Have faith,friend.

Last week, I went over a Trish deck I used in the past that I liked very much. The following deck was used in tandem as the fighter of the group. Sister Mary was chosen for the challenge she poses.

Her stat line doesn't scream fighting monster, even though she is a Guardian. She's more of the support archetype. She has high Willpower and access to level 0-2 Mystic cards, but I didn't want this to be a crutch she would have to rely on for the whole campaign. My challenge was to find out how much she could take care of monsters as a "true Guardian." Could we use all these Bless tokens to our advantage ?

A quick word on her signature card, Guardian Angel. It is a nice card fitting her support archetype. She can use it to save herself too since she only has 5 health. I don't think it wise to rely solely on this single card to survive, though.

0 XP deck on ArkhamDB

What are the Mystic cards we could use for the base deck then slowly upgrade out of them?

• Shrivelling: It's a fairly basic attack spell; Sister Mary can definitely soak the sanity damage if it happens.
• Whiter: It's just a way to fight with 4 rather than 3. This isn't a good card by any stretch of the imagination, but for Sister Mary, it's like carrying a +1 fight weapon like other Guardians can do.
• Spectral Razor: You ain't fighting, if you ain't razoring!
• Voices of Ra: I predicted resources would be an issue; spells are costly. This is a nice way to get around this, especially if you take the Taboo list into consideration; Bless tokens provide extra resources like other symbols.
• Robes of Endless Night: Another resource helper, double with some health soak.

Beyond this core list of cards, Sister Mary needed more traditional weapons to fight enemies. Some things like:

• Runic Axe: Ideally, you want to spend a charge to do more damage, but in this particular case, getting +2 fight might be the more common option. Sister Mary suddenly attacks with 6 ! Albeit, if charges are tight, only for a single damage.
• Survival Knife: The idea is to use exclusively the reaction ability; Sister Mary probably can't use the base fight action effectively.
• Dragon Pole: I'll admit this one sounds like a stretch, but it's one more option. The general idea is to have the arcane slots filled; in theory this should make an average attack at 4, but it would do 2 damage. Most likely something to be upgraded out for a more effective tool.

All of these weapons will be greatly helped with the judicious use of Vicious Blow. This deck doesn't have a lot in terms of doing more than a single damage; this will be key. A few more versatile cards help pass tests: Guts, Daring (3 wilds!) and Steadfast.

Sister Mary is still a bit fragile with her low health; that's where Dodge and Flesh Ward come into play. The idea with Ward was also to help fuel the Dragon Pole. I also included Hallowed Mirror. I find it's a nice card to have if you don't have any accessory key to any combo. With the odd card missing from the deck, I added a single copy of Ward of Radiance. The card is unreliable, but if I keep shoving some Bless tokens in the chaos bag, maybe it could be useful!

As you can see, the level 0 deck is competent at best. Anyone using it needs to be mindful of their approach; it's not as simple as play-weapon-whack-monster as some Guardians can be. With XP though... 👀

The order in which you upgrade your cards depends on the amount of XP you gain. It will also vary depending on your group's success, or lack thereof.

• Survival Knife ▶️Blessed Blade. More consistent damage, you can return Bless to the bag or simply add two of them once per round.
• Dragon Pole ▶️Holy Spear. We're filling the bag with Bless tokens to make it easy to seal some of the spear for a *check notes* 7 fist attack, 3 damage!
• Wither ▶️Blessing of Isis. Yes, I wanted more Bless tokens in the bag. No, I didn't think a second copy would be necessary. 😉
• Vicious Blow ⏫Vicious Blow-2 The deck is slowly moving from willpower based actions.

At this point, I would recommend replacing the Shrivelling and the last Wither. I, however, encountered a few more challenges, mainly with the amount of damage I wasn't able to avoid. To try to mitigate the issue, I went for a Bulletproof Vest, but it is probably not necessary for the deck to work. The deck has no ally; this could be a valid option. Good old Beat Cop would do; Nephthys would work with all the Bless tokens. Maybe Bulwark to ready a Bless token generator? This card wasn't out yet when I tried this deck. Shield of Faith would be very thematic.

Final deck (29 XP)

I didn't remember which campaign I tried this deck until I saw the one point I spent on the Runic Axe. Circle Undone with its monsters immune to everything but relics. 🙄 You can totally skip this upgrade.

It's been a while since I played this deck, but I remember having a lot of fun, feeling proud I could turn Sister Mary into a damage dealer. I hope this deck inspires you to try something different. Please don't hesitate to share your Sister Mary deck in the comments.