Daisy Walker - DoomTome Reloaded (Hard Mode)

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Daisy Walker - DTR Level Zero (Taboo) 0 0 0 1.0
Daisy Walker - DoomTome Reloaded 0 XP 0 0 0 1.0
Daisy at the Edge of the Earth 1 0 0 1.0

StartWithTheName · 63539

StartWithTheName

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There has been a lot of tome tech in the last few cycles, and I was curious to see what unique playstyle experience these gave Daisy these days. She has always had the potential to break the usual seeker clue magnet mould and im glad to say she doesnt disappoint. As usual ive not had the time to test this as much as I used to, but im confident its ready to go, and since the ever wonderful Drawn to the Flame Podcast just did an episode on tome tech (albeit in relation to De Vermis Mysteriis rather than Abyssal Tome) I wanted to get the deck out there while debate is still live about good puns for tome decks!.... and also viable builds for them... (but mainly the puns).

Annyyywaayy... This one perhaps isnt the most imaginative build, but it is both effective and fun. All ive really done here is lean into the design of the tome suit and refine it a bit to get things balanced and quick to set up. Still its a blast to play and as effective as most seekers these days, but with a reasonable number of flex slots that can be used to provide a range of secondary/support functions to suite your teams composition. Its mainly been tested in standalones, some hard but mostly standard mode, and all multi player or at least 2 handed. It has also as comfortably cleared all but the last sc for return to dunwhich on standard (about to go into lost in time and space soon!). Nevertheless, as per my usual criteria of the deck overshooting the bag and soaking a lot of harm, im confident it will be fine in Hard mode hence the label. Im not sure about solo as this feels a little specialised, and its combat options are more limited but Im happy to hear experiences or thoughts on this.

The deck is shown here in a stand alone set up, but it doesnt need that much xp to be functional. For a campaign starter:

You can also consider swappin' some of the tomes or some of the cards above for some of the tomes in the side board and tailor things to fit your team composition/personal tastes, but always keep 2x Old Book of Lore.

Right! on with the deck!

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QUICK DRAW (TL:DR)

OVERVIEW:

  • CLUEIN': ....................... Excellent.
  • ENEMY HANDLIN': ...... Late Campaign moderate. Early Burst only.
  • ENCOUNTER PROT: ...... Moderate + Many Soaks/Heals
  • DRAW CONSISTENCY: .. Exceptional
  • CASH ENGINE: ............... Medium
  • HEALIN': ....................... Optional but moderate if taken.

PLAYSTYLE:

  • ROLE: ............................. Cluer with burst damage/Support options.
  • COMPLEXITY: ................ Medium
  • JANK FACTOR: ............... Interaction intensive but intuitive
  • THEMATIC FEEL: ........... Toolboxy Smartarse. "oh ive got a thing for that. let me see."

SLOTS:

A simply to pilot, "quick rig" tome suit Daisy, that stacks to about 7 or 8 to grab clues, and deal damage via converters such as Abyssal Tome, Occult Invocation or "I've got a plan!". Bonus clues are sourced via Some usual suspects. We then lean heavilly into tomes using Daisys ability and Abigail Foreman to get 2 bonus tome actions a turn for a variety of uses.

At the centre of the tome suite is a heavy handed search and draw engine to find and play our components, mostly action free and as early as possible. A hard mulligan (with Studious) "Should" reliably find Old Book of Lore (2), or Research Librarian to fetch it. Or at a push Callin' in Favors + any ally can also grab the Research Librarian. This then finds and sometimes plays the rest of the set up asap. With Abigail Foreman (who can also be "Called in"), that can be 2 searches per turn.

The replacement Daisy's Tote Bag from Read or Die lets us play tomes as fast actions, and can usually be found via Old Book of Lore if not by Studious reasonably early. It also gives us 2 more handslots (plus 1 from Abigail Foreman) letting us keep all our tools in play at once by late game. And there are a wide variety of tomes to pick from to match team composition/personal tastes for your campaign that I have put in the (see the sideboard).

Most notable is the Abyssal Tome + Abigail Foreman (and/or Knowledge is Power (KIP) combo(s). Abigale and KIP do not require Abyssal Tome to be ready as exhausting it is a cost. Now even if we dont add doom to the tome, we can attack for 1 damage 2 or 3 times in a turn with a base attack of our 7 or 8, which is enough to kill most small enemies reliably using only Daisy`s free tome action. BUT if we add doom, this gets very big very fast. First attack (+1 doom) = 2 dmg, Use Abigale (+1 doom) = +3 dmg, KIP (+1 doom)= +4 damage, and maybe 4 more with a second KIP. This can bring a day of Reckonin' to mini bosses and bosses alike, maybe even half an ancient one. If you can afford to keep the doom in play, just do it again next turn. If not, Library Docent can return the tome to hand, or if its on Abigail Foreman, you can kill her off or play with Callin' in Favors to discard the tome.

Boom!

