I say this because this is my favorite game in the world. I don't say that lightly.

Recently the game has become simply frustrating, due to a single card: 'Magah Bird.'

Without a ban, the game will likely grow corruptly, in response to the overpowered Hastur situation. A game should not be defined by a single card.

During the American Revolution, Thomas Paine turned morale around and arguably saved the war when he asked in his famous war pamphlet Common Sense , "Does it make sense for an island to rule an entire continent?"

Fellow Arkhamite, I humbly ask that question to you now.

Argument, For the Ban:

'Magah Bird' breaks the call of cthulhu tournament meta-game.

Reasoning:

1. Out of the entire 2010 tournament, all four Top Four players were using an agency/hastur deck with 3 copies of 'Magah Bird.' ( www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_nrep.asp )

Yes, other powerful cards were in the fray - 70 steps, sledge dogs, etc. But these decks are defined by a rush strategy primarily enabled by 'Magah Bird.'

2. Only one other card has been banned in the game thus far, also Hastur - 'Aspiring Artist,' which is arguably less powerful.

Aspiring Artist was a mediocre character with an unbalanced way to give you a free card--Magah Bird, in effect, gives you TWO free cards, AND lets you PUT THEM INTO PLAY, as characters.

3. Call of Cthulhu LCG is a game defined by its resource choices, which Magah Bird circumvents and breaks. Since Magah Bird costs 1 and creates 3 characters, even without icons it is by far the most cost efficient character in the game .

And you only need one magah bird in your starting hand to launch all of them. No other faction is given this chance. Decks with consistent strategies win games... by nature, 'Magah Bird' is uniquely primed to enable a consistent rush setup unrivalled in severity by control or combo setups.

4. Already, many in the French CoC community has institued a soft ban on Hastur due to Magah Bird. Again it is arguable that Hastur will be still very, very powerful without magah bird (especially in combination with agency), but at present entire communities find it unbeatable, unpleasant, and impolite to play as or against. Also, good luck getting Americans to soft ban anything (Four Loco?).

While I think that growing the game and making the other factions more powerful with an aim to balance the game is great - but no doctor should attend lesions and leave his infection untreated.

I hope that this reaches the right ears, and that Cthulhu, Syndicate, Yog, Shub, and Silver Twilight can return to the game as viable, playable choices.

Gratefully yours.

Previous threads addressing this topic:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

soft ban:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

sledge dogs, steps, and birds:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

birds, more steps:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

Duke_Rufus said:

1. So we should be penalizing players for creating great decks? Maybe Agency/Hastur pairs up very well...but there are ways to deal with the bird, not easy, but possible. Maybe your deck just isn't prepared to deal with that. So on the next gen con, should we be re-examining the cards that top players use and ban them just because they find a way to make it work?

2. You have no idea how much more powerful Aspiring Artist is in the hands of a right minded Hastur compared to the bird. I would gladly trade the bird for the artist.

3. Cost efficient yes. They don't win the game by themselves.

4. You and maybe some other (maybe a lot) finds it unbeatable, unpleasant, and impolite. I use it, and even when faced against that, I find it beatable even when paired with 8 dogs and seventy steps which came out on the first turn.

Duke_Rufus said:

Apart from that, is it really the Magah Bird that is at the root of the problem? Or is it the Seventy Steps? Or is it just the combo of these two cards? What about Endless Interrogation? What if the Mulligan rule was changed or removed?

The problem isn't as clear-cut as you would make it to be. Banning cards is not something that should be done lightly.

Although I play this game for a month with my friends, I personally think that there is nothing wrong with Magah birds to qualify for a ban. I think it is a matter of how we construct a deck to beat the use of these birds.

I have used Magah Bird, Seventy Steps, Alaskan Sledge Dogs and Eldritch Nexus in my Miskatonic/Hastur rush deck with characters with cost no more than 3 - the Miskatonic cards is to allow me to gain card draw abilities so I can have more characters to play and Eldritch Nexus give me another domain to play more characters in one turn. Miskatonic is for me to rush in to gain additional success tokes if possible.

