Hi guys, it is with a big amount of sadness that I announce abandoning CoCLCG. I've considered myself a former player since the format split (or format rotation, call it as it pleases you) but the latest downturn (1) in the quality of the game, the difficulties of my local and internet meta, combined with the big upturn in quality another -much more famous- card game had made the decision stick.
It is not to say that this last year has been deprived of satifactions: I won a foreign national championship (sadly there is no more such a thing in the country I live), placed 3rd at the european, won and placed in some minor, limited events. But the victories and the prizes (I am still amazed at the amount of work organizers like Vincent and Wolfgang did in order to have their tourneys succeed in any way possible, seriously, these guys are to commend for what they do for the game), the great guys I playtested and played with, well, have to take the backseat to the great experience that was the preparation I conducted with Graham Hill for the French Nationals. It was a real deckbuilding and playing clinic.
So, guys, pester him and try to have him teach to you as well
Too much time on my hands
So, how comes a self declared former player goes to play national championships abroad? Quite frankly I still love the game, but in its "mixed border" or "classic" format, and I jumped at the opportunity of playing something like 12 -14 games in a competitive manner. The fact that I had to travel abroad was an hiccup which was solved easily, provided the incentive of two days of black borders gaming extravaganza.
As soon as I made the resolve to go, I told it to Graham and we started working for a mixed border decklist: you have to remember that it was the first tourney held under 3x restrictions (oh, and the new stories too, but stories never matter -except the old "discard both hands one"-), and, quite frankly, we had no idea of what could and should work.
Our first approach was to playtest a few tried and true 4x decks, downgraded to 3x. First attempts were made with a messenger deck (2) and a jump deck (3) and a yet to be largely known ground assault deck (4). These three decks had one thing in common: all three had very explosive first two turns, which, if not disrupted by the opponent, landslided into a sure victory. This allowed to playtest a lot: if the decks could reliably do their job by turn 2, the decks worked.
It was not the case: all three decks felt very shaky, getting busts, wierd hards, getting resource screwed and generally being not good enough for competitive play. We mistakenly blamed the lack of success to Lackey rng, until extensive testing, done with real cards, shown that real life results mirrored closely what Lackey did.
Bummer.
Worst of all, real life tests were conducted against the infamous "$ynd dumb rush deck" (5), recently upgraded with the addition of Alaskan Sledge Ancient Ones -ehrr... Dogs-. Which made the deck stable. And strong. And three days later it was the deck to beat, because it averaged turn 2.5 wins in a combo and control unfriendly environment. We playtested, and playtested and playtested some more until one day I IM'ed Graham: "I think $ynd dumb rush -which at that point was Synd champs deck (6)- can be further improved removing Synd, I actually subbed with Agency and the thing works beautifull", which was ironically the same thing he had been doing that morning (or evening, the 8-9 time zones o difference makes it quite difficult to sync).
We produced a rough draft (which was the deck I took at Stahleck -more on that later-), and we started playtesting. The deck defeated the first three and behaved coherently against most standard deck archetypes. Then Vincent announced that 20% of the meat of the deck was banned from the tourney.
Bummer.
Licking the Frog
So Agency champs deck wasn't feasible. Luckily Graham had been working on two portable techs, Flash I and Flash II (7), but was -rightly so- reluctant to unveil them. And he tried to integrate Tsathoggua, the Sleeper, into the tech. Of course integrating a 5 cost Ancient One neutral character into a portable tech isn't so easy, and, luckily for me he tasked me with building a Tsath stupid deck, a deck which just focused on getting Tsath out on turns 1 - 2. Surprisingly enough it was an easy task: the deck had exactly 47 cards which worked on pushing Tsath in play, but it averaged a turn 1,8 in play.
From here the project branched. You see, the beautifull thing with Tsath is, once he hits play, you are basically setting up the opponent to give you x-for-1 trades, both card and actions wise. So in the long run you walk Tsath at stories and slowly win. Except any smart opponent would just, you know, activate Tsath self destruct and run you over with a bunch of weenies. Once Tsath was made able to stick around, the thing was sealed.