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NEW TOWN, NEW RULES (Upgrades)

PRIORITIES:

  • MVP 1x Old Book of Lore (3) the 1 cost reduction at game start is huge, as is the free play action with discounted cost, especially early game. 1x as you can tutor for it via Research Librarian but feel free to grab the second copy too now if you want.

  • MVP 2x Studious a 7 card opening hand lets you mulgan to see 7 more (14 total - or about half your deck). Now you can find that 1x copy of OBL(3) about half of the time, and/or a Research Librarian to find it about 70-75% of the time (with 2 copies). This also helps find Death • XIII once you have it. Alternatively you can dig for a load of other things if you got the OBL/Librarian in the first hand.

THEN SOME OPTIONS:

I recommend grabbin' the cards shown in the list here first, in roughly this order but obviously there is room for flexibility so pick whatever suits your tastes or team. These are just suggestions:

  • Charisma/Miskatonic Archaeology Fundin' Need this before Abigail Foreman or she competes with Milan. The Arch Fundin' (if you can spare the 1 extra xp) lets you also have a transient ally slot for Librarians and Docents cheaply. Plus, we need to get Formin' a Posse as soon as possible here...

  • 1x Research Librarian Abigail Foreman Once you have 2x Studious, you have less need for the OBL tutor, and can move on to adding more action compression. You can also grab a second copy of abigale much later in the campaign, but for now 1x will be fine to find her at somepoint with all the search tools we have.

  • Damage/utility cards of your choice (see above) Abyssal Tome And Library Docent Try to get these together if you can, at least 1x each. You can use the tome without placing doom to reasonable effect (see combat section), but it gains a lot more potential with the Library Docents. Note that the Docents also let you reload an OBL(3) if youve spent its secrets.

  • St. Hubert's Key Death • XIII This is a small but cheap upgrade in tempo. You lose the +, but the 4 cost on huberts makes it hard to play early game, and Death has good odds (almost 50%) with a hard muligan to be in your starting hand. Ofc you can keep huberts and swap death in over something else if you like. Maybe Celaeno Fragments.

  • Other damage/utility card of your choice Knowledge is Power I recommend this after Abyssal Tome as that is the target it gains the most benefit from, but it also works well with many other tomes.

AND SOME UNTESTED STUFF THAT LOOKS LIKE IT WILL WORK

  • Deduction (2). I never needed it, but it does what it says on the tin.

  • Cluey Glyphs Requires you to have taken and solved the Archaic Glyphss, but with this much you will be overshootin' tests quite a lot.

  • Deciphered Reality Even if you're only hitting 3 or 4 locations with this its a lot. Note that you get 2 clues from your own location. 1 from the initial investigation, and 1 more from the on success effect.

  • De Vermis Mysteriis In principal there are a lot of targets for this here, and all the doom removal tech thats in here for Abyssal Tome can just as easilly be used on De Vermis Mysteriis. I mostly added this to the list so I can plug wonderful Drawn to the Flame Podcasts Episode about it since they are just really nice guys.

  • The other Necronomicon I personally dont use this card even post taboo as it still feels too strong and can be game warping to me, but others enjoy it so do whatever makes you happy. Its supports like Library Docent and Knowledge is Power are all in here.

  • Logical Reasonin' (4) This costs a little too much Xp, but it is a hard reset button for your horror, and a lot of the strategies for this deck rely on soaking horror so this just gives you more space to do that. Grab it late campaign if you grab it at all, but its an option.

  • There are also a few more which should be obvious in the sideboard.

Finally before you ask - see my comment towards the bottom about Whitton Greene.

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DETAILED PILOTIN'

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BIG DEAL (Mulligan and Early Game)

Keep any of these you see:

Mulligan the rest in the hope of finding them, yes even Abigail Foreman you`ll get her eventually:

You then have several ways to find and play cards fast:

  • Old Book of Lore (3) Early game try to find and play assets gradually over a few turns even saving a penny or two as you do. Late game use this for events (see clues section).

  • Callin' in Favors will feel like a dead card in any game you didnt need it, but it has a ton of versitility the times you do. It can find whatever didnt show early enough, ie: Librarians to get OBLss, Abyssal Tome (or whatever else); Milan; or Abigail Foreman. The times you found ALL of those early, youre having a good game and can use it to clear doom from Abyssal Tome later on (see combat).

  • Daisy's Tote Bag from Read or Die lets us play tomes as fast actions, and can usually be found via Old Book of Lore if not by Studious or Eureka!. This saves a ton of actions over the game that can be spent elsewhere so long as you dont mind trickling them out, and has advantages for Abyssal Tome explained in the combat section below.

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ESSENCE OF ARMITAGE (Cluein')

Not a lot of surprises here.

