NeuroDrift · how-to section · game guide
Menace from the Deep: 24 starting decks
Four heroes, six decks each. What they actually do, which ones carry a run, and which only look straightforward.
The block bank rule · official descriptions of all 24 decks · card composition · a power ranking with confidence notes · a "which one to pick" router
Menace from the Deep is a roguelike deckbuilder about 1920s America, a secret society, and something watching from the water. Mechanically it's Slay the Spire, visually it's Darkest Dungeon, and it's made by a solo developer from Zaporizhzhia with full Ukrainian localization.
Before every run, the game asks one question that decides the next two hours: which deck you start with. The in-game description is one sentence. This guide breaks down what's behind that sentence.
One big misunderstanding first. Most guides online cover three characters and imply that the fourth, the Abomination, has a "unique deck" in the singular. That's a misreading of the marketing copy. On the selection screen the Abomination has six decks, same as everyone else. Twenty-four in total.
Where the data comes from. Every deck description here is verbatim text from the game's screens, not a forum paraphrase. Sources: official Steam screenshots and run-recording footage, transcribed by hand. The Detective's deck names come from the game itself. The names for the other three heroes' decks are translated from the official English text, since screenshots of those screens aren't publicly available.
01 · mechanicsBlock does not burn off
In most deckbuilders, block resets to zero at the start of your turn. So a defensive card played "just in case" is a wasted card. Players arrive here with that habit and make their first systemic mistake.
Block behaves differently here. Unspent block carries over into the next turn in full, so a defensive turn is never wasted, it becomes an account you can spend the following turn entirely on offence from behind.
This was checked frame by frame in a recorded fight, not taken from a forum. On the transition from turn two to turn three the player had eight block, and on turn three the same eight remained. No automatic loss at all.
Half of it disappears only when an enemy applies a specific status. In the same recording, on the transition from turn one to turn two, block fell from five to two and a floating label reading "Block Decay" showed a value of minus three. The cause was visible a turn earlier: a fisherman announced the intent to apply a curse.
This is exactly what the Fortification talent counters. The game describes it as "the character does not lose block at the beginning of the turn". It does not grant a bonus on top of the normal rule, it saves you from someone else's status.
The consequence for deck choice is direct: defensive decks win not because they are cautious, but because they turn surplus energy into an asset that does not burn off. This is the main reason the Detective's Aggressive Deck is considered the weakest start in the community, despite having the most obvious name.
Four mechanics that matter more than your deck
- Streak combos. The bonus grows with the number of attacks played in a row in one turn, and separately with the number of blocks played in a row. So a "block, block, block" turn followed by an "attack, attack, attack" turn hits harder than alternating between them. This is exactly why cheap cards are worth more than expensive ones.
- Poison deals double damage to humans. Verbatim from the status description: "Deals double damage to humans." In Acts 1 and 2 most enemies are human, so poison decks are stronger there than they look. From Act 3 onward, the advantage disappears.
- Bleed doesn't decay. Per the status description, bleed doesn't wear off until the fight ends. It ticks at the end of the turn, so you have to survive the enemy's hit first and only then take the bleed damage. Poison, by contrast, ticks at the start of the enemy's turn.
- Upgrades branch two ways. Every card grows either toward bigger numbers or toward a side effect. This shows up clearest on the Cultist: "Deep Cut" upgrades into either Reinforced or Bloodthirsty, where instead of more bleed it grants bloodlust points. You can decline the upgrade with the button at the bottom.
02 · rankingAll 24 decks in one table
The ranking draws on three sources: mechanical analysis of deck composition, Steam community consensus, and statistics from flawless runs. The "confidence" column states plainly how solid each rating is. Where the evidence is thin, it says so, instead of faking certainty.
This isn't a figure of speech. The profile screen shows a list called "Supplies Issued" — bonuses granted by base buildings: an extra rare card in the starting deck, +1 hand size, +1 max energy, extra combo bonuses, extra travel cards. A fully upgraded camp changes the power of any deck more than the gap between a hero's best and worst deck.