Against Hastur/Yog deck

However, I was beaten by another player using Hastur/Yog-Sothoth faction in 3 games. He had 3x Single Glimpse, 3x Calling Down the Ancients, and 3x Cursed Skull in his deck that forces me to sacrifice my characters. In one game, at the beginning of his turn, he had two Cursed Skull out, so he can easily made me killed of some characters before I can have the chance to commit them. Also, he had Diseased Sewer Rat which allow him to target my character and he had use a Doppleganger to copy his Disease Sewer Rat to deliver another wound.

Against Agency/Neutral deck

Then I played 3 games with my deck against an Agency/Neutral deck. Lost in one game and almost lose in another. This due to the fact that my opponent had used some low cost Agency character such as Confident Rookie, Undercover Security, Marshall Greene and John Henry Price, Intervention support card, Beneath the Sun, Prize Pistol and Lightning Gun. Despite me winning the first two stories, later in the game when he had Agency equipped with Prize Pistol and was killing me slowly. It is difficult for me to commit because of his high number of combat icons and some of his characters have Willpower so I cannot made them insane with my Hastur cards. There is one game he had THREE of the Prize Pistol out *shiver*, killed my 3 of my characters in one turn and then later commit his character to win stories. He had them out by playing John Henry Price where he can equipped two Prize Pistol for free (He already had one out earlier in the game). I barely win the game. I was lucky that Infernal Obsession came out and I took control with John Henry Price to unattach the pistols.

Against Cthulhu/Shub/Ancient One deck

I only played two games gainst this deck and had lost in both of them. I have my friend used 3x Priestess of Bubastis, 3x Seeker of Mysteries, and 3x Ghoulish Worshipper. In one game, although I was able to win two stories at the beginning but by Round 3, he had Y'Glonac out, by Round 4, he had Hydra in play, and by Round 5 he had Cthulhu, Lord of Rl'yeh on the board. All these thanks to the cost reducing card he played. I could not commit my characters as the Ancient One are too powerful in their icons and skills and the Ancient One have Invulnerability or Toughness. I cannot use Infernal Obsession as it does not work against Ancient One character.

From these experiences, I can see how even using Magah bird and Alaskan Sledge Dog rush deck may not necessary help wint the game and it just come down how well you can built your deck to meta against the dogs and birds. Anyway, these is my take as newbie but a good learning experience nonetheless. But for this reason I would say not to ban 'Magah Bird'.

I don't play Magah Birds and I don't think they should be banned. In fact I don't think any cards should be banned.

The french community has never banned the magah bird, it's a mistake.

We have just banned the Endless Interrogation (a real broken card) and the seven steps (because the deckbuilding challenge is better without this card).

Magah is not a problem (I don't think also the seven steps is a problematics card, but it's right it can be a frustrating card for players who have not add cards to deal with it during their deckbuilding, I can understand why we have banned it) you can deal with them (disrupt the response of the first bird, shoot / destroy them, hastur, agency, cthulhu factions have goods cards to deal with them, birds can lose terror, combat struggles etc...).

The real problem is the rush game (with a lot of cost-1 characters) working with the combo Endless Interrogation. If you can empty the opponent hand in your turn 2 (and it's easy to do it with birds or dogs), you win the game.

The first hand seven steps / birds / endless means a victory for you, that's right. But you can deal with the magah and the steps if you have cards in your hand (cards likes Deep one assault, performance artist, silver key, a single path, Labyrinth of the dead city, etc... works against birds and dogs). You can't play if you have no cards in hand and the Endless Interrogation can empty the hand too easily (unless canceling its effect, so it means you are playing a mirror game with hastur also).

So The ONLY real problematics card for the moment is : ENDLESS INTERROGATION.

Banning the seven steps is nice to have fun games an leave people play big characters or Ancient One. It's a better challenge for the deckbuilding.

But again Birds are not the problem.

Birds-Steps-Interrogation-Eibon

It does not matter what people's experience is within their meta/playgroup. The fact is that at the top level of play some or all of these cards are necessary to win as long as some top players are using the cards. Eibon+Dogs have been in the last 2 Championship decks. I sent a complaint about this situation to every customer service Email possible on this site. I received a response from a person in marketing who said this would be passed on to Design. No further response...

