After looking at the two most recently published APs in the updated DeckBuilder I realized I really need to pay more attention to spoilers if I want to avoid new cards spoiling my new fun deck ideas.

First in Conspiracies of Chaos we have:

Beneath the Mire
[Neutral] Conspiracies of Chaos F60 / Illustrator: Regis Moulun
[Event] -
Cost : 2
Game Text: Play on your opponent's turn after all players have committed their characters. Action: Each player who has committed at least one character to 3 or more stories this phase sacrifices all committed characters.
Flavor text: "This should fix everything..." - Vaughn

What a nasty showstopper for a heedless early rush!

And then we get a card in the Curse of the Jade Emperor that makes me truly unhappy:

Palpable Unhappiness
[Hastur] Curse of the Jade Emperor F35 / Illustrator: Cristi Balanescu
[Event] -
Cost : 1
Game Text: Action: Choose a story. All characters committed to that story have their skill lowered to 0.
Flavor text: The air was heavy with fear and sadness. The breeze stirred up eddies of terror.

If I interpret this effect correctly, no amount of skill-boosting will help the committed characters in any way. Nobody can succeed at this story this turn!

The arrival of these cards has wrecked my most promising deck ideas - I really love to hate these cards!

Looks like I'll have to resort to playing mono Cthulhu after all...

I'd run that second one by the rules forum. I think that an Event is an instantaneous thing, so their skill would drop to zero when you play it (including any effects that are in play at the time) but if your opponent played something AFTER the Event I think it could still modify their skill back to above zero before the story resolution occurred.

Of course they could also still get a success token for Investigation for what that's worth...

One interesting thing about the card is that it's missing the usual "until the end of the Phase" wording. What is the implication of that?

Beneath the Mire subtext:

If you commit characters to 3 stories when your opponent as an undrained domain with 2 or more resources you are an idiot. Ignore this if you have an undrained domain with 2 or more resources (including Hastur) and are holding Power Drain, then you may laugh hysterically.

Seriously though, Initiate of Huang Hun is totally broken. This card MUST have an errata to prohibit targeting itself. Right now it in effect works like this:

IoHH
Cost:2
Event
Play during your ops phase
Action: Each player returns a character he control to its owner's hand if able then return IoHH to your hand.

Actually it is even better because in a 3-2-2 resource situation you can use IoHH on himself once, then on play him again and pop Farrington, then pop your opponent's Ancient One.

There is a huge problem when someone can return 3 Characters into an opponent's hand every turn.

beneath the mire - while good - is a one shot card.

you play it once, then your opponent will not overcommit (unless he plays Hastur and has power drain in hand).

what I really love is return of called to the sea with Nodens - and with khopesh you play nodens, kill stuff (leaves you with good ol' Carl Stanford, play some dreamlands fanatics for free) play khopesh on nodens, make 2 wounds on him (kill some stuff if it survived his response) and you're ready to clean the table again if you have to. Add DOA, Sac. offerings and in the wake of the sleeper as weaker DOA no. 4-6, and you're ready to go.

And some seekers of mystries to make it happen faster.

dboeren said:

dboeren said:

(v1.0) Multiple Lasting Effects
Even if not triggered at the same time,
multiple lasting effects may affect the
same card at the same time. The order
in which the lasting effects take place
is irrelevant – the net sum result of all
lasting effects is applied to the card.

I interpret this to mean that it doesn't matter if skill boosters are played before or after Palpable Unhappiness. The net effect will still be that skill is lowered to zero.

And, yes, you could still win the story but you cannot succeed at it! That's a difference that several effects rely on.

The FAQ also covers what happens if no duration for an effect is given:

(v1.0) Duration of Effects
If a triggered effect has no specified
duration, then the effects of that
ability expire at the end of the current
phase.

Tokhuah said:

Dreamlands Fanatic is a good counter, but of course you can only use it up to three times in a game...

There are even several ways to reduce the cost of playing IoHH, since he has both the Criminal and the Lodge subtype.

But then, there's also ways to increase the cost of playing IoHH, particularly repeatedly.

Here's also a fun way to deal with the problem:

•Professor Lake, Obsessed with Footprints
[Miskatonic University] Mountains of Madness F3 / Illustrator: Ian Kirkpatrick
[Character] - Scientist.
Cost : 3 / Skill : 3 / Icons: CI
Game Text: Forced Response: After a player plays a card, until the end of the phase that player can only play cards that belong to a different faction than that card.
Flavor text: If this last isn't the high spot of the operation, I don't know what is.

Of course this might end up being a two-edged sword and the Professor costs 3.

The problem is that there's such a variety of nasty effects that you cannot have counters for everything in your deck, let alone on your hand.

I've found a very interesting combo that would also very effectively neutralize IoHH, but it requires two cards with cost 2 and 3 being in play. An opponent paying attention would be able to make sure both cards are never in play at the same time but once they _are_ in play, there's very, very few cards able to stop it (I've found four). The only problem being that one of them is a very popular one.

So, what I deduce from this thread so far: Maybe I should look into playing Cthulhu/Lodge rather than mono Cthulhu?

Personally I would love to have my Swooping Byakhee be returned to my hand again and again. Eventually it will be the Initiate of Huang Hun that is discarded.

(Also my Many-angled Thing would be a good card to return to my hand)

That's a good point. Any character that has a beneficial effect on entering play is at least a partial counter to Huang. Naturally your opponent will try to target other characters first, but the more of them you have the harder it is to avoid them.

dboeren said:

The way I read it, if my opponent plays it then I get to choose which creature returns to my hand. At least that is how I think "..each player returns a character he controls to it's owner's hand.." should be interpreted. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

My mistake, I didn't actually check the text - your interpretation is correct.

