The Drowned City Starter Deck - Gloria Goldberg

Card draw simulator

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

5argon · 14164

Building a Gloria deck with only Revised Core Set and The Drowned City looks a bit iffy on both fighting and clue finding. But the "support" package is surprisingly complete. This starter deck is designed to be in 3~4 players team where you already have dedicated fighters and clue finders. Gloria's task is to make everyone near invincible to variability of the scenario. She can deal burst damage or get critical clues once in a while.

Accolades : Won The Drowned City Standard 4P blind run being the "support"!

The Drowned City Starter Deck : These decks used only The Drowned City and Revised Core Set player cards. It was made when Chapter 2 was not announced yet but the "beta" Current Environment was, so I thought this deck is going to be in that environment. Not anymore though, but I hope it is still somehow be useful!

 Cost  Total
20 XP 0 XP
   Breath of the Sleeper  →  Eye of Ghatanothoa •• 4 XP 4 XP
   Dodge  →  Hunter's Mark • 1 XP 5 XP
   Dodge  →  Hunter's Mark • 1 XP 6 XP
   Flashlight  →  Blood of K'n-yan ••• 3 XP 9 XP
   Flashlight  →  Blood of K'n-yan ••• 3 XP 12 XP
   Whispers of Doom  →  Deliverance ••• 3 XP 15 XP
    +  Relic Hunter ••• 3 XP 18 XP
   Unexpected Courage  →  Dreams of the Clay • 1 XP 19 XP
   Unexpected Courage  →  Dreams of the Clay • 1 XP 20 XP
 
30 XP 20 XP
   Scrying  →  Scrying ••• 3 XP 23 XP
   Scrying  →  Scrying ••• 3 XP 26 XP
   Perception  →  Enraptured •• 2 XP 28 XP
   Perception  →  Enraptured •• 2 XP 30 XP
 
Extra 30 XP
    +  Eldritch Brand ••••• 10 XP 40 XP
   Emergency Cache  →  Emergency Cache •• 2 XP 42 XP
   Emergency Cache  →  Emergency Cache •• 2 XP 44 XP
   Guts  →  Transfiguration •• 2 XP 46 XP
   Guts  →  Transfiguration •• 2 XP 48 XP

(View at arkham-starter.com)

How to Play

Setup

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Support

I had tons of fun doing this. I say this because people often said Gloria takes out all the fangs and fun out of mythos deck. If you played Carson before and loved it, you might also have good time doing this kind of thing.

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  • Spectral Shield : The ultimate support card, just stick it to your hard carries and enjoy.
  • Eye of Ghatanothoa •• : Gloria's pseudo-signature card, since in Mythos Phase you can see the next card revealed on top of encounter deck before assigning it to someone with her ability each time one by one, now everyone could get the stuff they are good at doing. If they have Spectral Shield they can even get stuff they are bad at doing! Beware that Gloria's Prophecy of the End counters this as you don't know what's behind the Surge at the point of deciding someone to take it.
  • Scrying / Scrying ••• : The only thing other than that let you use Gloria's ability to bury and prepare for Psychic Sensitivity pair-up. I found this enough, I don't really need more look-ats with so many more things to do and there's a limit of 3 cards beneath her anyway.
  • Hunter's Mark • : Obvious support card for the fighters! You can attempt to use Breath of the Sleeper to finish off 2 HP enemies with the exploding effect but you won't get benefit from +1.
  • Deliverance ••• : Your heroic moment. If you have Spectral Shield, some charges, and one of Holy Rosary / Eye of Ghatanothoa setup, you might come out of everything surprisingly unscathed even if you can't cancel anything! And here's a cool bonus, if the first card drawn is Prophecy of the End, the "gain Surge" effect is free since it already has one! Therefore you can make a very cool play together with arrangements from Scrying / Scrying (3).
  • Dreams of the Clay • : You should stick to others to increase the chance of committing this and succeed, especially if you have Eye of Ghatanothoa and can arrange a good one for the right person. During Deliverance is of course a lot of opportunities to commit. (But you cannot use to cancel.)
  • Enraptured •• : Sometimes you might run into Scrying / Scrying (3) on setup and being reluctant to lose their valuable charges from Spectral Shield. Refilling the charges especially on the Lv. 3 version is very valuable. Even better if others had charges/secrets to refill. You can perform basic investigate on 2 shroud or something to commit this, but it also can be committed to Eyes of the Dreamer due to having 1 .

Clue Finding

Damage

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  • Breath of the Sleeper : By pulling more than 1 token, even though the damage is likely 1 you can use it for finishers after others had softened the enemies up. You can potentially deal 2 damage with Hunter's Mark .
  • Blood of K'n-yan ••• : This deck has been designed to not use any hand slot after the upgrade tossed away all the Flashlight. With Arcane Initiate's deck thinning, it is likely that you are holding one or two of this bad boy ready for 3 HP enemies.
  • Dynamite Blast : Sometimes this is the only solution to things. There might be a really cool play involving Spectral Shield, like trying to bomb yourself and able to take all those AoO since they are hit by hit and you can shield each time. The bomb itself could be shielded from 3 to 2 too. Eye of Ghatanothoa has 3 health soak by the way.

What are those extra cards?

I didn't expect to get here, but The Drowned City campaign unexpectedly giving away XPs like candies so...

3 comments

Mar 12, 2026 sedlak87 · 5

Any notable cards I can consider when I want to include Starter decks as well.

Mar 14, 2026 5argon · 14164

@sedlak87 Hi, I think you could use Stand Together or Voice of Ra instead of cache. Also instead of Holy Rosary, Crystal Pendulum would combo with pinpoint token selection on the 9 charge spells. Prescient would also be able to combo with the 9 charge spells as well, and maybe you could return Blood of K'n-yan that was used for non-killing blow or on Elite, or simply reuse Ward of Protection.

Mar 14, 2026 5argon · 14164

Oh right, perhaps 1x Arcane Studies Lv. 4 tucked in your deck somewhere never hurts. You can use it to perform basic investigate each round too.