Why Can't I, Hold All These Clues?

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Why Can't I, Hold All These Clues? (39xp) 1 0 0 1.0
Daisy Delivers with Double Research Notes 19 xp 1 0 0 1.0

ggiles · 368

meme

This is a purely clue-focused deck centered around Research Notes. We're abusing a couple of things here:

  • Research Notes can be activated by Daisy's free Tome action.
  • One clue dropped can place one evidence on each copy of Research Notes, for up to two total with two copies out.
  • Research Notes does not care about the location's shroud or Investigation-limiting effects; each point over 0 is a clue you can get, provided you have the evidence. Thus, discovering clues with Research Notes will often need lower skill values and much fewer actions.

Our general strategy, then, is to find some clues, get Research Notes/Press Pass out, and start dropping clues all over the place, drawing cards, boosting our stats, getting extra actions, and cancelling encounter cards/chaos tokens the whole while. Then we can pick up all our clues in an action or two, potentially even saving some evidence to cheat a high shroud or Locked Door-type effect later!

Please note that there are some cards here that are substituting Scarlet Keys cards not yet available on ArkhamDB. Namely:

  • Emergency Cache should be swapped with Analysis.
  • Hallowed Mirror should be swapped with Press Pass.
  • The Raven Quill starts with 'Spectral Binding' (attached asset takes up no slots) checked.

Many of the cards used here are pretty standard Daisy cards, so I won't bother going over how to pilot this deck in great detail. Rather, I'll go over the cards with interesting Research Notes interactions, and explain their role.

  • Dr. William T. Maleson: The only repeatable clue-dropping card available at level 0. His effect isn't really good, but it's a way to activate Press Pass and get charges on your Research Notes.
  • Captivating Discovery: Filtered draw that's pretty cheap if you have at least one copy of Research Notes out. You get to burst a lot of charges onto your Research Notes, and draw extremely hard. Very worth it.
  • Analysis: Pulls double duty as a burst of dropped clues, and as a way to ensure a pass on a test.
  • Press Pass: Pretty self-explanatory. Get extra actions for running your gameplan.
  • Forewarned: With Maleson, we still have to draw an encounter card. This card lets us just not do that.
  • The Raven Quill: If we can't find Daisy's Tote Bag, this lets us play other tomes in addition to our Research Notes, by making them slotless. Eventually, this should be upgraded to check 'Supernatural Record' (when Raven Quill is played, find and play Research Notes as well). We need a way to get extra hand slots somehow, so we might as well pick a card that also helps us get our core combo piece out as well. Do note that this card can't be paid for by Schoffner's, and can't be played by Geared Up, since those cards only affect Item assets, whereas Raven Quill is an Item event. Unfortunate.
  • Quick Study: Drop clues for a generic skill boost? Yes please. You'll note that we drop one clue for three skill value, and clues are dropped before the conclusion of the test, so we can tap this during a Research Notes test to place evidence mid-test, to potentially discover three more clues (for a net of two). Very worthwhile.
  • Knowledge is Power: (Thanks to @chirubime for pointing this out!) Because Knowledge is Power negates all costs during the resolution of the ability, it negates the evidence cost as well. You get to have a power Research Notes action without even charging it up first!

Upgrades:

  • Press Pass: This card is just so fundamentally strong for us. Get another copy ASAP.
  • Quick Study: Very similar to Press Pass. It's just so good in so many situations that it should be a fairly early upgrade.
  • Backpack: It's very painful when our Geared Up whiffs, or when we can't get our key assets out. Half the cost, double the search. Excellent.
  • Studious: I normally would only rate Studious as a luxury upgrade, but the potential reward for having a good Geared Up opening is just ridiculous. With two copies of Studious and upgraded Backpacks, you have decent odds of playing out the majority of your assets sans Maleson and Raven Quill on turn one, for a super-thin deck and a super-thick rig.
  • Old Book of Lore/Dream Diary/Maleson (2): None of these are critical to our success, but they're all good tempo.
  • Forewarned: I honestly think that having Maleson (2) is enough encounter protection, especially since you're likely to be tapping him just about every turn. However, if the encounter deck is especially mean, or if you're on higher player counts, Forewarned is worth picking up.
  • The Raven Quill (Supernatural Record/Living Quill): This should be the last card you put experience in, simply because Raven Quill is likely to finish upgrading itself.

