Hi guys !

This morning I was considering an interesting discussion topic for us. What would be (in the current CoC environment with all the released cards to date), the most powerful / deadly combination of cards for someone going for a straight "Character Destruction" (or other permanents like Support / Location/ etc - cards) theme.

The primary concept, I would think, would involve Agency and Cthulhu....perhaps also combining Yog-Sothoth, which has its own share of Sacrifice effects (like Cursed Skull or A Single Glimpse). The only thing is.... are Tri-Faction decks actually viable in the game ? I have not tried anything beyond 2 yet, so I am unsure of the consistency with resources, etc - when you open a deck up to 3-different factions.

I'll start off a list of some cards I can think of that would fit the basic role of character destruction (or others) and if you guys can think of some others I haven't, and/or provide some ideas for how you would fit these things into a deck (you'd need SOME characters of your own, of course - though I'm thinking quick / fast guys would be best - maybe others think elsewise ?).

AGENCY-Destruction Cards

- Small Price to Pay, Shotgun Blast, Short Fuse, Flanking Maneuver, Torch the Joint

* - possible supporting cards: Beneath the Burning Sun, Shotgun, Dynamite

CTHULHU-Destruction Cards

- Deep One Assault , Pulled Under, Sacrificial Offerings, In an Unmarked Grave, Get it Off!

* - possible things in the similiar or supporting theme: Called by Azathoth, Bite Marks (put Bite Marks on a 6-Wound Hideous Guardian, then Shotgun blast him, etc - things like that...I mention it only because it could support the them, though cleary just DOA'ing such a creature would be easiest !).

YOG-SOTHOTH Destruction Cards

- A Single Glimpse, Calling Down the Ancients, Cursed Skull

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A few Characters that would also work for the "Destruction Theme" would be Deep One Rising ...Ravager from the Deep, Mature Deep One, Emerging Deep One (sort of), Cthulhu, Lord of R'lyeh, Thomas Malone, Monster Hunter, and Agency Groundskeeper.

Don't forget the Agency staple Support, Prize Pistol, which possibly gets missed because it's actually a Neutral. If your first turn you play a character with CC and then PP on him, you still have 1 domain left to activate the Pistol and you can wound skill 1-2 character. If you get Beneath the Burning Sun your next turn, it pumps to 1-cost wounding for skill 3 or less characters. Since Agency has no lack of characters with C-icons, PPs can give you early control quite nicely.

Interesting....I would have forgotten that card, or how useful it can be.

If I understand it's wording, however, it's only weakness is that you have to have MORE Combat Icons than the target has skill....you cannot simply "tie" them....which means you need to use this on a character with at least 1-Combat already, I would think (which IS - admittedly - almost every Agency character)....so they get 2-Combat Icons...this then allows you to wound Skill-1 guys. But, as you noted, you need something to boost you up in combat Icons, to increase the range of potential victims for the Prize Pistols, no ?

Other than Beneath the Burning Sun, what other "Combat boosters" are there for Agency ? - Lightning Gun is one, but that's only +1 Combat (and if you are focused on Wounding guys with the pistol, the extra Combat Struggles it causes are not quite as useful).

Dream dagger could work on a Dreamer, I think....that adds 2-Combat for just 1-resource point....(in addition to the other stuff you gain from it if the character is a Dreamer).

In theory, a starting hand of Herman Mulder (he might actually be good because of Cost-1 !!) ...Prize Pistol...and a Lightning Gun could result in you laying down all three and having Herman with 3-Combat Icons....meaning Skill 1 and 2 enemies are targetable right away with the Prize Pistol effect !

I'm sure there might be other, better, ways to do this that I am just not thinking of.

There are a few 2-cost, CC characters for Agency, with the Pistol adding C and possibly Beneath the Burning Sun in play to add another, that's CCCC already. At 3-cost, you can access CCC characters (Hired Muscle, Night-Shift Security, Safari Hunter, last of which can really blast away when committed to a story with Monsters). You could also try to turn Paul Lemond into a C-monster with his ability, then blast.

