Written in the Stars!|30+ Clues, Endless Spectral Shields

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet

iwanokimi · 544

Intro

- This Guide -

  • This decklist is an update to a previous one exploring the same concept. (Because decklists can't be edited)
  • It has gone through an unbelievable amount of tweaking and playtesting since then.
  • I am fairly confident that this is the most optimal 22XP version of Written in the Stars Daisy.
  • Which is an incredibly exciting thing to say while playing some off-the-wall cards like Eidetic Memory and Cryptic Writings (2).
  • The bulk of this writeup will not be about upgrade paths or card choice rationales, but a guide on how to actually pilot the deck in a game!

  • It's probably one of the most difficult AH decks to play.

    Gameplan Overview

  • Firstly, we need a way to take our weakness out of cycle. Best case it's an inoffensive non-cycling weakness. If it's an enemy weakness, we can Transmogrify it. If it's a treachery with a test, we can The Eye of Truth it (in a higher XP context). If it's a threat area action tax, we could get a teammate to discard it and "Fool me once..." it. If nothing else works we will use Black Market trick (see end for primer on Black Market trick if unfamiliar).
  • We are trying to get our deck down to a small size. In the end, we will be holding 4 redundant cards in hand:
  • And have 7 cards cycling between our hand, deck and discard.
  • 4 cards of our core combo:
  • And 3 utility cards that we will play 2/3 every turn:
  • Once we get to that state, we will start each turn with an empty deck and 7 cards in discard. Then we will draw through all 7 cards to end the turn in the same state of having an empty deck and 7 cards in discard. The exact 7 card can vary cycle to cycle.
  • The long and short of the combo is that with 2 Scrolls of Secrets (3) and some recurring draw from Empirical Hypothesis, we can see and stack our entire deck if it is small enough.
  • Then, we can ensure that Written in the Stars will hit high value skills every turn.
  • Being able to commit Deduction (2) to 5+ investigate tests every turn will give us ridiculous clue output while Enraptured (2) will keep our 8 charge/secret assets as well as Spectral Shields fed.
  • To get to this state, we go through a setup phase of drawing through our deck and playing out our assets. In my experience this takes about 5-6 turns with good play.
  • A lot of our XP is dedicated to setting up faster, as once we set up we basically win in under 3 turns. The deck is built to set up smoothly without any help, but with support it can be ready as early as turn 4.
  • The most difficult part of this deck is setting up for our first combo. We want to do it immediately after drawing through our deck once.
  • Therefore, while playing through our first deck cycle, we want to make sure that:
    • At least 1 × Written in the Stars is in our hand
    • Enraptured (2) is in our discard pile
    • There are exactly 7 cards in our discard pile when we end our turn with 0 cards in deck for the first time.

How it works (Looping)

  • Before going over the setup phase, let's first explore in detail how the loop works.
  • 7 cards is the maximum cycle size to always deterministically setup our game. This is because our deck size will become 6 after shuffling our discard pile in and drawing 1 for upkeep. With 2 × Scroll of Secrets (3), we can see every card in a 6-card deck.
  • At the start of each upkeep phase, we will have
  • When we draw for upkeep, we'll shuffle the 7 cards into our deck and draw 1 at random.
  • If it is 1 of the 3 skills, we won't be using it for Written in the Stars this turn and instead just commiting it from hand, so there is a 1 out of 5-7 chance we get unlucky and pull the Deduction (2) here.
    • With slightly more XP we just have 2 × Deduction (2) and that's never a problem but since hitting a breakpoint of 5 vs 4 clues per action is almost always completely useless it was deemed to not make the cut.
  • We pass the mythos phase and come to our own investigator phase.
  • With 6 cards left in the deck, we use Scroll of Secrets (3).
  • Draw 1 of the non-skills. Put any other non-skill on top. (non skill here and below also refers to the 1/3 skill that we are not intended to commit under Written in the Stars).
  • Use Empirical Hypothesis to draw that card.
  • Use the second Scroll of Secrets (3) and we are guaranteed to see at least 1 non-skill to draw. If we see another one put it on top to draw with Empirical Hypothesis. Otherwise we see 2 skills. Bottom them and the top card is guaranteed to be the last non-skill.
  • Now there are exactly 2 cards left in the deck, being the two skills we want to hit with Written in the Stars.
  • We make exactly 3 monies a round. 1 upkeep, 1 Dr. Milan Christopher, 1 from Forbidden Knowledge healed off by Steady-Handed.
  • That's just enough to play both Written in the Stars and Ward of Protection.
  • We will then take up to 7 investigate actions, discovering a maximum of 28 clues.
  • Grim Memoir drawing is a may, do not choose to draw! We cannot draw or cycle our deck on our turn at any cost as that will cause Written in the Stars to lose track of their skills.
  • note: the Enraptured is not usually considered part of cycle since it's pretty low value, so we mostly just hold it in hand. But, if we happen to just miss 1/7 on drawing Enraptured (2) too many times in a row, we could get into a relatively tough spot. In that case feel free to commit Enraptured to put it into cycle next turn and either garauntee at least hitting it or even committing double Enraptured (0/2) for a turn.
  • note: we are theoretically about to support an 8 card cycle. So if on any given turn we were forced to play out 3/4 of Enraptured, Shortcuts and Ward of Protection, that's salvageable.
    • We will notice that after drawing 1 for upkeep, we are left with a 7 card deck. Each Scroll of Secrets (3) can see 3 cards for a total of 6, letting us deduce what the last card is with certainty.
    • There is a correct way to play this situation. Just know that it's possible and the exact line is left as an exercise to the reader >_<
    • It's fairly annoying and constricts you turn in terms of how some things need to be ordered so I'd just stick with the 7 card cycle as much as possible.

