iv been playing this for two days (basicaly started yesterdy) and got some cards from a friend and decided to just make some cards from his collection. i made the deck adn played against what he made adn got demolished. this is fine adn expected i didnt realy expect to win. what bothered me was how he did it

i liked the flavour of miskatonic university and hastur, havign come from magic:the gatherign these two factions made the most sense to me flavourwise so i figured why not, lets go with what feels familiar. so ni went over his whole collection to make this deck (it sucks but ill just list it for completeness sake) -

3 X negotim perabulans in tenebris

2 X unspeakable revelations

2 X commited

4 X schizophrenia

2 X rush to judgement

4 X binding

4 X the king in yellow

4 X victorias loft

3 X altar of madness

3 X dr ali kafour

4 X antiquities cnsultant

4 X graduating historian

4 X bearer of the yellow sign

4 X charlatan

4 X omega alumnus

4 X psychopath

3 X pulp writer

2 X visiting author

its sucky i know. the idea was to play investigation characters and turn the opponents characters into insane/iconless creatures which i then beat at evry icon struggle. the conspiracy is there to slow down their poss turn 2 drops, as well as psychopath and rush to judgement and then once i get king in yellow or charlatan or such like, to try and maintain a lead........

this is what my opponents cards were before i just quit -

the bloated woman, keeper of secrets

forgotten place

nophru-ka, the forgotten pharaoh

temple of nephren-ka

eldritch nexus

friedrich wilhelm von junzt

mentor to vaughn

nodens, potent and archaic

father of bats

profane messenger

studen of the profane

the bloody tongue

nyarlathotep

descendant of eibon

we got to about three, four turns in before i just quit not because i was losing although that was frustrating enough. it was because every single card he had shown me was stronger than the cards i had, they had more effects than mine, they had a higher skill to icons to cost ratio. i made my deck two dependant on makign small creatures insane, leaving only bearer and king in yellow to deal with the higher cost characters. i understand that. i also understand tat having played the game the second day, im probably not inline for player of the year, i get that too

but what i dont understnd (and the reason im asking anyone here to please explain to me) is how the neutral cards are just flat out better than almost everything of mine. i was under the impression that factions were supposed to be better than neutral cards to make up for the fact that you dont need to resource match the neutral cards. so i figured okay, maybe i just chose the wrong faction to compare, lets look at the other factions. and to be honest, i didnt see that much of a difference there either. not alot of three cost agency cards compare to the three drops he playd either(i was comparing wound icons). so i guess my question is - why would i ever play a faction? it seems perfectly fine and even preferable to just play neutral cards, that way i dont even have to worry about having to make resource matchs. descendant of eibon gives 2 neutral resources with no transient(tho i dont know what the arrow thing does) and by the time i beat bloody tongue in an investigation struggle, i think the game would have been over a few turns ago

sorry if i seem antagonistc im typing this immediately after he left :S and im really upset because iv been wanting to play this game for years actualy, its just that i never knew if anyone in my area played. i loved the flavour i would sit and read the articles youd post and things. now i finally got to play it.... and it seemed that all the flavour that the factions had ultimately accounted for nothing, i was pretty much dead the moment i chose miskatonic and hastur. and from the few cards i looked at, i dont think much other faction combinations would have helped. so sorry if i sound like im griping, its more like my dreams of this game have just been shattered and im appealing to anyone on this site to explain (if they want to of course) what i did wrong, why i should bother picking any faction at all and maybe some pointers on what to do. im not annoyed because i lost or that the cards i did play came out turns WAY too slow. its just that the power level seems to reek of imbalance and i really do like miskatonic, hastur and the other control factions of the game (at least, i think those are the control factions) :S so sorry in advance if it seems like im bashing the game (im not really) and id like to kknow just how wrong my perception fot he game and metagame really is

also, despite my experience actually playing the game, i did enjoy the flavour and cards great work!

also wanted to add two things. i just realised maybe my mana curve was too high. but still 3 for 2 wound, 1 arcane, 1 investigation, 3 skill, willpower, fast, 1: tap, bounce to the hand AND free play kinda beats the curve at any level :S

i never really asked him and i dont know when/where he got his cards (never occurred to me to ask ) but how old are these cards i just mentioned? are they still in the same format? does coc even have formats? something like that added in the rulebooks would be a big help, maybe as a suggestion

Okay I'm new as well, but I feel as if I could answer your questions, or at least comment on the situation.