Since the decks I use aren't fitted down to 50 cards and only using the best cards, I have Ancient Ones and other high priced cards in them. Thus, one combo I dread when going against Agency is James Logan whose Response allows you to find 2 Attachments in the deck and attach them to him fishing out 2x Prize Pistol and blasting away with his now 5 combat icons (JL uses 1 domain, funnily enough still have 2 left to use 2 PPs).

Ooh...that's a nice concept there.....I didn't think of putting two on a single character, but if you are feeling confident and doubt the enemy has any direct destruction effects (like DOA) in hand, then it would be quite lethal.

So...if we were to expand on this concept and begin rummaging around in our imaginary supplies of cards (assume we have 3 of every card in the game)....how might we actually put together this ultimate destruction deck ?

I can presume the following "Destruction Cards" - but would love to hear ideas on possible characters we would want to include.

Events :

3-Deep One Assault

3-Sacrificial Offerings

3-Shotgun Blast

3-Small Price to Pay

3-Short Fuse ? (possible)

3-Flanking Maneuver

3-Torch the Joint

Attachments ? - 3-Shotgun, 3-Prize Pistol

Support - 3-Beneath the Burning Sun

Did you all forget about the Lightning Gun? It not only adds C icons to your characters but also adds 2 C struggles to the story, which gives you even more options for wounding enemies!

Edit: And I told you on several occasions Rosh that Short Fuse isn't worth its cost Dynamite works much better.

Hej Rosh,

i'm currently running the following Agency-only wounding / distruction-deck. Perhaps i could provide you with some ideas? I'll make comments along the way ...

2x 0: Behind Bars
3x 1: Beneath the Burning Sun extra C, and destoys night stuff, like shub-ghouls.
3x X: Shotgun Blast needs no clarification. ;-)
3x 2: Flanking Manouvre to be able to destroy something invulnerable or with massive toughness
2x 2: Price Manor usefull since you'll be loosing multiple cards if you lose a character. Also usable to cope with nastyness like nmoquah's serpent or that hastur discard location. A life-saver against some decks !
3x 1: Prize pistol
3x 1: Shot Gun
2x 2: Lightning Gun
2x 2: Military Bike
2x 2: Interrogation Center against dogs & guardian pillars.

1x 1: Paul Lemond
2x 1: Professor Hermann Mulder
3x 2: Repo Man You'll have no problem winning C-struggles, so it's auto-include.
3x 2: Confident Rookie Gains C and Willpower with a gun, so that's definately worth it. Also nice with the military bike.
3x 2: Government Exorcist Nice to work around T, if you can't shoot them from the board // lack the willpower to safely commit. Also has I
3x 2: Peeler Also gains Willpower from attachments, so auto-include.
3x 2: Undercover Security Willpower and I.
3x 3: John Henry Price Not great, but nice for flavor. Probably first to cut to make the deck better.
2x 3: Steve Clarney Willpower, good icons, and nullifies the presence of toughness guys even if you only wound them once.
1x 3: Marshall Greene Awesome. Probably could use 1 more, but i only own one. :-)
2x 3: Agency Ground Keeper. Too good.

- That's 50 cards, with a good cost curve. meaning you're resourced in turn 3 (1: 2-1-1, 2: 2-2-1, 3: 3-2-1).
- John H. Price could go, but i think the Grond keeper, Marshall Greene & Clarney are worth the extra resource, so i'd definately keep those 3-costs in. No need of course to go to 4 (since there really never isn't, unless you're packing cost-reducers).
- Gaining an extra domain here is probably very usefull for getting the maximum out of the guns, so maybe the 3x john henry should go out for those...
- Then of course there's Small price to Pay, but i don't like it in this deck, first, because you don't really need it, so why bother, and secondly, because you will be useing attachments yourself, getting your own guy wounded or insaned is not really an attractive option ...
- Dynamite is excellent: it's a fantastic deterrent: put it on one of your guy use that guy for defending: if your opponent goes to a story with a number of characters, hoping to overpower you, you can blast them away, or, when he's to afraid of that, he'll only have the option to spread his guys, or not attack at all, in which case you can pick them off with the shotgun and the combatstruggle. So that's definately a possible add to this deck, though i'm not sure what to take out.
- Shorf fuse: i'm not impressed. It's expensive, only takes out 1 character, and, most importantly, only does that during the op's-phase, leaving you no room to surprise them after committing, (which makes 'any-phase' events good, because you might also make an extra kill because of their miscalculating the struggles, with one guy less on their part).

