Hi!

After the awesome weekend spent in Stahleck, I think it is worth this year, after the good result, to write a report to properly celebrate the great event, the nice people I met there and this beautiful card game that maybe is not popular enough to attract a huge number of people but, in my opinion, is one of the best card-game out there regarding mechanics, the settings, the card-arts.

Disclaimer: everything I say here is, obviously, MY opinion; I'm not in possess of the ultimate truth (except that we all know is 42)!

Introduction: the deck and "how to remove the problems".

I started building this deck few months ago; in building the deck I was keeping in mind the current situation: Agency/Hastur is the best combination
possible at the moment, providing everything a rush strategy needs (cheap and good characters & cheap removals to clean the board + some discard). The
best way I could think to stop this deck is based on a simple concept: I destroy/remove every single character you put into play in the first 2 turns, trying in the same time to prevent you to succeed at a story (so you cannot activate endless interrogation). To do this, I need a huge amount of removals and cheap characters, in particular with Terror and Combat icons. My choice to achieve this goal has been Yog/Cthulhu. They both of removals (Calling Down the ancient, Single Glimpse, DoA, Sacrificial Offerings), they have cheap terror characters (the new Cthulhu serpents, Servant of Nodens). I discarded Agency (even if probably is the faction with the best removals) because DoA allows me to destroy (read: 70 steps) and not just wound. Besides that, the 1-cost removal (sacrificial and DoA for 1-cost characters --> Dogs and Birds + 70 steps) can be used in the very first turn of the game even if the opponent wins the dice.

With this in mind, the other cards were almost mandatory in the deck. The decklist I came up with, after some testing, is the following:

Cthulhu: (23)
3 Deep One Assault (DoA)
3 Sacrificial Offerings (Sac)
3 Brood of Yig (BoY)
1 Degenerate Serpent Cultist (DSC)
3 Dreamlands Fanatic (DF)
3 Ravager from the Deep (Ravager)
2 Deep-One rising (DOR)
2 Carl Stanford (Carl)
3 Keeper of the Golden Path (KotGP)

Yog-Sothoth: (21)
3 Calling down the Ancients (CDtA)
3 A single glimpse (AsG)
3 Gathering at the stones (Gathering)
3 Unspeakable resurrection (UR)
3 Doppleganger
3 Servant of Nodens (SoN)
2 The SleepWalker

Neutral: (6)
3 Descendant of Eibon (Eibon)
3 Diseased sewer Rats (Rats)

How to play this bunch of cards

Starting hand: you CANNOT keep a hand with less than 2 removals. It is not really difficult to have 2 removals, since we are playing 15 cards (Doa, Sac, CdtA, SG, Rats) that are actual removals.

Resource: there are of course some cards that if you have in hand at the beginning you can resource without problems. All the 4-cost cards (Ravager, Deep One rising), UR, probably gathering. DON'T waste a neutral card as a resource in the starting resource-phase. You MUST have 3 domains with 3 coloured cards attached.

After this, in the following 3 turns the best situation possible is 3-2-1 (you can arrive to this situation in two ways: 2-1-1 --> 3-1-1 --> 3-2-1 or 2-1-1 --> 2-2-1 --> 3-2-1). Maybe it sounds stupid to say, but it is really important to decide which of the two ways you take: it depends of course on the cards you have in hand. In some situations, use the Eibon as a resource to play a 3-cost card in turn-2 can be useful but I've done this ONLY to play another Eibon.

You should place the fourth resource in the domain only in the moment you are sure you want to play a 4-cost card.

If you arrive at the late-game, you may want to put a third resource in the 2-resource domain, to be able to play 2 Eibon (or Eibon + Doppleganger copying Eibon) in the same turn.

Play-style: this is not a fast deck. Usually, since you are lacking Investigation icons, you need to go to story 3 times in order to win it. Keep your characters in defense at the beginning and go to stories only if you can ready the characters thanks to the Arcane struggle. Don't win the story if this means that you run out of success tokens: you should use success tokens to put into play or into hand Eibon, so you can defend the stories more effectively. In the moment you can play (with the domain) an Eibon, you should have a good board position that allow you to win without too many problems.

