Joe Diamond: The Drawlord | Chapter 2 Deck Guide

The Drawlord

These are replacement decks for Chapter 2 investigators. All have been playtested in Chapter 2, and also extensively in Chapter 1. If you want to support my work, give it a like ❤︎ and a favorite ★ on here!

It's Chapter 2 time! Here Joe investigates at an effective 7 and draws a load of cards. Using Endurance he can punch or evade enemies when he needs to, with Dorothy Simmons bankrolling these boosts.

NOTE: There is an error where decks containing newer versions of cards cannot be posted currently (e.g. Overpower vs. Overpower). I won't be able to change the deck retrospectively to the new Ch2 cards, so please click this link for a version of the deck with the Chapter 2 cards.

At a Glance

Stats
Clue-finding:	★★★★★
Consistency:	★★★★★
Enemy Management:	★★☆☆☆
Encounter Defense:	★★★☆☆
Survivability:	★★★★☆
Simplicity:	★★★★★

_{I thought I'd implement a Valentin-style rating system to make these guides more accessible. "Consistency" covers card draw and resource economy. In essence it's an outcome measure of "does the resource economy cover the costs of my asset engine and desirable events, and can I find my engine and play it?"}

Overview

• Draw me like one of your French girls: This deck is designed around card draw while having 23 icons to commit to tests. Card draw comes from Joe's ability, his effect, Detective's Intuition (when drawn on your turn), Gather Intel, Unbridled Knowledge, Perception, Overpower, Guts and Laboratory Assistant. The latter also soaks horror from deck cycling to preserve Dorothy, with one cycle likely during a scenario. Unbridled Knowledge is very good after cycling to access your best cards.

• Get a clue: Joe investigates at an effective 7 by using two Magnifying Glasses and Dorothy Simmons. For finding clues faster he has Deduction, Working a Hunch and Scene of the Crime. Through his extreme card advantage and lashings of icons, Joe is the most consistent clue-finder in the Chapter 2 box.

• The ol' knuckle sandwich: Using Endurance Joe can fight when he needs to, with support from Overpower and Vicious Blow. While it's another asset to play, Joe only needs 3 play actions to assemble his entire engine (Dorothy Simmons, Endurance and Lab Assistant - with Magnifying Glasses playing fast). The other big advantage of Endurance is evading, as you can test at a 6 if you spend 2 resources. If an enemy has high health and low evade, this is often more efficient than going mano-a-mano.

• Resource economy: Dorothy Simmons, Emergency Cache and Detective's Intuition are your resource economy. Your engine costs 9 resources, while your resource events provide 8 in a single deck cycle. You can consider your starting resources a wash with Dead Ends. As Dorothy will keep giving you a drip feed alongside the occasional and upkeep resources, these fund your clue events and Endurance boosts.

• Treachery management: Guts and Unexpected Courage help here for treacheries, with your excellent card draw preparing you. Endurance can be used for damage-dealing treacheries, and Detective's Intuition plus disposable Lab Assistants help too.

_{Thank you: 5argon and their thumbnail tool; Valentin1331 for his support over the years; the community creators of ArkhamDB (kamalisk), Arkham.Build (Felix) and Arkham Cards (zzorba) - linking their Patreons!}

Explain Yourself!

This was my third attempt at designing a deck for Joe. On the one hand, you don't want to dedicate too much deck space to fighting. On the other hand to not be able to fight at all wastes his above average score. My thoughts were:

• If you favor the M1911 then you can't have Magnifying Glass in each hand. As the M1911 has limited ammo, you're committing to likely spending at least two actions and six resources per scenario playing these. Even with Logan with Charisma, this is still just okay enemy management vs. the play actions, resources and deck space it requires.

• Endurance is a silver bullet, managing enemies in one asset (fighting or evading) and so freeing you to pursue intellect. While I normally hate Talent assets, here I make an exception as the card compression is too good and your card draw typically allows you to find it early.

In terms of omissions, Mysterious Grimoire wasn't taken because it shuffles your deck, whereas Unbridled Knowledge stacks it. Fingerprint Kit exhausts so you're investigating at 6 while not using it, and playing a couple events (Working a Hunch, Scene of the Crime with an enemy) nets you only one fewer additional clue for the same resources. Regarding Counterattack, I don't think it's worth it without going harder flex - the damage typically won't kill anything.

New starter deck additions: I would add Establish Motive to this deck as with card tutoring - likely swapping out Gather Intel. You should aim to commit Establish Motive when you haven't already stacked your deck with Unbridled Knowledge. Insidious Truths could replace Unexpected Courage as an Insight big attack which you can boost with icons (plus it's findable with Motive).

I think Restrained is really good, I'd probably get rid of Guts in its place. With both Restrained and Insidious Truths, I'd definitely bump enemy management up to a 3 ★ rating. If XP allows then Deduction •• and Vicious Blow •• can provide efficiency. Autopsy Report, while superficially tempting, further sucks you into combat and so runs contrary to the idea of the deck (plus it would displace a Magnifying Glass).

Campaign starter and planned progression

If you are keen on Fingerprint Kit, I would suggest removing Scene of the Crime in its place. 0 XP deck is as follows (and link here):

A recommended order of purchases/upgrades is:

• 1 x Charisma

• Manual Dexterity → Unbridled Knowledge

• 2 x Studious

To compare the starter and fully upgraded decks, Charisma allows you to soak horror from cycling with Lab Assistant. Manual Dexterity is in the starter deck to help vs. treacheries and provide card draw, but is replaced by Unbridled Knowledge for much better card draw and a nice icon. Studious is more cards in your opening hand - nice but not essential - and so it's left until last (if Dead Ends stops you purchasing it, oh well)!

Final thoughts

What I like most about this deck is Endurance creates such a delicious tension: do you keep boosting or do you use you resources to get rid of Dead Ends? It's one of the decisions that you can only make in the heat of the moment - and I love it!

A criticism might be that this deck basically designed itself, but equally I haven't seen many people talking about Endurance on Joe (the original Barnaby Files reveal mentioned it as a good pick, but discussion after seemed to shift to Sharp Rhetoric). It was the decision to take Endurance that freed up so much deck space and enabled a minimalistic approach, so I'd say seemingly small decisions can be very important and unlock different ways to play.

I hope some of you enjoy the deck and give it a try! Whenever I think about Joe I can't help but get Private Eye by Alkaline Trio stuck in my head...