To your initial proposal i'd say:
Mixing the agency goodness with Cthulhu is nice, but i think you'll have to consider the following:
Adding Cthulhu gives you:
- DOA: which is good, but is also loyal. You probably will have more agency then cthulhu cards in your deck, so resourcing enough to make the DOA effective becomes very annoying, and probably isn't worth it.
- Sacrifical offerings: nice for cthulhu, but do you really need it ? It kills one of your guys as well, and for 1 domaindraining, you might as well just shoot them with the pistol, without the drawback. I dont think it will really add. There's only so much wounding a deck needs. ;-)
- Pulled Under: which is fantastic, but requires TT.
- Keeper of the golden path: totally awesome, has the needed TT, but is villaneous, so conflicts with steve and marshall. I'd rather keep steve and marshall probably, since their willpower (and the rookie's, the peeler's and the undercover securtiy's) is enough to not have to worry about any opposing terror, especailly since you can shoot most of that away anyhow).
- you also mentioned stuff like Unmarked grave, which is of course waaaay to expensive to include in a deck such as this (and probably way to expensive to include in a competative deck anyway, unless you really really plan for it). :-)

So in short:
In a destruction themed deck, i feel that agency alone is maybe all that you need anyway... Adding Cthulhu is nice, but DOA as a 'splash' card doesn't work because it's loyal, and the rest that Cthulhu offers probably isn't really better than what agency offers in this kind of deck ...

This is all just my humble opinion of course ...
Let me know what you think !

Yes, but Dynamite requires us to have a Character in play...then attach the Dynamite...then send the character to a story...and hope the opponent blocks it with something...then blow the Dynamite, most likely killing our character, and possibly an enemy one....but it has zero effect (or very minimal effect) on any enemies with Toughness+ - whatever... whereas Short Fuse utterly destroys any character in the game that is not Invulnerable !

Deep One Assault costs X = cost of character. So to blow away a G-Men, which costs 6...you need a "Loyal" - 6-stack of Cthulhu resources with DOA. Short Fuse accomplishes the same thing (with a huge explosion !) - for only 3...half the cost in this example...and can be any resource mix (so long as one is Agency, of course). This seems to be overlooked by those that dump on Short Fuse.

If we (players) are willing to pay 2-for A Single Glimpse - and don't think that it's a crappy card (also played in Ops Phase - true, forces Sacrifice, but opponent gets to choose, so limited targeted effectiveness) - then why downplay the potential impact of a 3-cost Short Fuse (also in Ops Phase), which can destroy anything in the game that can be wounded ? (Hastur (all forms), Bokrug, Ghanathoa, T-Men, G-Men, Hired Muscle, Terror of the Tides, Hideous Guardian, Hydra, etc. - etc.)

-

And we did mention Lightning Gun....but it costs (2) - I think ....and only (really) helps us in the combat struggle....we were generally talking about a deck that didn't bother with actual struggles, except when it had to - but instead just blows away enemy defenders // opposing characters with a deluge of direct damage or outright destruction. Lightning Gun doesn't (directly) do that - though it IS an awesome card in "normal" decks, no doubt.

For purposes of Prize Pistol, for instance, you'd be better off packing 0-cost 45. Pistols which also give +1 Combat Icon (expanding the range of targets for the Pistols).