Spectral Shield and Steady-Handed

Setting Up

  • Mulligan keeps:
  • The basic principle of mulliganing here just keep draw. Plus Daisy's Tote Bag because The Necronomicon is annoying.
  • Because we are playing to set up our second (and further) draw cycles, we need to think about card advantage slightly differently. Let's illustrate this with Deep Knowledge as an example.
    • Baseline, Deep Knowledge is +2 card advantage (spend 1 card to get 3).
    • Taking a draw action is only +1 card advantage.
    • Deep Knowledge has the benefit of seeing 3 cards deeper. Even though you only net 2 cards, in terms of digging towards an important asset it's 3 cards' worth of access. Therefore, in general one Deep Knowledge is better than 2 draw actions.
    • However, when we play a Deep Knowledge, we put a Deep Knowledge in our discard pile and have to draw it later. Since Deep Knowledge is a card we do not want to draw again, its actual long term card advantage is only +1, exactly the same as a draw action.
    • We still play the best draw event in Deep Knowledge for filtering to hit some key assets early.
    • But this is why we won't play a lower tier draw event like Preposterous Sketches. We would rather just take basic draw actions.
    • This is also why Eidetic Memory is uniquely good here. It removes 2 cards we don't want to draw again from our discard pile, which is equivalent to drawing 2 cards.
  • Below we will run through some relevant cards and the role they play during the setup phase.
  • Scroll of Secrets (3)
    • This card is our most important accelerant. Every time we use it, we want to leave 0 cards on the bottom unless we are close to being out of Scroll of Secrets (3) charges.
    • This is because leaving cards at the bottom makes future Scroll of Secrets (3) uses less efficient. We also like to be able to control our upkeep draw due to things like unmigitated The Necronomicon and Cryptic Writings (2).
    • Each time, we would like to also discard a card from it. Since we are racing to the bottom of our deck, discarding a card is basically drawing a card. We generally want to discard cards that are not assets, with idea targets being Deduction (0/2), Enraptured, Shortcut, and assets that we don't need to play early on like Steady-Handed. We don't want to discard too many easy-to-play-out assets as that can lead to handsize problems later on.
    • On average, we will get 6-7 uses out of SoS3 during the setup phase. We need to save 1 charge on each SoS3 to combo, but we will top up either 2 or 3 charges into SoS3 from Enraptured (2). Since we playing both Deep Knowledges and one Enraptured (2), that means 3/7 'discard slots' are reserved. that means we are only discarding 4/6 of the SoS3 triggers. (Often it's 3/6 since we plan around needing to cast Ward of Protection at some point against disruption).
    • It is critically important to have 1 secret on both SoS3s on the turn after we empty our deck so we can actually do the Written in the Stars combo!
  • Grim Memoir
  • Eon Chart (1)
    • This card is quite useless while setting up. Sometimes we'll use the investigate action for Milan money. It's most important use case is to actually to move so we don't have to waste actions moving.
    • It's not a priority but since it also gives us a charge on future Close the Circle we don't mind getting it out early either.
  • Dr. Milan Christopher
    • DO NOT discard him. We need to play him at some point so we can put the Spectral Shields on him. Otherwise, we are very likely to run into handsize issues late into the deck.
    • If we can get him out early alongside Grim Memoir we will print a lot of money. He's decent but not the highest priority. We usually won't take resource actions just to force out Dr. Milan Christopher.
  • Close the Circle
    • This card is great. We are using draw and resource actions with roughly equal frequency. It is a lot more efficient if we can get Eon Chart (1) out first but just playing it with 2 charges is something we are willing to do to maintain action efficiency.
  • Empirical Hypothesis
    • We want to eventually go into each combo turn with 2 evidence already on it and then replenish the 2 evidence for next turn.
    • Thus, a side quest we would like to do during setup is to not immediately burn our evidence for draw and to save a few up.
    • We should definitely still activate it if we don't have anything to do with our hand before taking draw actions.
    • It can 'combo' with Cryptic Writings (2) to get to 10 handsize. Not very frequent but something to be aware of.
