Are you well prepared, Diana?

This is multiplayer Diana deck focused mostly on fighting monsters and controlling bag/mythos but it can also gather some clues once in a while. Presented version requires 14 XP but in the overview there are described card choices for level 0 of the deck.

Main idea

Deck uses triad of assets: Well Prepared, Physical Training and Arcane Studies to boost skill tests. It can hold on it's own without those but becomes more powerful and versatile with those cards in play. Boosting 3 out of 4 stats let's Diana take care of nearly every aspect of the game if needed though Arcane Studies are not crucial if clue gathering is fully covered within the team.

Also of course both Physical Training and Arcane Studies can be used to dump some resources for more skill boosting. Worth noting is that Diana's signature card Twilight Blade has one , one and one icon so it works with Well Prepared very nicely, increasing also chance of double pip asset drawn.

Tools for mayhem

Pretty standard guardian stuff - Machete, .45 Automatic. Later in the campaign i'd swap one of those for Timeworn Brand. This card is just fantastic.

As a sort of backup but also for nasty enemies like Poltergeist there is Shrivelling. By the end of scenario Diana should easily float around 4-5 and with boosts from either Arcane Studies or Physical Training she can quite comfortably fight tougher boss enemies. I'd not upgrade to Shrivelling 3 or Shrivelling 5 before purchasing Timeworn Brand.

Tools of manipulation

• Ward of Protection
• Deny Existence - please note that since it ignores effects it can be used to deny card discard or horror from Terrible Secret
• Dodge
• Dark Prophecy - not the best card for Diana but at level 0 there are not that many other choices of cancel/ignore cards.
• Premonition - doesn't cancel or ignore but it's too good not to take it
• Olive McBride - that one might be a bit of a head-scratcher but she's mostly used as a cheap horror soak. Diana has only 7 sanity and between Ward of Protection (possibly used more than twice thanks to Twilight Blade), Shirvelling and mythos effects we don't manage to cancel she needs help in that department. Also for higly boosted tests Olive can be used to mitigate and since she ignores tokens she can be thrown under Diana if needed.

During my playtime i was never focusing on bringing Diana to a certain willpower value it much rather paid off to cancel/ignore threats with the biggest damage potential, but also do not make mistake of holding on to your cards for too long. I've never waited with Dodge in my hands just for a final scenario boss if there was one. My rule of thumb would be do not cancel/ignore threats that you can easily deal with just for the sake of Diana's ability but anything from medium to high threat should be canceled. Please also remeber that Twilight Blade let's reuse any cards under Diana and if that's possible during scenario flow you should dig for that card.

Level 0 card choices

• Arcane Studies Perception or Guts, depends if clue gathering is required from Diana by the team
• Physical Training Overpower
• Well Prepared Uncage the Soul
• Ever Vigilant Delve Too Deep, crucial card to reach that 10-14xp threshold.

Upgrade priorities

1. Well Prepared - even without permanent booster it's worth taking
2. Physical Training
3. Arcane Studies/Ever Vigilant - again, if clue gathering is not needed from Diana then i'd go with Ever vigilant first to smooth out economy
4. Timeworn Brand
5. Ward of Protection

These are the most important upgrades in my opinion, after that experience could be spent on upgraded Shrivelling or Recall the Future for additional test boosting fun or Counterspell.

Hope that you'll find this deck interesting enough to try it. Looking forward to any comments and ideas.