Some characters that I was thinking we'd want to include (and the numbers of them) might be:

3 x Deep One Rising

2 x T-Men (enters play, wound a target of your choice)

2 x James Logan (enters play, search deck for up to 2-attachments and put them on Logan....essentially for free, as it ignores their cost ! - put Prize Pistol and / Shotgun / Dynamite - etc. on him)

2 x Monster Hunter ?

3 x Terror of the Tides (see our other discussion threads on this one ....basically, with the FAQ revelation, on top of the general utility...there is no reason any deck ever made should not feature 3 of these guys ! FAQ-IT and WEEP opponent !

3 x Diseased Sewer Rats

....what other cheap options would we have ? Undercover Security would be good for the 2-cost early effect of Combat + Investigation....so maybe 3 of them...and how about 3 of the Keeper of the Golden Path and 3 Brood of Yig - both have 2-Terror Icons which would serve us well with Pulled Under - if we went with that card also.

Any ideas on "Cheapish" - 1-cost characters for Agency or Cthulhu that would be handy as well ?

THis post is just to fix the time stamp error. This thread will continue to show as "new" until a post is made. My theory on the problem (this has happened before) is that two people posted roughly simultaneously, but the first one to hit "publish" actually hit "reply" second. So the most recent posting has a slightly earlier time stamp than the previous one.

Hopefully this will fix it.

I've found that if one person posts and then edits his post while another post is added, the older, yet newly edited post will show as the latest, mixing up actual last post shown.

It looks like what happened is - I came home yesterday....saw Manitou's reply (regarding Short Fuse and a few other things) - so I started composing my reply to him....I took a bit, as I was doing other things at the same time....and when I finished, someone else had posted a reply - BEFORE - I had a chance to post mine.

Usually the FFG-system tells you "hey, someone has posted since.... do you want to post your thing anyways ?" - but this time, I don't think it did. So I finally posted...and it was meant to be to Manitou...but looked like it was in response to Investigator !

In any case, thanks for the interesting suggestions Investigator - and your deck idea.

I'm still thinking of how we could fit some anti-invulnerable type stuff into the deck - if we made it all Agency ? That's why Deep One Assault is so appealing to me - cause it can Ancient Ones like they were Patsy's - !

Chris "Cannon" Long has said frequently on BoardGameGeek boards that, "Deep One Assault is the best card Cthulhu has or will ever have...." - which, I think, goes to the point of how powerful / flexible it can be (note we could also use it to take out Support cards like 70-Steps, or other problem ones).

* - note that Behind Bars is pretty good since it can, effectively, handcuff those Invulnerable guys - allowing you to only worry (in theory) about their damage-able cohorts.

Hi all,

indeed, I agree DOA is by far the best spotremoval card in the game (as far as LCG goes, i don't know anything about CCG). However, mixing it in with Agency as the 2nd faction (instead of the primary faction) gives some problems with the loyalty .. However, if the component of Cthulhu cards is big enough of course, these problems disappear, so it's mostly a design choice for you. :-)
As you say: DOA can kill those Ancient Ones, but it DOES require you to have 6 Cthulhu-resources on 1 domain ... the benefits then don't really outweigh the costs i'd say. :-) To kill steps etc it's excellent of course...

However: Agency deals very well with opposing locations: Groundskeeper & Repo Man do the job fantastically. Also, Repo Man deals with any other support cards, like envirmnents (things in the ground etc), or attachments (though you can get rid of them by blasting the 'carrying' character as well).

What does Agency do against Invulnerability ? Flanking Manouvre of course, since it 'destroys' instead of 'wounds', and Behind Bars is a temporary help. Also: Invulnerable dudes tend to be Unique, so you won't face more than 1 or 2 in any given game anyway, and they mostly have T, so Governement Exorcist can keep them away when you're on the offence (and with you're wounding capability, you'll be always attacking rather than defending anyway, so that's no problem).