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DAISY WALKER, TEXAS RANGER (Enemy Handlin')

Now we have high lets use it for combat too:

  • Pre Abyssal Tome, were mainly using based events for combat See campaign starter advice towards the top, but options for this include: Occult Invocation, Occult Lexicon, "I've got a plan!", or somethign like Mind over Matter (to evade). These all run off automatic damage or convert into fight actions so we dont need to put extra effort into stacking for spells like Spectral Razor or Shrivellin', but with a few tweaks to the assets, like keeping St. Hubert's Key, or bringing Whitton Greene (3) these are another option. Just be aware that you will need a lot of supports to land them and getting both these and your tools in play will take time.

  • Gettin' Abyssal Tome into play: This can be searched for by some combination of Librarian,OBL(3), and Eureka!. If you have it in hand, and Daisy's Tote Bag from Read or Die in play, you dont need to put it into play until you have an enemy to fight, as the on the tote bag doesnt trigger an attack of opportunity to use, so you can just keep it back until its needed.

  • BOOKSHOT! Adding Doom to Abyssal Tome is optional. At its most basic, it will deal 1 damage per use. If we have Abigail Foreman down, or we use Knowledge is Power (KIP) on it, we can use it additional times in a turn as exhausting the tome is part of the cost of using it, and these both bypass these costs. if we can use it twice in a turn, thats 2 reliable damage using just daisys bonus tome ability, and is enough to kill a lot of smaller stuff. As we add doom this gets pretty beefy pretty fast. If we place 1 doom on the first attack, both attacks get the bonus damage, so that can be 4 damage, or 5 if we add doom on the second attack too. This is enough to kill most Vp enemies. Adding Extra KIPs just applifies this more, letting us get up to 16 damage in a turn with 2 KIPs and Abigale, or theoretically more if you can Library Docent it back to hand and replay it via Daisy's Tote Bag, so it is unexhausted on re-entry... But anyway - thats one big hole in whatever you just threw the book at! You just need a way to clear that doom...

  • Tome And Tome Again! (Pun shamelessly stolen from Drawn to the Flame) Managin' the Doom: We have a few options here. Any time the agenda would advance next turn anyway (and clear all doom from play, AKA the witching hour), just spam the doom hard there is no drawback. If you do find you need to Doom up before then however, Library Docent can return the tome to hand, and Daisy's Tote Bag can replay it immediately. I believe you need a second tome in hand to use the Docent, or at least thats how weve played, so bare that in mind, but you usually have the spare OBL by then anyway. Failing that, attach the tome to Abigail Foreman, then either kill her off or Callin' in Favors her back to hand. Both of these will discard any attached tome (other than The Necronomicon as it says it cant leave play so I assume it just goes into one of your other hand slots.... which ofc if you are full might be a way to bump the Abyssal Tome out of play as well (though ive never needed to do this).

  • Finally Dont forget you can soak damage from attacks on Allies, Deny Existence an attack, or let a little damage through and Medical Texts it back later on if you can spare the space. This may mean you can kill an enemy over 2 turns using zero doom attacks instead depending on board state.

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BAD MEDICINE (Encounter Handlin' & Healin')

The plan here is mainly to soak, heal, and cancel. Were not passing many tests here. But we have options:

  • Keep the cancels back for the big stuff: We have 4 of these, 2 Ward of Protection and 2 Deny Existence, let small hits through and save these for game wrecking moments like the classic Dunwich (Spoiler).

  • Soak damage/horror on allies You have a posse for a reason. Now you can let more of those encounter hits through without burning cancels.

  • Medical Texts is better than you think If you are an experienced player turning your nose up at this, consider how people love Jessica Hyde for her trickle heal. With Daisys ability and massive , Daisy can do a similar thing. Twice with Abigail Foreman... Now you dont care much at all about damage youve taken. I am yet to do try this, but I have always wanted to try this approach in TFA. Let yourself get poisoned and just heal it off - A jungle book if you will...

  • Logical Reasoning does a similar thing for horror And since we will usually flip the deck at least once a game, and we have The Necronomicon in the deck, and Ward of Protections deal horror, this gives you options to clear horror you didnt manage to soak on a disposible ally. Its also pips if needed too.

  • Keep some sort of disposible asset in play that you wont miss This takes care of cards that destroy assets. So spare Library Docents/Research Librarians are worth keeping in play when you can rather than immediately killing them off if you take damage/horror unless you have another in hand ready to play. Similarly, be prepared to ditch Celaeno Fragments or Death • XIII if you have to. You can manage with just a couple of buffs in play so you dont always need all 3.

  • You can clear The Necronomicon extra fast with Abigail Foreman It is a tome. So if you want rid of it, attach it to abigale, use your bonus tome action, trigger abigale for the second action, then you can either clear it next turn or just accept that 1 regular action is a decent cost to remove a signature weakness.... Or just keep it in play all game with all the bonus hand slots if you prefer. At very least if you get it near the bottom of your deck, try to flip the deck just before discarding it.

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RETURNS (Not as Good as They Looked)

These are a few cards I cut in testing as they didnt work as I had hoped.

