Daniela Damage Bender, Doom Remover|Deck Guide

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Daniela Reyes Dish It Back 0 0 0 1.0
La Srta. Reyes es la guardaespaldas de Sefina y Akachi en el 0 0 0 1.0
Daniela Damage Bender, Doom Remover|Deck Guide 0 0 0 1.0
Daniela Damage Bender, Doom Remover|Deck Guide 0 0 0 1.0

Valentin1331 · 55089

ahb01-investigator-intro-daniela.png

Daniela changes the Matrix, making Black Cats appear and Dooms disappear.

Edit 11/02/2022: New possibilities added to the Make your own Deck! section.


Main Strategy:

Force enemies to attack with Mechanic's Wrench and Toe to Toe to trigger your and take them down quickly.

Deflect the damages of the attack to the enemies with your Trusted Aquinnah (3)

Absorb and heal the leftover Horror with Flesh Ward, Hallowed Mirror, and Cherished Keepsake to stay alive and watch enemies self destroy.

Remove Dooms from the Agenda with Burn After Reading and Fortune or Fate to gain time on the Mythos.


Table of Content:

• Overview

• Absorb and Deflect

• Ways to do damage

• Exile cards and remove Dooms

• Mulligan

• Upgrade Path

• Make your own Deck!


Overview:

Difficulty: ★★★☆☆

Enemy Management: ★★★★★

Clue-getting: ★☆☆☆☆

Encounter protection: ★★★☆☆

Survivability: ★★★★☆

Economy: ★★★☆☆

Card Drawing: ★★★☆☆


Deflect and Absorb:

Daniela Reyes is based on the duality: Deflect and Absorb.

Deflect:

Daniela's passive is shooting 1 damage back at anyone fool enough to attack you (whether they chose it Or Not. Note that it has no limit, so you can over-use this if you wish.

Guard Dog absorbs a little bit of damage and bites back 1 damage.

•• These 2 little tricks can already bring down a Ghoul Minion without spending an action.

• And Aquinnah is the master of deflection. The lvl 3 allows enemies to hit themselves when the lvl 1 needs 2 enemies at the same location to work.

•• This Deck is so reliant on Aquinnah that we need to maintain her as much as possible. To do so, we attach 2 Trusted on her and allow her to be used twice in a turn with Inspiring Presence. Hallowed Mirror can also be used to heal her.

Absorb:

• Flesh Ward may be a little bit expensive, but it is the equivalent of 5 heals in 1 action. It is mainly used to absorb the leftover Horror after using Aquinnah.

• Bandages can be used on Guard Dog for more uses as well as yourself if needed.

• Trusted x2 on Aquinnah allows her to absorb 2 damages on top of her 6 uses.

•• Note that if you use Calling in Favors on an Ally that has 2 copies of Trusted, they will be discarded.

• Hallowed Mirror that brings a lot of flexibility as it can be used both on Aquinnah and on you.

• Cherished Keepsake x2 that absorbs 8 Horror for 2 actions.


Ways to make damage:

Daniela Reyes is surprising by the amount of damage she can do in a single round.

You often need an enemy attack to be active, and provoking these attacks without your Mechanic's Wrench is counterproductive because of our . So while waiting for enemies to attack you, you can either Get Clues or start hitting enemies.

• Enchanted Blade is perfect here as it fills in 2 blank spots: the time before you find Mechanic's Wrench and the moments when you cannot afford enemies to attack you because they are not suited (for example enemies that deal only horror like Spoiler Carnavale of Horrors).

• Later, we upgrade into the Fire Extinguisher as it doesn't have charges and is also a nice "panic button" that you can bring back with Resourceful if needed.

Brute Force is also a nice way to deal with bigger enemies. It is the main target for Resourceful. The only problem is that it may be hard to land the 3 damages without Overpower or Daring to support.

• Toe to Toe that deals 2 damage, 3 counting your . The biggest advantage of this card is between the lines though: the auto succeed. Use this to commit Resourceful and Inspiring Presence to never waste them.

•• The combo with Inspiring Presence is even better as it allows you to deal 3 damage, use Aquinnah to deflect the attack's damage to any enemy, ready and heal the horror from Aquinnah. In 1 action, 0 resources, you will often do 6 damages with Vicious Blow without pulling a token and while recurring Brute Force for the next blow.

Mechanic's Wrench, of course, triggers an attack against yourself for a testless damage, push back the damage with Aquinnah and hit hard with the Wrench right after. This technique is perfect for dealing with smaller enemies.


Exile cards and remove Dooms:

This Deck relies on Déjà Vu to exile cards and bring them back for free.

