I hope a lot of players will give their Gen Con 2011 deck to the community. I'll make a start with my deck. It went second place.

Character
Beings of Ib (TH) x3
Bokrug (AH) x3
Carl Stanford (SoA) x3
Deep One Rising (SoA) x3
Degenerate Serpent Cultist (TWB) x2
Emerging Deep One (TSotS) x1
Ghatanotha (IotF) x3
Mnomquah (JtUK) x2
Princess Zura (SotD) x3
Yig (SfW) x3
Descendant of Eibon (TTotT) x1
Julia Brown (TSotS) x2
Seeker of Mysteries (SoA) x3
The Mage Known as Magnus (TWC) x1
The Red-Gloved Man (WitD) x1

Support
Communal Shower (TTftS) x1
Called by Azathoth (TSotS) x1
The Yuggoth Contract (WitD) x1

Event
Deep One Assault (Core) x3
A Single Path (THBtS) x3
Feeding Frenzy (TC) x1
Sacrificial Offerings (Core) x2
In an Unmarked Grave (SotD) x1
Political Demonstration (Core) x1
Twilight Ritual (TH) x1

Conspiracy
The Locked Door (WitD) x1

In the finals I wished I hadn't had that many neutral cards. Also Tom broke my neck with his Y'ha-nthlei Statue shutting down all my reducers. If I had knewn the field in advance I would have gladly included another Emerging Deep One. Right now I would probably exclude Julia Brown.

Good idea, Ulrich! Here is my Agency deck that I played in World's. I finished 3rd.

CHARACTERS

Professor Hermann Mulder (x1)

Paul LeMond (x2)

Agency Medic (x2)

Blackwood File Clerk (x1)

Government Exorcist (x3)

Repo Man (x3)

Undercover Security (x3)

Agency Groundskeeper (x3)

Descendent of Eibon (x3 - my Restricted Card)

Marshall Greene (x2)

Special Agent Clarkston (x2)

Steve Clarney (x2)

The Mage Known as Magnus (x3)

Local Sheriff (x3)

Trial Judge (x2)

Thomas F. Malone (x1)

T-Men (x1)

SUPPORT

Beneath the Burning Sun (x3)

EVENT

Small Price to Pay (x3)

Shotgun Blast (x3)

Catastrophic Explosion (x3)

Won't be shocked to see them on the main page, and mine will be in a tournament report later. Though, I certainly don't see any harm having it in more than one place.

Characters: 30

3x *The Mage Known as Magnus
3x Diseased Sewer Rats = Restricted card
3x Somnabulant Dreamer
3x Dangerous Inmate
3x Deep One Rising
3x Deep One Stowaway
3x Demon Lover
3x Dreamlands Fanatic
2x *Victoria Glasser
2x Crazed Arsonist
2x The Terror of the Tides

Support: 15

3x *The Seventy Steps
3x *Infernal Obession
3x Y'ha-nthlei Statue
2x *The Caverns of Flame
2x Arkham Asylum
2x Snow Graves

Events: 5

3x Deep One Assault
2x Sacrifical Offerings

I tossed and turned over this deck and a hatsur/shub rush deck, but ulimately decided to go with this. To my dismay, I was really hoping that the meta wouldn't contain SOOO many ancient ones.

Be it cthulhu, yog, shub... AOs where all over the place and this deck really isn't equipped to handle them well. Which is one of many reasons why I was afraid of Ulrich and Jim. I knew if I was going to have a chance I'd have to win quickly.

The statue, sadly, was only useful again you Ulrich. I completely mis-judged what type of decks I was going to be facing so, while it counted when it mattered, being 3x dedicated to an auto resource was kinda scary. Still though, I was suprised at how few players were running characters with less than 3 skill, but hey. Things happen and with both smart and incredibly lucky plays/draws things worked out.

