A simple analysis of what happened during the regional around the world. All the informations I could collect are coming from report I read on the FFG forum or on the Cenacle. The regionals I took into account for this analysis are:

- Amsterdam (5 players)
- France (12 players)
- Oakland (unknown - I have a list only for the winner)
- Philadelphia (8 players)

Not a big pool, but we can make some considerations:

Winner decks:
- Amsterdam: Cthulhu-Yog
- France: Hastur-Syndicate-Agency
- Oakland: Syndicate - Silver Twilight
- Philadelphia: Hastur-Miskatonic

Just considering the winners we can see a variety of decks and factions played even though 3 out of 4 decks are rush decks (I couldn’t find the list of the winner in France, but just looking at the faction I assume it is a rush deck).

Overall, considering all the decklists I could find, we see anyway different strategies and a quite big card choice. If you look into the decks carefully you can find nice synergies and combinations of cards (for example: the mono-shub dark young deck that play 3 Norm Grzbowski as immediate win condition when you play Shub-Nigurrath itself with all the Dark Young coming back from the dead).

The dominance of Hastur/Agency is no longer there (thank god, the rewording and the FAQ for this ).

As “control” faction Agency was the prominent choice, as it was easy to predict: good events and good equipment for wounding combined with characters that have investigation make the faction quite complete even for itself. Personally I was expecting much more Cthulhu around.

Silver Twilight, despite the little number of cards available, was played abundantly: the bouncing effects are of course really good, since they steal a lot of Tempo; this faction is apparently fitting quite well between a rush and a control faction and can be used to build both kind of deck. And I expect that if a combo-deck will come out, this faction will be part of it.

Quite surprisingly (for me, at least) Miskatonic showed up: the faction received some nice cards lately (Flux Stabilizer, just to say one) and I’m happy to see people playing it. Actually, Hastur (after the dominance) seems to be not a popular choice. Shub also is not present a lot.

To finish this small review, here you can find the links where I get all the infos from:

- France:

Report with final positions and the factions played

http://cenacle-hd.bb-fr.com/t2164-classement-officiel-cf-2011

http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=138&efcid=4&efidt=504218

Decklists: 2nd, 3rd, 10th (I couldn't find other decklists, mainly because I don't know French I think If someone can find other lists, please put the link in a reply to this post)

http://cenacle-hd.bb-fr.com/t2151-deck-otia-tronem-2nd-au-cf-2011

http://cenacle-hd.bb-fr.com/t2148-retour-dadajef-du-cf-2011

http://cenacle-hd.bb-fr.com/t2141-championnat-de-france-2011-petit-bilan-d-un-nouveau-joueur

- Amsterdam: final results and lists

http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=35&efcid=4&efidt=500195

- Philadelphia: final results and lists (scroll down towards the last post)

http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=138&efcid=4&efidt=464883

- Oakland: 1st place list (I couldn't find a complete report)

http://fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=35&efcid=4&efidt=502936

Not a great analysis, but this post is more to have a reference of what happened around With such a small number of regionals for which I have informations it is a bit difficult to determine a "metagame". If you have any other info feel free to add everything you think it is important! (and if you know someone that played the regional, asked for lists/comments/whatever they have!)

cheers

Francesco / Konx

I have one to add.

LCG Days: Roseville, Minnesota 3 players.

Winner: Cthulhu

Any analysis on commonly used cards (like the Restricted List, or Snow Graves...)? I'm guessing (without having scoured the lists) that many top performing decks (say top 4) used Descendent of Eibon, for example?

Here is the italian regiona report

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=138&efcid=4&efidt=513962

Winner Carioz : Agency Hastur Rush

@ Konx : the decklist for the french champion 2011 is here : cenacle-hd.bb-fr.com/t2154-deck-champion-de-france-lcg-regionals-2011-lyon and yes it's a rush deck.

I should probably point out that my Miskatonic/Hastur deck was not really a rush deck - it was more of a control deck with some speed in it.

Liège irv october 2010 : 18 players winner cthulhu yog

Liège January, local tournament : 14 players : winner St yog

Liège Local tournament 8 april : 12 players : Winner St yog.

Mistake: Irv october winner hastur yog!!

TheProfessor said:

Ya know... can I coin a term for this type of deck? How about a tactical deck?

Rush - Trys to win in 3-4 story phases or as quickly as possible.
Tactial - Splits between pressure and control to gain steady success tokens.
Control - Attempts to control the game until the odds of the opponent can make a releavent counter attack is minimal at best.
Combo - Achieves victory by exploiting a combination of cards that achieve a ny-immediate win.
Mill - Achieves victory by running an opponent's deck out of cards
Stall - Attempts to not lose until a control, combo or mill strategy can be achieved.

Seems like we could use some more destinction for deck types. If we can all agree on a standard wouldn't mind doing an article on this alone to cement it.

I would have called that a disrupt deck. Doesn't seek to lock down like a control does, but exerts enough control at the right moments to disrupt you opponents plans and break their tempo, all the while putting success tokens on the story.

Disrupt isn't bad. Though, I think it best to avoid game terminology unless it is what defines the strategy archetype. Trying to think of a good example and I'm coming up short...

Like if "discard cards from a deck" was actually worded. "Mill cards from a deck" then it would fit. Which is shame cause I like the word disrupt more than I do tactical.

But calling the archetype "Disrupt" leads me to believe it invovles a lot of cards that have disrupt actions and that it actually meant something closer to control where you're denying/lessen the impact of your opponent's card's effects rather than messing up their tempo.

Then again, thats just me. This obvious is a 'mass public' type of decision. I just wish I had something better to offer than tactical.