Daisy Walker Masters the Secrets of the Necronomicon

This deck uses Library Pass and Scroll of Secrets to reuse powerful tomes every turn. The main target is obviously The Necronomicon, but even without it you can use Grim Memoir for reliable investigations and card draw, Old Book of Lore for filtered card draw or Occult Lexicon to help fight.

• Overview

• Main Strategy

• Ariadne's Twine

• Tomes

• Other Cards

• Upgrade Path

• Mulligan hard for Scroll of Secrets and Ariadne's Twine as your first priority.
• Second priority is to have tomes that you can use with Library Pass. Note that Library Pass requires you to spend a resource at the end of your turn if there is no tome attached to it.
• Keep Ariadne's Twine topped up using Enraptured, Truth from Fiction and its own ability.

• Using Ariadne's Twine:

  • Secrets on Ariadne's Twine can be used as if they were on any assets.
  • It is important that you don't lose it to something like Crypt Chill, and the easiest way is by having other assets in play. Whitton Greene, Occult Lexicon and Grim Memoir are all targets that you can lose over Ariadne's Twine or Scroll of Secrets.
  • If you attach a tome with secrets to Library Pass and you can't use them all in one turn (such as Grim Memoir, a spare Scroll of Secrets or an upgraded Old Book of Lore, you can exhaust Ariadne's Twine to take one of them as a resource to help your economy. Conversely, if you have plenty of resources, you can do the same to place one as a secret on an asset.
  • If another player at your location has an asset that uses secrets such as The Book of War or Mind's Eye, they can use secrets on Ariadne's Twine.

• Gaining Secrets:

  • As mentioned above, you can exhaust Ariadne's Twine to swap a resource for a secret.
  • Enraptured not only helps to succeed against higher shrouds with its and icons, but it gives 3 secrets to place on Ariadne's Twine. It can also in a pinch be used to help an ally's investigation, even if they're using a different stat. It can also be used to help charge an ally's spells such as Clairvoyance.
  • Truth from Fiction also gives 2 or 3 secrets, but takes an action or resource to play. You can circumvent this if you find it when searching with an upgraded Old Book of Lore by spending a secret to play it for free, giving you a net positive on secrets, especially if Old Book of Lore is attached to Library Pass.
  • Correlate All Its Contents gives 1 secret if the investigate is successful, or 3 if you succeed by 1 or 3. Since there is not support for the precision archetype in this deck, it is easily cut, especially once you have upgraded Enraptured, and later Truth From Fiction.

• The Necronomicon

  • This is (obviously) the most powerful tome in the deck, and the deck would still be powerful without it. Without spending secrets from Ariadne's Twine, each turn you can:
  • Get 2 testless clues from any location.
  • Defeat and 3 health enemy engaged with you.
  • Draw 6 cards.
  • Get +2 skill boost 6 times (total +12). The biggest use for this is scenario tests or evasion. You could also use it for investigations but you might be better just getting the clues testlessly.
  • Any combination of the above.

• Grim Memoir

  • Useful skill boost for investigations on higher shrouds, and even useful on lower shrouds for the card draw.
  • Can be used over and over if attached to Library Pass or fuelled by Ariadne's Twine.
  • Makes good use of Daisy's extra action as an alternative to Old Book of Lore.

• Old Book of Lore

  • Amazing filtered card draw, to help avoid weaknesses.
  • When upgraded, it can also help to pay for and play other assets such as Daisy's Tote Bag or events such as Truth From Fiction.
  • Can be used with Daisy's extra action.

• Scroll of Secrets

  • One of the three most important cards in this deck, alongside Ariadne's Twine and Library Pass.
  • Allows you to pull tomes from the bottom of the deck after they have been attached to Library Pass.
  • When upgraded, it is very powerful to avoid drawing (or potentially discarding) your weaknesses.
  • You should always have one copy in play, but the second can be attached to Library Pass to avoid paying the resource and getting a little extra draw.