    • We are usually taking horror off Forbidden Knowledge for our evidence, but if we get a few boosts out such as Dr. Milan Christopher, Living Ink, Grim Memoir etc. we can also do over-succeed.
  • Forbidden Knowledge
    • Use this to smooth over resource curve and accrue evidence.
    • Put a horror on Dr. Milan Christopher the first chance we get. We will eventually put Spectral Shield on him and past that point we can't use his one soak easily anymore.
    • Don't be too afraid of going down to 4 or less sanity. Generally just tap this instead of taking a resource action.
  • Mouse Mask
  • Steady-Handed
    • Lowest priority asset. Bin this off Scroll of Secrets (3) often.
    • This is because we rarely take investigate actions during setup and when we do we really want to over-succeed by 3 for evidence. So we won't be getting the heal.
    • 2 dollars is too much to invest in something that doesn't accelerate us at all.
  • Deep Knowledge
    • Slam as long as it won't give us handsize problems.
  • Cryptic Writings (2)
    • This card is very easy to make fast because of Scroll of Secrets (3) letting us control our upkeep draw.
    • We can occasionally stack it such that we get the 4th resource but it's not too important.
    • Finding this early is a huge help.
  • Eidetic Memory
    • Always use on Cryptic Writings (2).
    • We can't play this at fast speed but that really doesn't matter.
    • The biggest draw of Eidetic Memory is that it removes itself and another card from our discard pile. As stated previously, due to how we can discard off Scroll of Secrets (3) to churn faster, removing 2 cards is identical to drawing 2.
    • It also alleviates our handsize issue after setting up the combo.
    • We can set this up to get 4 resource as Cryptic Writings (2) quite consistently, but usually won't if it's inconvenient.
  • Fine Tuning
    • Not important to play out during setup as we can't reliably over-succeed by 3 twice a turn, since we only want to use Grim Memoir once every turn to maximise our Daisy actions and Milan money.
    • We can take 2 horror a turn but we'll die kinda fast doing that more than once.
  • Shortcut
    • Try not to play this for movement and instead use Eon Chart (1).
  • Spectral Shield
  • Written in the Stars
    • Hold these in hand going into the first reshuffle.
  • Deduction
    • We really don't want to draw this. Hopefully we discard it off Scroll of Secrets (3).
    • If we do draw it, don't commit it.
  • Deduction (2)
  • Enraptured
    • We don't want to draw this either. If we do happen to draw it, commit it on a safe test to put it in discard.
    • Why is this card in the deck? We are most vulnerable during our very first reshuffle when we are trying to combo. On that turn, most of our secrets/charges are depleted and we really need to get a round of Enraptured (2) off to refill everything. When we shuffle our 7 cards from discard back in and draw 1, there is a 1 in 7 chance that we draw Enraptured (2) and is unable to commit it under Written in the Stars.
    • That is extremely bad. We will basically have to take a whole turn off and try and draw through our deck again to attempt set up Written in the Stars and Enraptured (2) again next turn.
    • With an Enraptured in the deck, we can at least commit this to Written in the Stars on that crucial turn. That will keep us afloat and let us enter the combo phase smoothly.
    • So basically this card exist in the deck to not be played in 80% of games. It's just an insurance against a very catastrophic possibility.
  • Enraptured (2)

Transitional Combo

  • Our first combo is focused entirely on resolving Enraptured (0/2), we don't need to guarantee a Deduction (0/2) as we just want to stabilise.
  • It is not too different from out usual combo. The main difference is that the Written in the Stars start already being in our hand rather than in the deck having to be drawn.
  • That means that we can just put a skill we want to Written directly on top and just cast Written. Then if there's still one or two random cards left in the deck after casting 1/2 copies of Written in the Stars, we do not need to fish them out with Empirical Hypothesis.
  • Instead we can make use of Grim Memoir's to draw them since they're probably just some random assets.
  • We can also go into this turn with everything empty except for the 2 Scroll of Secrets (3). When we take an investigate action and succeed, we will trigger Enraptured (2) which we can immediately refill the next asset we want to test on.
  • So e.g. we investigate with Grim Memoir and get 3 secrets from Enraptured (2). We can put 1 on an empty Eon Chart (1) and use it next etc.

