Write, Bind, See, and Slay: So many hands for a spectral bow

She'd known it was coming. A horror more terrible than any she had yet faced. It hunted her relentlessly, through tenebrous shadows and twisted corners. She couldn't outrun it, couldn't hide. But she didn't have to. It screamed around the corner and she turned to face it. A thought, and the loosed soul of its lesser cousin repelled its bite. Then the spectral arrow of her written spell caught it in its throat, but that only seemed to make it mad. With a shudder, she spread the astral arms of all her arcane power, and drew upon the ancestral might of lost immortals, channelling it directly at her foe. A monstrous screech warped the very air around her, and when next she could see clearly, she found it dead at last.

~*~

I started working on this deck after I realized The Raven Quill could give Enchanted Bow zero slots, and then I looked at Binder's Jar and Astral Mirror and thought they'd be fun too.

Then Drowned City came out and I had to pump even more XP in to take Blood of K'n-yan and the Eye of Ghatanothoa.

**Note this should actually be 29 XP required, for the Spectral Binding upgrade on The Raven Quill.

Is this the strongest deck? No. Is it silly? Yes. Does it work anyway? Also yes.

There are lots of combos in this deck, but I wanted to make sure it could still be functional without all of them in play (in fact, if you have everything in play, some combos won't work as well). You can have both Enchanted Bow and Sword Cane in play with either The Raven Quill or Astral Mirror, though obviously getting both is great, especially for Blood of K'n-yan, and you can even arrange to get the bow and both canes in play, or two bows.

With The Hierophant • V and a full Binder's Jar you can get up to five arcane slots, and seven hands with Astral Mirror. (Did you hear that? 7 hands and Blood of K'n-yan? :D) I recommend some colored glass beads to keep track of your slots (one color for hands, one for arcane), particularly since they will shift as you use your jar or fill your arcane slots with accessories.

Eldritch Initiation is almost always worth it to play, and you have the potential for maximum benefit, drawing 5 cards and not having to discard any.

The Hierophant means you can have both St. Hubert's Key and Eye of Ghatanothoa, and if you have Alyssa Graham out too, that brings you to 7, 6.

There's not much to take advantage of the free action on Astral Mirror, but it does come in clutch with pulling out a Sword Cane for an extra free attack or evade.

Evading will be a problem before you get your cane, but that'll be the case in any Gloria deck, and hopefully you can get Alyssa early to manipulate your draws, or maybe you've captured something in your jar and can cancel the attack.

As for encounter deck manipulation, no this deck doesn't take full advantage of Gloria's power, but it doesn't entirely ignore it. Get Alyssa out, and use her ability every round. You'll never get to look at more than the top two cards though, so this deck is best solo or two player for that reason.

Eye of Ghatanothoa's ability is gravy, nice to see what's coming if you don't have Alyssa. Though frankly a lot of what you want it for is the much-needed damage soak.

Mulligan for The Hierophant obviously, then Enchanted Bow.

Since I started drafting this deck before Drowned City came out, I've been running it with the replacement cards, Ruth Westmacott and Liber Omnium Finium. I never play Ruth, instead treating her as a +3 skill card, and the only thing I'd put beneath Gloria is something you can deal with to trigger LOF so you don't have to keep shuffling it in. I'm sure Psychic Sensitivity would work fine, though I haven't tried it, and don't relish the idea of having to stop using Alyssa after a certain point to avoid defeat from Prophecy of the End.

Weaknesses should technically be random, but I like picking thematic things.