• Occult Lexicon

  • A very versatile card, giving you potential for card draw, resource gain or testless damage.
  • Blood-Rite gets added to your hand when Occult Lexicon is attached to Library Pass, so you can deal with a 2 health enemy without taking an attack of opportunity (as long as you have the resources).
  • Note that when Occult Lexicon leaves play and goes to the bottom of your deck, you will have to search for all 3 copies of Blood Rite and set them aside. If there are any in your deck, you will have to search and shuffle it, so Occult Lexicon will most likely not be available to get back with Scroll of Secrets.

• Abyssal Tome

  • If you upgrade Occult Lexicon into Abyssal Tome, it is a great option for enemy management, but requires a little more planning.
  • It is a great combination with Library Pass, as it is a built in way to discard it before the doom becomes a problem.
  • For 2 health enemies, you can attach it to Library Pass at the beginning of your turn to attack with it. If you think you might need to deal more damage, you can leave it attached and pay the resource to keep it in play until the doom would cause the agenda to advance.

• Eon Chart

  • Eon Chart is a Relic and uses secrets.
  • Pairs well with Whitton Greene, giving you the stat boost if you have it in play with her, as well as being able to use her to tutor it.
  • Can use Ariadne's Twine to fuel it for extra actions moving and investigating, two things you will want to be doing often.

• Whitton Greene

  • Whitton provides +1 (and +1 if upgraded) when you have a tome or relic asset in play, as well as allowing you to tutor them.
  • She also has good soak, giving +1 sanity and health before having to discard her.

• Bizarre Diagnosis & Logical Reasoning

  • Only one of each as they interrupt momentum, but you may come to a point where you need the healing.
  • Logical Reasoning can also discard treacheries such as Frozen in Fear.

• Crack the Case & Cryptic Writings

  • Economy cards to help pay for assets and secrets on Ariadne's Twine.
  • Crack the Case plays fast when clearing a location of clues, which you should be doing anyway. You can also share these resources if needed.
  • Cryptic Writings can also be played actionless if you draw it during your turn. If not, you can use it for its 2 icons.

• Practice Makes Perfect

  • 6 skills cards are in this deck, so you have a good chance of finding at least one, and they all useful to be played multiple times for investigations.
  • Perception gives good icons to hit those higher shrouds, and gives card draw each time.
  • Deduction gets you an extra clue which is always useful for action compression.
  • Enraptured gives good icons for investigations, and 3 secrets to place on assets. If you can hit it with Practice Makes Perfect that's an extra 3 secrets to use.

• Shortcut & Pathfinder

  • Both of these cards are to help with movement.
  • With Necronomicon, you can easily clear a location of clues without spending an action, especially in 2, so free movement allows you to move to another location and use your actions to investigate or use Old Book of Lore.

• Research Librarian

  • Research Librarian is an option to replace Whitton Greene.
  • It is cheaper, and guarantees finding a specific tome.
  • However, I decided to go with Whitton since she provides a stat boost, extra soak, and the potential to find several important assets, since you need two tomes (The Necronomicon and Scroll of Secrets) in play to get set up fully.

• Backpack

  • Backpack is not in the upgrade path, because I found it wasn't needed, but it can be useful to find some assets such as Grim Memoir, Scroll of Secrets, Old Book of Lore and Daisy's Tote Bag.
  • Be aware that you cannot attach tomes on Backpack to Library Pass, so if you find cards like The Necronomicon or Abyssal Tome, do not attach them otherwise it ruins the whole playstyle.

• Astounding Revelation

  • I originally included 3 copies of this in the deck, but I wasn't finding it often enough to make it worth it.
  • It also only gives 1 secret which doesn't seem worth it compared to Enraptured and Truth From Fiction.

• Down the Rabbit Hole

  • I considered Down the Rabbit Hole for this deck since there are a lot of upgrades, but overall decided against it.
  • Planning out the upgrade path, it would reduce the overall XP cost by 7, but since a lot of the upgrades come towards the end, it slowed down the upgrade momentum too much since you want to get Library Pass and Necronomicon as early as possible. It also makes you want to upgrade two cards each scenario, which could hold you back even further from getting those core cards in.

For the 0 xp deck, reverse the upgrade path below up to the 22xp mark.

(View at arkham-starter.com)