Afternoon everyone, I hope your Saturday is going well so far.

I've recently started playing CoC with a mate of mine, and have managed to track down enough core sets and asylum packs to make some interesting decks. Unfortunately I haven't acquired the last of the Dreamlands cycle, but hope to in the near future. All the same, I've put together a couple of themed decks and tested them out over a couple of games. Neither deck is perfect and I feel could do with some tweaking, so I would value the thoughts of the more experienced deck-builders out there.

The first deck is a Yog-Sothoth / Shib-Niggurath Gug themed deck:

Yog-Sothoth
3 x Enraged Gug
3 x Laboring Gug
3 x Nebulous Ooze
3 x Opener of the Gates
3 x Puj-Dunk, Gug Chieftain
3 x Wandering Gug
2 x Yog-Sothoth, In Whom the Spheres meet
3 x Ascension to Zura
3 x Great Stone Circle
3 x Idol of the Abomination

Shub-Niggurath
3 x Ghoulish Worshipper
3 x Slavering Gug
3 x Burrowing Beneath
3 x Horrid Mutation

Neutral
3 x Antideluvian Dreams
3 x Tcho-Tcho Talisman
3 x The Setting Sun, the Light Fails

It's a fairly combat heavy deck, which aims to wound many opponents, and makes up for it's initial lack of terror icons with a couple of cards, and in some cases by resolving the combat first. The problem with it is that a lot of the character cards are relatively high cost and so it takes a couple of turns before many of them can enter play (even with the Ghoulish Worshippers and Opener of the Gates helping out). I'm not sure how to tighten it up, and I'm not sure how it will change once I bring some of the cards from the final asylum pack in the Dreamlands cycle. *shrug*

I'll post the second deck I've come up with in a reply to this post, but I would appreciate any suggestions or thoughts any of you have as to improvements I could make here.

Matt

The second deck I've put together is a Miskatonic / Agency Dreamer themed deck:

Agency
3 x G-Men
2 x Marshall Greene, Too Old For This...
2 x The Captain, Dreamlands Navigator

Miskatonic University
3 x Anthropology Advisor
3 x Chess Prodigy
3 x Dreamlands Scholar
2 x Professor Albert Wilmarth, Folklore Expert
2 x Professor Nathaniel Peaslee, Scholar of the Arcane
2 x Randolph Carter, King of Ilek-Vad
2 x Twila Katherine Price, Lost in a Dream
3 x Arcane Translation
3 x Open for Inspection
3 x Sleeping Pills

Neutral
3 x Ancient Zoog
3 x Curious Zoog
3 x Dream Dagger
2 x Guardian Pillar
3 x Moon-Beast Galley
3 x Zoog Burrow

This deck is about Dreamer characters, and is geared towards turning characters into Dreamers (if they aren't already) and then using the Dream Dagger to buff them. There are also several cards and characters that help in dealing with the Terror struggle, and in getting investigator characters out more quickly. The problem with the deck is that it's a bit confused in what it is doing. I realised after building this deck I have one character that is more useful when it is Day , and another more useful when it is Night - the problem being that I neglected to include any cards to change the Day / Night status.

I'm thinking I should out one of them and introduce cards to make it either Day or Night. The problem I have is that if I out the Captain, there are hardly any Agency cards left, and so I am wondering whether it is worthwhile going solo-faction or not? Losing the G-Men and Marshall Greene would be a shame though, as they bring in some much-needed combat icons, and some good willpower subtypes.

Again, I ask - what are your thoughts? How could I tighten this deck up to be a little less confused about it's own identity?

Thanks again, and I look forward to your responses.

Matt

I think you have three problems with your gug's deck :
1) It is slow as you said
2) You have no way to wait against rush deck
3) you have no way to wound your gugs, you must wait for your opponent to wound your characters. Probably you will win all combat struggles, so no wounds for your gugs.

+ With only 12 cards for shub, you will have some sourcing problem to play your shub cards.

I'm looking for an Agency / gug deck but I have the same problem. He doesn't work well against rush deck like Agency / hastur + Alaskan dogs and it is vulnerable against insanity deck. With the Agency, you will have some way to wound characters (opponents or my own gugs if necessary) and to gain times to install your game.

Here an exemple :

Agency

2 x ATT F61 Agency Groundskeeper
3 x ASL F1 Government Exorcist
2 x ASK F61 •John Henry Price
2 x AHS F21 •Marshall Greene
2 x AAH F1 Safari Hunter
3 x ASD F82 Behind Bars
2 x CS F16 Shotgun Blast
3 x CS F19 Small Price to Pay
2 x CS F18 Torch the Joint!
2 x ASL F2 Interrogation Center

Yog

2 x CS F106 Cannibal Ghast
2 x AMD F32 Enraged Gug
3 x CS F105 Fishers from Outside
3 x AJK F111Gug Sentinel
3 x ADN F51 Laboring Gug
2 x ATH F11 •Puj-Dunk, Gug Chieftain
2 x AAD F52 •The Sleepwalker
3 x ATH F12 Twilight Gate
2 x CS F119 Unspeakable Resurrection
2 x ASK F72 •The Silver Key, Unlocking the way…

Neutral

3x AMD F22 Prize Pistol

Total 50

Some cards to deal with rush decks, to try to slow my opponent, and have time to play my game : Interrogation Center (against dogs or neutral characters), the silver Key, Torch a joint, behind bars, Cannibal Ghast, Sleepwalker, twilight gate (works very well with the Fishers from Outside).
Some cards to wound my opponents or my own gugs, small price to pay, shotgun blast, prize pistol.

Marshall Greene to have a little protection against terror for my gugs, and Agency Characters with high combat to have good choice for the Prize Pistol. The Safari Hunter is nice for that because he gains combat icons for monsters in the same story (your gugs are monster). Agency Groundskeeper (+ Torch a joint again) to deal with location/dreamland support cards. Agency provide also Investigation icons.

I keep 10 gugs for this deck : The Gug Sentinel, because you can exhaust an opponent's character (with a small price to pay to drive insane an opponent, then wound the Sentinel and exhaust an opponent's character, it's funny to play), The Laboring Gug to draw cards, Puj Dunk to put into play gugs and Enraged Gug for combo with other gugs or against opponent's characters.