Daisy Walker - The Nancy Drew of Arkham

I've played the young Ms. Walker for a dozen games now, and this is my take on the Nancy Drew of Arkham Horror.

Table of Content:

1. Important to read
2. Deck Composition
3. Weakness Mitigation
4. Mulligan Guide
5. Playstyle Guide
6. Upgrade Guide
7. Excluded cards

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   1 IMPORTANT TO READ

   1) Daisy is NOT a combat character! She can handle a few monsters on her own, but she'll quickly run out of combat cards and she's not good at evading. You will need combat backup!

2) This deck is designed for multiplayer campaigns. I don't think Daisy is the best solo investigator, with 2 in both Combat and Agility.

3) People often point out at Rex Murphy is the better clue gatherer. That's true, but Daisy has several other advantages on Rex. If you want to really specialize, you might want to go for Rex, but I personally find Daisy more fun to play.

4) You'll need two core sets and three adventure packs for this deck. Sad, but that's living card games for you. :/

5) If you have a Mystic in your group, he'll will probably rather strangle you than play with only one Shrivelling and no Rosaries. Fair warning. :)

6) This deck is made for Easy, Normal and Hard difficulty. Expert difficulty has its own rules and decks.

2. DECK COMPOSITION

Let's have a look at the deck. The holy trinity of Daisy Drew is her 5 Intellect, Old Book of Lore and Dr. Milan Christopher.

CORE

5 Intellect is almost overkill. There's not many locations with 4 or more in Shroud, so you'll make most skill checks even at -3. Dr. Milan will give you +1, and skill cards and assets such as Arcane Studies (and eventually Higher Education) will do the rest.

Old Book of Lore is essential to this deck. You have no less than two of them, as well as TWO Research Librarians to help you find one as soon as possible. They let you to filter your deck for cards you need, as well as maintaining a healthy hand of cards for your Higher Education (which you will buy at first opportunity).

Dr. Milan Christopher is your best source of income. The deck is a rather low-cost, with only five cards that cost 3 or 4 resources (The most expensive card is Dr. Milan himself, actually), so you'll be rolling in cash if you get to play him early.

SKILL CARDS

You have 2 Deduction and 2 Perception in the deck. They're nice cards in their own, but you might want to save them for those 4 shroud locations if you don't have other means of buffing your Intelligence.

The Guts are there for those nasty treachery willpower tests. Unexpected Courage is a lovely little bundle of question marks that's always useful.

ASSETS

First, the humble Knife for those lesser enemies with low Combat and 2 Stamina (Looking at you, ghouls and thralls!). You will soon replace it, but it's decent for the first few games. There's a single Medical Texts there, too. The reason is Daisys low stamina of 5, so healing yourself (or a friend) for a free action can be worth it.

There's also one copy of Scrying (a great card, especially combined with Ward of Protection) and one copy of Shrivelling. Shrivelling is there for when you need to fight (hopefully never). Two Holy Rosary are included - they are dirt cheap at 2 resources for +1 Willpower and +2 Sanity, and can be used as +1 Willpower skill cards if you don't feel like playing them as assets.

Arcane Studies isn't really a great card, but it's a decent placeholder for Higher Education for your first game.

There's two Strange Solution that can be identified and then upgraded to the super-powerful acidic Strange Solution. The card is a bit confusing, but it seems like you only have to identify it once to upgrade both cards. But you need to replace the basic card to buy the upgraded version, so that's why we have two of them from the start.

EVENTS

Delve Too Deep is... well, it's chancy. I included ONE, in case you find yourself with time to spare. The min-maxers probably want two. I find that one is just enough, especially with Old Book of Lore in play.

Now, Emergency Cache. I'm NOT a fan of this card, but I can't seem to find a way around it. The problem is that you can't really expect Dr. Milan Christopher to be in every opening hand. Old Book of Lore is expensive, Dr. Milan himself is expensive, Shrivelling is expensive and you need resources to feed to Arcane Studies/Higher Education. Thus this dud of a card, which you'll eventually upgrade to its slightly less sucky version.

Mind over Matter is a great backup card. It's fast, so you can play it even if engaged with an enemy. It's useful when you need to kill the small ones and when you need to evade the big ones. And it has two skill tokens to boot!

Ward of Protection is the best card in the game. Paying 1 horror to avoid a Treachery effect is the best bargain ever, but be sure to save it for those really horrible ones (such as 3 stamina damage or +1 Doom Counter).

3. WEAKNESS MITIGATION

Daisys main weakness is her 2 Combat and Agility. The low Combat isn't a big issue (since you probably wont play her solo) but the low agility can hurt if you're unlucky with your treachery cards. My only advice is to nurse your stamina as much as possible. You can eventually buy a Bulletproof vest, and if you're really low on blood you CAN use a Research Librarian to find your Medical Texts.

Her unique Weakness card, The John Doe The Necronomicon isn't all that bad. It's basically a tome that forces you to take 3 direct horror and waste 3 actions. Until you do, Elder Sign auto-successes will count as Tentacle auto-fails. My usual rule of thumb is to deal with it if you draw it early and ignore it if you draw it late. An extra 6,25% chance of autofail (less if there's more than 16 tokens in the bag) isn't nice, but you'll survive.

