Joe Diamond- Shoot First, Ask Questions Later - Deck Guide

Introduction: Hey guys with how much fun I had making my Andre Patel Mo Money Mo Problems deck, I thought I would give a crack at our crackpot seeker, Joe Diamond. With the addition of the new evergreen decks, seeker and guardian have gained access to a lot of interesting synergies, allowing the Gumshoe archetype listed in the core manual to be better fleshed out. I took inspiration from the old 1920s detectives for this deck, turning Joe into the hardened, grizzled detective Gotham I mean Arkham needs.

Overview:

• Shoot First: Joe’s balanced stat line means he can both fight and investigate with good success. M1911 and Logan Hastings allow us to fight at 7, meaning we can hold our own in a fight, with a boost in damage from Vicious Blow and Insidious Truths to finish off any bigger Elites. Right Tool for the Job allows us to tutor our weapons out, ensuring with our mulligan we start our opening round with a weapon in play. Should we need any soak, Logan and Lab Assistant give us emergency soak.
• Questions Later: Autopsy Report is a really fun card and what gave me the inspiration for this deck. Testing at a potential whopping 9 is a massive number, even before committing anything, allowing us to easily snipe clues off high shroud locations. Autopsy also allows us to keep us tempo because we don’t have to decide between getting clues or dealing with enemies. Deduction also lets us pick up an extra clue and boosts our intellect as well. Scene of the Crime is a fun card and plays right into our enemy management into clues theme.
• Fastest Draw in Arkham: Not only is our gun-toting detective a crack shot, he also draws cards as fast as we can spend them. His signature gator ability is a fantastic staple, rewarding us for playing the game. Laboratory Assistant and Studious reinforce this aggressive card draw by boosting our hand size and starting draw. Establish Motive and Gather Intel further help us get the right cards in hand, ensuring we are well prepared for whatever the encounter deck throws at us.
• Bring Em in Cold: Joe should change his title to Bounty Hunter cause he’s getting paid. Bounty brings in the big bucks, turning those high health enemies we just wasted into cold hard cash. Logan Hastings gives us a steady consistent resource per enemy, useful when we take out smaller health enemies not worth using Bounty on. Emergency Cache can give us a boost in a pinch, especially when we pull our signature weakness. Our signature card, Detective's Intuition, also gives us a cool 2 bucks and rewards us with extra card draw when we pull it during it our turn.
• Weaknesses: Joe’s low 2 can cause some issues for us but hopefully you won’t need to run when you can just blast right through them. Restrained is there too when we just need to make some space from bigger enemies or put an annoying creature with Elusive out of play. Joe’s low 2 is also not great, unfortunately our crackpot detective can’t do everything. We have a few and icons to help us out in a pinch but most encounter cards I just tanked and kept going.

Conclusion: After play testing this deck, it quickly became my favorite deck so far. It carried me easily through Brethren of Ash and the final boss fight was a breeze being able to grab clues quickly. Joe feels strong with the current card pool and I’m excited to see what changes will come to the Seeker Guardian pool with our first investigator expansion next year.