To be specific, let's ask ourselves which cards with Invulnerability would actually be played against us:
- Carl Stanford: A serious menace, but can be Flanked, and can be handled by the
Goverment Exorcist.
- Ghost: No real threat to you.
- Guardian Pillar: A serious menace, and often played, but can be flanked (when committed),
or can be stolen by Repo Man (when not committed), or be destroyed by
the Groundskeeper. Also, Interrogation Center takes care of him.
- Forgotten Shoggoth: Not often played, but has T, so can ge Exorcised, and can be Flanked of
course.
- Y'Gol: A very serious threat, but can be Flanked, and can be exorcised. Just
make sure you commit everyhing you have on your turn, and you won't
have to fall victim to his annoying abilit y. You can race Shub no problem
because of your table control and I-icons, so not defending is probably a
good solution.
- Expensive Ancient Ones: Who playes those seriously? :-)
Well, say in a Things in the Ground deck, they can still be Flanked, and
they all have T, so the exorcist can do it's job. But probably, you will have
raced them long before they hit the 6 resources, so i wouldn't worry too
much.

I'd say: Agency has enough cards to deal with the various threats in an efficient manner, and has acces to those cards early enough in the game (turn 1-2).
However: I agree that Steps / Birds CAN pose a problem if you don't have shotgunblast + Prize pistols in you're opening hand. With those however, you can probably still make a stand ... DOA however would of course greatly help in that scenario... i totally agree with you on that.

Kind regards,

Thomas

I find Cthulhu too slow to effectively use its destruction technique (DOA is loyal, SO can hurt you as much as opponent, PU has too many requirements to be a reliable tool, RDO and RftD are too expensive to make any real impact when they hit the table). Yog-Sothoth is a bit faster but it is unreliable as well (CDtA, aSG and SS usually won't let you pick specific targets).

I can tell you that almost any deck geared towards wound/destroy will be too slow to win with some more well-rounded decks (and I'm not talking about Birds+Steps here). My current Agency/Syndicate deck can win pretty consistently on turn 3 and it doesn't fear losing 1-2 characters/turn in the slightest.

Investigator said:

Just curious, did you overlook that Y'Gol readies the character it picks, so you will fall victim to him, even if you're exhausted. Also, Shub with the Mi-Gos can pack its share of Investigation.

And the biggest thing Thomas might have forgotten is right here:

Action : Exhaust 2 characters, each with at least 1 , to choose and destroy a non-Ancient One character.

So Flanking Maneuver is totally useless against any of the Ancient Ones that we might face....it would be effective against Stanford, the Shoggoth, Ghost, and Guardian Pillar though.

Behind Bars would probably serve us best to stall any of truly diabolical ones like Yog or Cthulhu, if it came to that, I guess.

* - one neat trick, although not relevant in this Agency - Cthulhu talk, would be to have the opponent commit their big Invulnerable tough-guy like Y'Golonac or Cthulhu to a story...you block with a scrub like Silver Twilight Temptress or something with at least 1-Terror. Then you play Scotophobia ! D'OH ! Big Boy loses his Terror Icon - and I don't think any of them have been given the further backup of "Willpower" - though they probably should have been, all things considered.....so suddenly the Ancient One is subject to Insanity ! He goes Insane and is flipped over.

Per the FAQ - at this point he is a Zero-cost card with no special abilites - etc - textbox blanked - etc.

Play a Shotgun Blast for free (0 cost = 0 skill of current target !!!) - and wound + kill the Insane Ancient One. Score one for the good guys !

Dam said:

Boy, do I feel sheepish. I totally overlooked that one. So basically, against Y'Gol, who is sort of common to be up against, there really isn't a lot you can do with just Agency ... Flanking doesn't work, Goverment Exorcist only works on the offence ... Behind Bars works for a turn, when on the defence ... Hopefully that's all you need to secure that story ... you'll be losing 1 character every turn from then on against him...

I'm at a loss why i added Flanking as a tactic against the Ancient Ones. I actually typed an earlier message which got halfway deleted because of an careless touching of the damned touchpad (**** those touchpads !) where i didn't make this mistake... I was in such a hurry to retype it again that I erroneously put up Flanking as working against the AO's... Totally my bad.

