My Adventure Book: Strategy Guide

Fifty-nine of the sixty cards in this deck are not characters. That is the whole idea, and it takes one game to get used to.

Your lore comes from Enigmatic Inkcaster: exert it and gain 1 lore, provided you have played 2 or more cards that turn. Four copies means up to four lore a turn from permanents your opponent cannot challenge, because you have nothing on the board to challenge.

The second win condition is the deck's name. Kevin - Flightless Bird is 3 lore for 2 ink, and when he quests he goes back on top of your deck. My Adventure Book then reveals the top card and takes it if it is a non-character card or a character named Kevin. In a deck with one character, the Book essentially never misses, and Kevin comes back over and over.

Three checkpoints:

• Turn 2 or 3. First Inkcaster down: the clock starts here. You are not behind on lore, you have not started.
• Turn 5. Two or more Inkcasters plus a card to spare each turn: the engine is running.
• Turn 8. Raging Storm available: the reset that unwinds anything they built while you set up.

The rule that matters: always play two cards. Every Inkcaster checks it independently, so on a turn where you play one card, every Inkcaster you own gives you nothing. Improvise and Buzz's Arm exist to be the second card.

The damage chain: one card switches on four others

The guide-level mistake is reading the removal as four separate spells. It is one chain, and Malicious, Mean, and Scary is the switch. It puts 1 damage counter on each opposing character, which kills almost nothing by itself. What it does is make their whole board damaged, and four other cards only work on damaged characters:

• Battering Ram deals 1 damage to a chosen damaged character.
• To Wither a Flower deals 2 damage to each opposing damaged character.
• Education or Elimination banishes a chosen damaged character.
• Potion of Malice gives Reckless to each opposing damaged character.

Cast the switch and the rest of your hand stops being situational.

Reckless is the lock, and it only works because you have no board

Potion of Malice banishes itself to give every damaged opposing character Reckless, which reads "they can't quest and must challenge if able."

In a normal deck that is a gift you hand the opponent. Here it is a prison. You have one character in sixty cards, and he spends most of the game on top of your library rather than on the board. Items cannot be challenged. With nothing of yours to challenge, the "must challenge" half never bites and simply expires. What sticks is the other half: they cannot quest, so the board they spent the game building gains them no lore.

Be precise about what this does not do. A Reckless character can still exert to use its abilities or sing songs. You are buying a turn where their lore total does not move, not a turn where they do nothing.

The one card that can break your own lock is Zootopia - Tundratown, because a Location can be challenged. It is a single copy. Think before you place it into a board you have just made Reckless.

Your first game, turn by turn

One rule up front that makes this deck legal to play the way it wants to be played: items and locations do not have to wait a turn. You can exert an item for its ability on the turn you play it. Only characters have to wait, and you have one character.

Turn 1. Ink a card, then play Zootopia - Tundratown for 1. A location with lore gains you that lore automatically at the start of each of your turns, with no character and no attention required. One ink for a lore a turn is the best rate in the deck.

Turn 2. Gain 1 lore from the location. Ink, then play Enigmatic Inkcaster. It cannot pay you this turn, because playing it was the only card you played. That is fine and expected.

Turn 3. Gain 1. Ink to three. Now play two cards, not one: Improvise for 1 and Buzz's Arm for 2 is the clean version. Having played 2 cards, exert the Inkcaster for 1 lore. This is the turn the deck actually starts, and from here every turn looks like this one.

Turn 4. Gain 1. Ink to four. Play a second Enigmatic Inkcaster plus one cheap card. Both Inkcasters pay you, including the one you just played.

Turns 5 to 7. Land My Adventure Book and start exerting it for 1 ink each turn to dig. Three or four Inkcasters plus the location is 4 or 5 lore a turn, and you have still not put a character on the board. Answer their threats as they arrive rather than in advance.

Turn 8 and beyond. Raging Storm banishes all characters for 8 ink. You have one character in the entire deck, so it is close to one-sided, and it is how you undo a board you were never going to fight.

When the draw does not cooperate: the order of importance is a second card to play each turn, then Inkcasters, then answers. Casting one expensive card on a turn you could have cast two cheap ones is the most common way this deck underperforms.