  • Whitton Greene Her can be very map dependant and relies on you being the player who moves into the location (not someone else). It also often relies on you getting her down early game, but at 4 cost thats just a massive hit to tempo. Old Book of Lore does most of the search aspect of this more reliably, and Old Book of Lore (2) even does this with bonus economy. This made Dr. Milan Christopher (even post taboo) much better as a simple boosting ally. Not least because Milan will pay back that 4 cost investment fairly quickly, reducing the tempo hit problem considerably. Whitton is nice in principal, but possibly better in solo or in Ursula in practice.

  • Arcane Enlightenment I think in over 10 games I played it once. In the rest I used it for pips and usually on another player. I never cared about the bonus hand slot as findign the Daisy's Tote Bag was easier than it looked, and while the extra hand size is nice, i was fine discarding occasional cards.

  • Moonlight Ritual Its an option, but I prefer Library Docent and Callin' in Favors for the extra utility.

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Thanks for Readin'.

Huge thanks to my mate Neramoor who, unlike me, actually plays DoomTown and helped a lot with the Puns. I have also hidden a number of DoomTown card links in the text. We have a special offer of One FREE! "yep - well spotted" to the first person to find each*.

*While stocks last, terms and conditions probably apply.

Enjoy!

31 comments

May 09, 2021 SolarJ · 470

Nice one, i had great fun with a similar deck, but leaned harder into whitton, combining her search function with astounding revalation and surprising find. This was with parallel Daisy, so there is one extra for abyssal tome, combined with others tomes for shenanigans too. KIP and Milan are so strong I keep exploring other options, but they are so efficient. I found arcane enlightenment to be more beneficial in parallel Daisy as it of course helps in powering up her with or without the tote bag and contributes icons to the same if needed in a pinch.

May 09, 2021 StartWithTheName · 63539

Thanks @SolarJ. Yeah im not expecting putting the tome set into daisy to break new ground here hehe, but I can confirm that its great fun and very satisfying. I think parallel daisy is quite a different style for her ideally using less action driven tomes and more of the passive ones - which is nice. Interestingly thinking about youre comment, there might be an argument for yet more variants being available with the old Front and Parallel back since I didnt find i needed many non Seeker cards, and those I did are mainly tomes. There is almost certainly a solid 2 heals a turn deck out there using Book of Psalms and Medical Texts with Abigail Foreman

May 09, 2021 Lord Triloth · 1890

What do you think of Astounding Revelations? I usually run that in Daisy, because OBoL can trigger them quite consistently. This may be due to the fact that I’m the sort of degenerate that attaches OBoL to Abigail and run PMP in every deck that can take it.

Even if you don’t do that I think you still would use it enough to make revelations work imo.

Personally I also think that I underate Working a Hunch a bit, because I would never really take it alongside Deduction & Read the signs. Same for the forsaken Medical Texts that I personally use as a pageholder. But like I said this may all be due to me jamming Clue Glyphs/PMP and the meatwall of allies Funding offers

May 10, 2021 The Lynx · 952

I am near the end of TCU Hard with Daisy and Diana and have enjoyed Daisy quite a bit. I find that I am using Old Book of Lore and Scroll of Secrets more in support for Diana so Whitton's search is more beneficial.

My alternate route with Daisy has been using Mind's Eye with buffs from Whitton, Hawkeye and Holy Rosary (and the Black Book). Whatever you need Daisy can do. She goes through her deck so fast that she can reload it enough that it never runs out.

Why no Scroll of Secrets? L3 is great even if you don't taboo. It feels so good to fish weaknesses out of the deck.

May 12, 2021 Fovar · 21

Playing Daisy in a 3 player group. I fell in every RETURN trap, your assessments are on point. Can't wait to switch Arcane Enlightenment for Death Tarot. At least, Delve Too Deep x1 will get me there a bit faster.

May 14, 2021 StartWithTheName · 63539

Thanks all

@Lord Triloth I didnt try Astounding Revelations, but I agree they look like they would trigger. Theres plenty of flex in the main body of the deck for options which is nice. One thing I would note is that the deck doesnt want for money really (thats the main bit i spent the time balancing) so you would then be using them for secrets. This means bringing some more secret based tomes (though there are plenty to pick from), or re-jigging the event suit include plenty of extra play targets. There might be an argument for 1x or 2x revs to balance the slots in that case. Or bringing some sort of cash dump asset probably higher ed if you can spare the xp. The reason i dont tend to use this stuff anymore is that all seeker decks end up looking the same and ive basically done that gimmick and want a new one. But it works.

If youre not rating working a hunch these days, take another look at it. Its on par with deduction in my mind in an deck with good cash generation, and it gets around things like locked doors in seeker decks which are stacking int rather than spreading stats with wild pips. Its also gained a lot of traction outside seeker since core now cash is more plentiful. In any deck with 3 int the double book pips can get you to the magic 5, so its a clue on a low shroud via a test, or a high shroud via cash. Though that is more of a roland use. Here it just turns spare money into fast clues, or spare OBL charges into clues via Daisys ability. Med texts is just a personal pet toy of mine just now after I realised it makes daisy into Jessica Hyde, so now i dont need too much agi tech for enounters. I am desperate to take it through TFA to see if I can just tank the poison, but its really shown here to show options for the support set. its far from essential. the only really essential tome in the set is OBL, but i would hightly encourage Abyssal Tome as well as its just great fun.