The Eibon is basically your main win condition, in association with the Doppleganger: the last one can give you more Eibon than the opponent so a better board. Doppleganger on eibon was the main play of the day with this card. I think I copied a different character only once or twice (a deep One Rising and a character with an investigation icon).

Remember to use the Dreamlands Fanatic response! I've never paid (and I've never resourced) this character: I play so many removals that it enters into play always for free, and a free character is always good!

Cards excluded/Explanation of some cards:

There are probably some cards that seem powerful and could be useful in the deck. I try to make a list and explain why I didn't put them in the deck.

- Twilight gate: seems the perfect card. You can resource a ravager and use it with a bit of surprise. It is true, and it can be powerful, but the real problem, for me, is that it requires to arrive in the mid-game to be used. And, first of all, I need to arrive to the midgame Probably, I could replace the UR with Twilight Gate (almost never used during the weekend).

- Keeper of the Golden path: is a good and cheap character. It could be probably replaced with the full-set of Degenerate Serpent Cultist + 1 Deep One Rising. I need to test this option. I was using 2 Deep One Rising + 1 DSC because I wanted to decrease a bit the number of 4-cost characters.

- Speak to the dead: I tried it, but here it is too slow and never effective. Gathering at the stones is better because at turn 2 you can do Gathering + A single glimpse

- SoN: as soon as Yog will get another 2-cost character, with 2 icons and 2 skill that is doing something, I'll probably replace it. But for now, the ability to provide a terror and a skull is important.

How to solve some problems of the deck:

If your opponent is playing ancient ones/shub you will probably lose the game. You are not fast enough to win before they arrive (especially if they are put into play using Things on the ground...) and you don't have answer to them. It is maybe possible, anyway, to find a way to deal with them like Called by Azathoth (blank Y-golonac and wound him) but probably it is not enough. To deal with high-skill characters probably it would be possible to play Pulled Under: it is a bit slow, but we have enough characters to play it (BoY, KotGP). Need to be tested.

After this (I hope useful) introduction, we can go the real report!


Friday:

Marius and me (after some troubles) leave Amsterdam around 15.00, to go to Stahleck: the hope is that we can still arrive in time for the Friday evening tournament. Unfortunately, a lot of works are going on in the german highways and we arrive at the castle a bit too late. No tournament for us! Anyway, this bad luck, gives me the opportunity to buy the last AP I'm missing: this is very important, because I find out that a new amazing Yog card is out: Doppleganger! I immediately see the opportunity to make a good change in my decklist (I'll be playing for all the tournaments the same deck: Yog-Cthulhu). After the change, I meet Michele (a nice Italian guy coming from Parma) and we play a couple of games: he is using a Mi-Go deck, and I immediately see that this kind of deck can cause me problems: high-cost characters (DoA not effective), high-skill (Calling down the ancients and rats useless), a lot of toughness (Sacrificial Offerings useless). I see the problems, but there is really nothing I can do (I should change the deck to beat this type of combination ). The only way to win is: kill the Priestess of Bubastis (less acceleration), kill the small Mi-Go, and try to rush (Hopefully with an Eibon). It requires a bit too much luck, but you can do it!


After a couple of games I visit the artist table: here I meet Tiziano, very nice and polite guy that is selling some prints. I look at the 4 prints available (Drunken allucination, Behind bars, Dangerous Inmate and the new italian-politician-like-image) and decide to buy 3 of them. And he will be so polite to sign a whole bunch of cards I have with me (I have now 9 behind bars signed...tournament prizes!).

Saturday:

In the morning, after the breakfast, the CoC-nation cup starts. There are four teams: Italy (I'm, obviously, in this one), Germany, Netherland and Belgium. Since we hadn't the time to prepare properly the deck following the rules made by Thorondor we decide to keep it simple: each team has 3 deck, each faction cannot be present more than once. For each game, you need to change the deck you are playing. Each round consists of 2 games. In this way, you play all the team-decks.

The pairings are the following:

Game 1:
- Player 1 vs Player 1 (captains of the team)
- Player 2 vs Player 2
- Player 3 vs Player 3

Game 2:
-Player 1 vs Player 3
-Player 2 vs Player 1
-Player 3 vs Player 2

After the round, you determine the new internal ranking in the team, (5 points if you win the game, 3 points if you win more stories than the opponent but not 3, 1 point for a draw, 0 for a loss).

