Desperate Diana gets Well Prepared

Preface

I tested the idea of a Desperate Diana now for quite some time, and am quite surprised, that nobody else on ArkhamDB came up with this type of deck before me, because I think it is very in theme with Diana and the synergies are quite obvious and straight forward. So far, I always played the game on standard, so not sure, how well this goes at harder difficulties.

My first shot on her was in our 2 player TCU blind run, which did not turn out favourable, but her performance was quite stellar (in particular in the first scenarios) even then. It was more, that the other player with Joe had to fix his hunch deck, and also I did not have that great focus, what to transfer my deck in later scenarios into at that time. I tinkered with her a bit solo in several stand-alone scenarios and one Zealot campaign, which was my first actual win of the base game. But the deck I'm presenting here is from my TCU rerun (checking in at the Excelsior after scenario 3), first at 3 players with Preston and Joe, then from "Union and Disillusion" onwards with another player joining in as Winifred at level 0. We trounced almost all scenarios in the campaign. Only in "Union and Disillusion" we unleashed the beast (but still defeated it afterwards) and "Before the Black Throne" was a close win for us, but a win regardless. We got most XP and I went with a 77 XP deck into the last scenario, so we earned 64 XP, I got another 16 from Arcane Research and spent 3 for Excelsior.

Desperate Diana

You need three types of cards for this build: Desperate skills, St. Hubert's Key and Arcane Research. The synergy is so great, I even took Arcane Research in stand-alone games, just for the horror! You need to hard-mulligan for the Key, and still won't get it every game into your starting hand out of her size 35 deck, but if you do, you will rock with all the desperate cards you can use from turn 1. What else than desperate should our 1 Mystic be? Later in the game, once she has 4 or 5 cards under her, she gets relaxed. Hard-mulligan means: keep no power spell like Azure Flame or Rite of Seeking in your hand, you won't need them that early anyway. Keep all cards, that reliably thin your deck, preferably while using your power, so cards like Ward of Protection, Dodge, Deny Existence, Arcane Initiate, but no cards like Eldritch Inspiration or (in a not haunted scenario) Read the Signs, which have the potential to cancel or ignore, but not likely in the early game. You will find the Key, when it is still relevant most games that way. And even if not, the deck has enough cancel and ignore effects to level up Diana fast and perform well.

First upgrades

• David Renfield -> "I've had worse…" The quintessential Diana card, both in theme and usability. I think, if there was not an earlier level 4 version, it would feature her artwork. It gives her resources and soak, so I cut the Ally, who does the same. Sure his is also nice, but you even get that from putting a card below Diana.
• Ward of Protection (0) -> Ward of Protection (2) In particular in multiplayer, this is, where the first 2 discount XP should go into. And I would also upgrade the second copy, if you get 6+ XP in the first scenario.
• Say Your Prayers or Run For Your Life -> .45 Automatic I must admit, the combo with Daring I was thinking of, did not work out a single time during the campaign. I rarely found the Twilight Blade early enough to free space below Diana, when the gun was empty. And the ammo of the gun normally lasts longer than it takes to "level up" Diana. Still the +2 bonus is substantial for Diana and worth the XP imho. In my experience, the and desperate skills are the first, I cut from the deck. gets high enough fast enough even with Diana, that Guts still is the superior card with it's extra draw, while evading is something, I did not do that often with Diana. It's nice to have, while you have the deck space for it, but less essential than investigating and fighting. This sure can depend on the campaign you are playing.

Getting Well Prepared

That's it for now. How Diana overcame her desperation, I show in the follow up 38 XP deck.