I wanna run a mono-Cthulhu deck, and was wondering what packs I should buy post-core set to make it most viable?

Thanks in advance,

Max

Well, it depends on what you mean by most viable. And, unlike some games, pretty much every asylum pack has some value for each faction. So it is hard to say that a particular AP is better or worse than another.

By viable, I mean the most competitive. And yeah, I take your point about the arkham expansions, but was wondering if there was a particular one that contained a particularly good set of cards for Cthulhu.

I'd say.. buy more core sets. Many many "compulsory" cards are there. Deep one assault, sacrificial offering, Pulled under, Ravager, Dagon to name a few. A good Cthulhu card is Brood of Jig which is especially good with pulled under.

If you want to try the path of the serpents then you have to get the last lot of asylum packs. Anyway, I woudn't buy anything that is not in 3 copies if I were you.

Carl Stanford is also a great Cthulhu card, but 2 copies of it should be enough.

Pretty much what msommi said. More Core sets will net you the staple Cthulhu destroy stuff and the latest cycle of Asylum Packs will give you the Serpents (which, whilst not Deep Ones and thus not totally awesome, are pretty cool). Of course, once you're fully hooked, you'll want one and a half copies of Secrets of Arkham and all the other Asylum Packs. But for now, grab another Core (or two) and one of each of the current APs.

Totally agree msommi !!

I actually play a mono-cthulhu with serpents and it runs really well. So, if I were you, I would consider buying one of each Yuggoth Contracts AP.

They worth it and might allow you to play without buying Dreamlands or others stuffs yet. Then, when you'll feel the need to consider them, you'll might want to buy the others extensions.

Just way for the reprint of dreamlands, they'll be in 3x editions.

The only pre-Yuggoth/Arkham expansion I would get for building a mono-Cthulhu deck would be the "In the Dread of Night" for Dreamland Fanatic. There are 3 copies of it in there. Otherwise, I'm pretty much in total agreement. The most recent APs have definitely been beneficial for the big guy.

Look how juicy can get your mono Cthulhu serpents deck :

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/coc/news/card-of-the-week/cotw41/coc-underneath-the-surface.png

AUCodeMonkey said:

I can't offer much help & the original question seems to be answered anyway, & since I didn't want to start a new thread for this, here goes.

I, too, am looking to build a good mono-Cthulhu deck with support from neutral cards. Having no one to play with locally & a poor sense of strategy without hands-on experience it's been a tough time balancing a deck & readying it for play-testing. I want to do an Innsmouth / Deep Ones theme with Cthulhu, Dagon & Hydra as the heavy hitters, but tend to end up with far to many characters & no idea how to balance support cards. I have at least one of every AP but few triplicates.

Any suggestions?

I would also be interested in the Innsmouth/Deep one themed deck, so post away.

As it happens, I just started building a mono-Cthulhu Deep Ones deck the other night. I'm still a novice player myself and don't have all the packs yet, plus I only have 2 copies each of the Core and Secrets of Arkham cards, but I think it's reasonable for a first cut. I'm hoping I may get a chance to test it out against another deck soon and start doing some tuning. Also, I'm planning to order another batch of Asylum Packs soon and it will probably get some updates after that too...

Characters:

2xInnsmouth Troublemaker
3xBrood of Yig
2xKeeper of the Golden Path
3xLurking Deep One
2xYoung Deep One
3xBackwater Deep One
3xDeep One Stowaway
2xJoe Sargent
2xLord of Y'ha-nthlei
2xDeep One Rising
2xMature Deep One
2xRavager from the Deep
2xHydra

Events:

2xPulled Under
2xTouched by the Sleeper
1xGet if Off!
2xFeeding Frenzy
2xIn the Wake of the Sleeper
2xDeep One Assault

Support:

2xSword of Y'ha-tallo
2xGiving Thanks
2xShadowed Reef
2xDevil's Reef
1xY'ha-nthlei Statue

50 cards total

I agree with the earlier post that Brood Yig is a good character to have for Pulled Under. Keeper of the Golden Path can take this role as well. I picked Hydra over Dagon but you could include both. Later I'd like to do a deck with Cthulhu in it once I pick up the pack with the newer version. But with this many Deep Ones I thought Hydra's ability would be worth more than Dagon. I purposefully avoided Carl Sanford even though he's a good card because I wanted to stick to the Deep One theme. A couple of snakes was OK, but he seemed like too much Dreamlands Fanatic is also a card I like a lot but I'm not buying any of the Dreamlands cycle until they rerelease in the 60 card format. I'll probably do more of a Serpent deck sometime later since I'm missing several key Serpent cards at present.

