Drake is the second unlockable character. Drake's cards are red.

Her cards and artifacts have a high damage potential at the cost of generating Heat and controlling that heat so the ship doesn't take damage.

"A hired mercenary. Her cards are strong attacks and status effects, but be careful not to overheat."

Strategy

Drake's offensive cards deal large amounts of damage and are also loaded with extra effects such as piercing and stunning, but tend to generate heat on use, other utility cards also generate heat.

While heat is a negative status and will deal damage when the player ends their turn with 3 or more (under normal circumstances), Drake also provides heat dissipation in her cards.

Attacks

Her initial card, EMP Slug, deals a big chunk of damage and stuns, being both an offensive and a defensive tool. Sear, Explosive Slug, Exothermic Release, and Freeze Dry all have piercing attacks and can quickly dispatch any enemy with low base health and high amount of shields like Zone 1 Spike.

Utility

Drake has access to shields and evade, usually at the cost of generating heat; with some luck, she can fill the gaps of a player composition.

Heat timing and resetting

Overheat happens when the player ends the turn; if the player can defeat the enemy before the end of turn, the end of turn trigger doesn't happen and they won't take any damage, even if they're far past the point of overheating.

Also, overheat will deal 1 damage no matter how high the heat has gone, so if the player's going to take damage from overheating, any extra cards that grant heat can be played with no further penalty; cards like Desperate Measures, Solar Flair, and Hot Compress are good cards to play at that point.

Unique Mechanics

Serenity: It stops a single instance of heat increase per stack. Cards that add large amounts of heat can be played without their bigger downside happening, EMP Slug B, Explosive Slug B, and Sear B become exceptionally good when the player can get a source of Serenity.

From Hell's Heart: A card with a powerful attack that depends on player health, it combos really well with ships that have a large health pool and Pillage and Plunder.

Engine Lock: Preventing the enemy from moving can give the player a moment to breathe if they know the script of the fight. Enemy AI patterns are predictable; their movements, not so much. Furthermore, certain enemy ships are far more maneuverable than the player can ever be, so taking that away from them can buy the player time to set up other status effects and defenses.

Artifacts

In general, Drake's artifacts are rather selfish, they focus on heat management and her own cards mostly.

Pressure Fuse:

Drake can easily get the ship hull to half HP or below by carefully overheating, or just taking controlled damage from the enemy; from then on, it's all about dealing damage back to the opponent with empowered Drake cards.

Subzero Heatsinks:

The player still starts at 0 heat but can go under it, preemptively losing heat so that cards that generate it can be played more comfortably. Negative heat still works for Combustion Engine, "reversing" the direction of the move; however, that card has Flippable, so the direction is controlled by the player anyway. Flash Point will deal 0 damage at negative heat.

Ignition Coil:

A bit of a dangerous artifact to play around, likely to cause a few accidental points of hull to be taken away, powerful to have while Peri is also riding on the ship as she has access to the most amount of shots in her kit, combos well with Next Gen Insulation, as the threshold for Ignition Coil remains unchanged.

Heat Distiller:

Having extra Serenity stacks allows the player to play some of the most powerful cards in Drake's arsenal without incurring in the heat penatly.

Next Gen Insulation:

Goes incredibly well with Ignition Coil and Thermo Reactor, but in general it lets the player have more control over when they overheat.

Thermo Reactor:

An energy artifact with a big downside, finishing fights becomes a damage race between the player and the heat generated, sometimes it's better to just ignore the building heat and just kill the enemy ship as fast as possible, as trying to manage the heat could become a losing battle in itself.