How this deck loses

You play one card a turn: this is the big one. Each Enigmatic Inkcaster checks the two-card condition on its own, so a turn with one play turns off all four at once. Holding a 1-cost action back for value costs you more lore than the action will ever be worth.

You panic about the lore score: you will be on 3 while they are on 9, and that is the deck working correctly. Your lore per turn climbs every turn and theirs does not. Do not start making bad trades to catch up early.

You try to sing your songs: eighteen cards here are songs, and singing one for free needs a character in play whose cost is at least the number in the song's reminder text. Your only character is Kevin - Flightless Bird at 2 ink, so he can sing Strike a Good Match and nothing else. Assume you are paying full price for every song, because you almost always are.

You cast Freeze the Vine while you own a location: it banishes all locations, and Zootopia - Tundratown is a location. Check your own board first.

You use the damage payoffs in the wrong order: To Wither a Flower only hits damaged characters, Battering Ram only hits a damaged character, and MINDLESS RAGE on Potion of Malice only affects damaged characters. Malicious, Mean, and Scary is what makes their whole board damaged. Cast it first, then everything else lines up.

Matchup role. You are the control deck in every matchup. You never race.

Two opening keeps.

• Option 1. Engine keep (default): at least one Enigmatic Inkcaster plus two cards costing 2 or less. Improvise, Buzz's Arm, Piercing Attack and Strike a Good Match all qualify. You want the Inkcaster online by turn 3 with fuel to keep it firing.
• Option 2. Answer keep: any two of Piercing Attack, Malicious, Mean, and Scary and World's Greatest Criminal Mind, plus an ink drop. Correct against a fast opener where surviving matters more than starting the engine.

On the play vs. on the draw:

• On the play: take the engine keep. A turn-2 Buzz's Arm into a turn-3 Inkcaster is the fastest start the deck has.
• On the draw: lean toward answers. The extra card helps you find the engine later, and the turn you lose is the turn their aggression lands.

Never keep: an opener whose cheapest card is Raging Storm or Freeze the Vine, or a hand of four-cost songs with no two-drop. My Adventure Book is a fine keep but it is a turn-3 play, not a turn-1 one.

What to put in your inkwell

Thirteen cards here have no inkwell symbol and can never be inked: all four Enigmatic Inkcaster, all four Potion of Malice, all four Raging Storm, and the single To Wither a Flower. Note what that list contains. Your entire lore engine is uninkable, which means every Inkcaster you draw is a card you must cast rather than a card you can turn into ink.

Ink in roughly this order:

• Any second or third copy of a four-of. A spare Strange Things, Inscrutable Map or Strike a Good Match is your best ink in almost every hand.
• Battering Ram. Useful, replaceable, and four ink is a lot to hold in an opener.
• The Horseman Strikes! past the first copy. It only removes characters with Evasive, so against half of what you will face it is your worst card.

The clean rule for what never goes in the inkwell: this deck runs five singletons and you want to draw all of them. Kevin - Flightless Bird, Zootopia - Tundratown, Sabotage, Freeze the Vine and To Wither a Flower are one copy each and none of them has a replacement. The last of those cannot be inked anyway, so the rule really covers the other four. Ink almost anything before you ink them.

Ideal line. Zootopia - Tundratown on turn 1, Enigmatic Inkcaster on turn 2, and from turn 3 you play two cheap cards a turn and exert every Inkcaster you own. My Adventure Book arrives around turn 3 or 4 and stops you ever flooding out.

The three cards that decide the game

Enigmatic Inkcaster is your lore. Exert it and gain 1 lore, as long as you have played 2 or more cards that turn. Nothing in this deck matters if these are not on the board, and the two-card condition is the single habit you have to build.

My Adventure Book is the card that stops you flooding out. Exert it and pay 1 ink to reveal the top card of your deck and take it if it is a non-character card or a character named Kevin. Fifty-nine of your sixty cards are non-characters and the sixtieth is Kevin, so it hits every time. It also recurs Kevin - Flightless Bird, who quests for 3 lore and then puts himself back on top of your deck for the Book to find again.