Now, it would be fairly hypocritical for me to say I partecipated into building the deck, for at this point, Graham took over completely and showered me of suggestions and test-this. What I did was testing (a lot), and testing (*really* a lot) and testing. While my suggestions were somewhat off the mark ("Yeah, lets remove this vital card"), I am sure I was able to find a few hiccups and prompted a few changes in the deck's structure. Furthermore, I learned how to play it, because, like most potent decks, it is bloody difficult to pilot (and I had the massive headache at the end of French Nationals to attest it) and not very forgiving. It has all the tools to be a great control deck, an amazingly smooth draw, but you have to use those tools and switch between three modes of playing it according to your opponent.
Most importantly it was a decision-based deck: most cards had potent effects and no conditions with high costs (which ironically is the opposite of every LCG-only only card printed so far: very conditional, very weak efects and low costs). The player has to dictate what happens, and to use cards in order to shape the playing board in accordance to his necessities, not reacting to a board configuration randomly drawn through the deck's order (8).
I had trouble in the beginning trying to understand what to do or what was the driving strategy behind the deck (I tried to play it as a combo deck, which gave me, unsurprisingly, not the best results), to the point it started clicking in my head only after the first official game I played at Nationals. But after it begun clicking, it felt like having the magic touch. To the point I won the French Nationals (9).
Repression and civilization
Fast Forward a couple of months when both I and Graham were pretty much sure of not participating to Stahleck: much emphasis on white border pretty much killed my and his enthusiasm. Then by some wierd chance we both had the opprotunity to play there, and, well, we both took the chance. Graham asked me not to bring the Frog deck, as he felt all who had seen it would have teched against it, and we both thought that there would have been an abundance of Mono Agency builds, which, with the right configuration of cards and actions can give Tsath a run for its money (oh, ad we were wrong, I was the only one packing Agency ).
I went to Agency Champs draft, took in a few suggestions (10) Graham made and piloted the deck. To an uninspiring 3rd place.
Anyway, it has been a good year: I played with amazing guys and with amazing decks. Sadly there are no signs of FFG even trying to inject quality into CoC LCG and other companies are revamping their products, to the point playing the LCG is a chore. I am away from the game, maybe I'll keep collecting. But call me up for any mixed borders event, the spark might be still burning.
Notes:
(1) Downturn = Meteoric dive.
(2) Messenger tech (I think it originated from PA, but I cannot pinpoint the creator) should be well known by now, but for the latecomers the initial draft at 3x was something like this:
3x MN U98 Teller of Tales
3x MN U111 Black Wind
3x FC R91 •Ithaqua, The Killing Cold
3x FC R110 •Y'Golonac, The Obscenity
3x FR U110 Ancient Guardian
3x ADD F15 •Lavinia Whateley, Somewhat Deformed
3x ASM F19 Written in the Sky
3x AE P02 Cthulhu for President
3x AE R214 The Stars are Right
2x AE C172 Unspeakable Resurrection
3x AE U167 Gathering at the Stones
3x AKD F14 Thunder in the East
3x EE R234 Temple of Nephren-Ka
3x FR R137 Decrepit Mausoleum
3x FR U102 Sanctify the Stone
3x UT U121 Shocking Transformation
3x FC R108 The Speaking Cells
The basic shuffle is: sac Teller or Black Wind (both have the Messenger subtype, hence the nickname of the deck) to move a drain token on one of your opponent's domains, exhaust Ithaqua to resurrect the Messenger, pay 1 with Y'golonac or Ancient Guardian to ready Ithaqua, repeat until all of your opponent's domain are drained, during his refresh phase.