First off, the cards you were playing with were from the Collectible Card Game, not the Living Card Game which is its current state. The CCG cards were its original incarnation in 2004. In 2008, the game was "Rebooted" so to speak, and made into what's not called a Living Card Game. This differs from its original form for a few reasons. The LCG has white bordered cards, as opposed to the black borders of the CCG. Also, the CCG and LCG cards are not meant to be played together, which if I'm not mistaken, you both were playing with what's called "Mixed-border" decks. The backs of the cards are also different.

Currently, the LCG is the only supported "format" if you want to even call it that. The game is too new to even have formed any formats yet, since it's only been out for a little over a year.

Now on to the game itself. The neutral cards you listed, such as Descendant of Eibon and Mentor to Vaughn, were both created by two World Champion players (as prizes for them winning the tournament.) These cards are also insanely good. The factions themselves do have very clear flavors. I think what was happening was either...

1. Your friend knew the game better than you, and was not following the golden rule of bringing in new players (Always let the player win the first game)

2. You were playing with both CCG and LCG cards, which created an imbalance in the game. The LCG cards were not created to play nice with the old overpowered cards.

3. He just had a better deck than you, since he obviously created it, using some of the best cards. As opposed to your deck, which was thrown together hastily by a new inexperienced player.

Or any combination of those...

Even if I'm mistaken, and you were playing with only the CCG cards, your opponent seemed to have a much better deck and grasp on what was going on.

So I would say don't let this turn you off of the game. To get into the game properly, you're going to want to buy the Core Set. This will give you 150+ cards to work with and give you a good feel of each faction. From there, buy a few Asylum Packs, which are basically the games "booster packs." Except the Asylum Packs have a fixed selection of cards, instead of randomized like a Collectible Card Game, hence the change over to the "Living Card Game" format.

I hope this helped.

wilhelm von junzt, if its the card i think it is, isnt a real card it was made by a fan or something. so if you have the means to print your own cards, it would only be fair too......

that said it looks like youre playing ccg 4x rules, right? it looks like he's a neutral deck, though its out of faction maybe switch to agency/hastur or agency/misk or go three factions and play this

Agency
Interrogation Center

Type : Support
Cost : 2
Subtype : Location.
Game Text: Neutral characters cannot commit to stories.

that one card would cripple his whole deck.

the king in yellow is a complete waste since you already have the loft in there. and if youre gonna play hastur you should have some sorta cancel in your deck. wrack, power drain, or performance artist, song of hastur. commited could also be replaced for something better. agoraphobia is very handy with dealing with willpower. aspiring artist is a good one cost character worth looking at too.

hope that helps somewhat.

Eldtritch nexus definitely would help his resource and tempo over yours. In fact, I would say his whole deck was better than yours, especially when using non official cards like Von just.

I think the best way to give the game its fairest shake is to play the LCG a few times with someone who is of the same mind set as you. That is to say, make two decks that are as balanced as possible to each other so you can atleast get a chance to see how the game plays and not be overwhelmed by first turn eldritch nexus when you yourself dont even have the opportunity to use such a card. Not that eldritch nexus is overly powerful, but it does give a very good early game advantage in how his tempo plays out.

I cant really say what happened during your game, but judging purely by your description of the events, he chipmunked you. He had a better deck, better knowledge of how the game plays and made it work to his advantage. While this is fine against two equally competent players, this simply is a bad thing to do against a new player. I dont think your game against him is a good indicator of the game or of its player base.

I say give it another chance with someone who is more in line with having fun instead of running a game to 'pwn no0bs'. Ask him to play one of each card, so that you can both share a card pool. This 'Highlander' format is really fun because when you only have one copy of a card in a deck and if that card matters to your plan, then its very important that it gets used corrrectly and sticks around. Thats my 2 cents. Hope that helps you.

thanks alot ill try and keep it in mind hopefuly i can find others to play too. i think the games club sells the game, so i might go there sometime to see who else plays here in london uk

This guy posted somewhere on these forums as well as gameboardgeeks, but he is located in London...

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Ripplez said:

I'm in London, and looking for someone to play with. If you want to meet up, and we haven't been in touch via Boardgamegeek or elsewhere, let me know.