Diana, Eldritch Knight

note: Knife = Enchanted Blade. As of publishing this deck, Arkhamdb doesn't know that Enchanted Blade is out.

This is the Diana Stanley deck I've been developing for The Circle Undone, and which has had good results so far.

The concept:

With a willpower of 1 and a combat of 3, the designers have given us a rather unorthodox Mystic. And since Diana can use Guardian cards, this represents an excellent opportunity to put together a fighting mage. Enchanted Blade seems tailor-made for her, so here we have a deck that takes on the Mythos with a blade in hand, backed up by protective spells.

Since we get bonus resources and card-draw for cancelling nasty effects, this deck includes nine ways to utilise her ability. It's key to note that we are not aiming to turbo-charge our willpower to 6, so we can be selective about which effects we choose to cancel. In addition, we have two copies of Prepared for the Worst to search out both a weapon and her Twilight Blade, enabling us to re-use our cancellation effects.

In order to help get around the low willpower, two copies of Steadfast are included for making willpower tests in the early game, before we get up to 3+ willpower and before we've taken much damage. Take the Initiative and Unexpected Courage also serve as flexible skill cards for dealing with Treacheries, meaning that we aren't pressured to cancel everything that comes out of the Encounter deck. We even have two copies of "Let me handle this!" so we can better cover our fellow investigators with our cancellation shelter.

The basic strategy for this deck is to lean into the Guardian role by getting a weapon down early and slaying monsters, while using cancellation effects to deal with nasty Treacheries and enemy attacks which could slow us down. Since we are not relying on our willpower, instead relying on cancellation to deal with willpower tests, we are free to dig through our deck with no fear of Terrible Secret coming up. We have both Drawn to the Flame and Scene of the Crime for quick clue gathering, and a single Dynamite Blast to take care of specific situations where Machete won't work very well. Since we need very few assets, we can focus our build-up actions on drawing in order to maintain that constant safety blanket of cancellation.

Mulligans: As this deck has 20 events and doesn't rely on a suite of assets, the one key card to start with is either Enchanted Blade or Machete. Crypt Chill can be very problematic, so make sure you've got a cancel for it, or consider saving your Dark Insight. Cards worth mulliganning away include Delay the Inevitable, Scene of the Crime, Hypnotic Gaze, and Dynamite Blast, since these cards usually aren't useful at the start of the game. Cards that are worth hanging onto, assuming you've already drawn a weapon, include Beat Cop, Deny Existence, Drawn to the Flame, Emergency Cache, Ward of Protection, and Steadfast.

Upgrades:

Timeworn Brand is a sweet, sweet weapon to spend our XP on. Since we are running two copies of Prepared for the Worst, we only really need one copy of the Brand, as well. Note that Steadfast represents a mega-boost when going for a big hit with the Brand.

Blood Pact is a resource-less source of a giant boost to our combat checks, though best used sparingly (except during the witching hour when the additional doom won't matter, of course).

Ward of Protection L2 is a key cancellation card, so we can cover our teammates. Once this upgrade is taken, we don't need "Let me handle this!", and they can be replaced by...

Counterspell is a slick cancellation card that can be used reactively to cover a nasty token draw and turn it into a 0.

Ace of Swords helps with boosting our combat using an unused slot.

Vicious Blow L2 and Beat Cop L2 are excellent functional upgrades to the L0 versions.

Seal of the Elder Sign, though expensive XP-wise, fits perfectly into this deck's plans. Diana's Elder Sign effect gives +2, and the Seal iself contributes +1, meaning we can auto-pass a test even from three points below the difficulty, acting very much like a cancellation. In addition, we can immediately draw a cancellation effect into our hand, meaning that Seal of the Elder Sign is giving us the ability to cancel a second nasty effect!

Once we have added Seal of the Elder Sign and Counterspell, Arcane Initiate, even its L0 version, starts looking like a solid supplementary draw engine and horror soak. If you're swimming in XP, consider Charisma as well.

So, there you have it, the Eldritch Knight of Arkham. Enjoy the deck!