The Italian team was playing: Ivan (Agency/Hastur), Michele (Mi-Go deck, mono-shub) and me (Yog/cthulhu).

I don't remember all the opponent (too many and too different decks) but I won all the games where I was playing my deck, and if I remember correctly when Ivan and Michele were playing my deck they lost only once. So, the deck seemed to be quite good even in an unknown field, with many kinds of deck and even piloted from a different player.

We won this tournament, at the end, and it was a good start!

In the evening the tournament is a bit delayed because we are waiting for a couple of players (Thorondor and Pablo) that were playing in the AgoT LCG-tournament. Around 21.00, finally, the tournament start: unfortunately, it has been decided not to play the top-4; so, only swiss-tournament and the ranking at the end of the 4 turns will determine the winner. I think that Thorondor took this decision because he didn't want to split the tournament in 2 days: last year we did like this and I was playing the final against Graham with basically nobody around, just some Cthulhu players; so the "prize-ceremony" wasn't really a celebration of Graham's victory.

On the other side, this means that in order to win the tournament you really need to win every single match!

Please, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think I rememebr every match correctly!

Round 1: Fred from Belgium.

Most of the players changed the deck from the nation-cup, so I don't know what he is playing. I win the dice roll and decide to start. I keep an hand with two removals and 2 dreamlands fanatic: whatever he is playing, this means that I have the possibility to stop a starting rush quite effectively. From the resources I see Syndacate and hastur (if I remember correctly). This means rush deck and skill reduction: ok, the hand is good. I resource and pass the turn without playing any character, even if I have in hand a Brood of Yig because one of my removals is Sacrificial Offering and I want the possibility to play it without losing any character. (Moreover: a turn-1 character cannot commit, so if you have removals it's better to leave the domain open to use it in the opponent turn and then, with the clean board, put the character, commit it and gain 2 tokens).

He plays a couple of characters (no birds luckily) and I use my removals as planned. Dreamlands fanatic into play. In my turn, I play a third character and go for the 3 stories. He plays other characters and kill one of mine with tear gas and a skill reducer character, another with rats. The problem is that I keep drawing removals and I can defend the stories in a good way with a couple of characters: then, Eibon arrives with a Doppleganger and this closes the match.

Round 2: Gijs from Holland.

I don't remember a lot of this match: he is a new player of the game, lacking some cards, so the deck is not at the maximum power level possible. I win quite fast, thanks to a couple fo Eibon.

Round 3: Pablo, from Spain.

He plays a mono-hastur deck. He tells me he is a beginner but actually he is a pretty good player: I have some difficulties with a couple of characters with high skill and cost that he puts into play, and I don't find any Eibon to try to close the game. What saves me is that he is not playing Agency (no removals) so my characters usually stay in play (he bounce back to my hand and steal a couple of characters, but nothing more). I have the time to arrive to a domain with 4 recource, play Sacrificial offering + Deep One Rising to clear the board and then sweep for the win.

Round 4: Ivan, from Italy.

This is, more or less, the final: we won the 3 previous games and the winner will be the tournament's winner. I know that he plays Hastur/agency and I will need extra-luck to win the match if he starts too fast; moreover, he wins the dice-roll. Ok, let's try it! He shows me immediately why hat deck is really powerful: on turn 1, 3 magah birds + 1 dog + 1 Government Exorcist appear on the table.

But I was extremely luck: I drew a hand with 3 removals + 1 Dreamlands fanatic. I resource with no doubts the other 3 cards (2 characters and 1 Gathering at the stones).

So, I respond, in his turn, with DoA on the dog + Sac Offering on the Exorcist, triggering 1 dreamland fanatic on the Sac Offering. On turn 2, I use a second DoA + Single Glimpse. I go to the story (he doesn't commit) and put 2 tokens.

On his second turn another swarm of characters arrive: another dog + something else. He commits and put some tokens.

The situation here was still on equilibrium: I'm lucky, and I keep drawing at least 1 removal per turn, using it. In the meantime, I can even resource. I have zero cards in hand, with a couple of characters on the table and few tokens (at least 6) on the stories.

