• Q: Does cancelling or ignoring a chaos token count as a cancel/ignore for Diana Stanley's ability? A: A chaos token is a game effect which can be ignored or canceled. If you cancel or ignore a chaos token using one of your cards, you can place that card beneath Diana Stanley using her reaction ability. This includes both Counterspell and Dark Prophecy, as well as any other card effect that cancels or ignores a chaos token or a chaos token’s effect (such as Defiance, Grotesque Statue, etc).

• Q: I have a question concerning Sefina Rousseau and Diana Stanley. Are cards put beneath these investigators by their abilities considered to be in play, or out of play? The question arises because they're physically in an investigator's play area, which suggests they might be in play, but there are a few implications that makes me want to confirm. For example, if they are in play, that implies that a treachery such as Ants! can discard them, which feels strange. Can you confirm if those cards are in play or not? A: These cards are considered out of play. They cannot be affected by anything other than the abilities that refer to them explicitly (like Sefina's action ability, Twilight Blade, etc).

Pros:

1. Strong signature cards (especially Dark Insight)
2. Decent intellect and strength
3. +1 resource/ +1 card activated effect is strong incentive to play ignore/cancel effects, since it often makes them free cantrips. This also makes her deck cycle faster.
4. Access to cards, which increases her potential for combat
5. Potential for 6 base willpower in late game
6. She starts with 6 cards (with Dark Insight as one of them), and if you mulligan you can get up to 6 new cards!
7. I think her signature weakness is not as devastating as many others. You can choose which cards to ditch and which to keep for 1 horror. This actually helps clear space for new additions. But it also favors not relying too heavily on her willpower (see below).

Cons:

1. Very low starting willpower. This creates a conundrum because cards like Shrivelling will be very difficult to use for part of the game, and hard to justify with access to cards like Machete. Upgraded spells that boost willpower should be easier to use. If you do rely heavily on willpower, it incentivizes playing your cancel/ignore effects earlier, and even potentially wasting them instead of saving them for harsher threats.
2. Why choose Diana Stanley to wield Machete when you can use other guardians with 4 or 5 strength? I think you have to make good use of her cards and 3 intellect to justify this.

When I think about cultists in this game, I think about not tremendously tough, not tremendously damaging enemies that treacheries can turn into absolute landmines. The longer they’re around, the tougher they are to fight and the more doom they bring to the table. Diana's the opposite.

Diana, like Gloria, represents a class of mystics that no other class can really replicate. As mystics with guardian access, they can help the party survive with sheer denial. (It’s why both of them are probably bad in improv.) Miss Stanley, the investigator you probably care more about because you’re reading about her, doesn’t really fit into the clue seeker/flexible/fighter archetypes. She can do any of those things, but more than that she can simply ignore bad things that are going to happen. She can play defense in an amazing way.

In fact, putting Diane on the team makes more risky characters viable. Low willpower rogues like her cult buddy Preston, oddities like Calvin...They can spread their wings, knowing that the worst of the encounter deck will be taken care of for them, and that their weakness can be ignored at least once due to dark insight.