Card draw simulator
| Derived from |
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| None. Self-made deck here. |
| Inspiration for |
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| None yet |
jmmeye3 · 613
This is my new take on Diana Stanley after trying her out in the Circle Undone. I've tried to address a few of the problems: damage/horror mitigation (particularly a problem with low starting willpower, and I overestimated the ability of the few cancel effects!), poor economy, and too few ignore/cancel effects (previous version had only 7).
Diana Stanley's biggest strength is her awesome card pool. Guardian and Mystic compliment each other wonderfully and allow a balanced hybrid build. Her biggest weakness is mediocre stats and very low starting willpower, which basically shuts off the standard mystic spells (e.g. Shrivelling) for half the game.
Combat: Machete is the best level 0 weapon for Diana Stanley, hands down! Why use Shrivelling when Machete has 3 higher combat, or .45 Automatic which quickly runs out of ammo? Survival Knife is a good backup weapon and synergizes nicely with a rich source of ally meat-shields (though sadly it does not combo with most of her cancel effects). When a tough enemy engages, Diana can use Steadfast or Take the Initiative to get a Vicious Blow-boosted hit, followed by test-less damage from Guard Dog and then counterattack with Survival Knife. Swarms can be answered with Dynamite Blast or Storm of Spirits. Diana does not fear attacks of opportunity thanks to Guard Dog and multiple cards that cancel attacks. Delay the Inevitable can be used to cancel the 3 damage from Dynamite Blast.
Investigation: St. Hubert's Key brings her to 4 intellect, which can then be boosted with Perception for tougher locations. Drawn to the Flame and Scene of the Crime are used for test-less clues at the highest shroud locations.
Economy: As mentioned, Diana has a problem with economy. She wants to use lots of expensive cards and when she uses an ignore/cancel effect she draws a new card, thus demanding more resources to play them. So the Emergency Cache and David Renfield are essential to help mitigate this. Also, expensive cards like Physical Training are completely out of reach for her.
Allies: David Renfield for economy, but only 1 copy to avoid getting stuck with 2 copies in your hand when doom is limiting. Guard Dog is great for test-less damage. Olive McBride is mainly for super cheap soak, but should be activated when you play Hypnotic Gaze or if you are at least 4-5+ and really need to avoid the auto-fail.
Counterspells (ignore/cancel cards): As noted by others, around 10-11 seems like the right number. Use fewer and they just don't show up and she is stuck at 1 willpower and can't activate her elder sign effect if she draws it. The best are Deny Existence, Dodge and Ward of Protection, after the awesome Dark Insight, of course. Deny Existence and Hypnotic Gaze are included as backups and for fun combos. Olive McBride should be activated and placed under Diana before she dies to get a refund and willpower boost. Again, it is important to play your first counterspell quickly to make sure you can use her elder sign effect when drawn, and to allow Terrible Secret to hit softly instead of shuffling back in. Let most of your cards under Diana go when you draw Terrible Secret, except maybe Dark Insight. Twilight Blade is for skill icons only if you draw early, but can be pretty good late to hit odd health enemies and recur your counterspells.
Upgrades:
- Level 5 Shrivelling. Unlike the level 0 version, this becomes useful pretty quickly and therefore is her highest priority upgrade to boost her combat potential and balance Machete.
- Depending on XP flow, boosting Machete with Reliable and Ace of Swords or upgrading to Timeworn Brand.
- Counterspell
- Vicious Blow
- Dynamite Blast
- Rite of Seeking. In campaigns (especially multi-player) with very high investigating requirements.
| 4 comments |
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Feb 16, 2019 |
Feb 16, 2019Does Delay let you do that? I have gone back and forth on if the and/or is optional or not. |
Feb 16, 2019I believe it is optional, otherwise the card would just read "Discard Delay the Inevitable and cancel all damage and horror just dealt." Or like Dodge, which won't work with Survival Knife or Guard Dog, that reads: "Cancel that attack." I guess we could ask for a ruling to be sure, but it seems legit. |
Feb 16, 2019That’s interesting, apotropaic, I think you might be right about preventing only the horror with Delay the Inevitable, but I couldn’t find anything about interpreting “and/or” in the rules reference. Also, damage assigned to your allies counts as having been dealt to you, so you can counterattack with Survival Knife even without assigning anything to Diana. But what is clear is that if you cancel the attack or damage in any way, you can’t counterattack. So in general the cancel effects and the counterattacks in this deck work separately, as shown by Apotropaic’s examples of handling the damage and horror separately. I’ll edit my write-up because it was confusing, I did not mean to suggest you could use both Hypnotic Gaze and Guard Dog on the same attack. |
I like that you point out Delay the Inevitable can make Diana or up to two investigators (with 2 copies of Delay) dynamite-proof. However, I don't think you're right when you say you can use Hypnotic Gaze to cancel an attack and then combo that with Guard Dog. If you cancel the attack Guard Dog doesn't receive any damage from an attack and therefore cannot trigger its .
You can actually use Diana Stanley's cancel/ignore cards to trigger Guard Dog, and/or Survival Knives though. With either Deny Existence or Delay the Inevitable. Deny Existence will allow you to ignore horror and still take damage which you can take to divide between Diana and Guard dog, thus triggering both Guard Dog and Survival Knife if both are in play. Delay also lets you disregard horror and take damage to do the same. My builds have had both Survival Knives as main weapons, because once you quicken Diana with some cancels combining Shrivelling's 2 damage with Survival KnifeX2 potential 4 damage within the enemy phase is the most boss thing ever. If I'm wrong and I missed something though, please let me know.