Do you hate watching a perfectly planned turn die to a ? What if I told you there is a way to never reveal a chaos token again?

Let Mateo set you an example: He has already Transfigured into William Yorick, and Astral Mirror puts The Codex of Ages into play without costing him an action. He casts Read the Signs (2) at a location with four clues. When he would reveal a chaos token, he discards the Codex instead and resolves the sealed on it: +2, success, and Yorick's puts the Codex straight back into his hand. Two resources and an action later it's back on the table, and Spectral Razor (2) goes straight through the ghoul in his face. The ghoul dies, so Yorick's plays the Codex right back out of his discard pile, and the returns another card to his hand while it's at it. At the end of his turn both spells come back too, because he revealed a symbol token: the , every single time. He never touched the bag. Your turn.

I started playing this game around a year ago with two friends who were more or less veterans at that point. My enjoyment in deckbuilding usually comes from finding a cool combo, understanding a specific corner of the rules, or just making something weird work.

Enter Transfiguration, the exact kind of card that makes my fingers tingle. It was among the first cards I knew I wanted to build around, but I didn't feel I knew the game well enough yet.

Well, I think I've now built the most boring, great deck I'll ever manage. It hangs on a handful of cards and one rule, and the core of it is three pieces: Transfiguration, Father Mateo's The Codex of Ages, and William Yorick's effect.

|Enemy Management:|★★★★☆|Spectral Razor (2) on repeat, +2 damage against anything non-Elite, and every kill replays the Codex.|

|Clue-getting:|★★★★☆|Read the Signs (2) every turn, two clues a cast, at a test you can't fail. Limited by resources and actions, not by the bag.|

|Encounter protection:|★★★★☆|The Codex works on any token reveal, treacheries included, and Ward of Protection cancels the ones you'd rather not test against at all.|

|Survivability:|★★★☆☆|No dedicated soak beyond your allies. Deny Existence covers the worst hits; mostly you survive by not failing.|

|Economy:|★★★★☆|Antiquary and Prophetic refill 2 resources each every round, for the Codex and your spells. Emergency Cache and David Renfield bridge the gap until they land.|

|Card Drawing:|★★★★☆|Scroll of Prophecies and Backpack (2) dig, Arcane Initiate finds spells, and the turns your discard pile into a second hand.|

• TL;DR: Transfigure into Yorick, get the Codex on the table, and never reach into the chaos bag again.

The whole deck rests on one rule:

Some triggered card abilities are presented in a "cost: effect" construct. In such a construct, the aspect preceding the colon indicates the ability costs that must be paid and any triggering conditions that must be met to trigger the ability. The aspect following the colon is the effect.

Everything before a colon is a cost. Now read The Codex of Ages:

When you would reveal a chaos token from the chaos bag, discard The Codex of Ages: Resolve the token that was sealed here as if it were just revealed from the chaos bag (instead of revealing a token from the chaos bag).

Did you catch that? Discarding the Codex is the cost, so it's already in your discard pile before the sealed on it even resolves. And what does William Yorick's do?

+2. If this test is successful, return 1 card from your discard pile to your hand.

By the time Yorick's asks whether you succeeded, the Codex is sitting right there in your discard pile, ready to come back. The loop looks like this:

1. Put the Codex into play. Astral Mirror does it once per turn without an action; otherwise it's an action and 2 resources.
2. Take a test. When you would reveal a chaos token, discard the Codex and resolve the sealed instead.
3. Yorick's gives you +2. If the test succeeds, return the Codex to your hand.
4. Replay it and go again. As long as you have 2 resources handy, you never pull from the bag.

• It gets stupider, though. Read the Signs (2) and Spectral Razor (2) let you soak up clues and deal damage over and over. They come back to your hand at the end of your turn, because you're always revealing a symbol token: the .

• And if you kill something as Yorick, his plays the Codex straight out of your discard pile. Point the at another card and you get both: the Codex back on the table and a second card back in hand.

• The rest of the deck exists to find and fuel the loop. Backpack (2) and Scroll of Prophecies dig for your core items, and Arcane Initiate finds your spells. Antiquary and Prophetic each refill 2 resources every round: Antiquary's pay for the Codex, Prophetic's pay for your spells. Prescient brings back the spells you cast before the Codex showed up. Worried about action economy? Astral Mirror gives you an extra action each turn for playing the Codex. It's not much, but since you won't fail your tests anymore, it's enough.

• One note before you're set up: the Codex still works as Mateo, it just resolves his instead and stays in the discard pile. Fine in a pinch, but save it for a test that matters.

• GRAB A TRANSFIGURATION IN YOUR MULLIGAN. It's a 0-cost event you have to play every scenario, and until it resolves you're just Father Mateo with a very expensive book. Use your own caution whether you actually transfigure once you've used your once per game ability, however. Save an autofail, then transfigure is usually the right play, I found.

• After that, the priority is: The Codex of Ages > card draw (Scroll of Prophecies, Backpack (2), Arcane Initiate) > resources (Antiquary, Prophetic, David Renfield, Emergency Cache). Everything else comes later. The Codex is the engine, the card draw finds whichever piece is missing, and the economy only matters once the loop is running. Once it is, you'll need all of it.

Buy the engine first, then the payoffs, then whatever makes it faster. All in, that's the deck's 30 XP.

The side deck is where the rest of your XP goes. What you buy next depends on what keeps going wrong, so ask yourself:

• Did you burn your spells before the Codex showed up? Uncage the Soul (3) plays a Spell or Ritual from your discard pile, 3 resources cheaper. It upgrades the copies already in the deck.

• Still waiting to get set up? Seal of the Elder Sign guarantees you an on any test, and Eucatastrophe turns your worst token into one. Both stand in for the Codex until you find it.

• Short on actions? Commit Memories of Another Life to a test you can't fail, and it fetches Joey "The Rat" Vigil from your collection and plays him for free. Joey then plays your Codex as a fast action for 1 extra resource.

• Resources running dry? Drawing Thin gives you 2 resources or a card once a round. Just remember its +2 difficulty eats Yorick's +2.

• Treacheries hitting your friends? Ward of Protection (2) cancels them anywhere on the table, not just for you.

• Need more fuel? Sacrifice turns a Mystic asset you're done with, like a doom-laden Arcane Initiate, into 3 cards or resources. As Yorick, nothing stays in the discard pile for long anyway.

• Down the Rabbit Hole is a maybe. For a low XP campaign, it's probably worth it. For high XP campaigns, probably not.

The problem? It's actually quite boring. Turns out that removing one of the core aspects of the game, the chaos bag, isn't very fun. If you have the resources and the cards, you simply say "I'll pick up those four clues, your turn."

The good part? I feel like I can just enjoy playing the game now, having broken it sufficiently.