Early-stage:

When you have 1 copy of Déjà Vu, you can replace 3 level 1 card for free between each scenario.

• These will mainly be used for your Cherished Keepsake (1) that soaks the leftover Horror and Flare that brings Aquinnah for only 2 resources.

•• You can choose to exile the Cherished Keepsake or replace it with the second one when it soaked 3 horrors so that you do not have to exile it. Bring it back with Resourceful for another round.

•• Flare exiles only if it successfully finds an Ally, otherwise it goes to your discard pile.

Late campaign:

If you purchase a second Déjà Vu, you can repurchase lvl 2 cards for free and spend up to 6xp per scenario for free on exiled cards.

• Burn After Reading turns your unused Backpack (2) into 2 clues and 1 Doom removal!

• Fortune or Fate also removes a Doom from a Scenario Card (the Agenda being one of them), and the second one can be used for Burn After Reading as it is Max 1 per game.

• Altogether, for a budget of 2 Déjà Vu so 6xp, you can remove 2 Dooms, discover 2 clues and use 1 Cherished Keepsake or 1 Flare.

• And at this point, the Deck reached its upgrade limit anyway, so if you still have scenarios to play, you can keep on exiling even if you exceed 6 pips and purchase back with the XP gained at the end of each scenario.

Warning! In campaign mode, Déjà Vu is useless during the last scenario of a campaign as you will not purchase any cards after it. And as it takes approximately 2 scenarios to make Déjà Vu profitable (5xp for 3 gain per scenario), do not buy Déjà Vu (especially the 2nd one) if you have 3 or fewer scenarios left to play with this character!


Upgrade Path:

• Hallowed Mirror x1 + Bandages x1 Cherished Keepsake x2 - 2xp - Total 2xp

•• Trade the slow and unreliable heal of the Hallowed Mirror for soaks that will last you long enough to draw the second copy.


• Flesh Ward x2 Flare x2 - 2xp - Total 4xp

•• With your 2 Cherished Keepsake, you do not need to soak that much horror anymore. Also Flare brings Aquinnah earlier and lets her deflect damages form the start. Flare also makes Aquinnah cheaper.


• Déjà Vu x1 - 5xp - Total 9xp

•• You only need Déjà Vu on your third scenario as you can use it immediately to repurchase the cards you bought with the XP of the first scenario and that you exiled during the second scenario.


• Guard Dog x2 Aquinnah (3) x2 - 6xp - Total 15xp

•• You can start with buying Aquinnah, but Guard Dog is already doing quite good at the very beginning. From here, the fun starts for you.


• Daring Brute Force x2 - 2xp - Total 17xp

•• Same amount of bonus, 2 more damage if you succeed by 2 or more. That's a great side weapon.


• Prepared for the Worst x2 Backpack x2 - 4xp - Total 21xp

•• Backpack searches deeper for your weapon and brings on top of that your Mechanic's Wrench, Hallowed Mirror if still here, your Cherished Keepsake.


• Overpower x2 Burn After Reading x2 - 2xp - Total 23xp

•• Turn your unused cards into testless clues and Doom removal.


• Enchanted Blade x2 Fire Extinguisher (3) x1 + Hallowed Mirror x1 + Relic Hunter x1 - 6xp - Total 29xp

•• The Hallowed Mirror brings a nice heal that can be applied to Aquinnah for more uses or on yourself. The Fire Extinguisher is a great overall weapon with a "panic button".

••Get back Hallowed Mirror for free by exiling one copy of Enchanted Blade with Burn After Reading and filling up the empty slot at the end of the scenario with Hallowed Mirror.

••• OR Close Call instead of Hallowed Mirror for the reasons listed below in Make your own Deck.

••• OR Bangle of Jinxes that rewards you for doing what you're good at: being attacked. Helps with Encounter tests and also that's maybe the only moment you will ever use this card, so let's add it!


• Emergency Cache x2 Fortune or Fate x1 + Bangle of Jinxes x1 + Relic Hunter x1 - 6xp - Total 35xp

•• At this point, your Deck is relatively cheap anyway, so better use your actions to get 1 doom out than 3 useless resources! Also, the Bangle of Jinxes will help you land your Attacks and get fewer useless Damage/Horror during the Mythos Phase.


Here is the Full XP version of this Deck.


Make your own deck!

• Sledgehammer is good in Daniela because you're more or less sure to land your attacks and it takes 2 . You do not have much to do during your turn anyway, so it can be a good way to deal with bigger enemies. The reason why I didn't take it, though, is that it requires Bandolier to play the Mechanic's Wrench too, and that is 4 deck slots and more set up required.

