Is the Silver Twilight expansion worthwhile? I've googled about but cannot find out if Fantasy Flight have been adding cards to the faction after first releasing it. If they aren't, then won't it be a bit second rate with all of the other factions having a much bigger pool of cards to draw from?

Well, since it is not yet released, that probably answers part of your question.

FG announced really recently that the next cycle of asylum packs will have silver twilight cards in all of the normal neutral slots, so the twilight can do some serious catching up in the next seven months or so.

The Silver Twilight Expansion will be the infusion for that faction. It won't after be very far behind. It's LCG.

Yup, currently on average every faction has about 67 cards - about double that is neutral. The Silver Twilight expansion will have, what?, 50 cards?

Assuming that the next set includes another 13 cards for each of the old factions, this leaves room for 30 new cards for Silver Twilight. I.e. all factions will end up with about 80 cards.

Offhand, does anyone have any general theories as to what other Factions these guys would combo well with ? Do you think they will be set up (mechanics-wise) to be able to work with every faction equally ? (as Neutrals can, in theory) .... ?

chicklewis said:

Lol, yeah, that does clear things up somewhat.

Thanks )

So far the card spoiled have been a bit underwhelming...

The RPG side of me wants to wage war against this faction from two sides. My Syndicate side wants to smack 'em down for messin' with a good thing. My Yog side wants to engulf them in misery for daring to think they have any significance from the perspective of those things that writhe beyond the stars...

Looks bad when compared to say Unspeakable Transformation from Shub, which gives you another character's icons without sacrifice (though has a cost limit on which char you can use it on).

Take a look at Expulsion from the Order, then see:

...then look at cards like Nathaniel Peaslee and/or Living Mummy and well... At least there is potential in there somewhere. Lots of codependency, but potential.

Ritual of the Lance seems like the biggest waste of time I can think of.

You can do (essentially) the same thing with In An Unmarked Grave (granted, not counting Uniques, but if you are playing straight Cthulhu, it only costs 5...which means it has at least the same chance of getting activated at or before the very long Ritual of the Lance.

Alternatively, the Neutral "Dimensional Rift" - thing is similiarly easy to use - though it affects everything, not just characters - it costs 4 to Deploy, then another 3 to activate...meaning you will be springing it (if you do) on Turn-5, at the earliest.

Ritual of the Lance seems stupid to me because it costs 3...first of all...meaning the earliest it's coming out is Turn-2, if you got first turn. Then you have to start Sacrificing creatures...creatures which, in theory, are going to be helping you to defend against enemy attacks on the stories. What "spares" do you or will you have lying around that you are "fine" with feeding to the Lance Ritual ?

Lastly, the fact that it requires 5 tokens / sacrifices to activate is what really annoys me about it. If it were THREE (3) I could stomach it, and it might be decent....might.....but FIVE ? Really ?

So you put it out turn 2 or 3...depending on if you won the roll for first turn. Then you have to conjure up FIVE characters....and sacrifice all of them....to actually activate this thing. What is your opponent doing the meantime ?

Also...it destroys ALL characters...meaning your guys too. That, to me, is the stupidest thing about the card. It should be "Destroy all characters controlled by your opponents" ....THEN it would make sense, and be worthy of the high cost to activate it. It would also make sense....why would the Silver Twilight boys concoct a spell that destroys all of them too....far more sensible they'd do something that would hurt their enemies - - - keeping them alive to continue their "great work" of reviving Cthulhu and the other Old Ones whose power and favor they crave.

Anyways....nice in theory, but ....blech.....in practice, IMHO.

First off, Ritual of the Lance doesn't require you to sac a creature to Ritual of the Lance, in fact you can't. It just says whenever you sacrifice a character you get a success token. That could be for any multitude of reasons, including shocking transformation *cough cough*. This sort of play is common in many other ccgs. I'm actually shocked it hasn't shown up in CoC before now. The whole sac something that's important to gain a better thing or effect is a really common design strategy, and has more than proven its merit in Magic. Look at Red Deck Wins the cards in it are running rampant with this sort of theme.