While Graham piloted a much improved -I won't post it- version of this deck to Euro 1st place, I advise against using the above written list: it's a template to start working on and has literally tens of cards which can be subbed for better results
(3) Jump tech (from PA, I think it was either Ron's or Graham's but I do not know) is a little more obscure, but not by much:
3x AE U51 Unearthing the Ancients
3x MN C27 Adoration of Thoth
3x FC R29 November Whispers
3x EE C46 Feast of Famine
3x FR R137 Decrepit Mausoleum
3x FC R35 Saturnian Wine
3x EE R53 •Lost History of Herodotus, Priceless Greek Antiquity
3x AE C235 Eldritch Nexus
3x MN U137 Simple Kindness
3x AE U167 Gathering at the Stones
2x EE R47 Historic Discovery
3x FR U102 Sanctify the Stone
3x EP I43 Secret Research
3x ASM F4 Unspeakable Research
3x MN U102 Stone of the Heart
3x AP M22 Bust of Hypnos
3x FR R104 •Shining Trapezohedron, The Darkest Jewel
For those who missed the reports, this deck tries to draw itself multiple times chaining its drawing effects and refreshing through simple kindness and Stone of the Heart: once the card counter becomes too low, it drops Bust of Hypnos to refill the deck.
If I advised against using the Messenger list posted, well, this is even more shaky: take it as a base and work from here.
(4) Graham created it, so you'll have to ask him for the list.
(5) $ynd Dumb Rush is a template deck used for testing: it is one of the "gatekeeper" decks. If a tentative deck cannot win against it, then it's not ready for competition. As such $ynd Dumb Rush isn't something you'd like to play, as it just crams enough 1 and 2 cost characters to have the possibility of winning at its second run at stories. Later in development it was phased out with a theoretical test: the opponent gained 3 tokens on each story each turn, making playtest much quicker.
For those interested, the list:
8x AMM F16 Alaskan Sledge Dog
3x EE C72 Opium Fiend
3x AE C61 Clover Club Bouncer
3x EE C65 Anarchist
3x FR U42 Triggerman
3x EP I25 Fugitive
3x FR C39 Extortionist
3x AHS F26 Fugitive Scientist
3x EE P7 •Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Scribe of the Unspeakable
3x MN C38 Street Preacher
3x UT C40 Nosy Columnist
3x AKD F18 •Granny Orne
3x MN C43 Patsy
3x UT U51 O'Bannion Warehouse
3x AKD F6 The Seventh House on the Left
And yes, taking this to a tourney is suicidal.
(6) Ah, yes, after 5 notes the first tournament ready list: basically it tries to maximize it owns "business" icons (Combat and Investigation) running at stories with extremely cost efficient characters. On a tight spot (i.e. a game which lasts 3+ turns) it uses targeted removal to grab its last tokens.
3x ATT F75 Descendant of Eibon, Master of the Black Arts
3x AKD F15 Mentor to Vaughn
3x FC R128 Assistant to Dr. West
3x EE R234 Temple of Nephren-Ka
3x ADD F7 Ancient Gold
8x AMM F16 Alaskan Sledge Dog
3x FR U42 Triggerman
3x UT U51 O'Bannion Warehouse
3x EE C65 Anarchist
3x EP I25 Fugitive
3x AMM F7 Hand Camera
3x EE C78 Dry Gulch
3x FC C48 Low Blow
3x EP M47 The Thing in the Cave
3x EE C223 Crackdown!
Well, besides the chars which spots a better than 1 icon to cost ratio, and the reducers, a few notable cards:
Dry Gulch is the only unqualified removal available to Synd, and should always be used to kick the opponent into board inferiority, honorable mention to Low Blow for it's make one dog running at stories insane ability. Hand Camera allows you to at least tie in the much possible champs vs champs matchup, and, extrema ratio, to get dogs and board superiority. Usually fetches a Mentor or a Dog.
(7) I think I know both techs. You'll have to ask Graham for the specifics.
