Hi everyone!

Here I decided to ask for your help on making a little control deck.

My main faction is Hastur (those little guys that drive you insane), and the purpose was to try and getting all your opponents creatures into insanity status by using combos such as Scotophobia / Victoria's Loft / Brain Transplant, while trying to control the table with Power Drain and Performance Artist (counter effects) ;Ghost,Demon Lover and Byakhee Servant to try and block initial rushes.

My problem is the opponents characters with Willpower. What cards are there within the Hastur faction to help deal with that problem? What about in other factions with reasonable costs?

Can you help me out? This is a sketch of the deck, nothing much:

3x Scotophobia

3x Victoria's Loft

3x Brain Transplant

3x Power Drain

3x Performance Artist

3x Ghost

3x Demon Lover

3x Byakhee Servant

2x Victoria Glasser , the Society Hostess

1x Thing from the Stars (Just for the cost reduction ability!)

27 Cards Total up until now

What words of wisdom can you share with me?

Thanks!!!!

In the good ole' CCG days Cthulhu were the faction for that, with F orgo tten Isle , Primal Fear , Unmasking Cruelty and so on.

In the LCG the joy of blanking text boxes is spread out a little more.

At the high end both Antarctic Yeti and Richard Upton Pickman can blank text boxes. Called By Azathoth will also do the trick (at a much lower cost) but is a one-shot per character. Finally, The Night could be useful against non-unique characters (and is either the most expensive option or a mid-level option depending on how many Night cards you want to field).

I'd do a Hastur-Cthulhu deck with both Called By Azathoth and The Night , backed up with some decent Night cards. Or maybe that's old-game CCG thinking and you should go with a Hastur-Syndicate deck using Richard Upton Pickman and The Night plus some Low Blow s. The choices are yours...

for willpower use agoraphobia. also if you cant beat'em join. infernal obsession, polor mirage, blind submission. with the last two take and put them to stories and lose combat. shadow company may also be useful.

Thanks for both you replies!

I see that blanking text boxes is very usefull in this metagame. I will consider it as a strategy. I went lurking here in the forums and found a possible side strategy too, The Underwater Conspiracy. I know I need to actually win the story but I think I can see it as a mass removal effect pairing up with some box clearing effects. Also liked all the Creature Stealing mechanisms.

I will try to test and then leave any comments.

Thank you all!

Well, since I can't find the awesome Edit function I will post again:

After a few thinking I tried to design a controlish mono Hastur deck. I would like to know how I can test it online and I appreciate any input and advises!

Deck

3x CS F97 Scotophobia
2x CS F82 •Victoria Glasser, The Society Hostess
3x CS F93 Victoria's Loft
3x APY F111 Brain Transplant
3x CS F100 Power Drain
3x CS F87 Performance Artist
3x CS F91 Ghost
3x CS F84 Demon Lover
3x CS F88 Byakhee Servant
3x CS F85 Thing from the Stars
3x ASL F20 The Underwater Conspiracy
3x CS F153 Gentleman's Club
3x AAH F12 Aspiring Artist
3x AAD F51 •Infernal Obsession
3x AAH F14 Bringer of Fire
3x ATH F9 Sweet Dreams…
3x ASL F11 Spawn of the Sleeper

So, what is your opinion?

Thanks

I think the only on-line ability is currently the Lackey LCG plugin. (Note: It's doesn't have the latest expansion pack as I haven't been able to get to the store yet)

http://sites.google.com/site/callofcthulhulcg/

(And even then, you have to coordinate to play w/ somebody)

I don't like mono faction deck, but I can try to give some opinions.

If you play Hastur, there are some cards that you can't put out of your deck. These cards are:

3 Aspiring artist

3 Giant Albino Penguin

2 Victoria Glasser (I play with 3, but I can understand if you don't want dead cards in hand)

3 Power drain

3 Infernal Obsession (you play with 3, so I put 3 into this list)

This is the core of the deck. Since you can play with neutral cards, you have to use

3 Descendant of Eibon

(this card is a bit overpowered in the LCG format, and honestly, it is hard to think a deck that is better without it). The only card I want to explain is Giant Albino Penguin: this character is too good. For 2, you have 2 skill and 2 Icons in play. It is _strong_.

So, we have at the moment 17 cards. Then, I can see that you want to play an "go insane" deck. So, you need for sure something to deal with terror icon and willpower.

3 Scotophobia

3 Messenger from Beyond

3 Bringer of fire

These cards are self-explanatory, I think. So, we are at 26 cards. At this point, I can see 2 big problems with a deck that want control the game: rush deck and lack of cards in hand.

Both problems can be solved with the following strategy: cheap characters and not too many high cost cards. In your deck I don't like Thing from the star (if you play mono-faction deck you have no cost-reduction!). Remember a big truth: as soon as you stop resourcing, you draw 2 cards that you can play, and the player who do this first gain card advantage. So, if you play cheap characters/event/support, you can build your domain curve very quickly, and stop resourcing.So, my suggestion is:

2 Long-prince dead: cost 1, provide combat and toughness.

3 demon lover: low the skill of an opponent characters IS strong.

3 Byakhee servant: cost 3, but a lot of good icons, and fast can make the difference

34 cards. To support your strategy

3 copies of Victoria's Loft could be ok (37).

Now, we have room for other 13 cards. Some cards you play, I don't like: Sweet Dream is useless. How can you make "night" in your deck? I don't like Brain Transplant either, but I've never tried it, so it is just an impression.

