LivefromBenefitSt · 1023
Introduction
Inspired by Prinny_wizzard's Empower Self Diana deck, this was designed to go through the Dreamlands side of a Standard TDE campaign paired with Patrice. It is meant to be fairly flexible, able to do a lot of things with the basic upgrades package, but possibly lacking in acceleration. It is fairly unconcerned with Diana's , since it plans on using the other stats more. As usual, comments and suggestions welcome.
Notable Cards
Assets
- Empower Self, Empower Self, and Empower Self -- this is the core of the deck, letting you make a couple of checks at base 5 during each turn
- Well Prepared -- with two of these out backing up the Empower Self suite, that's two tests you can now make at base 7, or one at base 9
- Azure Flame -- it's been useful, but could be swapped out for something you like better to focus her more on clue-getting or evading, perhaps
- Survival Knife -- this hasn't been as useful as I had hoped; TDE has a lot of horror-only enemies....
Events
- Ever Vigilant -- great resource and action compression; really helps get all those assets on the table
- Lucid Dreaming -- critical for getting the suite into play; Diana's deck is just a little bigger, but this can mean you never see critical cards. If only Word of Command worked on Rituals....
- Read the Signs -- for a little clue acceleration. Works well with Robes of Endless Night
- Spectral Razor -- same as the above, but for combat
- Voice of Ra -- a slightly risky economy card, Standard TDE tends to have lots of special tokens, so it's a good campaign for it. Outside of that campaign, I might go with Emergency Cache, although that can't get nabbed by Arcane Initiate
Piloting It's a very toolbox deck. You want to get assets out and start doing all the things. What order you play the suite in depends on the luck of the draw and the pressures of the specific scenario. One place where you can run into trouble is getting your set up bogged down by a lack of resources and actions. Ever Vigilant can help a lot at the right moment, as can a lucky Voice of Ra. Depending on the scenario, saving your cancels to protect assets and having cards discarded from hand can be clutch. Otherwise, this is an extremely flexible deck, able to manage enemies and get clues. Danger areas include a relative lack of action compression, and the danger of getting stalled in setup by resource-focused treacheries or runs of enemies. Despite its flexibility, I strongly suspect this build would work poorly in solo.
Mulligan
First scenario, you would like an Arcane Initiate and either Enchanted Blade or Azure Flame. Once you have the basic package, getting at least one Empower Self and Lucid Dreaming in hand is pretty important, plus combat or clue tech, depending on the scenario. Ever Vigilant is good to see.
Upgrades
The Basic Package (12 XP)
- Overpower --> Empower Self
- Manual Dexterity --> Empower Self
- Perception --> Empower Self
- Scene of the Crime --> Well Prepared
- Glory --> Lucid Dreaming
- Clean Them Out --> Ever Vigilant
Useful Additions
- Survival Knife --> Machete or Survival Knife (2) -- as I said upstream, Survival Knife hasn't worked well in TDE, so maybe Machete would be a better choice as a backup to Enchanted Blade
- Robes of Endless Night --> Robes of Endless Night (2) -- lower cost, protects from AoOs
- Enchanted Blade --> Enchanted Blade (3) -- stronger and more flexible
- Arcane Initiate --> Dayana Esperence -- getting to use Read the Signs or one of the cancels 3 times would be really nice, although her cost is another economic speed bump in a deck full of them
- Dodge --> "I've had worse…" (2) -- almost as useful as Dodge, the replacement also helps with this resource-hungry deck
TDE is a very XP generous campaign, but even it is running out of XP at this point. Thanks for reading!
| 3 comments |
|---|
Mar 15, 2021 |
Mar 15, 2021Thanks for the feedback! I find that the main use of Empower Self is to give those +2 bonuses to the specific skills and to empower (heh) Well Prepared to give additional bonuses. If a spell allows the use of , , or instead of , and Diana hasn't built that stat up enough, that's gravy, but it didn't come up enough in actual play (mostly because Azure Flame is the only card I have where it will work). I suppose one could do some shenanigans with Sign Magick or Familiar Spirit to get extra Arcane slots, but that's getting to be a lot of cards tied up in the combo. I take your point on Read the Signs, Spectral Razor, and Ethereal Form, but the hope there is that Diana's will go up enough to add a modest bonus -- if she has two cards under her and she is using the exhaust ability of Empower Self, she can still use Spectral Razor at a base skill of 8 for 3 damage. Additionally, the three cards give some compression in damage, clue-getting, and evading with only one Arcane slot. Similarly, by using the exhaust ability of that same Empower Self, plus maybe one of the Well Prepareds, she can make an Enchanted Blade attack at a base of 9 once a turn. The largest problem I had with Survival Knife, beyond the lack of damage-causing enemies in TDE, was that, by the Enemy Phase, I had usually exhausted all the cards I could use for bonuses, so Diana was only testing at a base of 4. I had initially rejected Spirit Athame, but you've got me reconsidering it,e specially for the +2 spell bonus. I wish it didn't exhaust for attacks, but, hey. I find Sword Cane less persuasive since I can already use Empower Self to evade once per turn. Crystalline Elder Sign would be good, since this Diana build uses all stats, although the deck is getting pretty XP-heavy, and I am running out of cards that can be replaced. Still, interesting suggestions, thanks! |
Mar 15, 2021Another thought: I'm finding the deck really fun to play, although I'm not yet sure whether it's super-powerful. I don't think it will work well in solo (although the lack of clue compression might be less of an issue there), it really feels like it needs at least one partner. Anyway, Empower Self is way more interesting that I had originally thought, and I hope this deck encourages others to try the suite. |
Hey, good work on the deck guidance!
I've worked on a deck with a similar intention last week and just a couple of things that I observed: Spectral Razor Ethereal Form and Read the Signs work with add you to your skill value and not instead of, so Empower Self doesn't apply here.
Same for your Survival Knife and Enchanted Blade, you unfortunately don't use the Empower Self effect...
I personally chose to go for Spirit Athame on one hand, Sword Cane on the other, Clairvoyance for clueing and Crystalline Elder Sign to make it less likely to be hit by Azure Flame and Clairvoyance.