We have seen 2 Ritual Support cards that require a build-up of tokens to trigger. In both cases this is achieved at the expense of sacrificing your own Characters. Unless there are also cards that provide an immediate beneficial effect to sacrificing your own this mechanic does not seem all that impressive. From what we have seen the Rituals will fail to Burrowing Beneath, Deep One Assault, etc. before they work. Only more Spoilers will tell the tail if this is going to be any good...

The Senator is interesting but also requires another piece to the puzzle to be really good. There are at least 2 MU Characters who have a draw/discard mechanic that would trigger him. So far I am liking the Silver Twilight Characters more than the Support cards.

Do we have a solid release date for this set? Are we talking Thanksgiving, Santa, or a cure for post holiday depression?

Not trying to judge the faction, as it is far too early to tell of course. I love combo decks and consider myself to be the "Johnny" archetype but just going by what we have seen here though I am underwhelmed. I am having an enormous amount of difficulty imagining where this type of back and forth fits in as a viable strategy. Depending on a lot of "what ifs" from your opponent is not a logical strategy, and forcing your own deck to take Cthulhu to gain these boons seems rather ineffectual as well extraneously convoluted.