No Asset Diana

Played in Circle Undone on Hard with 4 players. Other decks were a murder Roland Banks, a clue based Joe Diamond and a support Carolyn Fern.

The initial idea of the deck was to play a support deck with the goal of "mitigating the scenario". Do this bu canceling bad encounter cards, spending your actions removing other players' weaknesses and treacheries, and doing scenario specific mechanics. I also decided to play no assets, partly because i didn't want to have to waste time spending actions setting up (whereas everyone else normally had to take their first turn to, I could immediately start exploring, taking actions on cards, or dig for more situationally useful cards for later), but mostly because it was a fun restriction to build around. Do always play the Twilight Blade though, it's one of the best cards in deck and use it to replay stuff liberally. Shrivelling and other asset spells seemed really awkward in Diana anyways, especially a support based build that wouldn't be "leveling up" her willpower that high (as you are often replaying the support cards underneath you). Plus using under-used and wierd situational stuff created a lot of cool, interesting situations.

Priorities for first upgrades are Ward of Protection level 2 (don't go to level 5, these are there to help others save actions, you don't care as much) and Counterspell, for extra cancels. I then picked up 2 Seal of the Elder Sign (played about equally on me and on others, getting an extra ward is great but so is guaranteeing a big monster kill). Dayana Esperence was the only asset I decided to pick up, only because she seemed tailor made to support this weird archetype, so I decided to count her as an honorary event. "I've had worse…" level 2 came out fairly late into our campaign, but it was also stellar. Deny Existence level 5 was great, but its exp cost is pretty prohibitive. Make sure you wait to get the arcane research discount on each.

Other upgrades can include Ambush (I took one early and it was fairly solid, especially with on the hunt, but nothing amazing), Dynamite Blast level 2, Storm of Spirits level 3, Blinding Light level 2 is fine enough to pick up when you aren't otherwise using your arcane research discount.

You start with a few pretty mediocre cards due to the restriction, so replacements are fairly easy to make. Eldritch Inspiration was the first dard to to for me, followed by 1 On the Hunt (you could easily cut both though), 1 Heroic Rescue (another easy one to cut both of), 1 Prepared for the Worst, and since the rest of the team was so good at getting clues I eventually cut the Evidence! and Scene of the Crime, since they were too situational. Then there's obviously Delve Too Deep, which I cut 1 around halfway through and the other a scenario later. With Dream Eaters out, I would probably start with 3 Open Gate and see how those play out, they seem great for this deck with having lots of free time to help others save it.

Highlights of the campaign (very minor spoilers) included: Constantly standing on Roland for several scenarios to shuffle Doomed back into his deck, immediately getting two assets put into my deck before playing the first game (hilariously breaking my self imposed deckbuilding restriction), and having one scenario where we were doing so well I just sat back and prepared until the end of the scenario, then played double Delve Too Deep and prevented anything negative from happening at all.