Also we need to take into consideration that you can activate actions after each "struggle" in a story contest (not sure if that's the right terminology but it sounds good ). This could potentially be devastating, imagine sacing characters that have no skill after their prospective struggle has past, like Servant from Out of Time, say you just used him in your terror struggle. Then you sac him to Carl giving him 2 Combat, and Arcane, PLUS putting a counter on good ole Ritual of the Lance!

Yeah I know thats three factions, but I see a Cultist themed deck being very viable nonetheless.

I understand what you sacrifice "to it" - Dave....though it's clear I might not have phrased it directly enough. When I say "Sac to this thing" - for instance, I mean - "sac, to get this things effect to go off" - not "sacrifice TO it - literally"...but thanks for pointing out the distinction.

As for your example...you still have to HAVE card effects, etc. that allow you to Sacrifice things...and, like I said...the fact remains if you are sac-ing all your characters, what are you defending the stories with ? Also...a deck full of cheap crappy-statted Cultists is nice in theory, but again...what is the soonest you are expecting to get this whole Ritual of the Lance "off" successfully ? Remember it can't even come out (generally) before Turn-2 or 3....so from that point on...where are you getting FIVE characters that you are cool with Sac-ing to get the tokens needed to activate it ?

And wow-wee...let's say you actually DO activate it on Turn-6 or 7..... what does that actually do for you ? All your guys are dead too ! And wouldn't it have been quicker just to use a Dimensional Rift (Neutral card) ???

Lastly, and perhaps the biggest flaw for this thing is that it must "sit in play" - being a Ritual - Support card....meaning anything that destroys Support cards can be used to target and destroy it. The only thing saving it is its being a "Ritual" - and not a "Location" or one of the more-easily wiped out "Subtypes" like that.

But still...a single Deep One Assault costing 3 will end your Ritual of the Lance dreams ...and if the opponent is exceptionally cruel, he'll wait until you've sacced your 5th character...(as an Action)...then play Deep One Assault as HIS action...destroying your Ritual...and laughing hysterically at the fact you killed off FIVE of your guys trying to get the stupid thing to work !

I have to admit all the Silver Twilight cards so far have seemed to me a bit underwhelming, mainly due to their cost. Like Rosh stated, paying 3 and still having to have sacrificed 5 characters, in order to destroy all creatures, seems like a bad bad strategy, even if you use it together with the Ritual of Summoning, where you can sacrifice 5 tiny critters to put an Ancient one into play.

I'm hoping to see their cheaper characters spoiled, because paying 3/4 to return a support card (Lodge Housekeeper) or a creature (High Wizard) to its owners hands, really doesn't tickle my fancy. Maybe their version of Victoria's Protegé will add some versatility to them... I guess we shall wait and see.

Maybe Silver Twilight will have an Event like this (excuse bad templating):

Flock of Sheep - Event - Cost: X
Action: Pay X to create that number of Silver Twilight character tokens who have 1 cost, 0 skill, and no icons.

You're right, of course - Tokuah...in that there could be some "new cards" for them (well, tons actually) that we haven't seen yet and which might have added utility in terms of sacrificing things.... Flock of Sheep....I like it too ! :-) It would be handy for a lot of decks if such a card existed. Imagine them with Yuggoth Contract or other "Sac to do this" existing cards.

Of course, it's all speculation till we see what's in the Silver Twilight box. Hopefully they at least have some cool Event cards that I might consider splicing in other decks, cause so far their characters seem pretty forgettable (from what we've seen).

You can't sacrifice characters to Ritual of the Lance, it just hangs around to see if you sacrifice to other things. It tries softening the blow of having to sacrifice things by blowing your opponent's stuff up as well. Rift is pretty nice, but the ritual is somewhat lighter on your resources, since it doesn't need a second drain. So, it's sorta nice to have when you sacrifice things anyway, and you can time it better with somewhat less risk towards your investment. It's indirect and slow though, but if you manage to combo out in some way...