So in forum complaints that "the Professor is weak," the culprit is almost always an under-leveled Library, not the deck. Three separate players in Steam discussions arrive at this same conclusion independently.
The build menu holds ten buildings: Propaganda Center, Library, Flea Market, Hospital, Cartographer, Storage, Psychiatry, Garage, Laboratory and Training Center. Each has five levels, and three of them are worth knowing by name.
The Propaganda Center unlocks the heroes themselves: level one gives the Detective, level two the Professor, level three the Cultist. The Hospital gives every hero from +5 max health at level one to +25 at level five, so fully upgraded it adds half the Detective's base pool. The Training Center hits hardest of all: level one adds one to the combo-block bonus, level two to the combo-attack bonus, level three gives an extra card in hand every turn, and level four adds one to max energy.
An extra card every turn and an extra energy change the game more than any deck choice does. That is why an upgraded camp levels out even the weakest start.
That is what the "+N" beside the stats on the profile screen represents. It grows from run to run regardless of which deck you play.
03 · charactersFour characters and their decks
The starting stats below are the base numbers, without camp bonuses. In the game you'll see a "+N" next to them: that's what the camp adds, and it grows from run to run.
Here's a fact the community usually gets wrong. The common belief is that the Professor has the highest health pool. Actually it's the opposite: the Professor has the least, and the toughest character in the game is the Cultist. The Cultist has the lowest sanity in return, so they die not from hits, but from what they look at.
And the Abomination's sanity is zero. Not low, exactly zero, and it is not an interface glitch. The game says so outright in the character description: she has no sanity stat, which makes her immune to sanity attacks. The price is lower base stats and zero money at the start, so the first merchant is out of reach.
| Character | Health | Sanity | Fuel | Money | Starting Relics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private Detective | 50 | 15 | 15 | 75 | Magnifying Glass, Pipe |
| Professor | 45 | 20 | 15 | 100 | Whip, Bird Cage |
| Cultist | 65 | 10 | 15 | 50 | Moonshine Brew and a second one, unlabelled |
| The Abomination | 50 | 0 | 15 | 0 | Life ring, shell |
04 · glossaryStatus effects you need to read correctly
The game gets criticized a lot for explaining its own status effects poorly. Below are the exact descriptions from the in-game encyclopedia, since the mechanical details that decks are built around are hidden in that exact wording.
| Status | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|
Bleeding (N) | does not decay | N damage at the end of the turn. It doesn't clear until the fight ends. So you have to survive the enemy's hit first, and only after that does it drain. |
Poison (X) | decays each turn | X damage at the start of the turn. Double damage against humans. In Acts 1 to 2, most enemies are human. |
Toxicity (N) | does not decay | Every attack against this character applies Poison (N) to the attacker. This is the engine behind the Abomination's strongest deck. |
Dexterity (N) | decays each turn | Reduces damage taken by N every time the character is targeted by an attack. Worth more than block against strings of small hits. |
Strength (N) | decays each turn | Each of the character's attacks deals N more damage. It multiplies by the number of hits, so multi-hit attacks gain the most from it. |
Shell (N) | does not decay | At the start of each turn, the character gets N block. Since block does not burn off, Shell accumulates on its own. |
Nightmares (N) | does not decay | If the status strength reaches 3, the character loses 1 sanity, and whoever applied it heals for 10. |
Fearless (N) | does not decay | Immunity to sanity effects, N times. Granted by the Bible item. |
Aura (N) | does not decay | Blocks the application of a negative status, N times. Granted by the Ankh relic. |
Fortification | talent | The character doesn't lose block at the start of the turn. Breaks the block economy in your favor. Granted by the Elephant Statue collection. |
Mad Form | form | +1 to maximum energy, but all damage taken by the character increases by 50%. Applies Toxicity (2). The engine of the Madness deck. |
Weakness (N) | decays each turn | The character's attacks deal 25% less damage. A cheap way to cut incoming damage where block alone will not stretch. |
Vulnerability (N) | decays each turn | The character takes 50% more damage from the base damage of all attacks. Worth applying before a string of hits, not after. |
Regeneration (N) | does not decay | Recovers N health at the start of each turn. It does not decay, so in a long fight it pays for itself in full. |
Exhaust | card ability | After being played, the card burns and does not return for the rest of the fight. Once per fight. |
Initial | card ability | The card is in your hand at the start of every fight. Opening combo turns are built on these. |
Spectral | card ability | If the card is not played, it burns when the hand is discarded at end of turn. A one-turn card: now or never. |
Sharp Teeth | decays each turn | Every attack on the character reflects 14% of the damage dealt back at the attacker. Caps at 15 stacks. Together with Spiky it is the engine of the Observer deck. |
Spiky | does not decay | The same principle as Toxicity, but dealing damage instead of poison. |
Repeatable | card ability | The card is played as many times as you have energy left. It turns surplus energy into damage without adding cards to the deck. |
Human's Menace | card ability | Deals 50% more damage to humans. Together with poison doubling, this is the second reason the first two acts play easier than the third. |
05 · selfmadeIf you build the deck yourself
The profile screen has a "Selfmade Deck" toggle. It switches the preset off and lets you assemble a start from cards the game offers at random. It is not a seventh deck, it is a separate mode.
