Hello all....I'm kind of goofing around with the concept of a Mi-Go deck - just for fun mostly...but what I've come up with tends to get handled pretty easily by all my other decks (Pure Agency, Cthulhu-Hastur, Shub-Ghouls-Night, Pure Yog-Sothoth).

It may be that too many of my "good cards" for Shub are tied up in the Ghouls deck....so this might be a problem right away....but what I notice with the little fungoid Mi-Go's is that they aren't very "punchy" - and capable in fighting....even when several of them are out. In particular, they have a HUGE weakness to Terror, since none of them have Willpower (not even Mi-Go Commander) - and none of them (released so far, that I can tell) have any Terror icons. The Cthulhu-Hastur deck played them today (solo testing games) ...and just destroyed them with a simple Lord of Silver Twilight Turn-1 pretty much locking them down until they had enough guys to actually win a combat step....this took an Ageless Mi-Go coming out and being given Alhazred Lamp to at least give him 1-Terror and 1-Combat....sad, I know.

None of that mattered though, when the Cthulhu-Hastur's paid 3 to deploy the dreaded Terror of the Tides, along with the Lord of Twilight and a Seeker of Mysteries as a blocking force against the beefed up Ageless Mi-Go and an accompanying Mi-Go Surgeon (IIRC).

One Mi-Go went insane (Surgeon) and Ageless took a Wound (lost Combat easily against Terror of the Tides), lost Arcane, got 1-token for Investigation, and then lost Skill as well.

After that it was pretty easy to continue to steamroll them, as none of the Mi-Go cards have any "direct damage" or "direct removal" of any sort. There is no "Mi-Go Blaster Cannon" - Support - Attach to a Mi-Go character. Pay-2 and Exhaust Mi-Go Blaster Cannon and the character to which it is attached to choose and wound a character."

Even something simple like that would be helpful to them....but they seem to have no such things to turn to. Maybe I've just failed to construct them properly (note that I did say many of my "best" cards are tied up in the other Shub Ghoul deck at the moment....or maybe Syndicate is not a good pairing for them ?).

Thoughts // Ideas ?

Rosh87 said:

Well, since you already identified the Mi-Go weakness (no terror icons), it shouldn't be too difficult to find something to help them in that regard. The simplest help comes in the shape of the 'Mi-Go Scalpel' (YC 56), which is incredibly versatile and shouldn't be amiss in any Mi-Go deck.

'The Vale of Pnath' (Dreamlands 74) is also a useful, versatile card to have, though being a Location it's easily destroyed.

From the Core Set 'Horrid Mutation', 'Regeneration', and (to a lesser degree) 'Bred To Survive' are good defensive cards.

After taking some losses, simply return any Mi-Go characters with the 'Mi-Go Dreams'.

Then of course, I wouldn't use only Mi-Go characters. They synergize well with some of the Dark Young, and what would a Shub deck be without the almighty Y'Golonac?

Having said all that, I too, found it easier to put together a working Shub deck concentrating on Monsters than on Mi-Go. But once a Mi-Go deck gets rolling, it's very difficult to stop unless your opponent has ways to clean the slate and destroy them all in one fell swoop.

Maybe that's what I mean ...they aren't viable "on their own". It's clear to me that Mi-Go are sort of meant to be like the Slivers (my favorite MtG race !) from the Magic game. In the case of MtG ...you could easily make a deck - ONLY consisting of Slivers....and be fine. I remember (vaguely) some like Muscle Sliver, Winged Sliver, Crystalline Sliver (A++), and several others that were fun to play with, and quite powerful - as they granted strong benefits to all the other Slivers....and you were generally "covered" in all areas of combat, if you got a few out.

I don't feel that way at all, where the Mi-Go are concerned. They lack Terror...they have relatively crappy Combat (exception Mi-Go Guard - but he's just one character // Mi-Go Commander - but he costs 4 to put out).....and they all cost 2-3 ....there are no "cheap-o" Mi-Go for 1 ...and only a few for the 2-cost I just noted. Most cost 3 or 4, in the case of the Commander.

Thus a deck with - JUST - Mi-Go characters (which I tried to do, having a full 3-of each of them) will yield you a total of 21-Characters (there are, currently, seven Mi-Go characters in the game)....so you do still need to fill in a few extra ones to get to the 28-30 Character threshold most decks seem to have and recommend (if going for a 50-card minimum deck).