The general rule of thumb I try to follow is to aim for about 30-32 characters in a 50 card deck. The remainder is split between Events and Support, just choosing whatever seems useful. You also want some balance of costs with your cards too, and this will guide what your resourcing strategy will be depending on if you've got more cheap characters or more expensive ones. Cthulhu tends to have more expensive characters than most factions I think, so I've tried to fit in a fair number of cost 2 characters to help keep it from getting too slow.

Just to add, there are a couple of great mono-Cthulhu decks listed in the Gencon 2011 thread:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=40&efcid=4&efidt=534948

There are also some listed on cardgamedb here:

http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/CoC/cocdecks.html/_/coc-decks/

One I noticed that was mono-Cthulhu was Olde R'lyeh Stomp.

Or you can try searching this forum but honestly the search tools could be better

Dboeren: You're Cthulhu Deep One deck is almost exactly similar to the one i used to play some time ago. Back then i was still getting used to what each faction does, so i had a monofaction deck for each one to get me more into the game. Even though i tried to keep decks on equal level as much as possible, that one ended being constantly superior to rest. So yeah, good template for a Deep One deck there.

One limiting factor is that I only have 2 copies of the cards from the Core set and Secrets of Arkham, plus I'm missing a fair number of Asylum packs so it will probably change a bit as I round out my collection. But the one game I've used it so far it seemed to work well - need to get some more experience with this one.

I'm really thinking of putting in the Khopesh though, with a thought to equipping it on Innsmouth Troublemaker if I get the chance.

jhaelen said:

The entire Summons of the Deep AP cycle has been reprinted in the 60-card format, so there should be 3 copies of Called By Azathoth in Spawn of the Sleeper. Just make sure you get an updated, 2nd edition 60-card pack and not an older 40-card pack.

And yes, Called By Azathoth is quite handy. My opponents primarily play Agency and Miskatonic, so I find it's a good way to shut down the Government Exorcist and Chess Prodigy, both of which can be quite annoying to a terror-focused deck.

I've been working on a few mono-Cthulhu decks as well (though we use CCG and LCG era cards in my group so I'm not sure listing my decks here would help), and I had a question about a card that seems to be recommended quite a bit - Sacrificial Offerings. Can anyone tell me why this is a must-have Cthulhu card?

About sac. offerings: It's cheap, fast and can catch opponent off-guard. Also very situational. For example, if you have no characters in play, it's basically Cost 1 Wound, and therefore most likely a kill. Later on in the game it becomes less useful, although Cthulhu faction has plenty of access to toughness. With it's speed it's also very effective against rush decks that seemed to plaque the game recently. Or that's what i think, usually automatic 3x for Cthulhu decks here.

I only started playing CoC this year so take my picks with a grain of salt, but after 3 Core Sets, I feel the Yuggoth Contract has really upped the power level of my mono-Cthulhu decks. Cthulhu, Lord of R'lyeh is my favorite card of the big bad himself, even among the black-border versions that I own, and I've used his sacrifice ability to great effect in several games.

I have a pair of mono-Cthulhu decks, and the white-border cards I've found to be the most useful are (in no particular order):

Cthulhu, Lord of R'lyeh
Deep One Rising
Feathered Serpent
Ravager from the Deep

Deep One Assault
Get It Off!
Pulled Under

Called By Azathoth
Communal Shower
Khopesh of the Abyss

There are many other great Cthulhu cards, but these seem less situational and tend to really stand out in terms of shutting my opponent's deck down. Granted, we're mixing CCG and LCG cards so my experience my be atypical.

For what it's worth - and to inspire anyone out there who has picked up some black-border cards for dirt cheap online - here's one of my CCG and LCG mixed mono-Cthulhu decks. It has a Sebek-focused theme, supported by Shoggoths and the Silver Twilight.

