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

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Daisy Walker - Bookfast 19 14 1 1.0
Daisy Walker - White Mage (Hard Mode) 55 46 7 1.0
Dewey Deci-Spell System - "Quick Rig" Hard Mode Daisy starte 1 0 0 1.0
Dewey Deci-Spell System - "Quick Rig" Hard Mode Daisy starte 0 0 0 2.0
Dewey Deci-Spell System - "Quick Rig" Hard Mode Daisy starte 0 0 0 3.0
Moded from: Dewey Deci-Spell System - "Quick Rig" Hard Mode 0 0 0 1.0

StartWithTheName · 63551

StartWithTheName

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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)

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.

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

11 comments

Jan 12, 2018 AkaanQ · 1543

Nice deck !

I also wanted to have a solo Daisy deck leveraging Archaic Glyphs and Book of Shadows but it didn't work too well. Maybe I should try this deck with the solo adaptation you suggest.

I think the problem is that Daisy really need body guard until she get the XP for Higher Education, Archaic Glyphs and Book of Shadows. First solo scenarios are painful, especially Carcosa.

Jan 14, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

Thanks @AkaanQ. If you do try it solo i`d love to hear how you get along.

I think your definitely right there re Higher Education. She's reliant on a handful of one shot events to deal with enemies due to a low and stats. Most non seeker IDs have at least one of / thats higher, and/or have access to single cards that once in play cover you for multiple enemies (weapons or higher enough base that spells are reliable). Until she gets Higher Education, the spells option comes with the caveat that you need a combo piece (lots of pips), which is much less draw consistent, so you're basically very dependent on replacing these "panic button" events asap. Old Book of Lore goes a long way to helping this in Daisy. And I really cant overstate the strength of Quantum Flux in combination with OBL for getting those events back asap. but this is a lot of focus and effort on a single factor that other IDs dont have to build this critical mass to deal with.

The other thing Higher Education does, is to make it optimal to build your deck planned around it in the long term. Which leaves your starter deck with alot of dead weight. This deck has a similar issue with the spare allies before you get Charisma mind.

In honesty i dont have a good solution to the issue. I suspect there is a non-Higher Education low cost curve daisy out there that doesnt lean into spells long term. Strange Solution/Fieldwork etc. This does feel like it misses the mystic aspect of her deck building somewhat, but you could easilly utilise non driven spell sets (Ward of Protection, Drawn to the Flame, Quantum Flux, Hypnotic Gaze (a bit pricey mind), Delve Too Deep, im sure theres others).

Jan 14, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

had a bit of a play about thinking about how to apply a similar concept rather than the same deck to a solo build @AkaanQ.

arkhamdb.com

This still comes with the usual caveat that i dont really do true solo, but id love to hear your thoughts.

Jan 15, 2018 ilza · 1

I like your take on the deck compared to unitleds. I guess the first question is if you feel that the deck is resource hungry enough to motivate Emergency Cache?

For the allies the Art Student seems very mediocre, but I guess she got some good edge cases. Have you tried an ally list of the following?
2x Renfield
2x Milan
2x Research Librarian

Also, I think getting a couple of Unexpected Courage for the first couple of scenarios could be quite useful, but deckspace is a real issue. Also considered Drawn to the Flame in that spot (to help early investigating before Higher Education and Guiding Stones), but I'm not sure this deck wants to draw more enemies.

It seems to be a waste to not include a single Holy Rosary, willpower boosts are always useful and with Old Book of Lore you should draw it often enough.

Jan 16, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

Thanks @ilza

I have indeed tried that ally suite. It does work. I actually cover Laboratory Assistant vs Art Student under the art student section, but the TLDR is that it does work but the deck doesn’t need draw since it can tutor Old Book of Lore so efficiently. Art Students less obvious benefit is it’s pure action compression in a deck that expects to be replaying ally’s. Basically you never really manually draw. You do manually clue. So art student doubles up an action as well as saving cash on shroud 4/5s. the edge cases are a bonus only.

Some of the cash suite is covered in the Renfield section. But it might not be clear. David Renfield gives you a burst of cash over 3/4 turns at a random point in the game (when long agendas present themselves and you have the card). Emergency Cache gives you a smaller burst but straight away. This is especially useful for setup. (Milan + OBL costs 7 before tutors). And you miss a lot if you wait 2/3 turns to rig up.

The other related issue is in the spells section but again the link perhaps not clear. Shrivelling is VERY expensive to use in hard (usually 3 resources including Book of Shadows recharge. But it is late game so you will have a stock pile by then and your 1x David Renfield can usually be found and used by then.