•• The Sledgehammer (4) is less interesting as it takes 3 and so you cannot move and fight in the same turn.


•  Daniela: See Suika's Guide. This deck could be really good, with Book of Psalms to heal the Horror, access to Keep Faith and Signum Crucis used on high shroud locations. Use your tokens for Rite of Sanctification and A Watchful Peace. This ramps up when you use the classical combo Peter Sylvestre + Jessica Hyde + Spirit of Humanity. Click here for an example of such deck.

•• I personally like this option less though as it is much less reliable than other investigators at doing so (Hello Tommy Muldoon/William Yorick/Sister Mary), and it is extremely frustrating not to be able to use cards like Shield of Faith.


• Machete x2 is also an excellent option for a primary weapon. However, it is a bit anti-synergetic as you would mainly use your weapon when you have multiple enemies to deal with, to decrease the amount of damage on you and because you can only use Aquinnah once per turn. Unfortunately, this situation is precisely when Machete does not work.


• Survival Knife was the first thought for Daniela Reyes, but unfortunately, after trying it out, it turned out really unhelpful as it has 2 restrictions: you need to take at least 1 damage, and you need to be attacked during the Enemy Phase. As Daniela Reyes is mostly redirecting all the damage to the attacker and gets attacked mostly during the Investigator Phase with her Mechanic's Wrench or Toe to Toe, Survival Knife ends up being useless most of the time.


• If you feel like you're not tanky enough while upgrading, you can still keep Flesh Ward instead of Resourceful, for example. Though it costs extra resources so you may need to keep Emergency Cache.


• It is also possible to keep Guard Dog and purchase a Charisma to deal better with higher counts of enemies. It can be nice then to add Calling in Favors to recharge your Doggos/Forgotten Daughters.


Peter Sylvestre (2) is, of course, excellent to absorb all the leftover Horror and help you against Treachery cards with his static boosts. I did not go in this direction as I wanted to explore the Déjà Vu mechanic, and I thought I used the help of the Big Man on Campus enough in this game, but taking him with you is probably the most efficient in higher difficulties.


• Special bonus for Close Call. It is still situational, but this can be interesting in Daniela Reyes. You trigger a attack with your Mechanic's Wrench, evade with your and then shuffle the enemy back to the Encounter Deck. What's best is that you don't even have to wait for your turn or be engaged with an enemy to do it.

•• It costs you an attack and 2 resources to send an enemy back into the Encounter Deck without spending a single action. Good to free your at the beginning of their turn to let them investigate at will, to speed up a late scenario temple run, to get rid of a Cultist full of doom, or an annoying Conglomeration of Spheres that steals your weapons without giving you a single Victory Point for this.


If you are playing 3 or 4 players as the main damage dealer, then I would recommend packing up some Riot Whistles instead of the Hallowed Mirror and maybe one copy of Overpower or something. It will save you a looot of actions throughout the campaign.


• If you are going for a Standalone, you can use the Full XP Version and take off the 2 copies of Déjà Vu. Removing 2 Dooms from the Agenda will make any Standalone significantly easier.


• Versatile to find Lonnie Ritter with her Heavy Furs to:

•• Get a bonus

•• You can find that one copy reliably with Flare x2

•• Heal the leftover Horror

•• Change some symbol tokens

••• The only reason why I am sceptical about that one is that there is no reliable draw engine for Daniela Reyes except for trying Drawing Thin but I don't see it shining in that deck. Altogether, I think that this is tempting but the consistency loss is too high to compensate for the benefits of the combo.


Let me know in the comments your successes and suggestions on how to play The Mechanic and enjoy the Deck!

26 comments

Dec 20, 2021 Django · 4854

Have you tried Daniel with bless stuff? She has access to most of the better cards like Keep Faith, Rite of Sanctification and Ancient Covenant. Shield of Faith also triggers her ability but negates the attack.

Dec 20, 2021 Valentin1331 · 55089

I made a little chapter about Blessed Daniela in Make your own Deck and yeah she’s fine, but not nearly as good as Tommy Muldoon, especially as she does not have access to Shield of Faith unfortunately…. Otherwise, this card alone would have justified a deck for her

Jan 02, 2022 captainfire · 197

I was wondering how to build a deck for her and I wasn't convinced of her ability but now I am, thanks a lot for writing this guide (and all of your other guides on EotE very useful as well) ! :)

Jan 03, 2022 seasonedcoma · 591

@Valentin1331 Great write up. Do you feel this deck has enough damage for a 4p primary fighter? The Exile strat looks fun, but it looks like she basically has the same fight and damage potential at 0 xp as 30+. I'm thinking of how someone like NatCho or Lily scales up in damage potential and static Combat boosts with xp by getting OTP(5) or a Hammer, where this deck seems to scale via utility.

