Dinkleberg's Better Daniela Reyes Starter Deck

Introduction

Core 2026 for Chapter 2 is here, and much like Chapter 1, it shipped with investigator starter decks evenly split between their primary and secondary class. While this is great for getting broader exposure to the card pool, it also makes for less consistent and focused decks. Chapter 1 famously had a line of "Better Starter Decks" guides by Killbray, which offer an alternative deck structure closer to the theme embraced by the Standalone/Evergreen Investigator starter decks: two copies of a smaller selection of cards, to increase consistency.

These deck guides are provided in the same spirit for Chapter 2. You are encouraged to tweak them if you have multiple Chapter 2 Core sets, are playing with a low player count, or otherwise just want to put your own spin on them! Suggestions for some of the first items to consider will be described in the "Substitutions" section of the deck guide below.

Note

These deck guides are written assuming you desire to have a set of ready-to-play decks for each investigator in the Core Set, without having overlap or needing to proxy cards. The other decks in this series can be found at the following links:

Joe Diamond

Trish Scarborough

Dexter Drake

Isabelle Barnes

Your Role and Your Cards

Daniela is the chief fighter in the Core Set. She rarely wants to evade enemies, and indeed her investigator ability and the ability on Daniela's Wrench specifically incentivize you to take attacks from enemies for a engage and fight action, particularly given the damage boost built in to her wrench (which she can use immediately! Remember, exhausted cards can still have other lines of text activated on them, providing exhausting the card is not part of that activation cost!). Cards like Right Tool for the Job help Daniela seek her wrench, the Meat Cleaver, the M1911, or even a Broken Bottle if the search manages to miss all of the other weapons in her deck. Similarly, Jumpsuit provides some damage soak while also allowing for the player to recur a spent M1911 from the discard pile, along with any other infinite-use weapons that were discarded by scenario card effects. Meat Cleaver allows Daniela to sustain herself with built-in horror healing upon enemy defeat, which synchronizes well with Logan Hastings, who will reward Daniela with a resource on each kill. The M1911 also makes for a great weapon for attacks during the enemy phase against any enemies engaged with another investigator, that Daniela doesn't have the action economy to engage herself, assuming Daniela's ability is still available.

For long-term sustainment, cards like Jumpsuit and Bodyguard give Daniela more physical soak, and Bandages can be used to keep her and Logan Hastings alive. Meat Cleaver helps keep her sanity topped off as well.

Economically, Emergency Cache and Logan Hastings provide the income she needs to pay for her expensive assets.

Every investigator should be able to pick up at least a couple clues. In Daniela's case, cards like Lesson Learned, which synchronizes with her investigator ability and wrench, and Scene of the Crime allows her to pick up clues when enemies are nearby without having to sequence her attack, which works very well when Doomed enemies are present. Hand-Crank Flashlight is a great option to use on 1 shroud locations, bringing them to 0 (and thus guaranteeing clue discovery on any token pull except the !).

For your skills, the venerable Vicious Blow remains present for doing heavy damage to Elite enemies, or handling the classically annoying odd-health enemies. Guts helps her sustain against encounter cards, while Overpower provides additional card mill early, or more certain strikes against Elite enemies late in the game.

Your Challenges

Agility is an important stat in Chapter 2, and this Daniela deck virtually ignores it entirely. Levelheaded is present to allow for the occasional test boost, particularly against encounter cards, but it will cost you precious resources. Similarly, Endurance can help you evade Doomed or Elusive enemies as needed.

Additionally, Daniela's deck is asset heavy, and these assets are not cheap. Emergency Cache and Logan Hastings are your solution to this, meaning you want them in your hand earlier rather than later.

Substitutions

A second copy of Meat Cleaver or Bandages, or Endurance or Levelheaded, are all reasonable choices depending on how you tend to play (especially since Bandages can help mitigate the additional damage from In Harm's Way). Hunter's Instinct can be used to recur your Emergency Cache. "Look what I found!" is a possible inclusion, though Lesson Learned is a better recursion target for Hunter's Instinct because it is both cheaper and fast, despite discovering less clues. Resilience and Aleksey Saburov are also worth consideration if you find yourself tanking a lot of damage and horror from beefy enemies regularly. Unexpected Courage and Manual Dexterity are both worth considering if you find yourself getting heavily beaten up by encounter cards without the resource economy or presence of your Talent cards to offset them.