Here's my final deck that scored 12th place as a new player:

Characters:
2x Degenerate Ghoul
3x One of the Thousand
2x Priestess of Bubastis
3x Albino Goat-spawn
3x Ferocious Dark Young
2x Hungry Dark Young
2x The Mother's Hand
2x Watcher of the Woods
2x Y'Golonac, The Obscenity
2x Ancient Guardian
2x Small Ghouls
2x Shub-Niggurath, Dark Mistress of the Woods
2x Hard Case
2x Extortionist
2x Anarchist

Events:
2x Regeneration
2x Burrowing Beneath
2x Bred to Survive
2x Shocking Transformation
2x Get On Yer Feet!
2x Panic
2x Low Blow

Support:
3x Eat the Dead
2x Dutch Courage

It's predominantly Shub with a little bit of Syndicate for some character exhaustion and investigation icons. 52 cards total since I couldn't decide what to cut further. I concentrated heavily on Dark Young so that I could hopefully drop Shub and bring a bunch of them back from my discard and hand. Based on reports of last year being heavy on Agency/Hastur I packed some Toughness and Dutch Courage to shore up my characters but this was ineffective as most of the time I was straight sacrificing characters rather than taking wounds.

Based on what I learned at the tournament I'd definitely make a few changes. I still like the overall concept of a swarm of Dark Young, but some of the Events can be cut I think and maybe put in something with a character removal ability - not sure yet what that would be.

My deck. The 4th place finisher: (I have already reworked the deck, but I think this is what it was within a card or two)

Characters (35):
2 * Carl Stanford, Deathless Fanatic
2 * Yig, Father of Serpents
2 * Hydra, Mother of the Deep
2 * Cthulhu, Lord of R’lyeh
3 Descendant of Eibon, Master of the Black Arts
3 Ravager from the Deep
2 Keeper of the Golden Path
2 Deep One Rising
2 Emerging Deep One
3 Degenerate Serpent Cultist
2 Guardian Shoggoth
3 Dreamlands Fanatic
3 Brood of Yig
2 Nocturnal Scavenger

Events (14):
3 Pulled Under
3 Deep One Assault
3 Sacrificial Offerings
3 In an Unmarked Grave
2 Underneath the Surface

Support (8):
2 Snow Graves
2 Y’ha-nthlei Statue
2 Called by Azathoth
2 Sword of Y’ha-tallo

Hastur said:

Wow, this Mono Cthulhu deck is very, very close to the deck I've seen played at Stahleck 2010.

Apart from the two cards (Underneath the Surface & Yha'ntlei Statue) from the Rituals of the Order cycle which hadn't been released back then, the only significant changes I see are the addition of Sacrificial Offerings and (of course!) the Snow Graves.

I guess, there aren't _that_ many ways you can vary a Mono faction deck, particularly in the case of Cthulhu which has so many staple cards. It's interesting to see that such a straightforward deck did so well.

The Mono Agency deck has a few more changes but still includes most of the staple cards.

Am I correct that the change that made the Descendant of Eibon Unique came after the World Championship?

If so, would any of you who included him in their deck have removed it because of this change? Or is it still a 'must-have'?

Descendent was Unique at Worlds. So, I think it is clear that he is still pretty much a "Must Have".

TheProfessor said:

Suppose I'm not so certain.

To my dismay, Diseased Sewer Rats seemed a better pick for the deck I used. If DSR wouldn't of entered the restricted list Guardian Pillar would've been chosen over a unique Descendant.

With Mentor and Magnus the 3 cost beater slot is a little more open if your strategy looks to abuse their effects more so than Descendant's recovery. On top of that the Snow Graves should be fairly common for a good while. Still, I would agree. Descedant will be better for more strategies than other option though. But "Must" is starting to be pretty blurry for me.

I see your point here, but from a different perspective, it is hard to find a better 3 cost Character card than Descendent. Given the forced choice between Diseased Sewer Rats and Descendent, yes, that depends on the deck build and strategy.

thanks for posting your list guys. it helps a noob like myself to kinda see whats good and worth playing. whoever doesnt mind, would you explain how your deck is supposed to work and what its goal is? also, why you chose the cards you did. it would be immensly helpful to a noob like myself to better understand the cards and how they should be played and why.

Well, I'm only a beginner as well but I'd be happy to explain my deck building process.

