Banned Book Week at the Library; Standalone Ready 19XP guide

Card draw simulator

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jericho · 1067

In Honor of Halloween and Banned Book Week, I present a Forbidden tale of a researcher who dabbled in dark arts not meant for mortal minds...

Premise

The interaction with library pass is presumably why Petrus De Dacia translation is now forbidden. Too bad for me that it happened in the middle of my testing this for true-solo Dream-Eaters Dreaming Side.

So instead here's a "Forbidden" version for Halloween, configured to be suitable for Standalone Play. I left the Taboo list on the 2024-10-23 version since that was the version of the deck I was testing, but it still functions without taboo, or with current taboo provided you ignore that 'forbidden' tag...

The concept is also Nightmare Difficulty Capable, but this configuration is not. more details on that in Variations at the end.

This is a 19xp standalone version (don't forget to add the extra basic weakness)

I liked this version the most, but 9 and 29 are also reasonable (see variations below). Necronomicon (8), Library Pass (1), and No Stone Unturned (5) x2, exactly fits in 19 XP, auspicious.

to reset to a campaign starter

Summary

Clueing:☆☆☆☆☆ Fighting:☆☆☆☆☆ Mobility:☆☆☆ Mythos:☆☆ Consistency:☆☆☆☆(☆)

re: consistency, I did whiff set-up once in about 10 tests of setup (failing to assemble the combo by the end of the fourth turn is what I counted as a whiff), so I didn't want to give it 5 stars, but once you are setup....

...Mandy can deal 3 damage/turn or discover 2 clues/turn (anywhere on the map!) for 1 resource, 0 action and 0 tests, every turn. You just can't do both at once. So the operational deck is incredibly consistent and the core combo completely ignores the bag, so scenario progress is nearly guaranteed.

You also have basically no protection from the mythos besides your native and but they're both 3s so you're not hopeless. A event splash provides you with quite a bit of mobility for a seeker.

Checking out Banned Books at your local library

Typical Mandy Set-up: you want to trigger your Shocking Discovery as soon as possible, Your first Full deck search will trigger it guaranteed, just remember that you don't get anything from that search, so have a plan to follow-up with more searches for your actual setup. Hit and Run playing a Research Librarian is my favorite way to do it since you only pay 1 resource and get to replay the Librarian the following turn to actually find what you need, but don't wait to do searches if you don't have that in your opening hand.

After getting your weakness out of the way, What you need to be fully operational is 3 cards: Scroll of Secrets, Library Pass and the Necrotelecom. All 3 of which can be hit by backpack, 2 of which are tomes findable by the research librarian, and you've also got Mr. Rook and No Stone Unturned (5) which can find any card.

For Mandy's ability with a taboo mandated 50 card deck I usually take the extra 3 cards, but for full deck searches definitely take an additional target.

Once you've found what you need; you can finalize the setup by playing Eldritch Sophist when you have a spare action (and have drawn one), discarding whichever other ally you have in play. If you're playing the 29XP version keep Mr. Rook around as a way to turn extra secrets into more search.

"I was in the library the other day, in the Restricted Section..."

Once you have everything you can loop the following once per turn:

  • Use the action on Scroll of Secrets to retrieve the Nuclearbombicon from the bottom of your deck, where it got put at the end of last turn by the forced effect on Library Pass.
  • Fast action on Library Pass to play Nukeacolacan for 1 resource
  • Fast actions from the Nekonomicon to dump all the charges doing whatever (damage, clues, support tests, etc.)
  • if necessary, move a secret onto the Scroll of Secrets to keep the loop going, possibly from the Nekocomicon itself if you're out of other sources.

for zero actions.

Spend the rest of your turn doing whatever else you need to do, which shouldn't be much besides walking around since the Kitab al-Azif can get clues and kill monsters for you.

In the 29XP version, if you really need to blow something up right now, Knowledge is power will let you get another use out of the 4-secret activation since it ignores the cost.

Other considerations

There isn't really anything mandating that you play as Rogue Mandy, you could easily do Mystic or Survivor instead. Here's my suggestions for events in those cases:

or really, whatever other event or skill is your favorite in these colors. Either of these swaps would provide more protection from the mythos in exchange for less mobility.

Variations

Different XP totals?

  • for a 9XP version, remove 1 basic weakness and replace both No Stone Unturned (5) with the level 0 versions.
  • for a 29XP version, add 1 more basic weakness and add the side-board cards, I'd probably replace the Emergency Cache or the Perception with the Knowledge is Power
  • alternatively for a 29XP version you could skip the Knowledge is power and go for Backpack (2) instead (you have my permission to pay the XP and write "My backpack searches 12" on a notecard if you don't actually own RtTFA.)

What if I want someone else to seek forbidden knowledge?

The Combo requires access to level 5 and the "Miskatonic" or "Scholar" traits, so this concept is accessible in just over half of the seekers printed to date. I think Mandy is the best investigator for it due to her superior search power and the need to find multiple 1-of copies in your deck, but in principle there's nothing stopping you from playing a similar deck in Lucius Galloway, Amanda Sharpe, Harvey Walters, etc. - except for the fact that such arts are Forbidden, of course.

What if I don't want to worry about taboo?

So without taboo this deck still works, you'll just end up spending 1 action per turn on the Scroll of Secrets Activation. You also get to include Knowledge is Power free, and save 3XP on the book itself (I'd spend those on the Charisma) It's probably also worth cutting down to a 30 card deck, although I'll leave what 20 cards to remove as an exercise for the reader.

Nightmare Difficulty?

For those unfamiliar, Nightmare Difficulty is where the bag is entirely tentacles. The core combo is testless as is all of the searching for setting up said combo - so the concept is nightmare difficulty capable.

You'd want to make some modifications to the rest of the deck though:

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