Hey there forum a few new players wish to join the Call of Cthulhu Universe , and we have brought up a few questions which will hopefully be answered so we can join the ranks here. Through a bit of searching and what not it seems that this game Revolves around the Core set and then is expanded via Expansions( duh ) and Asylum Packs and such.

The question here being as new players ( I write on behalf of my friend as well) which set or cards should we be aiming for?
It seems to be clear that a Core Set ( yet correct me if I'm wrong) will be needed and by the looks of the it , the Secrets of Arkham expansion seem to be a nice place to start from.

So any other advice we need to know about?

We wish to start off simple , getting used to the game , factions and play styles of each type before deciding which Asylum packs to head for. But given the case we wish to acquire certain types of factions for example Cthuhlu , Yogs , Agencys or Hasturs , which Family of Asylum packs ( or specific packs ) should we aim for per faction.

So in the end we wish to know :
1. What packs or sets should we invest in to get a initial feeling of the game.
2. After grasping the game itself , where should we head off to if we wish to make specific decks( two to be precise)?
say Cthulhu- Hastur and Cthulhu-Yog Sothoth.
We specifically mentioned Cthulhu and the others cause.. they just seem to be the most interesting to us.
Suggestions are welcome.
3. In case 2 shouldn't be done , What decks( given faction and what packs to aim for) could you recommend us to build some time after step 1.

Thanks in advance and I hope to cycle more around these forums.
~Zealotscout
PS. competition isn't really on our mind since the area we live at doesn't have much CoC movement so , we're aiming just for fun plays with a few friends.
Cheers.

Hi, and welcome.

To answer your questions,

1. Yes, get a core set, it's essential, might get another if you like. The Secrets of Arkham has some great cards, especially for Cthulhu's faction. I'd also get all the asylum packs from the Yuggoth Contract Cycle, especially The Wailer Below, which has a new, and better, version of Cthulhu: Lord of R'lyeh.

2. Card Game Database ( http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/CoC/CoCCards.html ) has some nice Call of Cthulhu decks that could get you started. For Yog/Cthulhu, I would try making a cultist themed deck for starters, Cthulhu/Hastur would have some great destruction and insanity options. I personally just go mono Cthulhu faction these days, I just love the big guy and his faction is, in my opinion, one of the most versatile and powerful of them all. Also, if you want a thematic mono Cthulhu faction deck, I would suggest a Deep One themed deck. I'd also look around the forums at some of the other deck ideas.

Hope that helps.

That is honestly a huge help man , I had no idea you guys answered so quickly and to the point. Very helpful , so I guess I wasn't too out of it when I randomly shot out deck combo ideas. The mono Cthulhu hadn't come to mind though but I guess it can be handy since Yugg cycles seem to have alot of them right?

And I definitely give the forums a closer eyeing , the cultist strategy sounds very interesting.
Thanks again!!

Hello, and welcome to this crazy and marvelous universe of madness and horror.

As you say, there is the Core, two Expansions (Secrets of Arkham and the Order of the Silver Twilight), and "Cycles" of Asylum Packs (4 finished, 1 finishing, and one starting). All the "Cycles" are composed by 6 APs, all of them with 20 different cards.

As you will see while you are playing, each faction has its playing style. This is a link to an article from FFG about factions (you will see there are 8 of them, dont worry): http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=2519

This tells you a little about the faction, its typical play style and things you can do with their cards. If you want to clean the table of enemy's characters, dont take Miskatonic and Shub-Niggurath!!

About buying, I have a few counsels:

- You need to know that in the Core are very interesting cards, but, as you can see now, there is only 1 copy of each card. In CoC LCG, you can play 3 copies of each card, and thats important. Imagine your Cthulhu deck with 3 Pulled Under, or playing 3 Agency's Shotgun.Blast.

- Secrets of Arkham has 2 copies of each card included, except one copy of the new set of stories. If you're a group of friends, you can buy three SoA in pairs, having 3 copies of each card.

- The first "Cycle" of AP is Dreamlands, and each AP contains 20 new cards, but only 40 cards in total. What that means? That you will have some cards with 3 copies, and some others with only 1. The others AP's Cycles have 60 cards in total, 3 copies of the 20 new cards.

- The Expansion Order of the Silver Twilight adds a new mortal Faction to the game. It has 3 copies of each card, but of 55 new cards, only 15 are neutral (1), or of the "old" factions (2 cards per faction).

- The "Cycle" Rituals of the Order doesnt bring any neutral card (as i remember), has more Silver Twilight cards than the other factions and is recommendable if you also buy the Expansion OotST.

- The "Cycles" of AP Forgotten Lore, Summons of the Deep, The Yuggoth Contract and Dreamlands have no Silver Twilight cards. Forgotten Lore Cycle is a reprint of cards from the older format (CCG, as Magic), with some revisions in their cards to adapt them to the LCG envoirament.

- The "Cycle" of AP Ancient Relics is the actual Cycle, and in the first AP has a new set of stories to play. It contains cards of the new faction.

