My opponent has a very slippery White bordered Shub deck which (ab)uses 'under the porch' to suddenly rip out four to six characters, and rip the bottom out of most of my decks. He sacrifices the porch, brings out Shub N herself, then pays for two (or three) dark young searched from his deck, and some of the dark young also pull characters from his discard. I'm very tired of being on the smelly end of this, and would love to have a good chance of holding a location-destruction card whenever I see something peeking out from under the porch.

Which two factions, and which white bordered cards, could I include in my deck to maximize the probability that the porch would go directly to discard before he could sacrifice it ??

Alternately, which denial cards could cancel his play of 'under the porch' without needing to destroy it after it is in play as a location?

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Chick

Sounds your are playing against my deck

Agency is your friend then. Torch the Joint! or Agency Groundskeeper should help.

chicklewis said:

For this Hastur is your faction of choice, as it has these:

Power Drain
Performance Artist

P.S. You could always go for the mirror match (including Burrowing Beneath). If you can't beat them...

Newager and Boosterdraft, thanks for those excellent suggestions.

But would Performance Artist work? "Sacrifice Performance Artist to cancel the effects of a support card ability." Is a triggered effect like UtP the same as a support card ability? Or are abilities only the parts of the text which are always in effect?

Here are the other cards I found which could foil Under the Porch:

Deep One Assault (Cthulhu) but DOA foils so many other cards as well.

Political Demonstration (Neutral) "After you win an icon struggle by at least 2, choose and destroy a support card." This won't get rid of UtP immediately, and is a little complex, but might work in the cases where UtP waits until the next turn (undrained domains) to be sacrificed.

Repo Man (Agency) "If you win a combat struggle at which Repo Man is committed, take control of a support card controlled by the losing player". Again, slow and creaky, but could work if sacrifice of UtP is delayed until the following turn.

Notebook Sketches (Miskatonic) "Exhaust and name a card. The cost to play that card is inceased by 4 until the beginning of your next turn." This could at least slow down UtP, if I exhaust the Sketches every turn and name Under the Porch.

So, it seems that Shub breeder deck will in the near future face an Agency/Hastur deck !

Chick

chicklewis said:

Yes, because the effect of the (activated) ability of OtP is that your opponent can "search his deck for a [shub-Niggurath] character, and put it into play under his control."

So if you sacrifice Performance Artist in response to him sacrificing UtP, then the ability the search for a card get cancelled.

chicklewis said:

This card only works half of the time: if you get to play first.

If your opponent gets to play first, he will have a domain of 3 resources in turn two allowing him to play

and use UtP while you only have 2 resources at that time and so are unable to play an X of 3.

Played my AGENCY/Hastur deck against the slippery Shub deck last night. In two games not a single thang crawled out from under the porch !!

Prevented twice by Power Drain, once by Caretaker, once by Torch the Joint, and once by Performance Artist. Very satisfactory.

I won the first game three stories to zero. I lost the second game one story to zero, as we had to shut the game down early.

Thanks again for the good advice.

Chick