Thanks for pointing out those mistakes !

@ the Migo's:
I actually played against those MiGo's last week, and the I-icons come from the Mi-Go scout ... though they have defense against wounding through the MG Warrior (tap to prevent a wound) or the Ageless MG (MG get +1 toughness), they're generally quite slow because of the highcost of the dudes. In my experience that game, though the Mi-Go get very strong when combined, with you're wounding / destruction capabilities they just don't get the time to build up to have enough C to challenge your stories ... There's only 3 scouts in their deck, so the chances for the opponent to have one in play long enough aren't that big...

Then again: all my humble opinion of course. I'd be happy to have any mistakes pointed out to me.

Kind regards,

- Th.

Funny thing about Y'Gol is the fact that he can straighten himself and/or his mates too.

Mi-go get out of hand pretty quick if you get a bad draw against them. But then again, this is true versus any deck really so my contribution isnt a huge revelation.

Mi-go just get a bit more advantage than usual against opponents during games with subpar draws. Priestess of Bubastis help a lot in getting them amped up quick and altar of the blessed doesnt hurt. Mi-go brain cylinder, parallel universe, Mi-go laboratory with Mi-go scalpel as a back up in a pinch.

Mi-go tribal theme is my GF's fave and every asylum pack sees that deck get more and more disgusting. Perhaps not the most competitive deck type... yet , but its a lot of fun. Its a tribal deck that rivals the Nerd's investigator-anthro advisor-abuse.

I am kind of thinking that Yog and Shub would make a good combo deck in regards to Mi-go. Especially because of Mi-go brain cylinder.

You're a lucky guy if you have a GF who plays this regularly with you - well done, Hellfury....

On the Ancient One issue....I guess they are supposed to be immune to most mortal weaponry....which is why Flanking Maneuver is ineffective against them.... but this is another reason why I talk up Short Fuse with its Automatic 7-Wounds ..... ahem. This will auto-destroy ANY Ancient One that does not have Invulnerability....meaning every one of them EXCEPT - Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Niggurath, Y'Golonac, and Yog-Sothoth.

I think that's all of them that actually have Invulnerability....all the "lesser ones" have Toughness...even Hastur, (though he's a Great Old One), just has Toughness on both his forms, because they are lesser avatars he uses, as opposed to his monstrous "True Form" - which, if they ever publish it...probably would have Invulnerability, to keep with the theme.

So Short Fuse, ops phase or not, can do what 90% of other Agency cards cannot, to all Ancient Ones (or any other character in the game, since the most Toughness I've ever seen, by default, is on Terror of the Tides or Hideous Guardian, with +5).

Steve Clarney is the way to deal with high toughness targets And he has some pretty nice icons to boot.

I don't run either Short Fuse nor Flanking Maneuver yet I don't really have much trouble winning even against 1st turn Y'Golonac or other scary stuff. The thing is, enemy just can't pump out monstrosities like that all too often and can't saturate the stories enough, some of my guys are usually going to make it anyway and score me this 2-3 tokens.

You have to remember one thing Rosh (I learned it the hard way), even the greatest icons and keywords can't help you much if they're on just one guy. It is far more important to get a steady flow of cheap characters with 1-2 icons and hopefully a useful ability. The threats you're talking about as the reason to keep SF in your deck, are more of a 'surprise surprise, I now have a big guy to scare you' type of things which can be run as a supplement to your usual stuff, not something you rely on to win games. Like in chess, queen is great, but it's the pawns that do all the dirty work.

I think there is one exception to AO's besides Y'golonac being competitively playable and that would be Bokrug. He is as powerful now as he was in the Mythos CCG days, if not exponentially more so.

Between Beings of Ib and Seekers of Mysteries, Bokrug gets to the board pretty quickly. Since Being of Ib share his (or any other singlular Ancient one in play) skill and icons, thats a juggernaut godzilla deck waiting to explode in your opponents face. Literally, the doom that came to sarnath. Not something you can rely on game afte game, but powerful enough to include 3 Beings of Ib, 2 Bokrugs and 3 Seekers of Mysteries.

