Drawn to the Flame Solo Agnes

Night of the Zealot - Solo - Standard

General Strategy

Agnes is quite hard to play solo, she desperately needs Shrivelling on the table and an efficient use of it since you only have a maximum of 8 charges to start with. Knowing when to take damage to deal damage back is key.

Scrying is always nice to see. Use it to avoid surprises from the encounter deck when you're in a tight spot. I don't use it on my deck as much because card draw doesn't tend to be a problem.

Burning the house on The Gathering is well worth the mental trauma. Lita Chantler will help you soak up damage and maybe even fight. Also you'll need all the help you can get on The Midnight Masks.

Dealing Damage

This deck depends heavily on having Shrivelling and using it efficiently. Other ways of dealing damage are using Forbidden Knowledge to ping odd health enemies and a single Baseball Bat (which is great if you have Lita Chantler )

Investigating

Use Flashlight to investigate low shroud locations. Use Drawn to the Flame aggressively (better if you know what's coming with Scrying ) on high shroud location or to race against the clock. You also have a single "Look what I found!" to compress an action if you fail a test on a location with 2 clues.

Evading

Stray Cat is your panic button for tight situations with meaty enemies. Especially for non-hunter enemies that would require multiple Shrivelling charges. Blinding Light can help you damage enemies too. Your survival depends on knowing when you can afford to take a hit. In general, you can take low damage hits if it helps you efficiently deal with enemies, i.e. not waste damage or charges.

Skills

I love to have tons of skills on my decks, but unfortunately there's not a lot of space. I would be wary of cutting too many skills because you will miss them in key moments. Certain upgrades like Grotesque Statue, Close Call or Cunning Distraction mitigate the need for them a bit, so consider cutting 2 skills for 2 improvements.

• Perception is vital for clue progress. You will need it to get Lita Chantler.
• Manual Dexterity is always nice to have and will help you land key Blinding Lights.
• Unexpected Courage is nice and flexible, but sometimes you miss the card draw. I need to experiment replacing it with 2x Guts.

Starting hand

Mulligan aggressively for Shrivelling. Flashlight and Drawn to the Flame are worth keeping to try to get ahead, depending on the scenario. Everything else can wait.

Key scenario decisions

• Killing the Ghoul Priest is not very hard, so it's worth taking risks on the first scenario to avoid seeing him again.
• Burning the house to get Lita Chantler, extra XP and save 1 move action in The Midnight Masks is well worth the mental trauma.
• Getting more than 3 cultists is really hard. It's better to avoid traumas and not hit midnight than to push for one extra cultist in my experience.
• Winning by investigating the Ritual Site is possible but it depends on Cunning Distraction (or getting more than 3 cultists)
• I haven't killed Umôrdhoth with this deck yet but it doesn't seem impossible.

Single cards

• Heirloom of Hyperborea is arguably the worst signature asset of the Core Set. It's too expensive for what it does. I always seem to have a better thing to do than to play it. It has good icons, so I generally commit it to a test
• Leather Coat is nice to have to soak up some damage. It's a good candidate to cut, especially if you picked up Lita Chantler
• Baseball Bat helps you deal with low combat enemies to avoid wasting Shrivelling charges. With Lita Chantler you fight at 5 combat, which is great.
• Holy Rosary makes your life easier, but I don't tend to see it very often, so you don't need it desperately
• Arcane Initiate is good if you are desperate to find Shrivelling. It also has the advantage of shuffling your deck if you see your weaknesses coming. It also soaks up some damage which is nice, but by no means is key to winning.
• "Look what I found!" is an alternative to Drawn to the Flame to get some clues from high shroud locations. It's a great tempo play when you're very tight for time.
• Fearless is a filler card. You don't need the Willpower icon on tests and I rarely struggle with sanity. Feel free to replace it, you won't miss it.

Upgrades

• Grotesque Statue is a must-have if you can afford it. It's not hard to finish The Gathering with 5-6 XP, so get it. You will never regret having it on the table.
• Close Call sounds great for really inconvenient enemies out of the encounter deck. Still experimenting with it.
• Improved Blinding Light is a good cheap option
• Book of Shadows is too expensive (both in XP and cost) and too slow to be a hight priority. I don't think it's necessary to win.
• Consider taking a single Cunning Distraction in the very likely case that you have a ton of Cultists left from The Midnight Masks. It's essentially the only way to get past them.
• Improved Lucky! is not really necessary but can't hurt
• Mind Wipe NOPE
• Aquinnah is one of those cards that it's tempting to get for that one amazing turn where you make monsters kill each other but no. Don't do it. It won't happen, especially in solo.