It seems like they struggle because they only are "useful" en masse....and they have no reliable way to stop Removal effects.

What faction do they combo the best with ?

I played a "Mi-go" deck at Stahlech Nation Tounament this year and it didn't do bad at all. I won 2 out of 3 games I played with that deck, even with strong bi faction decks.I followed these few basic principles in playing the deck:

1 Look in your starting deck for Princess of Bubakis. She is the one that can really speed up deployment.

2 Be very cautious in first rounds in order to build up strenght.

3 Try to play first anything that gives you some toughtness like Ageless Mi- go's and Regeneration.

As jhaelen said ... play Y'golonac and all the rest of cards he suggested.

Thank you for the comments - I guess what I meant originally - and what (from your comments) seems to be the case - that they are not viable SOLO - as the only (or major) characters in a deck....they still need "help" from things like Y'Gol and Priestess, etc. - because they just don't have enough "good Mi-Go" characters to allow you to play a "pure Mi-Go" deck.

Maybe if they get a Skill-1, Cost-2, No-Icons - "Mi-Go Energizer" or whatever they might call it, which has "The cost to play all Mi-Go is reduced by -1, to a minimum of 1" - or something like that. ....they might be a bit more viable "solo".

Hi guys , just a quick question about mi-go's. I seem to have a few since they came in the SoA , but anyways my question goes to the usual effect as " all migo characters gain ect" , does it include the card it self or should it really read OTHER migo characters gain X icon or something.

thanks.

Play as written. ALL mi-go gain, including the one with the text.

You can always run 3x Tcho-Tcho Talisman for some protection against Terror. There is a new Mi-Go now with 2 Terror Icons, the Mi-Go Observer. All of the above comments are valid and useful, too.

One of my recent deck ideas featured lots of Mi-Go, too:

It's centered on the 'Dreamlands Messenger''s ability:

While Dreamlands Messenger is committed to a story, each player cannot play events or trigger card abilities.

Now combine it with the new 'Voice of the Jungle':

www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/coc/news/ancient-relics/the-breathing-jungle/voice-of-the-jungle.png

And voila! you have a deck that relies only on passive effects, while your opponent is unable to play any events or use character abilities!

As a side benefit it also removes disadvantages of otherwise great cards like the 'Dhole Ant Lion':

Toughness +5 . Dhole Ant-Lion does not exhaust to commit to story cards if it has no wounds.
Forced Response : At the end of each story phase, sacrifice 1 character you control or wound Dhole Ant-Lion.

The ant lion keeps the passive effect, but the Forced Response cannot trigger - fun!

The main problem Mi-Go have is that they are basically a ready made decktype/strategy created by FFG. Just pile in all of the cards that refer to them and you got yourself a functioning deck. With this in mind, FFG can never created cards that would make 100% Mi-Go strategies top-tier, as that would hurt the enviroment and lead to the situation Magic has struggled with (WotC is making our decks for us!). Mi-Go's are also rather simple, so there is very little chance to break them with some bizarre combo.

But on the other hand, as a support rather than main focus Mi-Go are seriously awesome, as they can be easily tailored to suit your decks needs. Also when the Mi-Go swarm really starts to roll, there's very little that can stop it apart from huge mass destruction. Personally i have been thinking of some type of shub/Miska or Shub/Yog deck that uses Mi-Go's as a kind of toolbox capable of adapting to any situation. This would be achieved with Shock and other similar effects. Of course, this deck would also need Mi-Go's that have ComesIntoPlay or Sac abilities for various situations, which don't exist yet. Of course some effect that gives subtypes could do the same thing but maybe too complex.....

There are some Mi-Go characters that are just awesome on their own. Like Harvesting Mi-Go is one of my favorite Shub Characters. You sac something for Schocking Transformation anyway. So why not use that saced character to build up a domain faster?

I think the problem comes from insisting that literally every single character must be a Mi-Go. Personally, I would consider a deck where the vast majority of character are Mi-Go to qualify for the term "Mi-Go Deck". Fantasy Flight isn't going to duplicate every basic character in Mi-Go form just so you can play a 100% pure Mi-Go Deck. If they did that they'd have to do it for a all the subthemes, wouldn't they? We'd have Priestess of Bubastis, Priestess of Mi-gostis, Priestess of Dark Youngtis, etc...