GATOR BAIT

CHARACTERS: 33
x3 Innsmouth Troublemaker
x3 Silver Twilight Emmissary (CCG)
x3 Silver Twilight Temptress
x3 Lord of the Silver Twilight
x3 Priest of Sebek (CCG)
x3 Guardian Shoggoth
x3 Sebek's Chosen One (CCG)
x3 Spawn of Sebek (CCG)
x3 Mameluke of Sebek (CCG)
x3 Shoggoth Unbound (CCG)
x3 Cthulhu, Lord of R'lyeh

EVENTS: 9
x3 Pulled Under
x3 Get if Off
x3 Helpless, Hopeless, and Doomed (CCG)

SUPPORT: 10
x2 Communal Shower
x3 Khopesh of the Abyss
x2 Silver Twilight Lodge (CCG)
x2 Chamber of Rebirth (CCG)
x2 St. Toad's Church (CCG)

Total 53

For those unfamiliar with CCG era cards, the Silver Twilight Emissary is a Cthulhu version of the Priest of Bubastis. For a 1-cost Action, Sebek's Chosen One can force your opponent to sacrifice a character if they lose an icon struggle by 2+ icons, and Spawn of Sebek has a 3-cost built-in shotgun. This deck also has 9 characters with Toughness +2, as well as the Innsmouth Troublemaker, so Khopesh is easy to let loose. The Chamber of Rebirth adds a terror icon to all Cthulhu characters, and St. Toad's Church increases the cost of cards by 4 for passive players. Finally, it has solid attachment removal through Get It Off! and Helpless, Hopeless, and Doomed (which destroys all attachments in play).

The basic strategy is to eliminate your opponent's characters without having to win the combat struggle, and then work on stories unopposed. With so much terror, you can activate Sebek's Chosen One ability easily, the "shotgun" Spawn of Sebek + Silver Twilight Temptress makes for a nice combo to pick and choose your targets, as does Pulled Under and Khopesh of the Abyss. Slow your opponent down by wiping out their attachments with Get It Off! and Helpless, Hopeless, and Doomed, and use St. Toad's Church to shutdown any nasty surprises that might creep up during the story phase. To wrap it up, once Cthulhu comes out just up your domains to 3 resources each and mow everything down. It seems to be working nicely thus far...

Thanks for reading!

P.S. I would've included Deep One Assault and Feathered Serpent in this deck, but they're in my second mono-Cthulhu deck with a Serpents and Sea Monsters theme. Here's hoping FFG puts out more serpent characters. I really think they're neat and would love to make a "Snakes on a Plane" deck.

Too bad i can't remember much about the CCG era cards as i only quickly tested out Cthulhu back then. I remember i had a Cthulhu/Hastur deck that used a card called Private Treatment Center or something like that. I also ran a Shub/Agency rush deck for a short while.

But considering LCG era Cthulhu, your list of most potent cards is very much similar to mine. I have never used Communal Shower so don't know about that, but others are really solid cards. I just yesterday tinkered with my Cthulhu/Agency deck, where main focus is on Cthulhu and Agency only supports. Haven't tested it yet, but seems really fast and brutal as long as you get to kill opponents characters early on, which shouldn't be a problem considering the sheer amount of destruction those two factions pack.

The decklist:

Characters: (32)
3xTerrible Old Man, Ancient Hermit
2xPaul Lemond, Tormented Psychic
3xGovernment Exorcist
3xUnlikely Informant
3xNew Recruit
2xTerror Of The Tides
3xRavager From The Deep
3xBrood Of Yig
2xDegenerate Serpent Cultist
2xDeep One Stowaway
3xDeep One Rising
3xDreamlands Fanatic

Events: (12)
3xShotgun Blast
3xShort Fuse
3xDeep One Assault
3xSacrificial Offerings

Support: (6)
3xCalled By Azathoth
3xKhopesh Of The Abyss, Manifested Malice

Those are the cards i currently see a most powerful for Cthulhu, at least in a this type of deck.

I too had little exposure during the CCG days, I just wasn't interested in having to buy lots of packs chasing the cards I wanted. I had two starters and some Common/Uncommon sets I bought cheap online but that was it. Never bought any boosters.

I don't really remember any specific good Cthulhu faction cards from those days, other than Ravager I guess. I should get those card out and refresh my memory. The main good card that sticks out in my mind for some reason is a Syndicate one, O'Bannion Warehouse. Basically you could exhaust it to prevent an enemy character from refreshing. They'd stay exhausted as long as you kept the Warehouse exhausted (you could choose not to refresh it at the start of your turn).

@Shangfu: Private Treatment Center was in the earlier editions of the Cthulhu deck I listed above, but it's a card that looks better on paper than in actual play when used in a mono-Cthulhu deck. It costs 2, and restricts your opponent to drawing only 1 card if they have any insane characters. However, it has to be paired up with The Sleep of Reason, or other multiple terror struggle cards for it to be effective (or combined with Hastur as you did). If you can only make 1 character go insane per turn, then it doesn't have any impact. With the amount of Willpower, character abilities and other cards that seem to negate the power of the terror struggle, I dropped it in exchange for St. Toad's Church (which ups the cost of playing cards for the passive player by 4).