Well, I try to be understandable, and I hope this can help you and your friends to, slowly, enter the CoC LCG game

Zealotscout said:

Oh, and before I forget, be sure to buy the Shifting Sands Asylum Pack for new story cards and a very powerful relic for Cthulhu's faction.

Ok so shifting sands will be a nice option for us two since we plan on sharing the Cthulhu portion of our decks , that is we might both be either mono cthulhus or mix it up with something else.

Now to flush out a doubt I've been racking up every since I heard the term LCG , with an example.
If I were to buy a Yuggoth contract AP , and specifically The Wailer Below Pack , Will I get 100% certain a Cthulhu Lord of R'yleh and the other cards listed there ?( According to this link http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/CoC/CoCCards.html/_/the-yuggoth-contract/the-wailer-below/ ) and even x3 to boot O_O?
Or am I simply stretching it?

I'll be sure to give those factions a good look up ,to see and manage what we can really go for, before officially going bat crazy on those APs.

Anyways I'll be out for now but I'll be sure to check on tomorrow afternoon for more info so I can finally order atleast our first core set.
Ps ~ Thanks to Phantom287 for the DB card link and Loprw for the List of factions.

Sorry for my pestering questions but I honestly wish to enter this world of terror 8D , while leaving a few of my friends insane with a few cards haha.

LCG format is different of the CCG (Collectable Card Games) like Magic and others in the cards buyed. CCG works with the rarity system, buying cards at random.In LCG all the cards are fixed. You can buy 6 The Thing from the Shore and you will have 18 times the same 30 cards.

The underlying premise of the LCG is that there is no collectible aspect. When an Asylum pack is published it contains a very specific set of cards and every Asylum pack of the same name contains the exact same cards.

So, if you got into the game, for $15 per month you would have every card ever released, and 3 of each (in the new format of 60 cards per Asylum pack). Much cheaper than the collectible card games.

Just as a side note, I would recommend that you and your playing partner do NOT try to both run Cthulhu as you develop card sets. You would have limited numbers of cards to build your decks and you would not get the feel of the various factions. You should try out different factions and see how they fare against each other. But that's just my opinion...

TheProfessor said:

I agree with TheProfessor. If you both try and use Cthulhu's faction, you'll both run out of cards, and likely end up arguing who gets his best cards (Deep One Assault, Deep One Rising, to name as few) in their deck. The solution would be to either have you and your friends focus on different factions or, if you have the disposable income for it, repurchase Asylum Packs in order to increase the number of cards available so each player can play similar factions without it being too diluted.

Also, are you the one primarily buying these asylum packs or are your friends willing to buy their own cards if they get into the game? I ask, because if they are willing to do that, then they can buy thier own Asylum Packs and build thier own decks with their own cards instead of having to share a card pool.

I'll echo the others, if you're trying to start from a common shared pool of cards to save costs, you'll want to ensure that you don't overlap factions in the same game or else you'll end up butting heads over particular cards you want. ALSO, this will end up in knowing more about what the other guy is running which may lead towards trying to tweak your deck to counter the cards you know he has. I'd suggest doing a two-stage process. First, pick your factions so they don't overlap, then build your decks from the pool of cards for those factions.

A Core set + Secrets of Arkham is a good start. A second Core set is pretty nice too, when you can get to it. As far as the Asylum Packs, you can pick up almost anything you want. The two main strategies I think are picking them up per cycle, or picking up selected packs to build the deck you want. The advantage of picking up a full cycle is that cards often share common themes or are designed to work with each other. The advantage of picking and choosing is that you can get specific cards you want. For instance, I'm very new to the game and when I was building a deck to take to the Gencon tournament I had only a limited budget so I bought only the packs I needed for that specific deck. Either way is viable, and you and your opponent will both be sharing the same advantages/disadvantages so I don't think anyone will be favored.

Definitely get Shifting Sands for the new story deck, plus there are some nice cards in there too.

I'd say spend a good evening with the cardgamedb.com deckbuilder just browsing and writing down the names of cards (and the packs they're in) that catch your eye. You can use this to help guide the priority of different packs/cycles, plus it will help get you familiar with what sort of cards are out there.

Thanks for the comments guys ! These have been a big help , hard to believe how fast the answers came and the clarity in them.

So well as most of you have stated , sharing/overlapping Cthulhus will be hard( or even impossible) and not recommended at these stages so yea I can understand that. I mean ... how on earth can you share 1 cthulhu and not fight over it ... it's MADNESS and the other cool cards in the packs.
As for the purchases I'll be the one buying the big packs for now since I'll need the game to slowly introduce my other friends , but atleast one is sure fired to get into the game with me. For that instance he'll probably getting his own APs somewhere along the line , and we'll share cards from the Arkham expansion and the core set, as for the rest of the cards ; APs will serve as our " trading esscense" since we'll be splitting up the AP cycles in some way.