First, I don't have a lot of cards since I just started. I knew I wanted to mostly play Shub, but I had to mix another faction in there. I chose Syndicate because I thought their exhaustion effects might be useful against troublesome opposing characters and to get a little bit of Investigation. Originally I had more Neutral cards like Magnifying Glass to help these roles but I found after doing some test draws that getting more than one Neutral card in your starting hand can mess up your resourcing.

I decided early on that I wanted to theme the deck around Dark Young (I'm not as much into Mi-Go), and also to put Shub into the deck because of her potential to bring them back into play. Since I was planning on playing at Gencon against very strong players, I had to assume that their experience would give them a big advantage over me so Shub was going to be my ace in the hole. Even against a stronger player, if I could suddenly drop her and bring a ton of Dark Young back into play, that could give me the swing I'd need to stand up to a pro player. Based on knowing that last year's tournament was dominated by Agency/Hastur I tried to use that to plan. Many of my Shub characters already had Terror so I wasn't too worried about that, but I was concerned about getting dealt wounds by Agency so I put in Albino Goat Spawn to soak damage and a couple of copies of Dutch Courage to buff up our toughness. As it turns out, this was probably overkill, I got dealt fewer wounds than I'd anticipated.

I used the online card list at carddb to plan out what I needed. I was starting from two Core sets and a Secrets of Arkham, but was willing to buy a few boosters to build my deck and this helped me track which ones I'd need.

In order to get Shub into play in time to help me win, I'd need some accelerators. So, I picked out Priestess of Bubastis, One of the Thousand, and Eat the Dead to help ensure that if I drew her I'd be able to play her relatively soon. Also, I has a number of 3+ cost characters that could benefit from them if necessary as well.

For Events, I put in some more durability (Regeneration, Bred to Survive), and Shocking Transformation - which then led me to feel like I needed something really nasty in my deck to transform into. I wavered between Small Ghouls and Slavering Gug - ending up with Small Ghouls. I liked the Gug's abiliy but it seemed very expensive and I wasn't sure how much I'd use it. If I had to pick again today though, I'd take the Gug. Better to have an extra tool just in case.

Once I'd picked out the various cards I wanted I was close to 60 in my deck, too much! So I had to start trimming. I don't really remember what else was in there before, but most of it was done by dropping from 3 copies to 2 of things I felt I didn't need a ton of. I got it down to 52 and felt that was "close enough" for my level of skill.

So basically the plan was to flood the field with cheap tough characters, find Shub, and then bring them back again - hoping this would throw a big enough wrench into my opponent's plans to win me the game through simply having more monsters than he could deal with.

How did things work out? Well, I won one game, got close in a second (if I'd been able to hold out a bit longer until I could play Shub I might have been able to come back), and got pretty stomped in the remainder of the games. Still, 12th place isn't bad and I'm happy with the results.

One of my banes was character sacrificing abilities. I'd invested FAR too heavily in resisting wounds but had no protection against direct character sacrifice. If I were to re-tune the same deck today I'd ditch some of the toughness cards and look into what I could do to help against sacrifice or to get rid of things that cause sacrifice. Probably look into some more Events or Support cards that I could use to mess with my opponent's plans. Originally I wanted to stick with a straightforward deck but after some games I feel like I can probably use some more tricks.

dboeren said:

I think one thing that helps is to remember that the more you bring a card for every contingency, the less likely you are to be able to FIND those cards when you need them. More cards = lower consistency. You can get around it a little if you've got cards that let you search your deck or turn things into other things (like Shocking Transformation) but in general you're better off to plan for the main problems and let some of the niche stuff go.

It's a bit different from the minis wargames I'm more accustomed to (this is my first CCG) where everything you put into your army is sitting right in front of you for the entire game. Here when you include something you're just giving yourself the *chance* that it might show up at some random point. Tuning the number of copies of a card and the number of cards in the whole deck has the effect of altering the probabilities of how often you'll be able to find these things reasonably quickly when you need them.

dboeren said:

thank you. this is what i am wanting to see from people. i want to know why people chose the cards they did and the reasoning behind their decisions. these things help new players like myself understand the game better. anyone else have a tourney report? professor, you are pretty active on here. what about you?

