The Overy Attached Diana Stanley

This is a support focused deck I built for a casual four player game. It assumes that the best use of your actions are to up the tempo of everyone else. (Something I knew but learned the verbiage for recently.) Got a cluverer on the team? Make him draw cards, give him resources, and shelter him from encounter cards. A fighter wandering around? Follow them with safeguard, make them search for a weapon, and steal all their encounter cards with skill checks. Basically manipulate all the decks to make the game easier.

The premise used when building this deck is a bit far from what I have seen others do. Diana has no spells. She does not have a method to increase her own clue gathering. She is dependent on others to carry the scenario. This is fine. Tempo is what Diana does best. She can eliminate unwelcome surprises, keep action sapping encounters off people, and boost others with card draw and resources. The goal is to be a symbiotic mystical guardian angel.

Key Cards:

First Watch is amazing. It lets you pick the best investigator to handle a specific problem. It prevents encounter cards from needing to be cancelled. It also is a card that has extra value before you upgrade other cards in the deck. A lot of the heavy handed manipulation cards only work for cards you draw, or have a location restriction.

Prepared for the Worst is handy, and it upgrades to a cheap powerhouse. Use the upgraded version on a friend and they get to search for a card they want and play it without spending an action.

Let Me Handle This While it would be nice to just cancel everything: it is infeasible for the deck, success would be inefficient for exp, and removing all consequences from your allies for their actions will make them reckless. Still, keeping an awkward weakness off someone doing an important thing or snagging an inconvenient enemy to change it's spawn location can make a huge difference.

Stand Together is good enough. The boost to you isn't as strong as other cards but that isn't the point. Every time another investigator has to use a resource action to pay for a card instead of just using it is a little tragedy. Stand Together indirectly gives actions to other investigators. It is good when used well.

Scroll of Prophecies is bonkers. Card draw for anybody at your location. It should work really well in this deck. You may have noticed Diana won't be directly gathering clues much and the fighting is mostly for self defense. If you find yourself with unpalatable prospects grab a teammate and make them draw a bunch of cards. This will probably yield greater returns than what you could accomplish directly.

Runic Axe is for self defense. In this deck this customizable card is capped to two pips, or four little boxes checked. While I hunger for more that seems fair. I recommend the healing/card draw upgrade and then more charges per turn. I considered the all-in four damage attack upgrade but it is a trap. Don't do it.

Living Ink is pretty good. Take the upgrade to change it's slot first and enjoy the stat boost. Or use it to boost your friends. Late game you can double it up for double the boost to three stats. The danger here is that it gobbles up your exp and maybe you shouldn't put all the eggs in one basket. Try to take it slow. Use refine for this when you can.

Safeguard is free actions. Follow people for free! Plan on getting the upgraded version to become someone else's permanent companion. Especially the fighter. Meat shields are super helpful.

Olive McBride is a way to fish for elder signs. She is also a slow but infinite sanity soak. You play one, she soaks two sanity, you use the ability to chuck her under Diana. Play the other to fish for elder signs returning the first to your hand. The cycle is not consistent and other cards will probably take priority for retrieval but the option is there.

Planned upgrades:

Binder's Jar will replace Holy Rosary. It's cheap. It thins the encounter deck to help you. In a pinch it could keep you alive. The real value here though is the ability to selectively exclude cards in the encounter deck from cycling through again. Obnoxious aloof dude that pings you and takes forever to kill? You can make him be gone forever. At higher player counts the encounter deck will be recycled and used again. If your friends are playing Delve too deep or other cards that help churn through the encounter deck Binder's Jar will pay for itself just by existing.

Defiance: just better.

Ward of Protection: I like the "can be used on someone anywhere" version. Not critical but a nice QOL improvement.

Astral Mirror: the better Bandolier.

Relic Hunter so you can use two Binder's Jars.

Grounded: Zero cost soak. Maybe replace Thermos?

Seal of the Elder Sign is obviously great. Buy near the end and take out Refine and Emergency Cache.

Deny Existence can be upgraded, but it is not a priority. What you gain from upgrading it is way too uncertain a return for way too much exp. This may not be true for other decks but Diana has turned over a new leaf and isn't into that stuff anymore.

At 15 exp this should be pretty much set to take on whatever. At 59 exp you run out of easy upgrade choices. I think that is a good spread and am not using In the Thick of It or other trauma-for-buffs to try and see how many scenarios she will make it through.