The problem with FFG is that Design takes not responsibility for the environment the create and are a brick wall when it comes to exchanging input. By mid/late December I will have been asking the same six rules questions over a month. These are concise questions with card text included. I am tired of excuses. Look for a bit of thread necromancy regarding this in the General forum during Christmas week. The lack of support for this game is unbelievable.

Going back to bans, I am in on a message writing campaign regarding any/all of the cards listed at the top of my post. I would rather see them all called out and give FFG the choice on what combo to hack. A choice they are not likely to make...

As Dadajef said, it is a misunderstanding about the fact that the French community banned the Magah bird card. The only soft ban that was done to my knowledge happened at the Liege tourney and the cards forbidden were the Endless Interrogation and the Seventy Steps. By the way, there were 19 players attending the tournament, with at least 5 people who canceled at the last minute...

The organizer did not knew if it was the 'right decision' on paper. But let me say one thing (as I attended the event) : I had more fun at that tourney that any CoC event before! most players did great efforts to fuel new ideas into the deckbuilding; some tried very original decks. I even faced a deck which contained cards from FIVE different factions (no Hastur!) played by a good player. ANd the winner played a very dangerous Discard deck - yes, a Discard deck won both events : the Swiss Open LCG and the Multiplayer tourney.

I guess one should publish more info on the tourney here on the official board but the usability issues of this place are keeping most of the Belgian Cultists away

A soft-ban is not a technical ban, it is players themselves deciding that a card is overpowered or simply to much of a negative play experience to use. So groups of people will simply stop using a card because they are aware of the talentless nature of any advantage gained from the card.

Magah Birds falls into that category and so does Mindless Interrogation in my mind.

Whether FFG bans them or hits them with an errata is anyones guess. I'm mostly a Thrones and Arkham Horror player, but I'm slowly falling in love with CoC. I'm sad to hear that it has been three months with someone sending rules questions in via the link with no response. I don't send questions in very often, but when I do Nate Franch has always seemed to respond in a relatively timely manner for Thrones. Who is the designer for CoC? Maybe they are working on a new FAQ and that is why they haven't responded.

Penfold said:

Supporting AGoT, being the more successful product line, is taking all his time...

So, this is yet another hint that CoC really needs is a dedicated lead designer, otherwise things like the wrong templating in the 'Dreamlands' AP cycle are bound to happen. I'm also not happy about CoC cards mirroring cards from the other LCGs. I'd rather the game had its own flavour.

Ok, as Dadajeff and Wendigo said, there was a mistake in the cards being "soft-banned".

We decided (TO from the french meta) to do it and asked every players who wanted to came and play in a french official tournament to follow this TO rules :

- No Steps

- No Endless Interrogation

and we did asked our players on the french board if they do agreed it or not.

Most of them were OK and we did so. Like Wendigo said, The Belgian Tournament from October was one of the most challenging event I've been a part of, included Stahleck (despite I loved my games there!).

The curx being the problem of tempo included by several changes to the rules :

- Mulligan increase the possibilty to have Birds+steps in hand. This is enough to totally screw the T1 and T2 of your opponent, du to the inner construction of the game. The mecanisms of this game are build so the players have to follow a ressource curse to increase their power on the gaming board. Those steps were enough to unbalnaced it. Something had to be done.

- Endless Interogation was a card designed to be included in a bithematic deck (HAstur/agency), but you were able to use it in Hastur only deck, du to the cost of 0. The fact to be able to re-use it twice in a same row totally destroy the balance between hand advantages the players should have. The official ruling from FFG did increase the potential of this card to a simple "must have".

So, there were three months of playtest before we finally admit the 2 cards did more arms than the Magah, which can be dealt with if the two other powerhouse are removed from the game. And we did practice it in gentleman's agreement for Poitiers tournaments, so we finally admit that the ban has to be done.

