Daniela visits Innsmouth, Minnesota

Hello investigators! This is Ben from Miskatonic University Radio (mur.fm). This was my deck for the final scenario of the MUR Innsmouth Hard Mode @ Arkham Nights 2021. I played this as primary enemy manager along with Mandy as clue collector and Winni as flex. Overall, I had a good time playing as Daniela. She provided more of a deckbuilding challenge than I thought she would at first glance, as the lack of high level guardian access required me to think hard about high-level combat solutions. You can check out the episode breaking down our Arkham Nights experience and hear us talk about our decks here.

Here's a bunch of my (unorganized) thoughts on the deck:

Toe to Toe is incredible. Automatic 3 damage for Daniela? Can trigger Drawing Thin without fear? Fantastic

In hindsight, I should have worked in Eucatastrophe at some point. Probably instead of A Test of Will

Live and Learn let me Drawing Thin+Sledgehammer relatively safely, but ultimately wasn't worth the deck slot. I should have cut it earlier, or started with Lucky! instead

Sadly I didn't work Aquinnah into the deck. She seems like she'd work great with Daniela. But I felt I really needed Peter and Jess to optimally soak attacks and the +1 from Jess is pretty important in Hard Mode.

Thomas Dawson seems almost made for Daniela (Although I imagine Tommy Muldoon and Calvin Wright are fans too). Daniela popped off in the three scenarios in the past where he was with us. I wish he didn't take an ally slot in the latter two though.

Bangle of Jinxes is not only fun to say, but to play! BoJ was great in Daniela. It racked up charges quickly and helped her pass tests that the encounter deck threw at her or add protection against curse tokens (Thanks Accursed Follower). I was often gaining charges faster than I could use them. I grabbed a second Relic Hunter thinking if one BoJ is good, then two would be better, but I think that was overkill.

I was sad when I realized Mechanic's Wrench didn't work if I Dodged an attack.

Blood Will Have Blood was another card I would like to try in Daniela, but didn't end up fitting in this deck as a lot of my soak was from allies. If I ran Leather Coat and Cherished Keepsake or more healing cards then I think BWHB would be incredible.

I really enjoyed using Sledgehammer. Very fun card. I did rely on Mandy's Shortcut to position me a few times though. It was nice for hardmode to be able to just attack once with a big + and be done. But her Mechanic's Wrench is such a strong card that I felt I needed Bandolier so I could put it out when needed. I may just go with Timeworn Brand instead of Sledge in the future, especially for Standard where doing more tests isn't as risky.

My mobility and card draw were limited, except when I had Thomas Dawson and when Mandy was around to Shortcut me. For card draw, I think for Standard the solution would be Rabbit's Foot + Track Shoes (and later Drawing Thin) to trigger free draws off failed Track Shoes tests. For mobility, Track Shoes could help sometimes, if she also has Peter and BoJ then she can usually pass the TS test when she wants to on Standard and Hard. Safeguard is also an option, but the level 0 one is fairly lackluster. Using Track Shoes is a risky solution for Hard though.

I think 1 copy of Handcuffs will find its way into many more of my decks. I drew it early nearly every game and was able to play it to lockdown an annoying enemy (usually Deep One Bull), which always felt good and led to some comedic moments.

I used the Side Deck to note down a few things I thought about getting, but didn't end up fitting into the deck. Dauntless Spirit is a big + or + boost for Daniela, which is nice in hard and might have been a better pick over Brute Force - which I don't think I ever played. But with BoJ and Sledgehammer I didn't really need it either. And Infighting was another "if anyone will play it, it will be Daniela" card, but I never found I had 3xp I wanted to spend on it over other upgrades. Maybe next time.

As I mentioned in the podcast, my level 0 deck (Found here) needed a little bit more soak/healing as Daniela was on the cusp of death the whole scenario. Although perhaps this is campaign dependent as Hard Mode The Pit of Despair has a high amount of random damage/horror, due to all the engage effects from enemies and spooky token effects.