Joe Diamond playing a different game - Solo

Introduction

This is an older list from before The Circle Undone cycle where I took Joe through Return to the Night of the Zealot, Return to the Dunwich Legacy and Path to Carcosa on Standard Difficulty. At times it felt like cheating. This deck is primarily Solo focused Working a Hunch etc. are less impressive in multiplayer but this deck should pull its weight in Mulitplayer too.

I had previously played the campaigns but not the Return to... once before in multiplayer, so I was prepared for a few things. I had no experience with Joe as an Investigator.

*0 Apologies in advance. There might be spelling or grammar mistakes as I'm not a native speaker.

*1 Weakness: I find his signature weakness to be basically non-existent. You'll see it every scenario but it just says "Keep 2 resources in your resource pool" until you've dealt with me. I lost a total of 2XP because of it only because the Mythos phase gave me Dissonant Voices once at the wrong time. The best part of it is it actually being in the Hunch deck which insanely increases your main deck consistency by a factor of at least 2 compared to other Investigators. I'm not sure what his Random Basic Weakness was, but this will vary anyways.

*2 Hunch deck: Joes insane advantage. It gives you close to a free draw and 2 free resources for 10 turns unless you draw the Elder Sign which increases this even further. Therefor (imo) cards that should be in the hunch deck shouldn't cost more than 2, shouldn't trigger Attacks of Opportunity and shouldn't be situational to play. So while some choices may seems strange I consider this to be the best hunch deck at the time.

*3 Taboo: This deck doesn't respect the taboo list, but only because it didn't exist at the time of creation. It can be easily made taboo conforn by swapping Machete for one of the less good alternatives .32 Colt, .45 Thompson or Enchanted Blade nowadays.

*4 Difficulty: Not sure how it'll do on higher difficulties but I think on Standard Joe is the best solo investigator by far. He has 4 in both important stats to win and get XP which means you can play a minimum of cards to further improve him in these aspects and you get your hunch deck. This allows focus on flexible protection of his weaknesses via lots of skills.

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Hunch deck choices - Making Joe great

Mind over Matter most likely the oddest choice. Chances of doing something useful for you are near 0. But you can always play it action and resource free which thins your deck for the good cards. This does not(!) make it a dead card as you draw and play it for free and so it is still a good addition.

Delay the Inevitable the card I intended to swap out asap which turned out to be surprisingly solid. It's always playable and might protect from an Attack of Opportunity or Hunter, it might make a test during the Mythos Phase irrelevant. You might have resources late game left to keep it around or in the worst case it just thins your deck.

Scene of the Crime, Working a Hunch and Shortcut are just really good cards. The only one "leaving" the hunch deck is Shortcut by upgrading to Shortcut

Your other upgrade would be first No Stone Unturned or Cryptic Research to replace Mind over Matter and later Delay the Inevitable

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Thoughts on Upgrades

First upgrades (imo) should go towards Pathfinder followed by Shortcut this makes Joe extremely mobile and so much better at the solid work he pulls of. And since Joe is the one Seeker who can handle enemies so well from the start you're free to prioritise these.

Once this is done there are a lot of ways to improve your deck beside the already mentioned Hunch deck upgrades.

Studious nowadays

Upgraded Vicious Blow

Upgraded Beat Cop

Timeworn Brand as your ultimate weapon

Key of Ys

Charisma if you get a useful story ally for example

Higher Education

Upgraded Bandolier to keep using Magnifying Glass with a Bonus

Upgraded Magnifying Glass when you have already improved your deck significantly and have some spare XP. This is not a priority though

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Thoughts on non-essential cards

Basically besides his hunch deck Joe doesn't play spectacular stuff but he just gets things done in a very solid manner.

I just would never take out Steadfast or Take the Initiative in his deck as they perform amazingly. I also would keep a solid weapon count. And some kind of resource generation.

Dodge and On the Hunt seem the least essential cards in his deck (imo) and at least one should be replaced with Crack the Case nowadays.

In hindsight I'd also go with Unexpected Courage over Curiosity

You might go with Bandolier instead of Fine Clothes especially if you include other two-handed weapons or more solid items requiring hands like Dream Diary, Hawk-Eye Folding Camera or Occult Lexicon that weren't available back then.

Hallowed Mirror and Alice Luxley also seem to be good solid inclusions nowadays.

But be careful not to overdo it with additions you want to keep lot of commitable, flexible icons for tests with this build.

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The Perfect Storm - contains minor SPOILER (free movement is good in most Arkham scenarios)

I also took this deck after some XP to Carnevale of Horrors and with shortcuts, Pathfinder, the story ally and one location you can move up to 6 locations for free each turn which was insane. Won't spoil why this is amazing in that scenario. Same when I took it to Curse of the Rougarou again no spoilers why you might want to run around a lot.