Card substitutes:

  • Delve Too Deep: This deck isn't so incredibly desperate for experience that you need to run Delve. There are lots of staple cards like Guts, Shortcut, etc. that can be run instead.
  • Dream Diary: Really, anything that can get you an boost to use for investigating and activating Research Notes is fine. Encyclopedia helps investigate high-shroud locations more, and may be more useful for supporting teammates.
  • Research Librarian: You probably have enough draw and search as-is, I just wanted another way to get online if I had a really, really bad opening hand. The downside is that if you have a good opener, or draw him late, he's completely useless (he doesn't even have good icons to commit!). I think this is a case where "fail less" beats "win more", but your mileage may vary and, again, there's lots of good staple cards to fill the hole.
  • Down the Rabbit Hole: I didn't include this card because I feel like many of your priority upgrades (Press Pass, Quick Study, Studious) are new purchases, so the additional experience cost makes this deck a lot slower to get off the ground, in order to accelerate purchases that aren't really necessary. Still, you have enough targets for upgrades (1x Shrewd Analysis'd Dream Diary, 2x Old Book of Lore, 2x Maleson, 2x Deduction, 2x Perception) and few enough required purchases (1x Press Pass, 2x Quick Study, 2x Studious) that running Down the Rabbit Hole could put you at a net positive experience, so there's an argument to be made for running it.
8 comments

Oct 03, 2022 chirubime · 25326

We've been playing this Daisy deck as well. It's sooo bonkers that its Archaic Glyphs (Guiding Stones) level of tempo, with a ton of flexibility and treachery protection. The interaction with Knowledge is Power is also really really crazy given you don't spend any evidence since those are considered costs as well.

Oct 04, 2022 ggiles · 368

@chirubime

Yeah, it really is nuts that this deck can pick up clues so fast while also just casually boosting skill tests by +6 and discarding encounter cards.

That's a really interesting interaction, I hadn't realized that Knowledge is Power negated all costs and not just costs associated with activation. So even if Research Notes is tabooed to be like 'limit one in play' or something, you can still use it to just nuke a high-shroud location in one action (up to four times per scenario with Eidetic Memory?). Bonkers.

Oct 10, 2022 captainfire · 197

It looks incredibly strong ^^' I don't know how it could even be improved... Thanks for the deck, I will try it out when I receive my box :)

Oct 11, 2022 HolySorcerer · 1

If the primary value of The Ravens Quill is in removing the hand slot from a copy of Research Notes, then why not just go for Arcane Enlightenment and convert a spell slot into a tome slot? It's cheaper, doesn't require xp, you can play two of them, and they work for any tome in the deck. Sure, you lose out on the eventual tutor effect, but that is a late game upgrade, while Arcane Enlightenment is running right out of the gate.

Oct 11, 2022 ggiles · 368

@captainfire

Thanks! I hope you have fun with it!

@HolySorcerer

Those are some salient points! Arcane Enlightenment is certainly a good alternative, especially in the early game, but there's two reasons why I picked Raven Quill over other options:

  • I value Research Notes tutor quite highly. This deck doesn't really begin to take off until you have two out, because that's the point where dropping clues is actively earning you more clues. So we need both copies of Research Notes out as early as possible if we want to take advantage of a lot of the other cards in our deck. Raven Quill is also targetable by backpack, whereas Arcane Enlightenment is not.
  • I think Raven Quill tutor is likely to be an early-ish/mid-game upgrade, rather than a late game upgrade. I found I was able to play 1-2 copies a scenario, which means Raven Quill's reaction ability upgraded it into tutoring for Research Notes (at which point, IMO, the criticisms of Raven Quill's ordering issues are moot) by scenario 3 or 4. It's true that in order to access this, you need to run a bad card in the early game, but if there's any deck that has the spare tempo to greed for a later advantage (cough Delve Too Deep cough), it's this one.

Mar 29, 2023 Tage40k · 1

I think I'm missing something, how are you playing geared up and schoffner's catalog? I thought daisy could only take seeker and mystic cards.

Mar 29, 2023 Tage40k · 1

Nvm, didn't realize it was her other version as the pic showed her standard version.

Sep 21, 2023 An_Undecayed_Whately · 845

Looks like the latest taboo put a 3-evidence ceiling on Research Notes

I imagine that is a per-card limit, so with two copies i play you could double that limit.

Does this change the deck much?