Surprised to not see any comparisons between Core Daisy and her Read Or Die version.
The front sides provide you a clear choice: Do you want constant extra actions, or do you want constant stat bonuses? With two or fewer tomes, Read or Die Daisy (Front) is just a purely worse version of the Core card, so to get anything out of it you should plan to have 3+ tomes in play - requiring a deck full of tomes, plus the actions to play them, plus the means to hold more (Daisy's Tote Bag, naturally, plus Arcane Enlightenment). In return for this lengthy build-up, however, you can eventually reach high levels of Willpower towards the middle of the scenario. In a way, this is reminiscent of Diana Stanley, but relying primarily on investigation rather than combat to see you through the early game.
The two versions of Daisy's deck-building are intriguing in their differences. First the overlap: both can take Neutral cards 0-5. Core Daisy can further take Seeker cards 0-5 and any number of Mystic cards 0-2. Read or Die Daisy loses some functionality in both aspects. Her cross-class abilities get dramatically reduced, limiting her to only 5 level 0 cards (though these cards can come from Guardian now as well as Mystic, there is relatively little in Guardian that will appeal to many Daisy decks). Her Seeker options are also dramatically hindered; in exchange for losing access to most high-level cards of her class, she gains access to exactly 3 tomes which the Core version can't include:
- Grimm's Fairy Tales - A neat trick and a possible source of back-up horror healing, but seems pretty off-brand for most Daisy decks.
- Mystic Scroll of Secrets - Pretty universally panned as a worse alternative to the Seeker Version.
- Book of Shadows (3) - Gives you an extra Arcane slot and more charges for your spells.
Ironically the Read or Die front may combo better with the Core back of Daisy than with the Read or Die back -- in the quest to build Daisy like an investigating version of Diana Stanley, it would be a shame to be limited to only 5 level 0 Mystic cards.
Finally, it seems worth talking about the two Advanced versions of her signature cards (remember that unlike the alternate versions of her player card, the Advanced cards must be used together):
- Advanced Daisy's Tote Bag gives you a powerful reaction that further optimizes the action efficiency of Core Daisy's use of tomes while also allowing Read or Die Daisy to assemble her library more quickly.
- Advanced The Necronomicon has the same Revelation and removal text that the Core Necronomicon weakness has, but the effect while the weakness is in play is more varied. Instead of simply auto-failing tests, the Advanced weakness resolves all of the other negative symbol effects. This can at times be worse than simply auto-failing (some scenarios have pretty brutal effects for drawing negative symbols) but at times could result in doing nothing at all (for instance, in scenarios where symbols have a "-X" effect). Moreover, since the value of each negative symbol is known ahead of time, you could hypothetically plan ahead and increase your check value by enough to beat all three negative symbols combined.
Thus, in most cases, using the Advanced versions of her signature cards gives you both a higher ceiling and a higher floor, with the weakness only making life worse for you in certain scenarios.