Some Other Cards to Consider / Upgrade into

  • second Deduction (2) / Enraptured (2)
  • Eon Chart (4)
  • Segment of Onyx
  • Open Gate
  • Empirical Hypothesis - Research Grant
  • Ward of Protection (2) / second Ward of Protection (2)
  • Unearth the Ancients 0/2
    • On balance, this card is much better than Cryptic Writings (2). But if we autofail on it it's really bad. And considering Daisy has an extra autofail and we can't even beat 4 drawing -4 easily without something like Mouse Mask plus Dr. Milan Christopher / Living Ink I don't think this card is worth it.
  • Crack the Case
    • Assuming we are the main cluever, it is somewhat questionable if the team will be finding enough clues to make this consistent while we are setting up.
    • The main concern with it is Eidetic Memory. Usually just with Grim Memoir we can incidentally clear 1 location. But the problem is unlike say Cryptic Writings (2) or Unearth the Ancients (0/2), this card is very bad if we draw Eidetic Memory later. We will have to somehow clear another location which is kinda impossible without going out of our way to do so.
  • Mask of Silenus (from Core 2026, see it here if ADB doesn't have it yet)
    • This card seems potentially better than Mouse Mask.
    • It is not once per turn, which means we can use it on every test we take for infinite autofail protection.
    • It is quite expensive to upkeep, since it's 1 charge per test + maybe 0.2-ish for the Spectral Shield horror soak when a token is chosen.

    • That might result in us having to commit Enraptured (2) over Deduction more often to the point where it is no longer net positive (not certain, will require further testing / depends on context).

      Alternative Versions

  • Link to previous guide (IMO this version is much better >_<)
  • Ascetic
    • This deck is suuuuuper broken. It also does 20 clues a turn and never die because Spectral Shield.
    • It's pretty problematic that if your 50XP cluever dies Sc7 they can pick Ascetic Daisy up and probably be stronger.
  • Sample starting deck with Down the Rabbit Hole
    • This deck lends itself quite well to down the rabbit hole. We can get from the Ascetic version by just downgrading all the experienced cards.
    • The problem is that half are cards don't do anything.
    • Normal Daisy has one of the most incredible Sc1 and we probably should not thow that away Down the Rabbit Hole XP.
  • Sample starting deck being useful Sc1
    • This is still not a standard Daisy deck since we don't really want to pay for lv0 cards later.
    • It's actually possible to play Written in the Stars combo at 3XP.
    • We just use Old Book of Lore instead of Scroll of Secrets (3). Unfortunately it's worse than just normal Sc1 Daisy.
    • How it works is that we have a 5 card cycle consisting of 2 × Written in the Stars, 2 ×Deduction, 1 × Enraptured (2).
    • Upkeep draw 1 down to 4.
    • If the card drawn isn't Written in the Stars, the last 4 cards will contain 2 Written in the Stars meaning that Old Book of Lore will always hit one.
    • Then theres 3 cards left in the deck, meaning the second Old Book of Lore will always hit the other one.
    • Last 2 cards left in deck are skills.
    • It's pretty janky though. We cannot go off second cycle because there's no way to end first cycle with only 5 cards in discard, so we will have to basically take a turn to do draw actions and get though second cycle to set up third cycle.
  • Sample Higer XP version
  • There is a rule in AH that when a singular card is shuffled into an empty deck, it fails and goes back to whence it came (usually discarded).
  • This is to prevent cards like Tommy Muldoon's weakness Rookie Mistake from infinitely shuffling itself back into the deck as the last card and soft-locking.
  • When a card put into Black Market tries to shuffle itself back into an empty deck, it fails and returns to where it was.

  • That happens to be 'out of play', so it is now permanently out of play.

    [RANT] Why is Cryptic Research not in the deck

  • Or rather in the upgrade path/higher XP versions suggested.
  • IMO it's just a completely broken card. Any deck that is already doing small deck fast cycle is only 2 Cryptic Researches away from basically going infinite.
  • Like why am I not just play Dream-Enhancing Serum and Working a Hunch and just going infinite?
  • Infinites are already not great from a play experience perspective, but any infinite involving Cryptic Research just feels completely unearned and pointless.
  • Yeah, there exists a card that is fast speed +2, for some reason. The run of the mill seeker infinites are not even close to possible without this obviously broken enabler.
  • It's completely absurd how this card is not taboo'd to either limit twice per round or remove from game after play.
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