@TWWaterfalls Yeah after ive rigged up with this deck I find im passing out OBL uses to comrades most turns that I dont need to use Abyssal Tome or some other support/utility tome which is great. I dont think the deck would need Scroll of Secrets for its own use with this much draw/search (and Studious), but you are right, it is great for others and The seeker upgraed version has the potential to filter out Ancient Evils, or at least keep 2 or 3 non AE cards off the top of the deck which could be much better than it looks on paper. I personally love the post taboo versions that make them and find I put the lvl0 one in most decks that can take them just as a solid well balanced (and reasonably priced) draw engine. This matters much more for mystic who have less draw ofc, but its solid eitherway and with the tome tech here to search for and play it there may be a space, In hindsight its one that should have been on my sideboard of options really. I just missed it. As for Minds eye/will buff stuff, there are definately caster builds for Daisy and they will inevitably use a lot of the same cards (like OBL). I agree theyre great fun. I just suppose I was trying the full int full librarian experience here, but go for it if you want a hybrid.

Thanks too @Fovar - Always great to hear peoples experiences. Good luck with your game. And yeah its at least easy to remove dead weight lvl0 cards. The hard bit is realising at say sc3 that you didnt bring one. For a long time when i was running whitton in a campaign I was wanting milan for example and ended up biting the bullet and paying the 1xp to sub him over as the cash was too skewed.

May 16, 2021 guybrush · 19

This deck is a total mess. A bunch of one-ofs, a lot of flex slots, a lot of assets that compete for slots and niche cards all around that have weird unintuitive combos.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea here and plan to use it for my next campaign, but the decklist is giving my a headache.

May 16, 2021 StartWithTheName · 63539

How appropriate, you fight like a cow.

@guybrush Dont get me wrong either, but when you open a post with a sentence like "this decklist is a total mess", just remember that things like that newcomers off posing or attempting engage in the community, and there are more polite ways to ask for clarity before jumping to the insults. Or at least offer insults that rhyme.

The details you are looking for are largely covered in the TLDR, and the mulligan (just below upgrades). To TLDR the TLDR (and muligan): the cards you are looking for are mainly Studiousx2 (which lets you see almost half of your deck with a hard muligan. thats about a 70-75% chance of seeing a 2x, or ~45-50% of a 1x), Eureka! (effectively 2 more cards immediately after a mul), [Daisy's Tote Bag FROM READ OR DIE] = fast tomes](/card/90002), and OBL (3).

In general there are a number of reasons to use 1 offs in a deck, off the top of my head the most common are probably:

  1. Plenty of available tutoring (Mainly Old Book of Lore/Research Librarian here);
    • Tutors you only need if you didnt see a particularly important/valuable asset (Calling in Favors/Research Librarian). The games they were a dead draw, you were set up to win anyway, the games they werent they are a lifeline.
    • they are similar enough to a copy of another card that you would have liked a 3rd copy of;
    • or similarly they are one of a set of cards which do the same thing but you can only have one of each in play (Death • XIII Celaeno Fragments Milan (all +1 I want 2 or 3 in play (see the TLDR)),
    • they are a late game card like healing, and possibly only need to see it once a deck cycle (Like Logical Reasoning)
    • they let you resuse a card later on CiF/Sophist
    • Cards which are better in combination with another card, these can be good on their own but shine late (Abigail).
    • you just have a huge amount of draw so youre going to see most of your deck by mid game - and while OBL Daisy has always excelled at this, most seekers do.

A deck full of 2xs isnt a bad rule of thumb you are new to the game. It adds a degree of consistency and forces you to be a bit more focussed. It can take a bit of practice to understand how to use 1xs to increase consistency (usually by reasons 3 and 4 above) rather than when someone is just hoping they will show at the right time.

If you are worried about slots, count the slots, count the number of cards for each, then check how early the ones that go above the basic are needed vs available. We have:

  • Allies: 3 slots (Misk Arch Funding) - and as the TLDR says, thats 1x Milan, 1x Abigail and 1 transient slot for the disposible on play allies.
  • 5 hand slots (+2 Daisy's Tote Bag, +1 Abigail Foreman, of which early game targets are 1x Old Book of Lore then any book of your choice depending on need at the time. You dont have to put everything into play all games, but since we can treat abigale and the tote bag (see reason 4. above) as almost the same thing they act like a 2x, on a hard muligan - so were back to 70 ish%. We lose a bit by prioritising OBL, but we can also wait a little bit for OBL or the tutors to find them (reasons 1, 7, and 8)

If you are looking for intuition on the combos, basically everything reacts form the "tome" trait, and/or being a card playable via Old Book of Lore, or is cash/draw to enable these.