I wanted to play a deck that used Catastrophic Explosion. Then Magnus came out, so I figured those two would be the main concept of the deck. That meant that I needed relatively high skill characters (so that some could survive the Explosion), and cheap character to bring out after the explosion. Also for Magnus I needed high cost characters (4 or higher) so that I could get rid of guys like Carl Stanford. The Visiting Sherif was nice because it worked like a yoyo. Discard the Sherif (cost 4) to destroy a cost 3 character, pay 1 to bring it back to hand.

Beneath the burning sun gives cops an extra skull, so I had good chances of winning combat at stories. Small Price to Pay and Shotgun Blast are just two staples of the Agency - Small Price is cheap for what it does and Shotgun Blast can hit big boys if you can afford to pay for it.

Clarkson reduces cost of Govt cards, so if/when he comes out, and if it is day, then Trial Judge actually becomes worth the cost.

So big ideas are shoot from a distance, win combat, win investigation.

dboeren said:

I immediately thought of lolcats upon reading this. (I has a cheeseburger).

Lolthulhu?

I was waiting for this:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2595

to come out before answering this question.

But if you require more....

Somnabulant Dreamer + Arkham Asylum = machine gun of removal.

The Seventy Steps make you cry and slow as your fat guys come in tired and your little guys dead.

The Demon Lover extends the range of all of my non-printed skill based effects like Diseased Sewer Rats, Deep One Stowaway, and of course Somanbulant Dreamer.

Diseased Sewer Rats, Deep One Stowaway, Deep One Rising, Infernal Obession all say that you lose a character and I gain one. 2 for 1 control cards are nice!

Dangerous Inmate is quality for a 2 drop and can serve as a weaker SD. Victoria Glasser is also solid, but has the unique effect of being able to effect high skill characters as well provided they don't have terror icons or willpower.

Crazed Arsonist is there to support Deep One Assault for support destruction.

The Terror of the Tides can be a 2-1, can be an amazing pitch for Magnus, and gave me a little beef for end game.

Y'ha-nthlei Statue is there so I don't get overrun by a rush deck and to keep me from wasting my time on one skill characters. Also really good for guessing what is in my opponent's hand.

The Cavern of Flame is one of few possible answers to Ancient Ones for this combination of factions.

Snow Graves was just necessary. Best way for me to deal with recursion strategies. Without it, this deck would've been unplayed as cheating in big ancient ones would've been too much.

Deep One Assault. Character or support... it kills it all. Even if I overpay and only ever get up to cost 2 or 3, this card is still worth it.

Sacficial Offerings. Card i liked least in my deck. It was here purely for high skill guys without toughness. Like magnus, descendant, deep one rising etc.. I would immedately replace this with Temple of Ry'leh if I would keep the same deck as a really good and reuseable answer to get past guys my skill 2 effects can't touch.

The Mage Known as Magnus... its me... I practically had to use it! Not really, but it was a nice fit into a control strategy based on destory everything.

TheProfessor said:

why no prize pistol? is that not a staple in mono agency decks?

Magnus Arcanis said:

ive looked everywhere and i cant find any card named the temple of ry'leh...

The Temple is in an upcoming pack. We got to see it as part of the prize support at GenCon. It is an INSANELY good card.

kamacausey said:

I thought about it, and I wanted to leave that 1 resource open to Yoyo Local Sheriff. Plus I don't like the idea of attachments meaning I can lose two cards if the character is killed.

Theprofessor, why did you go with a Blackwood File Clerk rather than an Unlikely Informant? Were you that worried about anti-Criminal stuff?

Cadavaca said:

I don't know! Informant is slightly better. But I have this soft spot for Investigators, so I suspect my emotions over-rode my intelligence.

kamacausey said:

It was also previewed here:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2565

I'm a fan of the Temple. Its my kind of card.

ummm yea that card is sick! it says f you ancient ones! the fact that you dont have to spend it or pay any resources to activate its ability is really freaking good!