, I am sure that your team is also going to love 10 constant in the bag.

    • We could have used Tempt Fate, which is cheaper and a cantrip, but adding to the bag can break our loop by making it impossible to succeed in certain tests, even when committing Analysis. So we instead choose Keep Faith.

Upgrade Path:

Disclaimer: This decklist is published in the version that I tested. The upgrade path is just one possible way to upgrade while maintaining the best experience and value of the deck. As these decks are made to be universally good, feel free to adapt them to your campaign and change the upgrade order around based on your experience.

Link to the 0xp deck


 Cost  Total
   In the Thick of It  →  Unrelenting 1 XP 1 XP
   In the Thick of It  →  Unrelenting 1 XP 2 XP
   In the Thick of It  →  Existential Riddle 1 XP 3 XP
 
Core Upgrades 3 XP
   Perception    Perception •• 2 XP 5 XP
   Perception    Perception •• 2 XP 7 XP
   Deep Knowledge  →  Cryptic Research •••• 4 XP 11 XP
   Deep Knowledge  →  Cryptic Research •••• 4 XP 15 XP
   Mind over Matter  →  Knowledge is Power •• 2 XP 17 XP
   Keep Faith  →  Knowledge is Power •• 2 XP 19 XP
   Occult Invocation  →  Earthly Serenity 1 XP 20 XP
   Occult Invocation  →  Enchanted Bow •• 2 XP 22 XP
 
Luxury Upgrades 22 XP
    →  Studious ••• 3 XP 25 XP
    →  Studious ••• 3 XP 28 XP
   Scroll of Secrets    Scroll of Secrets ••• 3 XP 31 XP
   Deduction    Deduction •• 2 XP 33 XP
   Deduction    Deduction •• 2 XP 35 XP
   Cryptic Writings    Cryptic Writings •• 2 XP 37 XP
   Cryptic Writings    Cryptic Writings •• 2 XP 39 XP
    →  Higher Education ••• ••• 6 XP 45 XP

(View at arkham-starter.com)


Link to the full xp deck


Postscriptum - Taboo Suggestion:
22 comments

May 26, 2023 mattastrophic · 3215

It sounds like fast draw is inherently problematic. I love the theme of this decklist!

May 26, 2023 AL · 1

Wow, looks disgsting. I love it.

May 26, 2023 HungryColquhoun · 6916

Really, really cool - nice work! It's looks like a great, creative route into strong + easy card draw and action economy!

May 26, 2023 gByakko · 2

After you brought up this deck concept in the mythos buster discord, I am happy to see the full guide. I enjoyed the write-up.

May 26, 2023 NightgauntTaxiService · 385

Regarding ways to make this deck fair, one idea I've been experimenting with is harsher punishments for cycling your deck. Namely, taking an idea from the Marvel Champions card game and making it a case of, whenever you would draw from an empty deck, you shuffle your discard pile into your deck, then draw, but also put the top card of the encounter deck face-down in front of you and draw it during the next mythos phase. Do you think something like this would be worth exploring for Arkham?

May 26, 2023 Valentin1331 · 65070

@NightgauntTaxiService I like the thought exercise. In this one particular deck, your proposal would make no difference since you cycle and at some point almost never see the end of your turn.
A possibility on the other hand would be to force you to end your turn when it happens.

I have to say that I do not necessarily think that deck cycling is a bad thing in itself, it’s a fun archetype, the problem lies more in the fact that the class that does it the best () also turns out to be the class that has access to infinite action-less benefits like Cryptic Writings, Shortcut, Working a Hunch, and of course the most problematic being Knowledge is Power.

May 27, 2023 mattastrophic · 3215

Though Knowledge is Power has been super broken since its inception... The more I tinker with this deck the more I want to say that Cryptic Research is truly problematic, because it gives multiple cards as a fast action.

May 27, 2023 mattastrophic · 3215

But honestly, the mere fact that you can chain together fast effects with no hard limit is just a problem!

May 27, 2023 Valentin1331 · 65070

I thought about it, and I don’t think Cryptic Research is a problem in itself, it is fairly priced in XP and usually isn’t that broken. But it can be a strong enabler, when put in a bundle of other drawing cards.

One thing to note, is that at a certain point the deck goes infinite even without the need of Cryptic Research. Unrelenting and Perception (2) are enough to cycle, since 4 cards is all we need: these 2, Knowledge is Power and Analysis.

May 27, 2023 Shandras · 3

I'd recommend playing this deck once, in a standalone, for the giggles. Becomes boring very quickly. Make sure it's solo, as your table will never speak to you again if you make them watch for an hour without ever ending your turn.

Really nice deck though, slim, optimized, and prepared for pretty much any eventuality. I was considering Feed the Mind (0) for a combo primer, since you can commit Perception (2) to that as well and gain some extra card draw, so it's easier to have your entire deck in your hand. Also Working a Hunch so you can avoid as much interaction with the chaos bag as possible when you're rolling.

May 27, 2023 mattastrophic · 3215

I found a weird question here...

How does Knowledge is Power interact with Earthly Serenity if Serenity is in your hand? Can you spend charges off of Serenity even though it's not on the table?

May 27, 2023 Shandras · 3

I believe this would behave the same as the Old Book of Lore interaction listed on Knowledge is Powers FAQ section, where you can null the cost of spending a secret. So you should be able to ignore the charge-spending and just get healing.

May 27, 2023 Valentin1331 · 65070

@Shandras so you tried it already?