(8) I really hope Graham chimes in with his being played by the game / play the game discussion. It really does this argument more justice than I ever could (not to mention it would take half the time for him to type it all, being mother tongue english and all)
(9) I might be off of few cards from the list I played in France -Prodigee has the list I played, I am going from memory-, but here's the deck:
3x UT R73 •Hastur, The Unspeakable
3x AAH F12 Aspiring Artist
1x AAH F13 •Atlach-Nacha, The Spider God
2x AE U139 Power Drain
3x AE C142 Xanthophobia
3x UT R86 Aldebaran Ascendant
3x FR U87 Condemned Theater
3x AE C191 Mi-Go Worker
1x FC R110 •Y'Golonac, The Obscenity
3x UT C116 A Time to Reap
3x EE U199 Forever Reborn
2x EE R202 The Mother's Fury
3x ASM F14 Glimpse of the Void
3x AKD F14 Thunder in the East
3x FC R129 •Tsathoggua, The Sleeper
3x AE P02 Cthulhu for President
3x AE R214 The Stars are Right
2x ACC F19 Broken Space, Broken Time
3x FR R137 Decrepit Mausoleum
Ok, I'll begin with what this list tries to do (its strategy thingie, or for the enterpreneurial minded, its Mission ):
"Create board supremacy (defined as "the opponent is unable to defend at any story, the opponent can improve his board position only through the expenditure of inordinate amount of resources, cards and actions, comparable to at least two turns worth") through constant removal of opponent's character with Tsathoggua triggered ability (pay X, destroy all chars with skill X or lower, any player can trigger this), protect Tsathoggua from noxious events or supports (e.g. Short Fuse, Calling Down the Ancients, A Single Glimpse) removing them from opponent's hand with Hastur's triggered ability OR canceling them with Aldebaran Ascendant.
Once board supremacy is achieved, win in the shortest amount of time possible, using Hastur, Tsathoggua and Atlach-Nacha (inside joke) to crawl at stories.
If board supremacy isn't attainable, due to bad draws, opponent tactics or stupidity on this deck pilot's part, turtle back in theater - glimpse of the void combo, waiting for the opponent to draw his own deck out (less than optimal solution, as it needs time and it is more easily disruptible)."
Now the tactics stuff: how do you go from having 8 cards in hand to having on the field one 5 coster, one 6 coster and one 2 coster, triggers at three support (again, for our budding internal enterpreneur, its Business Plan )?
The deck has three stages of being: during its first stage (the ramp up / delay stage) the pilot should try to accumulate the large number of resources needed to field the huge creatures, to search for missing pieces and to disrupt opponent's attempt at winning. The order isn't casual: the worst thing this deck can face, even its later stages is getting resource screwed or mismatched.
So unless it loses you the game right now you should always try to split resources (one very good setup is one domain with Hastur-Shub + other 2 or 3, one domain with Hastur-Shub + 1 or 2, one domain with Shub) as much as possible, ramp resources (Mi-Go Worker) as much as possible and draw as many cards as possible (Aspiring Artists, Cthulhu for President) -for each drawn card allows you to resource and resource split better-.
Then you try to find missing pieces (or substitutes, Forever Reborn and Power Drain can sub for Aldebaran Ascendant, against an unwary Agency player Atlach-Nacha can grab a Short Fuse which should have gone to Tsath, Aspiring Artist and Condemned Theater can do a passing impersonation of that second The Stars are Right, and so on), by drawing like mad. The real difficult choice is, most of the time, deciding when you have enough pieces to go off, but more of that later.
Last, not losing : this deck has amazing comeback abilities, but cannot really use them once the opponent puts that fifth token on the third story (and my advice for your next election is: get more votes than your opponent). Now this deck has the tools to really mire the board up: Xanthophobias do a nice job at pulling one of two tokens off a story phase, The Mother's Fury basically gives you one more turn against non Ghoul Khanum decks (ok, Professors of Archaeology one turn stories too, but I have yet to see one in play), and the sweet, sweet Glimpse of the Void does the same, and gives you one more card. I would strongy advise against using Y'golonac as a chump blocker: while it is eminently searchable, it suffers from an amount of cons (exahustable, destroyable) that the third The Mother's Fury won't. Do not do like me, leave him at home and pack some more red tentacles.
On a tight spot you can even Condemned Theater the Glimpse (better) or the Xanthophobias and The Mother's Fury, but you should resort to this only as a short term solution, with a stopping condition well in sight as: if you Theater - Glimpse, you are giving your opponent one card of new draws advantage and two domains used each turn. A smart opponent, in this situation, will find his way out. If you do the same with The Mother's Fury, you give him one card more and you are using your big domain to boot. In short, do not lose, but do not overdefend. Once you'll hit the go-off phase there will be nothing to defend against and each turn, action and card you have spent overdefending has given the opponent an advantage during that crucial moment.