The specific APs we'll be buying will probably depend on what factions we lean towards once we have the game in our hands , but for my side I wanted honestly to get 2 for starters. These 2 AP would be Screams from within and the Wailer Below , I wanted these 2 based on the simple fact that they have my favorite Ancient Ones. And I might leave out Shifting Sands on my first order of cards since I'm runnin low on funds xD.

Well I wish to give out a really big thanks to all of you , and I hope to join your ranks real soon.

Good Night.

No problem, glad to help. And good luck getting a local community started!

Zealotscout said:

See what I did there? Didya?

It would seem that I have become bored! Most likely I'm procrastinating and ignoring something far more important. But... I did want to say hi and welcome to the community. Normally I'd answer your questions and stuff but far more qualified applicants beat me to it soooooo all I can could do was harmlessly mess with your last post to send someone who wasn't completely paying attention into shear panic. Ok, so... not really panic, but I bet someone looked at least twice! If you are that person I demand that you post so you can be shamed. Ok, so... not really shamed. More like... ya... I'm gonna go over there now and mess with another thread.

Good Morning.

Well I've ordered what I had to order except for the Shifting sands AS , well atleast its on its way here... a week tops and my stuff should arrive.
Just keeping you guys posted 8D , my friend and I over a weekend and free-time in the university ( no not the mistkatonic university xD) will be testing out some faction combos.

Out of curiosity , is this set of cards enough for a 3-4 player match ? :
x1 core set
x1 Secrets of Arkham
x1 Wailer Below AS
x1 Screams from within AS

Assuming all players pick different factions and such.

Later guys!

I guess is a good start. There are enough cards to play 3 players (to be a 4th player and no repeat any faction, you need Silver Twilight), but do not expect great decks

Maybe you all may miss a second Core Set to have some interesting cards x2 (as Binding or Antrhopology Advisor for Miskatonic, Pulled Under or Deep One Assault for Cthulhu, Demon Lover or Victoria Glasser for Hastur, ...).

Looks fine to me. As long as you all have access to the same cards then it should be fairly even. None of you will be able to run a really top-shelf deck, but that doesn't really matter because the only important thing is that you're on even footing with each other.

Later on a second Core set would be a good idea but I don't think you don't need it to start off as long as faction overlap is minimal.

Hey guys , my cards have finally arrived in the country and they shall be delivered tomorrow to my bros house. That means it will be deck making time , so just as a heads up ; what should be the standard deck layout?
How many characters event cards, support cards should be in? ( Cart ratio is recommended)
Which is the recommended card number count per deck? (I'll need to know this soon so I can buy slip packs for two decks)
So yea , once the cards are in my hands I'll let you guys know the definite deck me and my friend will be going for ; keeping in mind we won't be overlapping factions ( and limited to the Core set ,Secrets of Arkham and a few yuggoth contracts packs).

We'll make it that winner of games gets to use any OP deck we manage to make haha.

Looking forward to the deck making process and finally getting into the game. ( or vice versa)
~ Zealot

Zealotscout said:

50 cards is the minimum number of cards you can have in the deck, so I'd aim at keeping your decks down to that size

I would say a good ratio would be 28-30 character cards, 16-18 event cards and all the rest support cards.

These ratios can change though depending on what your aiming for, more characters, more events or more support.

Bottom line, just make sure you more than half of your deck is characters and all the rest can be made up of events and supports that will assist the overall strategy of your deck.

It may depend somewhat on faction and the theme you're going for. But if there's any sort of golden deck building rule it's probably something like:

Try to get down as close to 50 cards as you can and have roughly 60% (~30 +/- a bit) of them be characters.

The rest are split in some fashion between Events and Supports. Also, you want a cost curve. It's no good to have a deck full of just cost 4+ cards even if you think they're the "best" for your deck's strategy. You won't be able to play them until too late, making your deck too slow. You need to have some 1-2 cost cards you can get out there early so your opponent isn't just walking all over the stories unopposed. I can't really propose any exact ratio because it depends on too many things, and there are a lot of cost-reducer cards that can alter the curve as well. Different factions probably have different ratios too - Miskatonic for instance is somewhat known for "weenie rush" decks with lots of cheap characters, where Cthulhu seems to be on average slower with more expensive characters.

Here's what I recommend to help get a sense of cost ratios - do test draws. Shuffle your deck, draw a starting hand, set up your domains, and see how much you can play on your 1st and second turns. If it's not very much, then your deck doesn't have enough low cost stuff in it. Having too many low cost guys isn't necessarily a problem as you can just stop resourcing and keep those cards - improving your draw rare. Just be aware that you need some way to deal with big nasties that your cheap guys may not be able to kill lots of Event and Support cards can help with this.

Anyway, that's my advice as a fellow noob

Well yes , that is a pretty rule of thumb. As of now I have unpacked my Core set cards and in the process of unpacking the rest.
My main goal now is to learn the rules and such , and to keep a close eye on the faqs since i heard some cards have error prints or something. Well can anyone direct me to a simple 2 tone or 1 tone deck using only the Core Set and Secrets of Arkham??(one each)

I'll be creeping around to find the most resources(informative) as I can.
Cheers bros!