I played one game last night where I got bokrug out on the first turn. It was an incredibly lucky draw to get three Ib's and one seeker Deep one assault, ravager from the deep and pulled under when immediately to resources), but thats all it took and Katja could never recover from it. Game over 3rd turn.

I'm glad you mentioned this, Hellfury....

First - can you give me any info on Bokrug, like what story of Lovecraft's he featured in, and what his role is...I mean, I assume he's another "ally" of Cthulhu...which is why they picked him for that faction...but is there any firm story he was in as a major villain ?

Also - I was planning on asking about Beings of Ib, actually....and wanted to know if I understood their ability correctly....the card mentions "a single Ancient One" in play...so...do they mean as long as you have - JUST - one in play...the Beings of Ib have those icons, etc - but if you put a second Ancient One into play (rare to have 2 out at once, but still...) - at that moment, the Beings revert to ....no Icons at all ?

Lastly - to Manitou... I got crushed last night when my friend came back to work (from vacation) and played using my Cthulhu - Yog - deck against me (my Shub Night Ghouls and Hastur Agency Steps decks) - he had forgotten his cards, you see.

Anyways....I was beginning to think that deck needed revision...but he got some amazing draws against me and totally trashed my guys (though the one game was close 3-2 stories, in the end).

He (in the second game) - drew 2-Seekers of Mystery, a Lord of the Silver Twilight, a Deep One Assault, and Cthulhu, Lord of R'lyeh - AWESOME card - which I was excited to get a hold of when I heard he was coming in Wailer....

You can guess what happened next...

He won the roll to play first....resourced ....and slammed down both Seekers and the Lord of the Silver Twilight. "Your turn"....

I went and played a Beneath the Burning Sun, and a Undercover Security. Seemed good...

He goes on the second turn, lays down another resource (now had three in one domain)....and played a Degenerate Serpent Cultist (costs 1-)....and using the big Domain......out came Cthulhu.....on turn-2.

As you can imagine...the next turn, when I actually drew and played a 70-steps (pointless)....I was finished. He DOA'd the steps, and began to use the new Cthulhu to annihilate my characters...it was a slaughter.

Turn-2.

He laughed and said, "you made the deck, so you only have yourself to blame"..... it was true, but it was painful, nonetheless !

Basically...it taught me something about the Steps - issue ....you HAVE to get Steps + Magah Birds in hand on the opening draw for the deck to work even remotely "as it should" - at least the way mine seems to play out (maybe I am doing something wrong ? - lol) ....... I find it hard to believe this type of deck (having playtested it many times against other decks I made in the last few weeks) ...actually was considered "reliable" enough to have so many top players bring it to the World Championships...and, beyond that, to actually have it win the tournament !? I must be doing something wrong ....

Rosh87 said:

1) The short story set within the dreamlands, "The Doom That Came to Sarnath": www.classicreader.com/book/2728/1/ He has no direct relation to Cthulhu other than residing in water. He isn't a major villian perse, he is more a weapon of vengeance for the Thuum'ha who worshipped him and were slughtered by those who once dwelled in Sarnath.

2) Yes, that would be correct. If you control more than one ancient one, then the Beings of Ib revert to being 'ghosts'. No skill, no icons.

Rosh87 said:

I was also again reminded just how incredibly powerful the sledge dogs still are...

We did combination of those decks on Excel sheets and the probalitiy to have Birds + Cavern or Steps is really high.

You just consider the analysis taking into account the chance this deck has to have the right cards in hand first turn ... But just do the same with the opposite deck and you'll notice that the probability to have counter in hands is really lower. Because of the effect of the birds, because of the text of the cavern, which affects your opponent first if you play your card well.

This was on of our biggest discussion on The Cenacle, as we could'nt definetly agree on this ...