If you just accept that it's OK to have some basic toolbox characters there supporting the Mi-Go (or whatever your theme is) then the problem shrinks tremendously. I don't know whether a mostly Mi-Go deck works well or not, I haven't tried it. But you'll get a lot further if you're willing to take a few things that support them well even if they aren't Mi-Go themselves.

Also, there are more Mi-Go now than when this thread was started, it probably IS pretty viable (if not top-level competitive) to make a Mi-Go deck these days.

They seem to be able to stack up a tremendous amount of icons by cross-buffing each other, I think you may need to treat it as a slower deck that has to build up a bit of a character pool before they can really start dominating. Do what you can to stave off the early rush, bring some accelerators to help get them rolling, and once you've got that pool of Mi-Go then you can shed the crutches because at that point even the weakest Mi-Go is probably being granted a pile of extra icons by his buddies.

Well yeah, that's my point, Mi-Go can't function on a tournament level if you play a full Mi-Go deck, but can be very effective if you mix in some other characters or use them as a character base for other strategies. On a more casual play situation they are great and my old Mi-Go deck was easily able to beat pretty much any other of my early mono-faction testdecks with a fast start, even the more cutthroat ones.

But, what i'm hoping for is more Mi-Go that work like Harvesting Mi-Go and have abilities that do other things also apart from just giving more icons and skill. Here's an example of a Mi-Go character type that would be cool to see more of:

Mi-go Destroyer
Cost: 3
Icons: C
Skill: 2
Response: When Mi-Go Destroyer comes into play, you may destroy a support card with cost equal or less than the number of Mi-Go's your control.

Cost/Skills/Icons might be way off, but you get the point
This character template could be also used for different effects also.

Now, with a right selection of those, some basic Mi-Go's and good events, you could have an effective deck, and of there were enough characters in the card pool, this type of deck could be tuned to fullfill a specific strategy easily without being too powerful, as few dead Mi-Go's could shut it down completely.

I like the idea of basing his power on the number of Mi-Go's in play, as this allows you to give them some pretty good abilities that really only benefit a Mi-Go deck so you can balance them within a very rigidly defined space. There's no chance of accidentally creating some nasty combo that will get him sprinkled into other decks so long as there isn't a card that can grant all your characters the Mi-Go keyword at once.

Yeah, and he brings into game new hard decisions for the player to make. How many characters should i commit each turn and how big risks i can take so that i don't drop below the effective Mi-Go threshold. And this also applies to the opponent as now he has to constantly consider which one of the Mi-Go's is the biggest threat, and with the explosive nature of the Mi-Go expansion, you really have to be careful not to make any wrong kills.

jhaelen said:

This doesn't work, sad to say, because it is a brilliant idea. Forced Responses are not effects players trigger, they are effects the game triggers. For all intents and purposes they are triggered "passive" effects. It would have to read "While Dreamlands Messenger is committed to a story, each player cannot play events and card abilities cannot trigger."

I've been playing a 100% Mi-Go deck for a few months now and it's been surprisingly effective. Granted, it does include a few CCG-era cards, but I'm looking to swap those once I pick up more Asylum Packs. I plan on adding Inter-Dimensional Transporter, Harvesting Mi-Go and Mi-Go Observer soon (I would also use Mi-Go Dreams but I'm waiting for the Dreamlands cycle to be reprinted in the 60-card format).

I built this deck because the Mi-Go are my favorite Cthulhu critters, not because I thought it would make for a great deck. As most players here would agree, I didn't expect it to be viable in play, but I was wrong. It's won every time I've used it save once vs my main opponent's new mono-Hastur deck, and even that game was extremely close - I ran out of cards on the Terror struggle while I would've won the game during the Investigation struggle on the same story. I don't think it gets much closer than that!

The cons are obvious and have already been stated - little to no defense against the terror struggle (especially multiple terror struggles or triggered effects that make your characters go insane) and a lack of 1-cost characters. I'll also throw in weak Support card removal, though that could be my inexperience with the game.