You can also handle most basic weaknesses. Cards like Amnesia and Silver Twilight Acolyte can be a bit disruptive, but that's all.

4. MULLIGAN GUIDE

You need either Old Book of Lore or Research Librarian in your opening hand, so mulligan every card you can until you get either. That's how important it is to this deck.

The only exception is Dr. Milan Christopher. You might want to hold on to him, since playing him early is so much better than playing him late. Pathfinder is also something might want to hold on to if you don't get neither tome/librarian nor Milan, especially in scenarioes with many locations.

5. PLAYSTYLE GUIDE

Playing a Seeker is all about effiency. Advancing the game is YOUR responsibility, after all. And Daisy can be awfully efficient, with her free tome actions, Deduction, Pathfinder and high intelligence.

My most important advice is as follows:

• Start finding clues as soon as possible. Don't waste time on playing every asset in your hand before you start; all you need is the old tome and possibly Dr. Milan.
• Never use a whole action on drawing a card or on 1 resource unless absolutely necessary.
• Remember that the investigators take turns in any order they like each round. Let the other player(s) kill spawned monsters before you start looking for clues.
• Don't split the party (too much). Even tiny monsters takes time to kill and you're here to pick up clues. Having a friendly fighter close by will save you both actions and stamina.

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  6. UPGRADE GUIDE

HIGH PRIORITY

• Higher Education (3xp) -> This is the single most important upgrade for this deck. There's tons of willpower tests in this game, and +2 Skill for one resource is divine. You might even need some extra Intelligence now and then, for those high shroud locations.

And Since Higher Education is a permanent, you'll start every game with in already in play. The "Only usable with five card in hand" requirement isn't really that bad when you get the Old Tome into play.

• Replace Arcane Studies with Pathfinder (1xp) -> Arcane Studies is close to useless with Higher Education in play, so replace it with Pathfinder. A Pathfinder played early can save you 5 to 10 actions during a game, which is insanely powerful.

• Replace Strange Solution with Strange Solution (acidic) (4xp) -> Now this is Xp expensive! But also an extremely good card, since you'll fight with a Combat of 6 rather than 2 AND do 3 damage per hit.

MEDIUM PRIORITY

• Replace Knife with Pathfinder (1xp) -> With the acidic strange solution in your deck you can replace your rusty, old knife. Pathfinder is also best in the first half of each game, so including two of them will ensure that you'll get one early.

• Replace Deduction with Deduction (2xp) -> Finding three clues in one action is just so good.

• Replace Deduction with Deduction -> It's so good you really should upgrade both.

• Replace Strange Solution with Strange Solution (acidic) (4xp) -> With three charges per Solution, having two is better than having one.

LOW PRIORITY

• Replace Holy Rosary with Encyclopedia (2xp) -> Okay, Encyclopedia isn't the best card in the game, but Daisy can use it as one of her free tome actions. There will also be some situations where you don't want to draw more cards, so having an alternative is nice. The card also has a neat ? token for those hard skill checks.

• Replace Emergency Cache with Emergency Cache (2xp) -> The upgraded Emergency Cache is slightly less garbage than the ordinary one.

• Replace Delve Too Deep with Cryptic Research (3xp) -> The Xp from Delve Too Deep is much more valuable earlier in the campaign. By game 4 and up the value of +1 Xp dimishes rapidly, so replace it. I really like Cryptic Resarch; it's a FAST and yields three cards. I tend to play this card on other investigators, since the Good Book will provide for Daisy.

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  SITUATIONAL UPGRADES

• The Bulletproof Vest is underrated. You don't need it in most games, but when you do, it's priceless. It will also let you take some risks you wouldn't dare without it. The vest also more valuable if you don't have a designated meatshield in your group or if you have suffered a physical trauma.

• Charisma is a really good card, but not necessarily in this deck. Maybe if you gain several useful allies during the campaign. Maybe.

• The humble Magnifying Glass could be included, but on Hard difficulty only. I'm not a huge fan of it, but it's better than failing skill checks. Some people include Flashlights, but Daisy really shouldn't have to chase auto-successes.

• If you have another Mystic in your group, she probably nabbed the Ward of Protection cards at the start of the campaign. If she did, she CAN upgrade them (at an insane cost) just so Daisy can buy the basic version. To quote Animal Farm: Four is better than two.

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  7. Excluded cards:

• Flashlight. As I said above, Daisy really shouldn't have to chase auto-successes with her intelligence. That's for her stupid friends to do.

• Preposterous Sketches. This card is a trap. 3 cards for 1 action and 2 resources is just not worth it.

• "I've got a plan!" is a difficult card to use. I've given up on it, mostly because it's so expensive. 3 resources is insane, and is better spent on something else.

• Shortcut is decent card, and I would probably include it if I didn't plan on buying Pathfinder after one or two games.

• Moment of Respite is a decent enough card, but Daisy has plenty of Sanity. I'd pass. The same goes for Fearless.

Thanks for reading and good luck out there <3 .