Indeed that’s why I made a disclaimer right at the beginning. It can be fun in true solo just to try, and I didn’t try it myself yet, but I think that self tabooing Knowledge is Power to non fast if taking the deck to a multiplayer game would make it more acceptable, while keeping all the gun gimmicks.

For Feed the Mind, I looked at it too but it’s just slower. The whole idea of the deck was really centred around the least possible actions needed, and as little cards that exhaust. That’s also why I didn’t take Abigail Foreman for instance: too slow.

For Working a Hunch, the main issue is that it would require 2 more card draw to run in cycle: itself and Cryptic Writings to pay for it. It is a really strong strategy but in this case it’s just more of what we already have infinite of. Especially as Analysis already deals with the chaos bag for us.

And for @mattastrophic, it is an extrapolation of the FAQ of Old Book of Lore (3) which functions the same way.

May 27, 2023 Shandras · 3

@Valentin1331Not this specific deck, but I made my own take on infinite cycling a few weeks ago, out of curiosity. The idea was to have your entire deck either drawn or in play, so your Cryptic Research will always draw Cryptic Writings/Shortcut/Working a Hunch + another Cryptic Research. This makes for testless clue/movement/resource generation. I had Scientific Theory (3) in there to soak the Horror from reshuffling (just make sure you keep to 3 cards in discard), but you can do the same thing with KiP + Earthly Serenity in this deck.

Obviously my version is a lot less stable when factoring in basic weaknesses, but yeah. If you draw the correct basic weakness (like 13th Vision or some such)...

I think your version is cooler and more fun to play, and certainly self-tabooing KiP helps with the power level, but I think that's not quite enough, can't optimize this deck too much or it becomes Solitaire ;)

May 27, 2023 mattastrophic · 3215

Weird, then would it follow that you could heal up more than four sanity or damage because you aren't capped by charges, since you're ignoring the existence of charges?

That... Makes... No... Sense...

May 14, 2024 MiroBrai · 1

New player here, looking forward to trying out this deck! What would you recommend for trauma from in the thick of it and why?

May 16, 2024 Valentin1331 · 65070

Hey, @MiroBrai, thanks for your comment!

If you are a new player, I would advise against using this decklist. I know; I published it myself, but this deck goes infinite, which means that it breaks the game design. As a new player, you are here for the fun, and this will tremendously decrease one of the core elements that make the game fun: tension. You wouldn't want to spoil one of your best experiences in this game: a blind playthrough.

In other words, this deck is (purposely) too strong. Please look at @Shandras' as they explain it better than I do.

If you want help choosing another decklist, I can help direct you to a more adapted one. Are you going to play true solo or with one or more people?

May 16, 2024 MiroBrai · 1

@Valentin1331 Too late, I started using it already. I am playing return to dunwich on hard with two other people. Imagine my surprise when I drew Beyond the Veil, then discovered the gimmick of this campaign was kind of designed to counter this deck haha. My (more experienced) friends suggested I grab Alter Fate, which I swapped Keep Faith for. My basic weakness is Chronophobia and I grabbed two physical trauma (still unsure which is best to take).

Played the first three scenarios so far and it was pretty hard (we failed the second and third ones). I haven't been able to go infinite, not even close, probably because I have no idea how to be optimal with card draws, but I am having a blast so far with all the draw power. I feel like the strength of the deck is balanced by my lack of experience with the game :).

May 16, 2024 Valentin1331 · 65070

@MiroBrai well I'm happy it's going well then! Another option for Beyond the Veil is Orphic Theory, but Alter Fate was definitely also a good call!

Sorry for not answering earlier. With In the Thick of It, I usually try to balance health and sanity, so I recommend going for one of each.

If, at one point, it goes too wild, I recommend checking the latest taboo on Knowledge is Power and if it's not enough, self-tabooing the way I recommended by making Knowledge is Power not fast.

Have fun with the deck, and thanks for picking one of my decklists!

May 17, 2024 MiroBrai · 1

Awesome! Also how does Knowledge is Power work with Earthly Serenity and Grim Memoir? I cannot spend charges on it to pay for the cost, right? So how does this interaction work?

May 17, 2024 Valentin1331 · 65070

@MiroBrai For Grim Memoir, it works as normal, because the secrets are part of the initiation cost (before the colon : ), but for Earthly Serenity, the charges are additional costs and do not count anymore. Knowledge is Power will therefore activate it fast, but you cannot play it from your hand anymore (you could, but it will trigger a test, and you won't be able to spend a charge as a result of a success).

I hope this clarifies! If not, here is the official ruling:

Some cards like Knowledge is Power or Word of Woe allow an investigator to play a card or activate an ability on an asset, "ignoring all costs." These effects only ignore the costs of initiating an ability. They do not ignore additional costs that must be paid when resolving that ability — in other words, anything "before the colon" is ignored, but any additional costs "after the colon" must be paid as normal.

For example, if an investigator uses Knowledge is Power to activate the ability on Old Book of Lore, Knowledge is Power allows you to ignore the action cost and exhausting of Old Book of Lore to activate its ability and search your deck for a card, but does not waive the additional cost to spend a secret to play that card. Likewise, playing Word of Woe waives the action cost to activate the ability on Earthly Serenity, but does not waive the cost to spend charges to heal an investigator at your location.

May 17, 2024 MiroBrai · 1

@Valentin1331 Understood! So with this ruling change I assume Earthly Serenity and Enchanted Bow are not nearly as strong in this deck as originally designed, correct? Should I still grab them and play them normally (which I assume is super slow) or I guess swap for a different card altogether?

Thanks for all the feedback :)