I'm not saying we are the one who did the nicest choice or anything like this, but the practice did offer us the possibility to finalize our decision. That's why we have asked FFG to follow this and consider a ban. But everyone can do whatever he wants to, as long as his gaming partners are okay with it, we are not the owners of the absolut truth ... But I'm pretty confident saying that the ban is to consider in a way to allow other faction to be more involved in the top 3 in Nationals or any challenging event.

But we send our ruling requests and propositions for MONTHS, and still had no answers.

FFG did not provide a complete FAQ las ttime one was edited and a lot of query need answers. We are counting something like 17 questions sent and no answers... Which is bad ...

Beside this, Nate French is not the actual contact for the community, regarding to the introcution of James Hata as the new Line Support for the game.

Concerning what Bright Knight said : I feel a little puzzled about your post. Yes, you can win against the magah+70 steps. But consider them comboed with Endless Interrogation and you'll understand what I mean. You MUST play character in this game. If you're lucky enough, you'll have a rats or 2, but if they are exhausted, they cannot defend.

1 bbird is then enough to trigger EI twice and empty the opponents hand, who will be topdecked. And that's enough to allow you to gain enough points to summon the descendant or anything else to be able to win 1 story a turn. I agree that there are a lot of answers since Secrets of Arkham are out on sale. But there is still a difference between playing 3 character with Fast for 1 and draining a domain each time you want to kill one of them !!

I actually play a deck designed to face the GENCON (Tom Capor's one) and you can't make a single mistake or the game is over. The GENCON has an automatic-drive-in mode you don't have to think about how it works, as it works by itself. and that's the main problem.

Speaking about pure Agency, reminds that the even the low cost character from agency can be taken away by Polar Mirage (1 cost event for Hastur) or can be taken care of via stealing the characters, which is enough to uncommit them...

IMHO, the only solution leads in Cthulhu/Yog destruction, but I fear this game increasing its power, the whole pool will be cost-reduced and power-increased... And the reason why we leaved the CCG was officially the fast tempo it owned (you were able to win turn 1 or at least turn 2!).

jhaelen said:

No, I know it is not NAte French. I specifically remember him saying at Gencon that he had turned it over to someone else in the LCG department. I read on Boardgamegeek that "Hata" was in charge. I'm assuming that is James Hata who does Invasion? These two games are nothing a like. Though effects that mirror each other is just going to be a fact of life. I mean they were originally all designed by Eric Lang, and there are only so many effects that can be created. MtG has effects similar to other games, Full Metal Alchemist did, Harry Potter did, AGoT does, that is just something you have to accept. The question is do the effects hold true to the feel of the faction they are in and echo the theme.

Just read Prodigee's post, so I'm guessing it is James Hata that is designing the game at this point.

In regards to banning the 70 steps...

I agree that with the combo of birds and endless it's pretty brutal. However, I like 70 steps by itself. In fact, I like most of these cards by themselves (although I argued strenuously against the current ruling for endless before the FAQ came out but I digress...).

Anyway, I'd hate to see 70 steps, by itself, straight banned. I have a really fun Yog / Hastur discard deck. There are 12 total characters in this deck (4x3), and none of which ever actually commit to stories on my turn. Such a character light deck is very reliant upon things like 70 steps, pillar of flames, and other things to delay the opponent. I usually deck win these games by turn 4 or 5, but I have to be able to hold off big rushes until then, and things like the 70 steps are absolutely key for that. (And no... neither Birds nor Endless are in this deck)

I'd hate to run into even a tournament ban like the one your french tournament agreed upon. I could see something like 'You may have only one set of the following three cards in your deck: Birds, Endless, 70 Steps', Since, by themselves they're ok. It's only the combo of at least two of the three that make a real problem.

Steps just needs to be changed so that anyone can pay the cost to destroy it. Eibon and Interrogation need the ban...

Oh, sorry about the mistake on part 4. It was Steps and Interrogation that was banned in the french tournament. Needless to say, my French is very poor.

Protegee: YES! The solution MAY be cthulhu/yog! I think the same thing, with a deck centered around the Silver Key. We'll see as new cards are released.