Malicious, Mean, and Scary is what keeps you alive against every deck that goes wide. One damage counter on each opposing character clears a board of one-willpower bodies for 3 ink. It is also the setup card that turns on To Wither a Flower, Battering Ram and the MINDLESS RAGE half of Potion of Malice, all of which only work on characters that are already damaged.

The lore engine. Nothing else in the deck matters if this is not running:

• Enigmatic Inkcaster: 2 ink item. Exert to gain 1 lore if you have played 2 or more cards this turn. Four copies, four lore a turn, and the opponent cannot interact with it without item removal. It cannot be inked.
• Buzz's Arm: 2 ink item. Exert to make your next action or item cost 1 less. It is both a discount and, crucially, the second card you needed to play this turn. Its other ability only turns on when a character named Buzz Lightyear is banished, which never happens here.
• Zootopia - Tundratown: 1 ink location with 5 willpower and 1 lore. Locations with lore pay you at the start of every one of your turns with no action needed, which makes this the cheapest repeating lore in the deck.

The recursion package, and the deck's namesake:

• Kevin - Flightless Bird: 2 ink, 1 strength, 3 willpower, 3 lore. BACK TO THE NEST puts him back on top of your deck when he quests, so he leaves play each time you use him. He is one copy because a second is a dead draw.
• My Adventure Book: 3 ink item. Exert and pay 1 to reveal the top card and take it if it is a non-character card or a character named Kevin. In this deck that is a near-guaranteed hit, and it is how Kevin comes back.

Removal. Match the answer to the threat, you have one of each:

• Piercing Attack: 2 ink. 2 damage that Resist cannot reduce. Your answer to Resist-stacking decks.
• Malicious, Mean, and Scary: 3 ink song. 1 damage counter on every opposing character. The sweeper for wide one-willpower boards, and the setup for the three cards below.
• World's Greatest Criminal Mind: 3 ink song. Banishes a chosen character with 5 strength or more. The single-target answer to a resolved finisher.
• The Horseman Strikes!: 3 ink. Draw a card, and you may banish a chosen character that has Evasive. Evasive is otherwise very hard for this deck to touch. Against a deck with no Evasive characters it is just a cantrip.
• To Wither a Flower: 4 ink song. 2 damage to each opposing damaged character. Cast it after Malicious, Mean, and Scary, never before.
• Raging Storm: 8 ink. Banish all characters. You have one character in the whole deck, so this is close to one-sided.

Disruption and card flow:

• Improvise: 1 ink. Gives a chosen character +1 strength this turn and draws a card. Read it as a cantrip; the strength does not matter and you can point it at an opposing character. It does need some character on the board to choose, so on a completely empty board it has no target.
• Strike a Good Match: 2 ink song. Draw 2, then discard 1. Kevin - Flightless Bird is the only character who can sing it, and he is worth more questing.
• Strange Things: 4 ink song. Up to 2 chosen characters cannot quest until the start of your next turn, and you draw. This is how you buy the turn you need to reach eight ink.
• Education or Elimination: 4 ink song. Choose one of two modes. The first needs a character of your own to buff, which you usually do not have, so in practice you take the second and banish a damaged character.
• Inscrutable Map: 3 ink item. Exert and pay 1 to give a chosen opposing character -1 lore until your next turn. Slows their clock without ever entering combat.
• Potion of Malice: 3 ink item. Exert and pay 1 to put a damage counter on a chosen character. Or exert and banish it to give every damaged opposing character Reckless, which means they cannot quest and must challenge if able. Against a board like yours there is usually nothing for them to challenge, so it reads as "your opponent gains no lore next turn."

Permanent answers, which most Core decks simply lack:

• Sabotage: 3 ink. Banishes a chosen item or location and every other one sharing its name. One card for a playset.
• Battering Ram: 4 ink item. Exert to deal 1 damage to a chosen damaged character, or exert and banish it to banish a chosen location.
• Freeze the Vine: 4 ink. Banishes all locations, then draw 2 and discard 1. It takes your Zootopia - Tundratown with it.