And if you are worried about niche cards and flex slots, the reason is that there are options to tailor your deck to the team you are in or just personal taste. The sideboard is a set of options that can fairly easilly be slotted in over other tomes. I dont write these guides to tell people how to play. Im trying to give players, in particular newer or more casual players, a bit of inspiration/a few short cuts so they can get into the deckbuilding/game a bit more confidently.

May 18, 2021 suika · 9254

@guybrush there's decks that deserve criticism, but this definitely isn't one of them. To the contrary, it's a well-made beginner friendly Abyssal Tome Daisy deck.

I would have done things differently — taking a 1-off Milan, adding back a St. Hubert's Key for more stackable static bonuses, running Astounding Revelations over Burning the Midnight Oil, Practice Makes Perfect + Perceptions over Working a Hunch/Eureka (and slotting in Promise of Power if I can find space), going for Healing Words/Ancient Stone/Manipulate Destiny for healing over Medical texts if I want to do healing support for some reason...but this is definitely a very encounter resilient Daisy that's easy for beginners to pilot. Kudos to @StartWithTheName as usual for a great write up.

May 18, 2021 Zanni · 194

This guide gave me heavy waves of nostalgia for playing Doomtown. Thanks for making this; very well thought out.

May 18, 2021 Fovar · 21

Update: Although the way I play Daisy Walker is much different than the way presented here (Helpless Cluer), due to its explanations, this guide proved invaluable. (For reference, we just began visiting Paris.) For reference, I am playing an helpless cluer Daisy with a dash of support.

Thanks for explaining why the cards in the "Returned" section are bad. I must admit that as long as I sported them, I kinda was stuck thinking they were good, yet never getting around to actually play them, especially the weaker version of Guts.

Now, let's say the Monster-Hunter who has my back had a rough day, gaining 2 mental traumas, and I'd like to diversify my support side with a way or two to heal horror... would you go with a Skill that depends mostly on encounter cards, a costly white card, a clue-dependent solution, or even MORE BOOKS.

Note: My weaknesses are The Necronomicon (duh), Self-Destructive, and a scenario-related mental illness that punishes me for being really smart. This makes the Versatile option more alluring, but I might be an idiot.

May 19, 2021 guybrush · 19

@StartWithTheNameMy comment probably didn't read as lighthearted as I intented it to be, I must apologize. This just isn't a deck that you look at and immediatly think "oh of course, that works".

So I'd rather have to praise you for finding a way to make use of underexplored cards and putting them together in a that's functional and cohesive.

Because it's so cohesive though, I'm having a tough time cutting cards though for evade-tech. My next duo campaign will be RtTfa and even with a fighter on my side, I'll need some tools when the snakes inevitably start piling on. So I some cards will have to go for Mind over Matter and Archaic Glyphs and then I'll add on Mists of R'lyeh(2) if necessary.

May 21, 2021 shikasshadow · 1

very nice deck and great writeup, thank you so much for that. I am a Daisy lover and this deck looks fun but was wondering if you have had any success at all testing any parallel daisy decks. I have been fiddling around trying to build one but I can't decide what to do for the life of me. Still, great deck!

May 22, 2021 StartWithTheName · 63539

You have my apologies @guybrush. I guess im just getting too used to fending off a particular attitude that sadly appears to be becoming much more prevalent on a few other platforms. In hindsight I clearly jumped on the defensive after the first sentence and didnt read it in context with your second comment. Very wrong of me to tar you with the same brush (Which would make that another guys brush!) I hope you can forgive me. On the upside at very least the main body of my rely was written in earnest incase it helped. The bit on how to use 1x`s is somethign ive debated writing into an article for people looking to get further into deck building, and daisy is one of the best IDs (along with Mandy and Minh) to get away with so many. And this is possibly not the most imaginative build ive done, its just fun and has a small shell which at least means theres loads of room to adapt Daisy over to a variety of playstyles. if you want more agi/evade for the jungle those look like good swaps. Inquiring Mind or any other giant wild skill card like Prophesy or Promise of Power is another thing i wish i had found space for. Anything like that can be a one shot to pass Snake Bite (assuming youre not wanting to risk just tanking the Poisoned damage using Medical Texts - as I have dreamed of trying one day!) or a one shot evade. If youre looking for space to shuffle things around theres load of flex in the event and tome suite for options.

@suika Cheers. I do actually start this deck with 1x huberts for exactly that reason. Its over the Death • XIII rather than a Milan, and im inclined to argue that the cash from milan has enough value (even post taboo where he feels more reasonable) to justify him as a cash card more than an int buff. but theres certainly options. Magnifying Glass is another. yeah there seems to be a lot of love of the research Daisy direction. I didnt test it and I got a little burned out on research after running research roland (unpublished but fun), luke, [carolyn](https://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/19724/carolyn-big-ma-am-on-campus-hard-mode-1.0], and minh (variant on ([This deck)[arkhamdb.com) also unpublish but less fun just OP in the unsatisying way). So i took a break from it for a bit. Still following chat on here and with my regular group ive started looking at secrets tech in Daisy more generally and there looks to be a really cool looking janky engine using Ariadne's Twine in daisy that ive started trying to solve for and needs testing properly (presumably after all my other daisy ideas... i need to get off this wagon!).