To those who argue over which of the steps/birds/interrogation/dogs card should be banned: I focused on magah birds because it seemed the most dangerous of the combo. In reality, all it would take is ones of the card to be banned to break the combo. As scary as they are, I don't think dogs are a huge part of the problem, on account of it being faction-neutral. They are powerful, but I would argue that they are supplementary, and not required to make the steps/birds/interrogation combo.

Yes, a deck with magah birds & steps is beatable. But what I don't think is fair is how much harder a challenger must work to defeat that deck than the person playing it. That doesn't mean I won't try. But it's akuma vs. dan here.

Has anyone read the game theory article 'Playing to Win'? Akuma reminded me of this part:

Boundaries of Playing to Win

There are some limits to playing to win. Not sure if this is one of them.Here's an example that shows what kind of power level is past the limit even of Playing to Win. Many versions of Street Fighter have secret characters that are only accessible through a code. Sometimes these characters are good, sometimes they're not. Occasionally, the secret characters are the best in the game, as in Marvel vs. Capcom. Big deal. That's the way that game is. Live with it. But the first version of Street Fighter to ever have a secret character was Super Turbo Street Fighter with its untouchably good Akuma. Most characters in that game cannot beat Akuma. I don't mean it's a tough matchI mean they cannot ever, ever, ever, ever win. Akuma is "broken" in that his air fireball move is something the game simply wasn't designed to handle. He's miles above the other characters, and is therefore banned in all US tournaments. But every game has a "best character" and those characters are never banned. They're just part of the game...except in Super Turbo. It's extreme examples like this that even amongst the top players, and even something that isn't a bug, but was put in on purpose by the game designers, the community as a whole has unanimously decided to make the rule: "don't play Akuma in serious matches."

Sometimes players from other gaming communities don't understand the Akuma example. "Would not a truly committed player play Akuma anyway?" they ask. Akuma is a boss character, never meant to be played on even ground with the other characters. He's only accessible via an annoying, long code. Akuma is not like a tower in an RTS that is accidentally too powerful or a gun in an FPS that does too much damage. Akuma is a god-mode that can't coexist with the rest of the game. In this extreme case, the community's only choices were to ban or to abandon the game because of a secret character that takes really long to even select. They chose to ban the secret character and play the remaining good game. If you are playing to win, you should play the game everyone else is playing, not the home-made Akuma vs. Akuma game that no one plays.

Has anyone read the game theory article 'Playing to Win'? Akuma reminded me of this part:

Boundaries of Playing to Win

There are some limits to playing to win. Not sure if this is one of them.Here's an example that shows what kind of power level is past the limit even of Playing to Win. Many versions of Street Fighter have secret characters that are only accessible through a code. Sometimes these characters are good, sometimes they're not. Occasionally, the secret characters are the best in the game, as in Marvel vs. Capcom. Big deal. That's the way that game is. Live with it. But the first version of Street Fighter to ever have a secret character was Super Turbo Street Fighter with its untouchably good Akuma. Most characters in that game cannot beat Akuma. I don't mean it's a tough matchI mean they cannot ever, ever, ever, ever win. Akuma is "broken" in that his air fireball move is something the game simply wasn't designed to handle. He's miles above the other characters, and is therefore banned in all US tournaments. But every game has a "best character" and those characters are never banned. They're just part of the game...except in Super Turbo. It's extreme examples like this that even amongst the top players, and even something that isn't a bug, but was put in on purpose by the game designers, the community as a whole has unanimously decided to make the rule: "don't play Akuma in serious matches."

Sometimes players from other gaming communities don't understand the Akuma example. "Would not a truly committed player play Akuma anyway?" they ask. Akuma is a boss character, never meant to be played on even ground with the other characters. He's only accessible via an annoying, long code. Akuma is not like a tower in an RTS that is accidentally too powerful or a gun in an FPS that does too much damage. Akuma is a god-mode that can't coexist with the rest of the game. In this extreme case, the community's only choices were to ban or to abandon the game because of a secret character that takes really long to even select. They chose to ban the secret character and play the remaining good game. If you are playing to win, you should play the game everyone else is playing, not the home-made Akuma vs. Akuma game that no one plays.