The presets are useful precisely as a guide to proportions. A standard start is thirteen cards, and it almost always holds three or four cards of pure block. The thinnest start in the game is the Detective's Defensive Deck at eleven cards, and it gains from that rather than losing.
Do not copy the counts literally. Copy the roles: how many cards have to close out a turn, how many build the combo, how many give you draw.
One caveat that breaks thin builds. Act four has enemies that destroy your cards. A nine-card deck built around a single combo can lose its key piece there and be left with nothing. Before act four, thinness stops being an advantage.
06 · checklistYour first run with a new deck
Nine steps that work for any of the twenty-four decks. Progress is saved in your browser.
07 · questionsFAQ
How many decks does each character really have?
Six for each of the four, twenty-four in total. Two are available from the start, and four more unlock through Library levels. On the selection screen, locked slots state directly which level you need.
The figure "eight per character" that circulates on forums comes from an early access presentation page. The Selfmade Deck isn't a seventh deck either: it's a separate toggle that turns off the preset and lets you build your starting deck from random offers.
Which deck should a newcomer start with?
The Private Detective's Martial Arts. It's the only deck that gives both damage and block at the same pace, builds up both combo branches, and doesn't need rare cards to work. It's the most frequently named strong start in Steam discussions.
If it isn't unlocked yet, the Defensive Deck. Stalling is safe in this game precisely because block does not burn off between turns.
Why is the Aggressive Deck considered weak if aggression works?
Because it's aggressive in the wrong way. Damage here grows mostly from the combo bonus for chaining attacks, not from the numbers printed on the cards. A deck packed with basic, medium-cost hits builds combo slower than a deck of cheap, hybrid cards.
It also gives you nothing to survive a turn when the enemy doesn't die. In Act 2, enemy health jumps sharply, and that gap shows immediately.
Is the Abomination really the strongest?
By player reports, yes, with a caveat. Players describe clearing Cthulhu without taking any damage at all, using the Toxicity-and-defense combo: enemies hit you, poison themselves from the hit, and die on their own.
There are two caveats. First, almost all the evidence is from spring and summer 2025, that is, before the patch that rebalanced the DLC cards. Second, the Abomination can't remove cards at the merchant, and that noticeably hurts attempts to thin the deck.
Why is my character called weak when for me they don't perform at all?
Most likely, the problem isn't the character. Compare your "Issued Supplies" list on the profile screen with what a fully upgraded camp provides: an extra rare card at the start, +1 card in hand, +1 maximum energy, additional combo bonuses. That's a bigger difference than between the best and the worst deck.
In Steam discussions, three different players independently trace complaints about the Professor to an under-leveled Library.
Does the game have Ukrainian localization?
Yes, full localization including voice-over. The developer is Ukrainian, and Ukrainian support has been in the game since the demo.
The deck names in this guide are the verified English names for the Private Detective, read directly off game screenshots. For the other three characters, the names are translations of the on-screen English text, so the game itself may label them slightly differently.