To stay mono-hastur, I would play:

3 Performance Artist

3 Blind submission

3 Stealthy Byakhee (I like this kind of effect)

3 Byakhee Attack (if you do an early discard, you really have the chance to slow down a deck)

1 Gentleman's club: too slow, but one copy could provide some mid-game discard

I don't like conspiracy, too slow. I would play conspiracy ONLY with the Conspiracy Theorist in the deck. If you can put one of this guy into play at turn 2, you really stop a rush deck. Then, of course, you either need or a conspiracy in your deck or a way to destroy your own characters (Bringer of fire).

Spawn of the sleeper could be interesting, but in this case you need some test.

With such a deck you have:

8 cost 1 characters

14 cost 2 characters

9 cost 3 characters (but 3 are descendant of eibon)

Tot: 31 characters

12 cost 2 events

1 support cost 2

6 support cost 3

Tot: 7 support

Total cards in the deck: 50

This is the first deck I would try if playing mono-hastur. Other cards I would test are: 3 polar mirage (instead of Byakhee attack) to have an early event that could be useful. The thing behind you (no Gentleman's club, -1 infernal obsession, or long dead prince): a little combo with Aspiring artist: turn 1, play Artist, draw 2 cards, with the domain with 2 resources put into play The thing (Aspiring aetist back to hand), play again Aspiring Artist. With such a deck, your optimal domain build should be something like: 1-2-3 (with a final 2-2-3, if you go to late game); you need only 3 turns and then you can stop resourcing.

The building sequence depends on the cards you have in hand, but I think usually should be something like: 1-1-2, 1-2-2, 1-2-3.

Hope it helps

Konx.

Konx said:

Hey!

I didn't touch this topic anymore because i decided to go Hastur Syndicate being this my "final" decklist:

3x Scotophobia
2x •Victoria Glasser, The Society Hostess
3x Victoria's Loft
3x Brain Transplant
3x Power Drain
3x Performance Artist
3x Demon Lover
3x Byakhee Servant
3x The Underwater Conspiracy
3x Gentleman's Club
3x Aspiring Artist
3x •Infernal Obsession
3x •Richard Upton Pickman, Genius Painter
3x Patsy
3x Bag Man
3x Expendable Muscle
3x Bearer of the Yellow Sign

I think that the syndicate part of the deck explains it self kind of well.

We have patsy, to slow down rush deck while you build up, Richard Pickman to stop indistructability, will power and some other nasty effects, bagman as a defender and possible attacker and expendable muscle as a chump blocker. Descendant is a card that currently is fascinating me a lot believe me but I think I will only get mine at Stahleck.

Conspiracy is the reset button needed. Conspiracy + Scotophobia = one sided reset. Loved the Combo with the thing and aspiring artist, but the is no recursion for the Thing to abuse it. Gentleman's club, on the longer game is better In my opinion.

Share your wisdom with me Konx - Mastah

Thanks!

Cheers

Ashma

Just a couple of thoughts, because with this new list the only thing to do is to test, but still, there few things I don't like:

- If you want to try to control, syndacate is not the best option, (IMO): this game is based on characters, and "control" means "I have many way in my deck to deal with different type of creature". In your list you don't have nothing to destroy or wound (that is often enough to destroy) a character. No Bringer of Fire??

- The only 4-cost card that you are playing is Richard: this means that you have to build up a domain to 4 only for this card. Moreover, this card is Unique! Bad choice. Yes, you can overpay for the bearer...but man, this is sooo slow

- If you want to play Syndacate-Hastur, I suggest you to play a rush deck (I've seen such a deck in action, it can be really fast with a second (luck)-third (consistent) turn win).

- if you want to play control you have many choice: at the moment, I'm trying Hastur-Cthulhu, but until last week I was playing with a really good Hastur-Yog deck (recursion effect, sacrifice effect). Probably, Hastur-Agency can perform really good (Shotgun blast, small price to pay, nice characters).

- I don't like Conspiracy, but if you say that it works for you it's fine!

- 3 gentleman's club are probably too many. Maybe 2 is better (to test)

- Only 12 syndacate cards: can you have a resource match in an easy way? or it happens that sometime you have a card sitting in your hand?

It would be really nice being in Stahlek, but I don't know yet if I can be there uff!!

my 2 cents

Konx.

Konx said:

I hope you make it there because I would really love to test with you

Bringer of fire is good but I think that it is a bit hard to pull it off. I will consider all what you said and test it

Thanks!

you know what i like about this lcg? well in the ccg days nobody, bar a few of us used big cards they were deemed useless, unfortunatly in the tourny world that is, and a few of us did in fact win with big cards, reason for this i think is standard, as in the other card games that i have one in as well. everyone says you cant do this and that so everyone does 3 of this etc in their decks, and so are really un prepared for unusual things.

.

now in the lcgit seems more people are willing to use bigger cards and 2 of things as well, no biggie just an observation that is welcome i think..

darknight said:

Heya!!

In my magic decks i didn't always use and abuse the "4 card rule". There were sometimes where I crunched back to 3 or 2 copies only. For the pure purpose of consistency. I must say that Konx idea of deck building is far beyond mine. He has much skill and I will test each aspect he mentioned. I know that i use a lot of "3 of" but sometime it needs testing to tune up. I also find what you said quite good

thanks i know for the tourny its nearly always the same old decks, but thats why i dont play them anymore, i personally dont find them fun, its winning for the sake of it almost, if you know what i mean, no offence to touny players, im sure you know what i mean