Dewey Deci-Spell System - "Quick Rig" Hard Mode Daisy

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This is a deck ive been refining and testing for a few weeks over runs of various scenarios.

Im pleased to say it has just cleared the first half of hard mode carcosa with minimal issues paired with a combat focused desperate Yorik which I hope to publish if I find the time.

ABSTRACT (TL:DR/Overview):

This is a “quick rig” cluer/caster hybrid deck. The target is to be able to reliably set up a standard Daisy with Milan & Old Book of Lore within a turn or two. With a little xp, Milan money then fuels a caster offspec (also rapidly deployed) with constant access to Shrivelling and/or Archaic Glyphs / Archaic Glyphs due to Book of Shadows recharging. This deck has been carefully refined over a number of plays to achieve this in hard mode without overly sacrificing overall performance of the deck to far by adding more draw/tutoring than strictly necessary. My hope (and experience to date) is that this leads to a low variance deck with as much extra utility in other areas as I can get in there.

Resetting to campaign start deck: Note that this build is shown with the first couple of upgrades for clarity. For a campaign starter deck swap Book of Shadows to Mind over Matter, reset the Archaic Glyphs to their untranslated version and drop Higher Education and Charisma

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DRIVING MISS DAISY

Detailed Piloting and Discussion

Upgrades and (an untested) solo mode are towards the bottom for those who want to skip to them

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PROLOGUE (Your first scenario): On the first run the deck will play a little differently. Your aiming to use standard seeker shenanigans to clear it. The spell casting will come late game and be much less reliable than it will in next scenario. In the meantime get on with these:

• Archaic Glyphs: Daisy is well positioned to solve these in her spare time with her ID ability and the spare draw from Old Book of Lore providing plenty of spare (or wild) icons. (Discussion re how to pick/use the upgrades below).
• Delve Too Deep For anyone not aware of this trick, play these at the very end of the scenario ideally just before you resign so the repercussions are minimised. You really want that xp on the first scenario to get Higher Education, Charisma and ideally Book of Shadows or your first upgraded glyphs.

This scenario your going to have limited options for dealing with enemies. Mind over Matter and Inquiring Mind may be best used for evading non hunters. Shrivelling works but burns a lot of pips to land. Outside of that, dont feel bad about using your army of disposable allys to simply soak hits while you use Old Book of Lore action to dig for options (you still get an attack of opportunity on daisy's ID ability). Solo will also have "I've got a plan!" over deduction (see below). So you have 6 (or 8) cards for dealing with enemies. Dont be shy about Fluxing back even just 2 of them to let you dig them out again.

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INDEX (mulligan and early game tutoring): This deck is balanced to get these out very early reliably. Mulligan hard for them or their tutors:

• Old Book of Lore: A well established staple of daisy decks. This gives long term bonus draw and soft tutoring over the course of the game use this every turn. Once you feel set up, swap to using Book of Shadows unless you go below 5 cards for Higher Education.
• Dr. Milan Christopher: Vital for creating a constant cash stream for spells (see below) and reaching that all important 6 baseline. Shroud 3 locations are very common and on hard you typically want to be testing 3 above skill if you reliably expect to pass. Milan therefore not only generates cash, but saves you from repeatedly needing to pay to boost via Higher Education.

Tutoring: Research Librarian grabs Old Book of Lore, and both Research Librarian and Milan can be tutored by Calling in Favors - which with 5 non Milan allys in the deck should easilly have an in play target. OBL is more important first but obv don’t send Milan to grab someone else unless you’re rich.

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BODY TEXT (Allies) In addition to milan you have 5 transient ally’s who will come in and out of play providing meat shields, number of support functions and importantly provide both fuel and spare targets for left over Calling in Favors once Milan is down.

• Calling in Favors In addition to soft tutoring please note the economy aspect of this card letting you refund spent ally’s and/or reset thier health/san/doom.
• Research Librarian self explanatory. Primary target Old Book of Lore. Second target Book of Shadows. After that these are protection against asset hate (Straitjacket/ Corrosion etc)
• David Renfield Shout out to Unitled for highlighting Renfield. It is no coincidence that his Renfiled discussion deck and mine share a number of components as they were both influenced by lengthy chat after Unitled spotted that placing doom on Renfield is optional. After that chat and A LOT of practicing with Renfield, i have come to realise he is a 1x card here. The temporary boost fits nicely with Shrivelling, and the 2hp sures up daisy's low base, but your mainly looking for one big burst of cash here. You want to get 3+ consecutive turns of use out of him before killing him off (note Ward of Protection and Shrivelling can do this) or sending him to make a call to get that doom off the table before it ruins you. In isolation, getting 2 turns out of him offers a very poor return at 2 resource to play, netting 1 resource for 1 action which isnt amazing (soak/brief boost aside ofc). Calling in Favors also allows you to refund or discount against the replaced/replacement ally which can justify these 2 turn plays occasionally but its that 3rd turn that really ramps up the returns. Also note that while I think we all want to go for gold here and milk Renfield for all hes worth (See Unitled's deck for a discussion on how) but pulling that off once in a scenario really is plenty .
• Art Student This slot could easily be Laboratory Assistant but I’ve found I rarely need the draw. Art student also sures you up against anomalies like Locked Doors, but the main thing it offers is pure action compression since your game plan expects you to be playing allys. While you have Higher Education for 4/5 shroud locations, it is still preferable to auto clue here as your likely going 2 above test values which can risk On fail effects. The other option here is a 1x Arcane Initiate to give a bit more consistency to finding those spells (note that Ward of Protection is also a spell). This does work. It’s not bad. But with Old Book of Lore it isn’t essential. She also competes with Renfield for “doom space” so I bumped her.
• Charisma just to say, while 1x is essential here. 2x is helpful but a luxury. It’s main drawback being that it makes it harder to bump Renfield out of by just dropping another ally as you need all slots filled to do so.

