The Butcher, Baker...

Note: Rite of Seeking in the decklist should be Sixth Sense. For some reason, the decklist refused to be published with the correct card included

This is my standalone Meat Cleaver Agnes deck that I built as part of a four-player team for a blind run through Guardians of the Abyss. The other decks in the group are Ursula, an evasion-focused Finn, and a Shotgun Leo Anderson build.

When Meat Cleaver was announced, I heard a lot of members of the community getting excited about playing it in Agnes, but I saw very few decks published that ran with this idea.

Specific Card Notes

Meat Cleaver - The key card this deck is built around. It provides a few things that we want in our Agnes deck, a repeatable source of self-inflicted Horror, a charge-less way of attacking enemies (outside of Wither), and Horror-healing, so we can keep using Agnes's Ability. The weakness of this card is that, even with the full boost from being at 3 or less Sanity, we are only attacking at 4. Many of the other cards in the deck are included to give us ways of boosting our combat value.

Peter Sylvestre - I don't really feel the need to go into too much detail on why Agnes and Peter work so well together, as it's been pretty well-established by this point. It is, however, worth mentioning that Peter can help you soak up the extra horror from your Cleaver, and let you actually heal horror off of Agnes when you kill an enemy, if necessary.

Holy Rosary - An extra boost, and sanity soak, in case Peter shows up late.

Blood Pact - I haven't played around with Blood Pact too much before, but it provides a solid way to boost the two skills Agnes will need to kill enemies (and potentially find clues with Sixth Sense). This is very powerful during the Witching Hour, and is the reason Moonlight Ritual is included in the deck.

Recall the Future - Depending on the makeup of the Chaos Bag, this card can provide a meaningful increase in your chance of passing a check against most enemies.

Fight or Flight - This, and Blood Pact, are our two principle ways of boosting our skill to take on the tougher enemies the Mythos throws at us. Try to use it on a turn where you are going to get more than one Attack with your Cleaver. Can be used to boost in a pinch, but it's really here to ensure those Cleaver attacks land when it's critical that they do. Try to take a few horror early in the scenario to set this up.

Resourceful - Principally here to get additional turns of Fight or Flight.

What about a Level 0 version of this deck?

As I said above, I created this deck for a standalone. It should be relatively easy to down-level it for the beginning of a campaign, since most of the experience points are in cards where level 0 versions exist. You will be missing out on Blood Pact at the beginning, so I would probably put in Overpowers in place of Recall the Future to help you land your Meat Cleaver attacks until you can get the Pact. Note that Moonlight Ritual is only good for icons prior to getting Blood Pact. I think this deck could also stand to take Arcane Research during a real campaign to help upgrade the spells quickly, and give you a head start charging up Fight or Flight, I think it has enough Horror-healing to handle the mental trauma.

Mulligan Guide

In my opening hand, I look for a solution for enemies (either Meat Cleaver or Shrivelling) and, if Cleaver, a good source of (either Fight or Flight or a Moonlight Ritual). It's also nice to have Sixth Sense to help out with Clue gathering.

What about further Upgrades?

My group finished The Eternal Slumber, earning 4xp, and honestly, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to upgrade from here. Shrivelling is an option, but since the deck wants to rides the line on Sanity, the two backlash Horror on a bad token draw is a bit scary, especially if Peter Sylvestre doesn't show up. I'm considering spending the xp on some Exile cards, either Flare or Stroke of Luck.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my deck, I hope you liked it. This is my first time publishing a decklist. Seeing as this was for a standalone, I thought it would be the perfect time to try out a deck that might be a bit too janky for a full campaign, but when I gave it a try, I was surprised at how effective and fun to play the deck was. Give it a shot, and you may enjoy it too.