Yesterday my Hastur/Yog control deck has been in-depth tested (well, enough to say something concrete
about it).

The odl list of this deck (you can find the first discussion here: )
is the following:

Hastur

Characters:

3 Bringer of fire
3 Giant Albino Penguin
2 Victoria Glasser
2 byakhee servant
3 aspiring artist
1 erich zann
2 messenger from beyond
2 thing from the stars

Support:
2 Victoria's Loft
2 Sedated

Event:
2 polar mirage
2 scotophobia
2 blind submission
2 agoraphobia

Yog

Characters:

2 Servant of Nodens
3 Tcho Tcho tribe
2 guardian elder thing
3 bloodthirsty zealot

Events:

2 dampen light
2 Unspeakable resurrection
2 Gathering at the stone
2 Journey to the other side
2 a single glimpse

First thing to say is that now I have at my disposal 3 Core Set (actually, I played with the third
copy of many cards that was the black border version, but it doesn't make any difference).

Given that, I could improve the consistency of the deck. Here is the new list:

Hastur

Characters:

3 Bringer of fire
3 Giant Albino Penguin
3 Victoria Glasser
2 byakhee servant
3 messenger from beyond
1 thing from the stars
2 demon lover
3 aspiring artist

Support:
2 Victoria's Loft

Event:
2 scotophobia
3 blind submission
2 agoraphobia
3 power drain

Yog

Characters
3 Servant of Nodens
3 Tcho Tcho tribe
3 bloodthirsty zealot

Events:
3 Gathering at the stone
3 Journey to the other side
3 a single glimpse

Optimal domain build 3-2-2

As you can see, this domain-build doesn't allow you to play tcho-tcho tribe or The thing from the stars:
basically, because they are useless now. The deck can control the game only using low cost cards,
and attach cards as resources in order to be able to play the tribe or the thing is only a real
waste of useful cards.

In this configuration we are able to do a lot of things on turn one: if we are on the play (=we start)
we have 6 characters (penguin and servant) that can be put into play just to defend against a rush
deck or even demon lover,great inclusion in this version that was absent in the previous one.
Obviously, starting with an Aspiring artist is the best play you can do.

If we are on the draw we can even play Victoria or a single glimpse to front an opponent threat.

Usually, I play the deck putting on the table my resources, and try to commit stories only if I can
be sure that I can ready at least one character winning an Arcane struggle. Otherwise, I prefer
to defend the sories (we are a control deck).

The yog events (and partially characters) are really useful to improve the control part: in particular
I think that Gathering at the stone is one of my favourite cards. Play 2 "a single glimpse" in 1 turn
just because of the Gathering is really amazing (not speaking about the possibility to recur Bringer
of Fire!).

Next release of the deck will be affected by new AP I received yesterday: in particular, all the
high cost cards will come back to the collector, so we have 4 places which will be filled with:
- 2 Infernal Obsession (Hastur support)
- 2 The sleepwalker

Infernal obsession is an obvious auto-include using Hastur in a control deck but maybe I can say
something about The Sleepwalker: I really like the ability, because the only thing I was scared of
during my test was a huge amount of combat on the other side of the table. I will use for sure only
2 sleepwalker, while I think that a third copy of the infernal obsession would be useful (but I need
to buy another AP).

Probably I'll try "descendant of Eibon" in the slots of the Bloodthirsty Zealot because this last one is
not a so useful character, but at least almost always he can provide 2 combat icons.

Other personal consideration: maybe now it is possible to build a mono-Hastur deck, using some neutral
cards (I'm thinking about using Alaskan Sledge Dog, Descendant of Eibon, Samantha Grace, Clever Zogg
and something else, depending of which cards you like), but I'm still convinced that using a support
faction is the best choice.

Probably, is possible to build a good control deck using Miskatonic: Academic Obfuscation, Pagan hall,
Shortsighted Librarian, Dr. Carson, Laboratory Assistant, Unearthing the ancients and in particular
Binding are all good choices in my opinion.

If you want to go for a rush deck, using Hastur is still possible using Syndacate (cheap characters,
investigation, exhaustion and go-insane cheap effects) but it's not the purpose of this topic

These are my thoughts about Hastur in general and my deck in particular.

Any comment will be really appreciated!

bye

Konx.

i would definityl play 3 byakhee servants, it´s one of the few really good hastur chars.

i don´t like the penguins and you´re not really playing a lot of polar events to justify them, if you´re searching for something on the 2 rec slot, add an additional demon lover (3 is nice for blind submission) and 2 copies of a character of your choice (if you´re playing lcg only, the long-dead prince is nice as a one drop, some toughness really helps, stealthy byakhee is nice for some control, too...), or add 2 heavy hitter (hastur for more madness stuff, espacially with the messenger or scotophobia) or atlach nacha for some additional success tokens.

i´d also think about dropping thething from the stars for a 3rd loft, i´ve tried it and actually never used the tfts.

[EDIT] oh, and i´d definitly think about switching polar mirage fpr white out. this card is just sooooo good. you can stop your opponent from getting successes on stries where he has only one character and you can most likly always make sure you win a story you want (winning terror and combat struggle should make sure you´re 2 characters up, as long as you use your messengers carefully, you can make even sure who´s going to go insane and white-outing a terror / combat character). i´ve recently got my hands on a 3rd copy and my play group hates me for it (i play mono hastur)

anyway, cheers and good luck :-)

well, i normaly play the "legacy" variant, so i have a lot more stuff at my disposal (and it seems i´m not able to keep in mind what´s in which edition), to get a fatty on the board quite fast and easy (and i seem to draw unique stuff all the time i already have one in play, so i can attach them anyway. no one seems to destroy victoria glasser et al. these days unless they know 2 other copies are attached or in the discard pile... ^^).

under the current state, the penguins seem to be ok (well, more or less, at least they are penguins...), don´t like them, because most other faction (at least in my meta) can muster such an amount of combat icons that i´ve just given up trying to beat them ;-). i´m playing 3 yellow muse instead, with fast and a nice icon combination they fit much better in my deck (though i play a lot of acceleration which, until now, hastur is truly lacking in lcg enviroment...), so i think you wouldn´t like them.

you could think about changing the thing from the stars for erich zann, he mounts the same icons and skill but his ability is just great (he let you choose which character goes insane after you´ve won a terror struggle) and is a lot cheaper. with the 3 lofts you should be able to keep the insane guys from coming back to the board (well, depending if you´re meta plays a lot of support destruction stuff).