We realize RotL does not let you sacrifice Characters. However, it would be more desirable to have a bunch of cheap token lambs as fodder than eating into your Character base... unless we see some Characters that have awesome trigger effects when they are sacrificed... But anything outside of what we have seen is pure conjecture, a bunch of dart throws at a non-existent target. If FFG wants us to get exciting about STL then gives us something to aim our attention at...

I also like the way Marius says....."but if you had some way to combo out ...." - especially with the ...'s .... !

We must remember he's got priveliged info and I wouldn't be surprised to know he's previewed several more Silver Twilight cards than he's "Previewed" in his weekly articles.

But yes - to mirror Toku...there has to be something more that would work well...and...again...if you are going to blow up the Ritual and destroy all characters on both sides of the table....you are doing so because you are getting swarmed or over-powered (Cthulhu and 2 Terrors of the Tides are out for your opponent, and you have 4 Cultists, for example).

But...again...I fail to see how Saccing your own guys (the few Cultists you have in the above example) - over the next several turns is going to help you...because it just makes it even easier for the enemies to score points at stories...meaning even when you DO blow the Ritual, so what ? You are down 2-Stories to 0 ...and they have 2-tokens on the last one they need.

How are you recovering from this ? (most games)

With a D-Rift approach..it's Neutral...anyone can have it..it's not Unique (not like you'd play multiples anyways, but I'm just mentioning it).....it can be used the turn it comes into play as long as you have managed your resources well and you have 4 on 1-Domain and 3 on the second.....or play it on 5th Turn anyways....by playing it for 4 one turn, hoping it survives to reach the next, then detonating it for 3 and Exhaust.

With Ritual of the Lance, it's such a longer and slower process....for something you NEED to be able to use "right away" - in those situations where you actually "Need" it. - put another way, if you are thinking of blowing a D-Rift (or Ritual of the Lance) it is because you are really in some trouble (most of the time) and need to destroy some powerful enemy that you cannot deal with otherwise, or because you are being swarmed by cheap little creatures and are out-charactered, say, 8-4 or something.

In any of these situations, why would anyone say "boy, I wish I had Ritual of the Lance to do this destroy-everything effect and not this crappy D-Rift !!" ???

On a totally separate plane, the complaint may be that the beautiful cards are so far beeing held back.

Because they do look great, don't they.

I could see a deep one lodge character. The background with sun and moon is fine. Politician, Chief of Medicine, and Wizard, are colorful and the hot house keeper who is playable, and like a classic MU 3 cost. Expulsion and Ritual of Lance, and Ritual of Summoning are so alike, they imply a cycle of such Rituals, all cost five. Conversely, Expulsion, perhaps a waste of deck space, is a nice cheep compromise with potential.

Silver Twilight seems to be the "bridge faction" that bridges the more human faction with the ancient one factions.

I'd have to see the other sacrifice effects, but if there are cards available that allow you to sacrifice characters to prevent other players from advancing on stories, then there are options available to build up tokens on Lance, which can in fact be a win condition depending on how it's played (build up a lance, trigger it, play characters and storm a few stories uncontested). I think they'll have strong synergy with many factions by their nature as the new faction, the developers will want it to be playable from the get go. I would detect a strong synergy with Miskatonic university (Probably a lot of the same subtypes, plus Miskatonic brings card drawing which is usually vital to any sacrifice deck).

I'm glad this new Asylum Pack cycle is going to focus on "core mechanics" of each of the factions as opposed to trying to introduce new mechanics, I hope Miskatonic and Syndicate get some love, Miskatonic has been getting the short end of the character stick for some time now.

Good points. Hata says to expect more cards that are popular subtype synergistic, like Criminal and Investigator, and who knows what else. The world of subtypes grows now a few times by the cycle. Choices are wide - Research, Dark Young, Curse, Madness, Sorcerer, you name it. This could go well with MU.

Ritual also doesn't say it has to be your characters the get sacrificed.

"A player can only sacrifice cards that he controls"