As for Med Texts vs alternatives when going for HP healing rather than soak, I seem to be losing the argument, but i still see it as MVP in high daisy (and only daisy) at least at level zero for the simple fact that its action free and unlimited uses. Healing Words perhaps uses an under utilised slot in this build, but it has charges, doesnt interact with Knowledge is Power, Abigail Foreman, Read or die Tote Bags fast play action, Daisys free action, or whatever else you brought for Old Book of Lore/Abyssal Tome but can use on Medical Texts since its now there. Im not sure which Ancient Stone you mean, but they all at least take xp, a mini side quest, and cover a different function (the healing one is horror not hp). Still theyre not a bad call as you will be drawing a lot in this deck via Old Book of Lores.

Cheers @Zanni - I will pass your regards onto Neramoor who is my local doomtown enthusiast and helped a lot with the puns and random misslabled card links. If it helps I believe he still plays, and I thought there was still an active community out there.

Hey again @Fovar! Versatile into Book of Psalms to help a mates Tony Morgan was actually exactly what I did for the last sc in our dunwich run. Sadly it managed to sit at the bottom of the deck (last 3 cards!) until very near the end of the map, but it worked albeit eventually! If you are looking to support horror healing as a major function of the deck give Logical Reasoning (4) a second look. It is the very definition of a one and done button for team healing. What it costs in arguably excessive xp for what you use it for, it makes up in action efficiency but only if you are definitely using it full force - so late game on a friend who is twitching concerningly and holding something heavy in their hands... If it helps dont fall for the "versatile is a trap card" mentality. I could write an article on when versitile is good and when it will hinder you. I versitiled in 4 cards that drew actionlessly (Eureka!s, and Scroll of Secrets) then 1 card that I wanted. At the risk of making an argument from authority, i do mathematical modelling for a living. This actually increases the consistency of your deck rather than lowering it. This has to do with there being a smaller deck in arkham (30 cards) than the games where the rule of thumb presumably came from (60 in magic) and the action system rather than a mana system. If a card said fast draw 1 card and had no draw backs, you could just play it on sight and have basically the same consistency as if you had one less card in the deck. Tempt Fate. Sorry not sure why i linked that card. Moving on, anything that draws more than 1 card will be MORE consistent than having less cards in the deck... and thats just one aspect of consistency. I`ll not go into the rest.

Cheers @shikasshadow. Ive not played enough Parallel Daisy to really say a lot. A friend took her through dream eaters with me and she didnt do a lot that regular Daisy couldnt do at least to a similar level. you can get huge on her with a lot of work, but then unless you take normal Daisy Walker back, you dont have the spell assets to capitalise on it. Shes fine as a challenge deck, and kudos to anyone making her work. But i get the impression she was written less as an ID for general use and more for the true Read or Die experience - where she is really an integral and interesting part of the scenario. I think if they wanted her to be on par with mainstream IDs, they possibly needed her to start with higher will, or have wider mystic access. Still with guardian healing there may be a support build there to be found, ive just not tried.

Jun 01, 2021 tomcool · 1

@StartWithTheName I'm playing a slight variation on the deck through return to dunwich. (Black Book is actually pretty nice for daisy). I was wondering what you thought of Ariadne's Twine? Obviously adding a little more. even just using it on Old Book of Lore by itself is pretty nice (at least with enough cash generation)

Jun 10, 2021 StartWithTheName · 63539

Hi @tomcool.

Yeah ive also been looking into secrets tech recently for other builds, partly in response to some comments above. Ive unfortunately not had a chance to get it to the table to test, but my current Daisy build for this is: arkhamdb.com

That said I have a feeling the research aspect of this isnt needed alongside the secrets aspect (despite Astounding Revelations) simply because once I have the twine, the slots spent on the research tech could be more secrets pay off cards - I just need time to test things out a bit i think. I would love to squeeze in an Esoteric Atlas of all things to turn Daisys tome action into big free movements (especially in Innsmouth where there are some massive maps). In a similar way to the build above, I have a feeling there is another toolbox set of secrets stuff than can be plugged in to a fairly simple shell to make a variety of sub-archtypes. Daisy is so flexible these days. Im really enjoying her :)

Jun 11, 2021 tomcool · 1

So I haven't done innsmouth yet (looking forward to a blind run of it :P).

That being said. The one thing i have a little issues with is actually cash generation, especially if using money for secrets. Astounding Revelation becomes very strong with Ariadne's Twine (obviously).

We also don't use The Necronomicon - Petrus. It's just so strong :(

I'm surprised by how much i've been enjoying daisy. The one thing that probably would make her even strong would be a clue accelerator tome :)

In the Know was surprisingly fun in a decently sized group.