Now is where the real luck pushes me towards the victory: I draw an eibon and play it. He shot him, but in his turn I spend 4 tokens to put it into play and try to resist to his attack. On the next turn I play again Eibon and I can go with him to a story, gaining 3 tokens. He plays an Eibon too and the situation is back to perfect parity. (more or less we keep destroying one character per turn each other). I manage to win because I draw, in 2 turns, another Eibon and a Doppleganger on Eibon. With this amount of huge characters on my side I manage to commit to stories and win!

YEAH!!!

The last match was, with no doubts, the most challenging one: the deck I was facing was clearly on a superior strength level and the player was really good. I have been lucky in my opening hand but he was too (5 characters on turn 1!); the deck did what it was designed for: remove (almost) everything that touches the table.

The Hastur/Agency is for sure a good deck, but it is even true that he doesn't have so many ways to deal with terror (ok, willpower characters, ok Government exorcist prevent commitment...but you have to draw them and they have to survive...you are alwasy playing with an opponent on the other side of the table!).

It is even true that the version Ivan was playing was (maybe) not the most "dangerous": he didn't play Endless interrogation. But, even if he was playing, it would have been useless, since I emptied my hand in the first turn, and then I was always playing all the cards I was drawing. 70 steps wouldn't have been a problem too (DoA).

The only big problem I see with that deck is Maga Birds. This give you an advantage on turn1 that is really huge.

Anyway, this ends the day, with me as the new CoC-LCG european champion (sorry, I'm still happy for this achievement )!

BTW, when I go in the room where they are playing the final of the AgoT tournament I'm able to see that another italian is winning! (Italy rules quite a lot this year in Stahleck!).

Sunday:

In the morning the prize-distribution takes place: at the end, Thorondor will give a lot of prizes for everyone...great prize support as always for Stahleck! I will go home with:
- Original drawing made in team by the 3 artists that were at the event!
- Agency stone-domain markers (I was hoping for the white-hastur but there were no more, sigh!).
- CoC playmate
- Cthulhu mug, to drink your part of madness every day!
- Yithian deck as winner of the Nation-cup

And, for everyone, some promos from the old-ccg-days and prints of cards!

After this, since we have still time to stay in the Castle, we organize a draft (2 Eldricht Edition, 2 masks, 1 forgotten cities, if I'm not wrong) where I manage to lose all the games, just to confirm that as draft-player I suck

Finally, in the afternoon, we say goodbye to everyone and leave the Castle to Amsterdam; with the promise to meet in 3 weeks in Liege for another Cthulhu events

Finally the prop and slop section (meaning: good and bad things).

Prop:

- To Thorondor for the huge efforts he puts in organize every year this event! keep going like this, please!
- To all the players I've met during the weekend, because without you, guys, the event couldn't be so great! (yes, even the funny guy )
- To the luck that was with me in the last game in particular!

Slop:

- To the endless traffic jam we were stuck in, in the way back to Amsterdam!!!

And if you have read everything....THANKS

Konx.

Congratulations, Francesco. Nice to see the hastur/agency dominance overturned even if only one person showed up with that deck (Ivan?).

I raise my hat to the gang who did NOT bring Agency/Hastur! Thanks Europe! Very classy of you.

That's a great write-up. Thanks for all the game-details. Your deck concept plays similiar to a Yog - Cthulhu deck I had been playing against my friend for several weeks, though I recently changed it to Cthulhu - Hastur - for a more varied experience (I find I can only play the same deck so long, before I want to modify it a bit to change the way it plays).

You are right, too, in that lots of killing abilities, especially those that don't require you to be Refreshed when you enter play (like DOR or Sewer Rats) are what is needed to stop Steps Lock from smashing you. When the Magah's come out, if you Sac-Offerings one of them at the end of your opponents turn....then play a Sewer Rats on your turn, killing a second one...they are immediately on their heels. They can score 2-success tokens at ONE story....and not 6 (total) at 3-stories now (since you killed 2 of their 3 birds).