The pros? I'll disagree that they don't do well in the combat phase. The Mi-Go Guard is no slouch and can be a real headache for your opponent. You can rack up a daunting number of C icons quite fast. The same goes for Investigation. I also find that The Second Dragon story card is a great boon to a Mi-Go deck. Finally, the Mi-Go characters are completely generic and interchangeable, which means you can sacrifice them to Terror or Combat without losing any key elements. This is critical to their success.

Here's the deck I've been using. I'm sure the pros on this board could tear it apart, but it's been doing well with the people I play against:

CHARACTERS (26)
x3 Ageless Mi-Go
x3 Mi-Go Caretaker
x3 Mi-Go Commander
x3 Mi-Go Explorer (CCG)
x3 Mi-Go Guard
x3 Mi-Go Scout
x3 Mi-Go Surgeon
x3 Mi-Go Worker (CCG)
x2 Mi-Go Warrior

EVENTS (18)
x3 Bred to Survive
x3 Burrowing Beneath
x3 Crackdown! (CCG)
x3 Examining the Optic Nerve
x3 Horrid Mutation
x3 Regeneration

SUPPORT (6)
x3 Ghoul Taint
x3 Mi-Go Scalpel

50 cards

After playing it for a while now, I would take out Mi-Go Warrior, Examining the Optic Nerve, Ghoul Taint, and Mi-Go Explorer (I only included most of those because they are "Mi-Go" flavored cards).

Have fun!

Penfold said:

Your thinking usually matches Damons rulings, so I'm inclined to think you may be right. Unless I've overlooked something, the rules are actually silent on the issue, though. They neither state that Forced Responses are triggered by players nor that they are triggered by 'the game'.

I'll copy a thread of Dadajeff from the cenacle

1) "A Forced Response is an action that a player must trigger when its circumstances apply". (the game doens't trigger the effect. The player triggers the effect because an occurence in the game says he must do it !)

2) "Triggered Ability : A triggered ability is any triggered effect caused by a card already in play." and "A triggered effect is any effect with preceded by the following text in bold: Action, Disrupt, Response, or Forced Response."
Dreamland says "each player cannot play events or trigger card abilities." Forced Response is a triggered ability so you can't trigger it.

So, Dreamland messenger can block forced responses like the one from Norm Grzbowsky

•Norm Grzbowski, Football Coach
[Miskatonic University] Ancient Horrors F5 / Illustrateur : Carlo Bocchio
[Character] - Faculty.
Coût : 3 / Skill : 3 / Icones : CC
Descriptif : Toughness +1. Forced Response: After all players have committed characters to stories, you immediately win any story where you have 11 characters committed if your opponent does not have 11 characters committed to that same story.

But, I'm sure dreamland messenger don't block the forced response of dhole ant lion.

At the end of the story phase, characters are uncommited from stories. it's a "green box" rulebook page 13. During green boxes, players must resolve forced responses. So, for me, dreamland mesenger is uncommited during this geen box (here, the lock of the drealand messenger falls) and then, at the end of the story phase, the player has to play the forced response.

We can trace these elements that B_P shared to the actual rules.

The Rule Book is where we find: A Forced Response is an action that a player must trigger when its circumstances require.

So by the rule book, Dreamlands Messenger would stop Forced Responses , because a player has to trigger it.

And, B_P, the logic was that if Dreamlands Messenger could not uncommit (e.g. Voice of the Jungle) then his ability would persist even after the story phase.

Oh, but of course, to make it more complicated, FAQ 2.01 tells us that

Responses are not actions ...

Conversely, the Rule Book tells us

A Response is an action...

TheProfessor said:

Now that should make everything clear!

Hm, I'd send it to Damon. In their other games a player action is something they choose to trigger. Forced effects are effects the game is forcing to be triggered, therefor not choices, and therefor immune to DM. Maybe it doesn't work the same here.

The issue of whether Dreamlands Messenger stops Forced Responses just came in game that I played. Is there a definitive answer as to whether he does?

from the rulebook.

TIMING RULES

a forced response is an action that a player must trigger when its circumstances apply

DETAILED TURN SEQUENCE

a triggered effect is any effect with preceded by the following text in bold: action , disrupt , response , or forced response

i researched this to post the DREAMLANDS MESSENGER thread from last week.