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SPELL CHECKING (caster offspec): By early-mid game you will have likely found at least one of your arcane slot spells. These are your primary long term method of dealing with enemies.

• Scrying This Daisy likes big books but she cannot scry. I’ll be honest. This card has no place here. I just thought you might appreciate a little comic relief after all that reading. Besides everyone knows big girls don’t scry.
• Shrivelling Your main damage dealer but it’s not cheap to use. Sticking with aiming 3 above test value your looking to sink 2 resources into Higher Education on enemies with 3 or 4 str (or 1 resource on a 2 str enemy) and possibly 1 more to recharge it. You’re not a combatant here per se. You just have options when your backed into a corner. Keep a little on the side for this and save up plenty for bosses. It’s downside of random horror shocks can easily be absorbed by the ally hordes.
• Archaic Glyphs (clues) vs Archaic Glyphs (Evade) This comes down to personal preference. Archaic Glyphs (Evade) allows you to go off on your own more adding two more ways of dealing with enemies which is useful once you’ve swapped out a Mind over Matter. Note that being able to grab a clue without triggering attacks of opportunity is much better than it sounds. With Book of Shadows you can tank 1 enemy perpetually due to the recurring resource you get back with Milan. Archaic Glyphs (clues) has synergy with Higher Education but it does require that there are 2+ clues available and you probably want to see 3 at least given the effort and xp to get them. I have mainly been testing with 1 of each in 2p and I found I always wished i had the evade one, but there is definitely scope for a "Rex-like" daisy build at 3p+.
• Book of Shadows When you're not using Old Book of Lore. Pour 1 cred a turn into recharging either Shrivelling or Glyphs/Glyphs keeping them ever green. You really only need 1 copy of this. Its a mid/late game card and you have Research Librarians to fetch it

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APPENDIX: (the rest)

• Quantum Flux I wish i could squeeze another of these in somewhere. Did any of the mill mechanics in dunwich kill a keystone card? Are you About to explode? Did you lose a tome to Corrosion? or spend an ally you want back? Well shuffle them back in then tutor for them. The other massive thing this card offers is more subtle. The thing is each scenario will tax certain aspects of your deck differently (combat/movement/money/particular pips etc) which means you will spend particular broad categories of cards more quickly than others. This lets you shuffle a load of them back in so your odds on drawing a few more of the type of thing you were hoping for (especially with Old Book of Lore's filtering effect).
• Inquiring Mind great all purpose card. Often used to boost Shrivelling in the first scenario (clue presence permitting) or at least to feed Archaic Glyphs (you dont need to have the clue to discard it, only to commit to tests). Failing that I frequently use it to evade.
• Deduction no surprises here. Primarily used on shroud 4 to both clear efficiently and reach that magic 3 points over test strength.
• Shortcut Simply a great action saving card and my hair style description all in one. Never leave home without it.
• Ward of Protection essential for dealing with problematic encounter cards like Beyond the Veil in dunwich, or the ever hated Ancient Evils. Note that your allys can easilly absorb the horror for you, and indeed this can be used to kill off an out of control Renfield if needed.

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SECOND ED. (Upgrades):

Essentials (in order)

• 3xp - 1x Higher Education
• 3xp - 1x Charisma Opens up second ally slot to let you use disposable ally swarm without interupting Milan
• 1xp - 1x Mind over Matter -> Book of Shadows (See above)
• 3xp (each) - 2x Upgrade Archaic Glyphs

later recommendations (no order)

• 2xp (each) - Deduction -> Deduction v2

• 2xp - Mind over Matter -> Encyclopedia (optional). Helps with Archaic Glyphs, lets you boost for Shrivelling though you still take the attack of opportunity (on an Art Student ideally). As with Book of Shadows, you dont need more than 1 here since you can tutor. Its also crazy with a Police Badge Yorik so i may be overrating this.

• 5xp - Delve Too Deep -> Deciphered Reality A commonly misunderstood card. You dont need to shoot the moon here and get 10 clues in 1 action. You get great returns with just 3 or 4 since you didnt have to travel to get the other 1 or 2 from far away. Note that you get 2 from your own location since you get 1 naturally for the investigate and it does not have an "instead of" text.

• 4xp - Delve Too Deep -> Cryptic Research one of the best draw cards in the game. Once you're done with delve (scenario 4 ish for me) this is just a solid deck thinner or party support card.

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Dream 5: What? Who told you to read this? Go to the solo section. Honestly, you just cant get the staff these days

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY (solo variant)

Note: I have not tested this solo nor do I play a lot of true solo. But I have however had a lot practice 2 handed solo with daisy going off on her own quite some distance from her chaperone. These steps are essentially my thoughts on how to go solo extrapolating from my 2 handed experiences.

• Deduction -> "I've got a plan!" sures up the combat a little and with locations rarely having more than 1 clue, the main thing deduction was doing for you was giving you that 1 extra pip for shroud 4 locations (which "I've got a plan!" also has.
• 1x Art Student -> Arcane Initiate. (see Art Student section). This just helps speed up the spell finding.

Blimey. Someone made it to the bottom of this. Well done and thank you very much for humoring me!