The Holy Rosary issue is actually tangentially linked to this. It casts 2. To save you 1 on each Shrivelling use against a str 3 enemy (not a 4) It’s effectively more late game econ. It’s a support card for a later game support card. The other thing is this deck is primarily a clue engine. The enemy handling is off spec. With Evade Glyphs not running off will, cheaper to use and doubling up actions Shrivelling is a last resort incase your comerades can’t get to you eventually. If your playing 3p+ and taking Clue Glyphs glyphs there’s even less use since you have more chaperones. The Unexpected Courage you describe is basically doing what Inquiring Mind does here. But basically the more supports you put into Shrivelling the weaker the deck got in practice.

Jan 16, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

Sorry @ilza I was proof reading that on a bus and clearly missed most of the second half. Hopefully you can make it out. Let me know if anything is unreadable. Unfortunately you can’t edit comments retrospectively

Jan 16, 2018 ilza · 1

Great to hear your thoughts about the deck! Especially your thoughts regarding support for Shrivelling and boosting willpower.

Regarding Lab Assisstant vs Art Student, I'm not really a fan of any of them. Art Student costs an action to play and two resources which given Higher Education available takes a very shroud heavy location to recoup the 2 resources cost on a standard investigate test (even if it cannot fail). The benefit of having a body in play to soak damage seems very minimal to motivate a deckslot as well as offset the cost of a card in hand.

Considering how important resources are for this deck, having Renfield available earlier seems more important here considering that will give you more playable windows for him.

Jan 16, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

Thanks @ilza

I agree the disposable on install ally suite is underwhelming on paper. In practice it is a lot better than it looks but i see your argument. Early campaign art student (in isolation) does little that Higher Education doesnt already do. Its benefit here though is as part of the tutor set that is the focus of the deck - getting Old Book of Lore & Milan down fast to enable cluing and get the milan money flowing. Essentially its the inclusion of Calling in Favors that provides its utility. Dont underrate the hp/san soak mind. While it looks like it just provides soft protection from attacks, its actually very nice for more general encounter deck handling. When you see something like Rotting Remains and you have a used student in play you can happily just roll the dice without needing to spend pips/cash in the knowledge that you will get that soak back later anyway. Similarly they protects you from wasting effort on asset hate like Crypt Chill etc. The number of students that have been left floating in the beyond is slightly embaracing, and possibly a good reason for me not to take up teaching.

I should say though in defense of Art Student that she does become much more cost-efficient later in the campaign once more tokens are added to the bag and icon tokens become much less forgiving - Echoes of the Past was a great example with all those -4s in the bag and thats not that far in really. Id like to say shes also nice in the first Sc on shrouds 4 or 5 since you dont yet have Higher Education but shes not easy to use if you want Milan in that ally slot quickly.

I wouldnt get too focussed on the The Shrivelling aspect of the deck here as it is an after thought rather than a priority the way OBL/Milan are. As i say, the Evade Glyphs perform a similar role much better when you arnt planning on being the main combatant. This is why Renfield is a 1x. Hes too slow to use when getting Old Book of Lore & Milan into play, and after that hes primarilly there to support Shrivelling which is a late game element of the rig. By then you can have grabbed him with Calling in Favors or Old Book of Lore anyway. I noticed this after several games with the spare copy sat in hand for most of the game doing nothing.

Mar 07, 2018 CecilAlucardX · 10

Would you swap Inquiring Mind for Eureka! to help find cards?

Mar 08, 2018 StartWithTheName · 63551

@CecilAlucardX, certainly Eureka! is a strong card and would fit in a tutor style deck though it was obv not released at the time of testing (or publishing) so ive not tried it here. In truth i wouldnt give up Inquiring Mind until after you get Higher Education. It goes a long way to boosting Shrivelling in that first Sc. This means it might oddly need to go over Deduction since you can pick up lvl 2 Deduction later on but im not sure about that tbh.

The other thing to be aware of is that i started with a deck that had much more draw and refined back until i was left with this set up so perhaps it wouldnt add much im not sure. When i build other seeker decks i see Eureka! as replacing or complimenting the cantrip cards like Guts or Perception, both of which were cut early on if that helps at all?

Mar 16, 2018 Myriad · 1201

Having played quite a few multiplayer games lately I have to ask about a few recent cards. Logical Reasoning, St. Hubert's Key and Arcane Insight seem like they could all find slots depending on player count and difficulty. Albeit, Hubert's key is probably a lower priority and more of a fluff card. You are already going to be testing on a 6.

Arcane Insight is something I really haven't seen explored at all in Daisy and I think it is a good fit for this style of deck. It might make a cut over a single art student?