Reading an opponent you have never seen

You are the control deck against everything, so the only real question is which answer to hold. Watch their first three turns.

• Lots of cheap characters, questing every turn. Hold Malicious, Mean, and Scary until they have four or more on the board. Trading it for two characters feels productive and costs you the game two turns later.
• One expensive character at a time. Their bodies are individually too big for a sweeper. World's Greatest Criminal Mind banishes anything with 5 strength or more, and Piercing Attack handles the rest. Answer the third threat, not the first.
• Characters you are not allowed to challenge, or that dodge damage. Characters with Evasive are the ones The Horseman Strikes! exists for. If they are reducing your damage instead, that is Resist, and Piercing Attack ignores it.
• Items and locations doing the work instead of characters. Sabotage hits an item and every copy sharing its name, and Battering Ram or Freeze the Vine answers locations. Save them for the piece that is actually generating value.

vs. Amber/Emerald Toys and Elinor (Favorable): Watch for: Elinor - Renowned Diplomat, Woody - Jungle Guide They go wide with one and two willpower bodies, which is exactly what Malicious, Mean, and Scary was printed for. Hold it until they have four or more characters out rather than trading it early for two. Elinor is the card to answer on sight, because her end-of-turn trigger draws them out of the sweeper. Raging Storm at eight ink is the backstop if the first sweeper does not stick.

vs. Amber/Amethyst Midrange (Even): Watch for: Demona - Scourge of the Wyvern Clan, Hades - Looking for a Deal Their threats are individually bigger than a sweeper answers cleanly, so this becomes a one-for-one removal game where World's Greatest Criminal Mind is your best card. Prioritise the Inkcaster engine over answering their first threat; you can afford to fall behind on lore early because you have far more late-game cards than they do.

vs. Emerald/Steel (Even): Watch for: Angel - Experiment 624, Inscrutable Map The one pair that reliably brings its own item removal, which means your engine is not safe. Deploy Inkcasters one at a time rather than all at once so a single item-removal effect cannot two-for-one you. Their Evasive threats are what The Horseman Strikes! is for.

vs. Amethyst/Emerald Control (Unfavorable): Watch for: Enigmatic Inkcaster, Scout Ahead The mirror-shaped matchup, and the one you can lose. They gain lore off permanents too, and they can also gain it without a board. Their deck is faster than yours. Your edge is Sabotage and Freeze the Vine answering permanents they cannot replace, so save those rather than spending them on the first target you see.

vs. Amber/Ruby Boost (Favorable): Watch for: Mr. Incredible - Super Strong, Ohana Means Family They commit large single threats into a deck holding three copies of a card that banishes anything with 5 strength or more. Take the early lore hits, answer the third threat rather than the first, and let Raging Storm clean up whatever survives.

Against item-heavy fields, move a second Sabotage in over the singleton Freeze the Vine. Freeze only answers locations and takes your own Zootopia - Tundratown with it, while Sabotage answers both items and locations and hits every copy sharing a name.

Against fast aggro, cut 1 Raging Storm and 1 Strange Things for the second and third Zootopia - Tundratown. Eight ink is a fantasy in a game that ends on turn six, and a one-ink location with five willpower keeps gaining lore while they attack a board you do not have. Piercing Attack is the other card you want and it is already at the maximum four.

If you want a faster clock: a second Kevin - Flightless Bird is the obvious change and the wrong one; he is dead in multiples. Add a second Zootopia - Tundratown instead, which adds lore without adding a card the Book can miss on.

If you keep having one-card turns: the fix is more cheap cards rather than better ones. This list already runs the maximum four Improvise and the maximum four Buzz's Arm, so the next lever is the top of the curve: trimming a four-ink song for the fourth World's Greatest Criminal Mind does more for your lore total than any single upgrade here, because a 3-ink card is one you can actually pair with a second play.

Outlook. This is the cheapest deck in the Wave-3 slate by a distance and it is not a compromise build. The engine lives in Sets 10 through 13 and comes through the October rotation intact. The one structural risk is a printed increase in cheap item removal, since every lore source except Kevin is a permanent.