As for Communal Shower, its effectiveness varies. If I'm playing against another mono-faction deck, its an automatic resource. When facing a multi-faction deck, on the other hand, it's just plain evil - especially when combined with a character-eating Cthulhu deck. Basically, your opponent's characters are divided into 2 camps that can't support each other, making it far more difficult to block or commit, and far faster for you to destroy whichever half is stronger. As you have roughly half as many targets to eliminate before your opponent is really hurting, I've found a single turn's worth of sacrificing can essentially end the game.

@dboeren: I'm fairly new to CoC: The Card Game. When deciding on what to buy I was torn whether or not I should invest in black-border cards. I posted a question here and most responses said it would be a bad idea (for various reasons). Initially I was only going to get a few starters for the cool domain cards (I still can't understand why FFG doesn't make these) and stick with LCG era stuff. However, when I saw the prices online, I quickly reconsidered.

The CCG cards are selling for ridiculously cheap. I've been buying booster boxes of Eldtritch Edition for just over $5. That works out to .15 cents per booster, which is insane. I've now got a few thousand cards to draw from for roughly the same money as buying 2 Asylum Packs. Plus, some of the more useful cards have been reprinted, allowing me to include them in multiple decks simultaneously (which is handy). It's also been fun to trade cards within my game group, something we would never do with our white-border cards as they come 3 to a pack in fixed decks. I still prefer the LCG format, and would never have bought into this game as a CCG at retail, but it sure feels good to pick up stuff at a fire sale prices.

With regards to O'Bannion's Warehouse, I believe that card is only found in the Premium Eldritch starter set. I had it in my Syndicate/Yog deck for a bit. It can be quite powerful, especially as it can target Ancient Ones. I eventually took it out as my opponents tend to run Agency, Miskatonic and Syndicate rush decks, and it wasn't helping as much as other cards when faced with a horde of characters.

Yeah, now that i look at that card, it's nothing special, but back then i really didn't have that much experience with the game. Nothing compared to the really insane cards in the old CCG like Ghoul Khanum.....

Shangfu said:

I have an entire deck built around Ghoul Khanum (one player in our group has gone on an 18-game winning streak using only LCG cards so I'm feeling compelled to bring out the big guns). Even after the FAQ nerf on Ghoul Khanum, it's still quite powerful.

And to bring this post back on topic, here's my second mono-faction Cthulhu deck. This one has a Serpent and Deep One theme. It has very few CCG era cards - only 5 total, all of which could easily be swapped out - so perhaps this list will be more appropriate for this discussion. This Friday I'm going up against a nasty multi-combat struggle Agency deck, and a rush Agency/Miskatonic deck with lots of Willpower. Hopefully the tide turns in my favor. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

SEA SERPENTS

CHARACTERS: 28
x3 Ocean Crawlers
x3 Degenerate Serpent Cultist
x3 Brood of Yig
x3 Lord of Y'ha-nthlei
x3 Backwater Deep One
x3 Feathered Serpent
x3 Ravager from the Deep
x3 Deep One Rising
x2 Yig
x2 Hydra

EVENTS: 15
x3 Deep One Assault
x3 Feeding Frenzy
x3 Get if Off
x3 Sacrificial Offerings
x3 Unnatural Stealth (CCG)

SUPPORT: 7
x3 Called by Azathoth
x2 Chamber of Rebirth (CCG)
x2 Giving Thanks

Total 50

Unnatural Stealth costs 1 and gives a character Invulnerability and +2 Skill. Normally I would put Pulled Under in this deck (and it fits the theme), but I only have 3 copies of it and they're in my other Cthulhu deck. I'm hoping to use Unnatural Stealth to get past my main opponent's Agency deck, combo it with Feeding Frenzy, or play it on another character that teams up with the Ravager from the Deep (in case I'm facing opposing characters with Toughness) so I don't lose on the all important skill struggle

Another option would be to drop Unnatural Stealth and put in x3 Tcho-Tcho Talisman to boost Feathered Serpent's ability. I originally had it in my deck, but took it out because it didn't seem to fit the sea serpent motiff. The same goes for the Sword of Y'ha-tallo.

The Chamber of Rebirth costs 2 and gives all Cthulhu characters T. This could be swapped out for Shadowed Reef as it's basically the same thing (and only costs 1). It's mainly included to prevent my Deep Ones from going insane, but it helps my Serpents as well.

I'm a little worried that this deck is proving to be too slow, and doesn't have near enough sneaky ways to destroy my opponent's characters, but the Deep Ones are so cool it's hard to give up.