What is super fun on daisy is the Key of Ys. (a truly broken card). It's super fun also (a perfect place to move necronomicon horror). Discarding 10 cards is a joke :)

Sorry about the random rambling. I do want to say, I really enjoy your themed decks :P

Jun 15, 2021 StartWithTheName · 63539

Cheers @tomcool - I thought aimless rambling was my thing hehe!

Just to say, I dont criticise anyone for using power cards. What we seem to have gravitated to locally is to pick decks/theme combinations that look fun to play, then match the difficulty to the deck in whatever way keeps it interesting. And it can be fun to just bring a wrecking ball and watch it swing sometimes :)

Jun 16, 2021 tomcool · 1

I get that, It just dominates the game so hard as soon as it's in

Jul 04, 2021 vak36 · 1

Hi Friend, I have a question for you:) I really like all decks you made, and they are awesome, even in solo. I want to ask you to made Pete Deck in similar way, with all explanations, upgrades etc. Is it possible?:)

Jul 05, 2021 StartWithTheName · 63539

Cheers @vak36

I dont tend to make decklists to order, per se. I just sort of write about whatever ive been playing or has captured my imagination recently. And usually if i think I have a good enough set of puns to support it. I also like to have the time to do a handful of test runs for to get it balanced if im going to do a full guide, though work has kept me a bit too busy to do that this year.

I did recently take this deck through the fantastic fan made Alice in Wonderland campaign (which incidentally i actually rate above several of the official campaigns if anyone is interested, its that well written both mechanically and narratively)

arkhamdb.com

The deck doesnt have a write up, and the xp route I took through it might not be optimised, but you should be able to get the idea. It basically stacks int super high, then discards items to ready duke. You can then either put them into play with scav, or or back into hand to re-ready duke next turn. Alternatively a few of them have double int pips and can work like a reusable skill cards. Plus theres something satisfying about repeatedly throwing a shoe for Duke to play with. (in hindsight 2 copies of track shoes rather than the moonstone might have been a better idea, as might have been a few more skill cards generally. But it worked. Muligan hard for int buffs (prioritising allies) and card draw, and bare in mind the tricks in this guide for using the on fail tech: archivosarkham.com

sorry if thats a half way house, but its the best i`ll likely do for ashcan for a while I think. Too many other pet projects sadly!

Jul 06, 2021 Never · 1

Love this list and the usual outstanding writeup.

Jul 07, 2021 StartWithTheName · 63539

Cheers @Never

Jul 31, 2021 xtremebystander · 1

I liked the idea. I took the de vermis route. So I cut all the research stuff for insights, And my group agreed to do a curse run. Daisy + Abigail with the de vermis line is nutty.

Jan 30, 2022 condedooku · 2

StartWithTheName, you can have Book of Psalms and Abigail in the same deck.

Feb 08, 2022 condedooku · 2

@tomcool You cannot reassign the horror of Necronomicon to the Key, as not deal. You can check the faq in the Necronomicon page.

Feb 08, 2022 StartWithTheName · 63539

oh Hi @condedooku. I must have missed your earlier comment. sorry, ive been really busy the last month or so.

Yeah, theres loads of options these days. I guess you`d have to versetile in Book of Psalms, or use the parallel back, but its an option. Daisy can easilly handle Versatile and one ofs. Ive not made it yet, but there is likely to be a healer daisy build out there using Book of Psalms and Medical Texts. you can even reload Book of Psalms with Ariadne's Twine if needed. While it starts to be a differnt build, you can use some of the combos in here pretty well.

Jun 22, 2022 Kertanos · 1

@StartWithTheName how would you expect this deck to play in duo blind TFA ? I'm a bit concerned about Daisy low hp since i heard there is a lot of easy trauma and she might be a bit weak early against monster in duo. The partner would be jenny rich girl, so same problem i guess, she needs a bit of xp to ramp up in power, but at least she's healthier

Jun 22, 2022 Lord Triloth · 1890

Andy is suprisingly enthusiastic about Medical Texts, which I already commented on somewhere up here I think.

And tbh I can see it working out in TFA. Wouldn’t rly take it blind tho, cuz you need to be a little more prepared i think.

The build I have might work out a bit better, because I think that can handle I few threates this can’t.

Jun 23, 2022 StartWithTheName · 63539

Hi @Kertanos and cheers @Lord Triloth! Lord T is right. I appear to be the internets only Medical Texts fan! and even then only in Daisy due to her ability. If Peter Sylvestre is good for the unlimited horror soak, why isnt Medical Texts Daisy more popular once youve stacked her anyway? especially with Medical Texts (2) around?... and the answer might just be Spoiler at least in TFA... There are ways daisy can work around it quite well with careful use of Ward of Protection, big wild skill cards like Promise of Power and some evade spells like Mists of R'lyeh, but giving specific details might be too much details for a blind run.

Nov 21, 2022 Dhanos · 2

Hello. How would you update this deck with the recent Scarlet Keys investigator cards?