Tokhuah said:

I think you're right. An errata correction would be another great solution.

Duke_Rufus said:

Ummmm... I have to disagree? That just makes the 70 steps an almost worthless card. Right now it has the delay until a player has a won story card. Change it, and then it goes away on the next player's turn. All you've done is forced them to use one less domain on their turn. But... in dealing with the combo in question, having to use their only two cost domain is a problem anyway. (This is assuming that they go first which is when the combo is particularly a problem. If you go first, you at least get some cards in play before the combo gets going and have some defense.)

Think about the real issue here, if you're trying to combat the Magah / Steps combo, with the above errata correction, you'll at best have to either play your own birds, or you'll have a max of two 1 cost characters against your opponents three 1 cost characters (and maybe a fourth character costing one or two). Then, their turn rolls around again, they have three domains to play things with, and since you've killed the Steps, they bring in their stuff Ready. Entirely possible that you're now up against seven characters to your two 1 cost characters.

I honestly don't see the help that the proposed errata gives you. You're still going to need a way of dealing with all those characters. Change it around, however, and if you DO have some way of dealing with the characters then you get rid of their initial characters, and both your and their characters have come in exhausted, but you get to use yours first.

The thing is, you're applying an errata to a card that, in itself, isn't the problem. The problem is really the use with the Birds (and even worse with the Endless). In fact, if that were the eratta to the card, as a player of the Dreaded Combo, I'd instantly sling in some torch the joints as detent (in fact, I don't know why that's not a 4th card of the combo anyway). Then, after your player draws their cards and domains one, they have the first action. If they kill your steps w/ their two cost domain, kill one of their singles, and their down to defending with just one card to play. If they don't kill it, kill a single card domain and force them to either play two exhausted or again destroy the steps and defend with just one.

Apply that errata and you're extremely hindering a card and *not* solving the problem. All you're doing is removing a card that is, in my opinion, designed to stall rushing decks while slower decks build up. The fact that it is currently used in rushing decks is again the problem with the Magah, not the Steps.

PRODIGEE said:

I stand corrected than. I remember, James Hata was the one collecting questions for FAQ 1.2 on the boards.

But Nate French was at the helm during the development of the Dreamlands cycle which brought us cards using AGoT terms like 'knelt', etc.

Besides, if James Hata is also the lead designer for WH:I, it doesn't change my assessment. He will be busy supporting WH:I then.

What do you think inspired the mechanism for some of the new Silver Twilight cards we've seen? E.g. collecting success markers on a card.

Here's a comment made by Ruvion as a reaction to the news article previewing the 'Ritual of Summoning' card:

"....so this ritual thing...it smells awfully like a modified quest mechanic from Warhammer: Invasion LCG. Not necessarily a bad thing for CoC LCG, but Warhammer's losing some of its uniqueness I imagine."

Note, that I don't actually know the WH:I game, but I suppose if an avid WH:I player recognizes the similarity, there's probably some kernel of truth to it.

For the Silver Ritual I'm not sure I will compare it with WI. Since one or two years, COC players have asked for alternative way to play cards or trigger effects (not by draining a domain) by discarding success token. Descendant of eibon is an exemple (a bad one because the card is not equilibrate), Pagan Hall, Stone calendar also. The Silver Ritual are in the same idea (make some pool token to play effect without draining domains but by discarding success token). So it's not a new mechanic in COC but it's sure you will find some similar idea in the different LCGs. It will be silly if the different designers don't speak together, echange their ideas (and right, you can have the same designers for more than one LCG).

The worst we have seen for Cthulhu was the The Path to Y'ha-nthlei with 4 cards with the AGOT words "any phase" and not cthulhu word "action". The problem is to keep enough time (and money !) to reread and test cards once they have been designed.

Thanks to Duke for pointing out the Sirlin Wisdom in some of the previous posts. I bought a download copy of the book and have already shared the information with my playgroup. We don't want any scrubs around here!

On a side note, the Yomi game looks interesting and priced right for total immersion...

Funny I read some Sirlin's quotes, as the one who made me discover it was Graham Hill, one of the best CoC player I ever faced.