Turn-2...maybe you have drawn a DOA - and can target and destroy the Steps ? - or put a cultist or something else into play in the meantime - and maybe you drew a Calling Down the Ancients by now - to finish off the last Bird. Basically, I have observed that if you can "stall" the Steps Decks out for 2-3 turns...you have a huge chance of turning the game around, because they only win based on speed - getting tons of tokens before you can get any viable defense up.

In the games me and my friend have played - where he uses a recently built Steps-hybrid deck....what we concluded was "it's not the Birds themselves...its the Birds + the Steps....that makes the deck "Broken" or "Overpowered".

It's the ability to pay 1 and put out THREE things....even with no icons....since they effectively are 3-skill for 1-cost.

My buddy pointed out that if Birds were a "combined card" with 1-Cost (Hastur) - No Icons - 3-Skill and the keyword "Fast" - he would DEFINITELY include it in his decks, since - if nothing else, it's 3-Skill for 1-cost, which is a huge bargain in the usual economy of this game and how much cards are costed, relative to their skill, etc. Throw in "Fast" and it's a further bargain.

When you consider they (as they actually are) - give you THREE characters (keys to winning the game) for just 1-cost...that's where they are too powerful (though not broken - without the accompanying Steps, of course).

Simply put, FFG should ensure other factions have similiar early-game cheap "Multi-characters for just 1-cost" type things...to counter Birds....because as they currently exist, they have a huge speed / efficiency advantage over all the other factions in the early game.

Konx, your post is my favorite of the last six months ! Thanks for taking the time to write it all up (in English) and post it.

And, Congratulations !!

Chick

Grat's Francesco.

I must say that my game against you was so quick that I didn't even realize what was happening...

But I appreciated more the second game we did (just for fun) in which, whith the same decks, I won 3-0... or was it 3-1.

When My skill reduction mechanics start to work, it's also a nice removal system...

See you in 3 weeks in Liège. We will propose our golem, B_P, to fight against you...

Fred

Congratulation for your well deserved win, Francesco. I liked your aggressive playing style even with Eibon, and equally appreciated your good advice. Hope to have a chance to play again soon, and it would be better on your side in another nation's cup.

ciao

Thank you most kindly for that report. Excellent writing.

Closest I've been to Europe since report of the previous Stahleck tournament.

How could one not be an excellent player after attending a grand cthulhu event such as the castle.

You include so many elements. Determining the champ in one day sounds good. Illustrator autographed cards are indeed great prize support.

I agree with the professor, who is excellent. Agency / Hastur has peaked and met its match. Those still are classic cards that fulfill much of that winning deck. Yog has proven top flight, if not top, for a couple tournaments this year. Otherwise, Descendant of Eibon remains from the steroid era of LCG cthulhu. Brand new cards, Doppleganger, being key is a sweet part of the living game.

Yog-thulhu destructo deck is one of my favorites so props for that!

Not to totally play the part of Hastur's advocate but... the field in this tournament harldy proves this archtype sufficiently deals with the word championship fiasco well enough to end the tierney of bird-steps-interrogation-etc. How many players were at this event? Only 1 of the feared Hastur/Agency deck in the field... Was this played by a top tier player or a net-decker? I would like to see the deck list for blue/yellow. Also, while the 5th place deck looks fun, it is a "fun" deck so the gauntlet does not seem all that solid from a playtest perspective. Before we start celebrating the end of a dominant deck we need to look at all the facts.

RANT POINT: The powers that be at FFG need to be held to a higher critical standard. With nothing to prove otherwise from the tournament data they still need to deal with certain problem cards.

Thanks all of you for your compliments, first of all

Now, a few answers:

Tokhuah:

the field in this tournament harldy proves this archtype sufficiently deals with the word championship fiasco well enough to end the tierney of bird-steps-interrogation-etc

I'm definitely not claiming that the end of the Hastur/Agency deck is here. The deck is still (and probably it will be still for a long time) the best one to play and the strongest deck you can face. BUT I want to point out that there are some cards combination out there that CAN beat the deck (just hope that FFG will not give other powerful cards to the archetype) quite in a consistent way. Now, I don't really know the matchup statistics, but I think that considering equal skill-player and luck, I'm quite close to win at least half of the games with my deck. Unfortunately I don't have a constant playtest group so I cannot run an extensive playtest and be more specific.