Second, given her Wrench isn't a Weapon, do you think PftW is worth it in this deck? You have two targets for it (Blades/Extinguisher)? I was thinking of running Backpack(0) instead. It digs to fewer cards, but does have 7 targets.

Jan 03, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55089

@seasonedcoma thanks for the feedback!

Backpack (0) was definitely one of the last cards I took off this deck to meet the 30 cards requirement. If you want to take it, it makes complete sense as also digging Hallowed Mirror earlier gives you much more uses of Guard Dog/Aquinnah so technically as worth as a weapon. But from experience, with 7 targets, as you will prioritise those targets during the Mulligan, you will very often meet 0 targets and you will often hesitate to spend your resources there...

When it comes to 4 players, the common experience when playing Daniela Reyes is that she is better than expected when reading her card. Her damage capacity is rather high. Though the more enemies you deal with, the more Damage/Horror you take and if you are in a 4 player group, it would make sense to take Charisma and keep Guard Dog to have more damage reflection as there will be more enemies.

What makes this deck truly shine in 4p is the Doom removal, which gives at least 12 extra actions to your party. Also, primary fighter means that there is often 2 flex and one cluever or another main fighter so you also have a bit of support, especially for Elite enemies.

Jan 04, 2022 seasonedcoma · 591

Agreed that Backpack(0) is not a great choice. I just seemed better than Prepared for the Worst that could only hit Enchanted Blade.

I’m trying this out in two-handed EotE, but it seems like Doom removal won’t come online until scenario 5-6, so she’ll spend most of the campaign just using a wrench. Just a bit worried it won’t scale well/fast enough.

Jan 04, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55089

@seasonedcoma let me know how it went by the end of your campaign!

Also the way the damage scale up with this deck is different than any other deck, it's not by improving your Weapons but by getting more uses of Aquinnah (3) and your .

Getting regular uses of Brute Force and Mechanic's Wrench (and occasionally Enchanted Blade/Fire Extinguisher) are more ways to increase the damage output and get busy during your turn waiting for the enemies to attack :)

And to bring Doom removal online earlier, as mentioned in the guide, you can skip the 2nd copy of Déjà Vu as it will be around the end of your campaign anyways :)

Jan 10, 2022 seasonedcoma · 591

My review after 2p Hard EotE. Daniela definitely was stronger than I thought. As long as she hit Aquinnah early, she was a competent fighter with just the Wrench. I think she had at least as much success as the Chainsaw Silas I took through the blind run. I can see how you may be able to line up Inspiring Presence for extra damage, but it was never needed/happened for me. Only variation on the base deck was taking some trauma to start with a good Backpack and some mobility over PftW.

For Déjà Vu value, I exiled 19 xp of cards over 7 total scenarios. Only 1 xp was spent beyond the discounts. I was definitely more free with Exiling cards

The Doom removal was good, but I never felt like it or the clues were needed. Her partner, Amanda, didn't really need the help. I used Burn After Reading twice, and both were primarily for Doom. I wondered if the Bless suite and A Watchful Peace would be stronger than Exile and Doom removal overall. It felt a lot like I was constrained on Deck space more than xp.

Overall, I really liked the deck concept and it performed extremely well. I liked that it didn't just fallback to a hammer or chainsaw, and it was good to revisit Aquinnah outside Yorick.

Feb 10, 2022 Chillstad · 30

Hello! First off, love the deck and planning to use it next time I'm playing 4p. I have a little observation that could potentially save you some xp leveling up. You can purchase déja vu after exiling three cards to retroactively apply the discount, this way you "only" pay two xp for the permanent since it enables you to buy the tree exiled cards back for free.

Feb 10, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55089

@Chillstad oh niiiice one, I didn't think about it! Indeed that brings a bit more value even before, making it even more likely to only adopt one Black Cat during your campaign as it delays the adoption of the second also!

@seasonedcoma thanks for the feedback, I may indeed do a little edit of the text including a option in "Make your own deck!". It can be done, it was the path explored by the other Deck Guide before mine and I never really found a spot for the Exile Mechanic before so it was fun to explore.

If you were short on space, but not on draw, I can also add an option that includes Versatile, Lonnie Ritter (that you can find with Flare) and Heavy Furs. This way you can reliably heal Horror and cancel some tokens, while also boosting your !

Feb 23, 2022 pfxj · 3

Why did you not include "Get behind me!"?

Feb 23, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55089

Hey @pfxj,

Thanks for your comment, I hope you're enjoying the Deck!