The second step of the deck is its go off turn: depending on the board situation and the cards drawn the go off can be as early as turn 1 (happened once Stars, Stars, AOs), to as late as turn 4 or 5 (or 6 or 7...). The ideal situation is sitting with Aldebaran Ascendant on the board, both Hastur and Tsathoggua (or a Broken Space, Broken Time) in hand and possibly A Time to Reap (and of course enough resources). With this configuration you can skip to cruise control, as you'll play Hastur, your opponent can then Call Down the Ancients it, you drop Tsath and prepare to disrupt with Hastur, if it still lives and or Aldebaran Ascendant. The Time to Reap is useful to squeeze a Tsath blast out of your domains.
Now, if you try to play this deck like a combo deck and focus on having these 4 cards configuration as your winning condition you will lose . (Bold, because it took me something like 10 games to get this straght. If I could add a blink tag and some technicolor, I would)
This is a control deck. And it is resilient enough to win even when not completely developed in the ideal board configuration. Most of the time you'll have to make do with Tsath and a Condemned. Or drop Hastur and Tsath in staggered turns. Or drop Tsath, have the opponent Tsath blast it and Forever Reborning it. Or Power Draining the blast. Deciding when and how to go off is probably the most difficult part of playing this deck.
Now then the third stage: cruise control . Once you are more or less set up, you need to squeeze a victory out of the 3 or 4 turns of board supremacy Tsath + Aldebaran + Hastur (but, as I said, you could have a less absolutely strong but equally workable board position with Tsath + Forever + Condemned or a myriad of permutations). While this is by far the less challenging part of playing this deck, the pilot can still **** up lots and lots: you could be ambushed by a Descendant of Eibon sniping that 5th defensive investigation token on a story, you can blast before the right phase (after opponent commits, on his turn), you can give your opponent enough time to recover. Also, your opponent could have some Alaskan Sledge Ancient Ones sitting at higher skill than your legitimate Elder Gods, and then you have to grind them out with insanity, Xanthophobias and 0 cost blasts. All in all it isn't a difficult job, but you have the potential to make mistakes none the less.
Of course it the third stage aborts, you panic, turtle back to emergency delay and try to grind out a Glimpse - Theater victory.
Before you ask: the version posted has been improved and now it is much more turbocharged.
(10) Here's the decklist:
3x FC C7 Sharpshooter
2x ASM F1 Shadow Team
2x CS F23 •Steve Clarney, Soldier of Fortune
2x ATT F61 Agency Groundskeeper
3x AE R21 Short Fuse
3x FC C8 Execution
3x FC C11 Small Price to Pay
3x ATT F62 A Call for Help
3x EE U216 Egyptian Contact
3x EE U222 Wild Beasts
3x FC R128 Assistant to Dr. West
3x AKD F15 Mentor to Vaughn
3x AKD F16 •Nodens, Potent and Archaic
8x AMM F16 Alaskan Sledge Dog
3x ATT F75 Descendant of Eibon, Master of the Black Arts
3x FR R137 Decrepit Mausoleum
(Yeah, it's old school baby!)
The deck strategy:
"Agency Champs tries to achieve board superiority (defined as: "the opponent cannot defend at all the stories efficiently and cannot improve board position without devolving an amount of actions, cards and resources comparable to at least one turn worth") through the use of Combat icons over cost efficient creatures, reausable wounding and x-to-1 trades. It pinpoints and isolate sticky elements in opponents boards and tries to disable them through specific answers (Clarney, Fuse, reverse Small Price, Groundskeeper)."
The tactics involved are rather straightforward: after a first turn when dogs / Wild Beasts / Egyptian Contacts are dropped in order to not be overwhelmed by sneaky rushes, the second turn explodes with two 3 costers (Nodens, Mentor and Sharpshooter are the best drops, but all 3 costers except Assistant, which exists only as a recycler / bodyguard, make do). From this point onward, the deck chips at opponent's board, pecking away character after character and winning the occasional story.
Short Fuse and Clarney try to deal with tough characters, which would tax this deck with x-for-1 trades otherwise. Nodens and Mentor are used to sweep the board while the other characters try to contain what can't be directly removed.