There was only 1 player with Hastur/Agency and in total we were 16 players at the LCG-tournament.

Johnny:

Descendant of Eibon remains from the steroid era of LCG cthulhu.

I think that Eibon is one of those cards that is already a staple of the game. You can fit it in almost any deck without problems, and it gives you a good character with good skill-icon-ability. On the other hand, I hope that such characters, now that we have a new faction and hopefully less neutral cards, will be distributed in one specific faction. I hate the powerful neutral cards because they just waste one of the most important aspect of the game: the choice of the factions to play (including then the "how to resource" phase, one of the most complicated in the game in my opinion).

Just a small add to the main report: during the 3 days I played a lot of games with the same deck against other decks, and I managed to win almost all of them. As I said, this version suffer in particular high-cost-and-high-skill characters and the toughness. So, it is definitely not a Tier1 deck, in my opinion. It can be good if not expected and if nobody is playing shub or cthulhu.

Moreover, my prediction for the future is that the Thing in the ground deck has the potential to become a really good deck, even a real Tier1 deck: the new Yog and Cthulhu, with Y-golonac and the right combination of cards make this deck potentially a blast. The museum curator is a huge card and it is the main reason to play Miskatonic in that deck.

See you in Liege, probably with a new deck if I have time to build it and at least do a couple of goldfish match

Konx.

Konx,

thanks for the detailed report in English and your point of view of the event. With the report written by FredhoT in French, it is an exellent complement.

I will supply as soon as I can more factual data to complement both reports, like the detailed results of the Nations Cup (factions played, detailed rounds etc) which was for me an excellent tournament format : both fun and a bit competitive.

About the decklists : beside your list , I gave all the lists of the individual LCG tourney to Thorondor. He will certainly post something in a few days, we just need to wait a bit...

Thanks for the great report and again congratulations for deservedly winning the Championship, Konx!

This had been my first CoC tournament ever (I'm not really being a competitive player in the first place) and I was pleasantly surprised by the great variety of decks. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to play against such excellent players, even though I didn't stand a chance against them, of course!

I was especially pleased to see that there are still many ways to win against the Hastur/Agency without relying on the same factions. Since Ivan played the same deck in Multiplayer and Nations Cup, I got plenty of opportunities to see it in action. It might still be the strongest deck, but it's not unbeatable.

I was particularly intrigued by the crazy deck Max was playing. Kudos! It certainly inspired me to look for new ways to use certain cards and combos.

So, thanks to Thorondor for organizing the event and talking me into going to Stahleck and thanks to all the CoC players that participated!

Sure enough, Agecy/Hastur is by far the strongest, more reliable and solid deck out there. But Yog is coming out strong, when mixed in any deck.

Dare wounding my character and then we will talk about the lot of your birds, cats ,dogs and rats.

Heart-felt congratulations, Francesco!

Having the opportunity of talking with you was a real pleasure, hopefully to be repeated next year. Glad to have been there and to have had the pleasure to share three very exciting days with the CoC and AGOT communities.

Hi there , long time passed by the Genoa tournament when you played with my deck.

Good to see Italians at the top. Too sad playing with Eibons.

We hope to see you very soon

May be in Liegi

Cultisti do Zena

phantomsurfer said:

Hi Phantom!

Long time, indeed Sorry for the Eibon, but unfortunately I needed a good character to close fast the match, if necessary ^^ (anyway, I wasn't playing dogs or the two-infamous-factions, so I think I'm partially excused ).

I really hope to see you guys in Liege!

Konx.

Tiziano said:

Thanks again to you, Tiziano!

I really hope to see you again in Stahleck next year, maybe even as a player

ciao!

Francesco.

Hurray for our new european Champion !

SO sad I cannot reach Stahleck this year ( I would have love to see how the Nation-Cup was handled).

This is great to see the way you build your deck and the work you did. Can't way to see you in Liège and I hope we may have a match together !!

Prodigee

Hi Konx,

I don't remember much of that second game either.

I blame it on the Beer

Gr Gijs

Great report, and congratulations on those amazing prizes! I tip my hat to your amazing deck.