The reason why is a bit pragmatic: there is only a limited amount of space in the Deck and the cards included here are all key to its functioning.

Furthermore, I often play 2-players, making "Get behind me!" not that useful as it would mostly take only one attack unless the other investigator is triggering AoO. But if you are playing with 3 or 4 players, you could definitely add it!

Apr 20, 2022 ojey · 1

Nice deck, will try it out! But I really dont get your total xp calculations in the "Upgrade Path" section. Maybe you could explain that to me. Thanks in advance.

Apr 20, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55089

Thanks @ojey for the comment and thanks for pointing it out. I often rearrange the Upgrade Path (to be fair there is not one way of doing it, it depends on what you feel your needs are) and when I do, I often forget to remake the XP Calculation.

I updated it!

Apr 25, 2022 ojey · 1

Perfect ... now I get it :) Thank you ...

May 31, 2022 OzValdo · 677

Good deck!, but why no survival knife, won't it save actions if she cud also attack during enemy phase?

May 31, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55089

Hey @OzValdo, thanks for the kind words :)

There are 2 reasons of why you don’t really want it:

  • Firstly, you need to take damage to trigger it, and with Guard Dog, Aquinnah, your soaks and even Flesh Ward, you tend to avoid a lot of damage, making it rather exceptional to proc.
  • It only works during the enemy phase which is a shame because your Mechanic's Wrench and Toe to Toe trigger attacks but not at that phase, so it doesn’t help. And you usually try to find ways to get rid of enemies before they end up attacking.

Jun 01, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55089

@OzValdo maybe a last thing also, the Survival Knife is useless until you get attacked so my strategy was still to try to use my 3 actions to take down as many enemies as I could and deal the rest of the damage during the enemy phase.

The Mechanic's Wrench does not work with Prepared for the Worst, so it turned out to be quite unreliable to find..

Jun 12, 2022 Julioriquelme · 93

Very nice deck that suits me both for trying Daniela and the Deja Vu strategy I was thinking about for some time. I will try it during Return to Dunwich with 3p.

How about adding Gear Up? Are there few targets cards (even after adding two Riot Whistles from the begining)?

Jun 12, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55089

Hey @Julioriquelme, happy you like the Deck!!

If you are about to run Dunwich, as you know the XP there can be a little scarce, so I would suggest simply skipping Déjà Vu, while still playing the exile cards, for the simple reason that you may not be able to make even 1 copy worth the 5xp.

When it comes to Geared Up, it is up to you. I chose not to take it because it would mean that you'd mulligan Aquinnah (3) or Flare. Also there are 4 and up to 5 targets for it, which is really low and therefore makes it more likely for you to waste an action rather than gaining one.

Now that we know that it actually synergises with Backpack (2), I would consider it if you are willing to include them very early on and you like the good feeling of when it does work out.

Jun 12, 2022 Julioriquelme · 93

@Valentin1331 yes that's all true but my colleagues carry Delve Too Deep both of them (greedy guys) and we allways may insert some independet scenario to make Deja Vu more profitable.

Also, I will modify a bit the deck to have 11 items (2 more after first 2xp) having Backpack lvl 0 in order to make Gear Up more consistent. I see quite often figthers' first turn not to be very efficient anyway, and the save on resources I think may worth it. Of course when I get Aquinnah (3) I do not care in lossing one action.

In any case, the best thing would be to try and see

Jun 12, 2022 Valentin1331 · 55089

Sounds all good, then by all means try it out and let me know when you're done how it went!!

Jul 03, 2022 vak36 · 1

Funny that you have so less weapons and doing totally great. Was also looking for Exile Decks, and this one looks tasty:)

Jul 03, 2022 captainfire · 197

I finally tested this deck (in EotE) and it performed amazingly (as expected ^^) ! I tried to stay pretty close from what you propose above. I used Bangle of jinxes for the heck of it and because I had some allies form EotE to tank most of the horrors in the begenning (and they ALL died one by one during the game I used them, seems like I'm not a great person to be around ^^').

Anyway doom removal was super strong (obviously) and the damage output in ONE action is impressive, especially when the enemies give you bad things when you inflicts 1 or more wounds ! Frequently up to 6 (7 even with the assets from the campaign) in 1 action, I've never felt that powerful killing monsters :)

Jul 03, 2022 captainfire · 197

The end of my message is missing : I said thanks for this deck idea (and allowing me to play with those Déjà Vu cats) ;)

Jul 11, 2023 danelkay · 1

Would Boxing Gloves have a place in this deck? Powering up [Brute Force] attacks and retrieving [Glory] and [Toe to Toe]. We would need a Bandolier, but you mentioned the deck lacks a card draw engine.