Fully Empowered

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Diana Stanley: Hath Not the Potter Power Over the Clay? 5 2 3 1.0

Prinny_wizzard · 251

This deck started out as a theory - what would a Diana Stanley deck look like with Empower Self? It would allow her to take most tests (once per turn) at 5 or better, which is appealing. I plan to build it at some point soon and test it in a few standalone scenarios, to iron out any kinks.

Given the way Well-Maintained complements Empower Self, and Lucid Dreaming will help you find more versions of Empower Self, that's 10xp spent quite easily. After that, given ES takes up one of the Arcane Slots I wanted to mainly focus on event spells rather than Arcane ones, hence Reading The Signs/Spectral Razor/Ethereal Form.

Dayana Esperance is a logical accompaniment for the event spell suite, and helps lend value to Lucid Dreaming while she's at it - having a second copy in hand, ready to go, helps extend the life of the event spells.

"I've Had Worse" is just such a good card for Diana that it's impossible to ignore, often working as a fast Emergency Cache (2) that ALSO blocks damage and boosts her Willpower. Deny Existence is similarly an excellent card, even at level 0, being a 0-cost card that can ignore her weakness or a number of nasty treacheries. Ward of Protection offers similar, well, protection against the Encounter Deck.

Survival Knife is the first of the possible oddities. But I consider Survival Knife (2) to be an extremely solid card, granting an Attack action in the Enemy Phase. It pairs nicely with the Enchanted Blade to conserve charges, if you can Dodge in the meantime. (Enchanted Blade, with its limited charges, again offers a useful extra target for Lucid Dreaming.)

The Robes offer both economy (relying on the spell suite can get expensive) and damage protection.

Enraptured helps both the Blade and Dayana keep operating at peak efficiency.

Evidence! offers an alternative, if limited, solution for clue-getting if Read The Signs or Empower Self (Acuity) are unavailable, and Ever Vigilant can help get assets down fast or be committed for its double-Intellect icons.

Crystal Pendulum is mainly serving here in its function to draw cards, but the fact it buffs Willpower is certainly no bad thing.

Edit: following feedback, I'm inclined to drop the Crystal Pendulum in favour of Glory, replace the Evidence! with Daring, and upgrade one Enchanted Blade to level 3.

This deck will likely underutilise the Twilight Blade compared to a typical Diana deck; this is subject to change, but my gameplan is to be in a position where I can shrug off the encounter deck by sheer force (and maybe a Dayana'd Ward of Protection), only throwing down the Twilight Blade when I have a duplicate Survival Knife or Enchanted Blade in hand.

8 comments

Mar 03, 2021 LivefromBenefitSt · 1023

This looks like a very neat build!

Mar 03, 2021 LivefromBenefitSt · 1023

Although... on closer consideration, how do you deal with economy? Robes and Ever Vigilant help a bit, but it seems like it might be hard to get going. Any thoughts about that?

Mar 03, 2021 Prinny_wizzard · 251

Mm, that was a concern when putting the deck together. Diana's ability will help a little, but without relying on the Twilight Blade I can only expect that to net me 5 resources at most (and that's without paying for the Ignore/Cancel items).

I've Had Worse will be a nice cash injection, but apart from that I don't have any real resource generation in this deck. I'll find out in testing how badly I may have underestimated the resource side.

Mar 03, 2021 Susumu · 338

I also like this deck. I published a deck around Well Prepared myself and the combo with the "Empower Self" suite looks definitely neat! I think, resources are less of a problem with the cards you mentioned AND "I've had worse…" AND Diana's ability, though I would upgrade Deny Existence rather sooner than later, and have this as the main Dayana-card. It is very powerful for very cheap.

What I think is not that great is the Enchanted Blade. I would rather choose Shrivelling or (in particular if running Arcane Research) Azure Flame. They can be used with ES using , although they would loose the to-hit-bonus on upgrades, as long, as Diana has low , but the deck has enough cancels to make them work well with as well later in the game.

Mar 03, 2021 Prinny_wizzard · 251

Hm... I'd argue both can work, for different reasons. But I hadn't considered the spells until now.

The Blade allows Diana to use her Combat score even without Empower Self, and offers a +1/2 without expending XP, which early in the scenario can be valuable. The upgraded version also offers variable damage. There's also the fact that I can keep an empty Blade about for fighting if there are enemies that key off of the Relic trait (though they are admittedly rare).

Shrivelling/Azure Flame, on the other hand, rely more on either Empower Self or Diana's willpower boosts, but get more charges to compensate (than the base blade), and also allow me to save a little more money if I have the Robes out. They also have the rather nice advantage of leaving the hands free, either to allow double-Survival Knife or (more likely) take advantage of the Twilight Blade after all.

That latter point could be the tipping factor... I'll stick to the Enchanted Blade for now, but I'll re-evaluate after some testing.

Mar 04, 2021 LivefromBenefitSt · 1023

So what does your Level-0 look like? You've inspired me to try a variant of this for TDE. We will see what horrors await....

Mar 04, 2021 Prinny_wizzard · 251

That's a great question. I originally designed this purely as a thought experiment/for standalone play.

Hm... I'll think on it and see what I come up with. Off the cuff I'm tempted to use Flesh Ward until I can get Empower Self, because it's a handy damage/horror reduction that plays into Diana's ability. Some Well Prepareds probably wouldn't go amiss either. (... assuming I've remembered the name right, the event that searches the top 9 cards of your deck for a Weapon asset.)

Mar 04, 2021 Prinny_wizzard · 251

Gah, I mean Prepared for the Worst. (Half points for remembering it had Prepared in the name? ^^; )