Sister Mary, The Mechanic |Transfiguration| Daniela Reyes

I hated how Daniela couldn't take cards like Guard Dog (2) or Survival Knife (2). Sister Mary fixes that with Transfiguration.

Level 0 Deck

Her three permanents are there to supercharge her xp gain to maximise upgrades. Most of her upgrades are directly upgraded from her level 0 cards with some exceptions like Enchant Weapon (3) and Bulwark (2), but over eight scenarios you'll get a discount from Down the Rabbit Hole.

Boxing Gloves and Spirit events are there to thin out your deck so you can draw Transfiguration faster. They also serve to enable Daniela's ability with the "enemy attacks you" triggers.

I filled her assets with that give a passive boost to to help her survive and kill while still in Sister Mary form and hopefully you'll manage to draw Transfiguration.

Flesh Ward combos well with Guard Dog and Guardian Angel because you can assign these assets the damage (thus activating their abilities) but then also cancelling the damage/horror via Flesh Ward's effect, increasing the number of uses you get out of them.

Upgrades

Your top upgrade priority is Parallel Fates (2) which you can get for 1xp each thanks to Down the Rabbit Hole. This is your only tutor available to you to draw out Transfiguration.

Guard Dog (2) is your second highest priority because its ability enables Daniela to do what she does best for a free action.

Survival Knife (2) enables you to finish off an enemy before they can even attack you. Get Enchant Weapon (3) to make it even more deadly. With Daniela's +4 and +5, that's a +9 total to combat and 3 damage per knife. All this as a reaction ability because she doesn't even need to initiate the attack.

No wonder they didn't want to let Daniela get Guardian 1-5 cards.

Note that Enchant Weapon (3) takes up an arcane slot, and while Binder's Jar can help mitigate the requirement, you'll likely have to manage your arcane slots especially if you intend to play Flesh Ward/Bulwark (2).

Aside from the obvious upgrade paths,

2x Glory > 2x True Awakening (2)

1x Flesh Ward > 1x Bulwark (2)

2x Vicious Blow > 2x Enchant Weapon (3)

You can remove the 1x Overpower and 1x Boxing Gloves as well if you need more space. Beat Cop I find won't matter in the long run if you have Guard Dog and you're Daniela so you can save space there as well.

"I've had worse..." and "Memories of Another Life" are both optional. But let's face it, who wouldn't take "Memories of Another Life" if they can afford the xp? Keep in mind these cards will cost +1xp from Down the Rabbit Hole.

You can also get Stick to the Plan (3) to further thin your deck, and get your hard hitting events out instantly but this would cost you 7xp and it might be a bit of an investment.

Gameplay

I can't stress it enough and will likely repeat this multiple times in this guide. Hard Mulligan for Transfiguration and ONLY Transfiguration. No other card except Parallel Fates (2) is as important as Transfiguration and even Parallel Fates (2) is FOR Transfiguration. Getting sick of me saying Transfiguration yet?

For the first scenario, you'll likely rely on your event cards, Beat Cop and Boxing Gloves to reach the baseline of being able to kill something until you get that Transfiguration. Wolf Mask too if you manage to draw it.

Once set up, your attacks come during the enemy phase via Survival Knife or via any one of your Fast Spirit Events.

So most of your turns will be spent drawing cards. You won't need the resources because the deck is insanely cheap to set up so if you have nothing to do during a turn, draw a card to pull Transfiguration.

Signature and Weakness

Guardian Angel makes Daniela even tankier than she already is.

Your weakness is laughable because you can opt not to activate Sister Mary's ability every turn, keeping it at a low 2 bless tokens until you tranfigure so don't be afraid of drawing it.

Just be aware that Daniela and Sister Mary effectively swap health and sanity values, so don't accidentally kill yourself Transfiguring into Daniela.

Conclusion

Transfigured Sister Mary will hit really hard especially since they didn't limit Daniela's ability. And depending on the situation you might even decide to turn into Nathaniel instead and it'd still work pretty well all things considered.

Just remember to pray. Pray that you draw Transfiguration in your opening hand, or that an encounter card doesn't make you discard it randomly from your deck. Or that you're that unlucky to never draw it once.