Swooping is too slow. Since his player will be using a majority of the resources to wipe the board hand size to discard something less desirable will never be a problem. While this is going on stories are being won. Cards that destroy cannot target him because he is never in play long enough. Once a player has 3 domains with at least x3 resources and at least 1-2 Characters in play to keep traction the game is over. People need to start getting a deck around this guy in their meta so that we can prove he is broken.

All he needs is "target another card..." text so he cannot bounce himself and it will be all good.

Tokhuah said:

Well, once I have any of a half-dozen combos set up I'm unstoppable, too! This guy is just one among many, although it might be slightly easier to set up. I also notice you didn't comment on any of my suggested counters. I particularly think the Hastur faction shouldn't have a lot of trouble to deal with him. They have several ways to disrupt the Initiate using Power Drain, Writhing Wall, Performance Artist, Wilson Phillips (and probably more).

As mentioned, increasing the cost to play the initiate will also stop your opponent from using him repeatedly: There's Tithe Collector, Campaign Chief, Dampen Light, Dreamlore Documents, Notebook Sketches, and probably more.

I've already mentioned the Dreamlands Fanatic. It's only one example of a host of characters (and pseudo-characters) that can be used to deal with a situation that repeatedly removes your characters from play - by not having any characters in play!

There's also preventive measures: By getting a peak at your opponent's deck (and discarding the top card or putting them to the bottom of his deck) you can prevent your opponent from ever getting the Initiate in his hand (except for the starting hand, obviously). And finally, you can force your opponent to discard cards from his hand (again Hastur seems to have the highest number of cards to do this)to get rid of any Initiates that may manage to end up there.

If there is a problem, it's this: You absolutely have to build your deck around dealing with the Initiate or you have to use him yourself. As such it's a prime candidate for the restricted list.

If it turns out the Initiate is too destructive for the game's meta he will get errata. But I think it needs to be shown in actual play.

@jhaelen: I appreciate your research and agree that there are ways of dealing with him. I am just not sure if most of those cards will be helpful against the rest of the meta. We also noticed when playing around with the deck tonight (or last night by now becasue it is 3am) Silver Twilight has another character that also costs 2 and makes the opponent either drain a domain or pop a Character back into their hand. This makes even Hastur disrupt tech a tough call... The funny thing is we are not talking about a combo that needs to be set up, but a single card that wreaks face. I agree we need to see more of it. I encourage everyone to make a deck around the Initiate and start reporting their findings. If I can get around to it this weekend I will post the deck I am using in the deck construction section and maybe others will do the same and we can come up with some for and against strategies...

Dreamlands fanatic is the answer.

Play him in response to the first IoHH leaving table.

Bounce him with the second IoHH and play him again in response.

Done.

A one card combo killer for a one card combo. Plus, Fanatic is just good stuff if you have any sort of removal in your deck... which you should.

Random_Person said:

Again, the only problem I see is that it makes it an auto-inclusion in every deck. The more 'auto-inclusions' there are, the poorer the meta. Hence, I'd definitely suggest to put the Initiate in the restricted list if no errata is found to be warranted.

jhaelen said:

I'm not a fan of auto-includes either... but Fanatic is a great card for any deck that has removal of any kind, and most decks should. It's a pretty easy card to play with and at worse is a great choice for resourcing.

There are lots of cards that are great cards (for any faction). It's when one gets so good that it almost always gets picked over other strong cards that something might be amiss. Personally, I feel like cards which don't require a faction match should be subjected to extra scrutiny as well. Part of the "cost" of a card is the factions you play. When you pick your two +/-1 factions you're supposed to (IMHO) be gaining an advantage on playing the cards of those factions and doing the things those factions are good at, but also accepting the drawback that things those factions DON'T do well are going to be more of an issue to you. If you could get the best of everything in one faction, we'd say that faction was overpowered, and that's sort of what a great card that essentially ignores faction does in a smaller sense with stuff like Dreamlands Fanatic or Snow Graves.

Anyway, what we can do at this point is test the card out and provide feedback. If he's too good and the name of the game changes from "Call of Cthulhu" to "Everybody Huang Hun Tonight" then we can tell them that and Damon will decide if it should get an errata, be put on the Restricted list, or whatever. Personally I like the "target ANOTHER card" fix that was proposed.

I'm guessing that part of what we're seeing is that with Silver Twilight being newer they're trying to bring them up to competitiveness quickly, rather than have them spend too long at the stage where people are saying "they're interesting, but not quite there yet". Some minor mistakes may happen as a result of driving the pace, but as long as they fix anything that needs fixing I'm OK with that.

dboeren said:

Does anyone remember the Rainbow decks of the CCG era? I think, we're well on our way of being able to reproduce it in the LCG. I've already tried to put one together last year but I still had to include too many cards requiring a faction match. Right now it seems a lot more feasible: I'm not sure about Syndicate, but every other faction has currently ways to put characters into play, bypassing faction matches and often also bypassing cost! Naturally, Yog is the leading faction for this kind of stuff.

I've identified two effective counter-measures right now, the obvious one being Miskatonic's Flux Stabilizer. And I've actually tried creating decks around both before trying to do the opposite, i.e. create a new rainbow deck. It's still a work in progress and I have no idea if it's actually playable. Currently, it shares some of the problems of combo decks and is vulnerable to milling decks. But with the right setup, 'traditional' decks don't stand a chance.

I've never been a fan of must-have neutral cards, so I'm glad that using a combination of the restricted list, errata, and releasing anti-neutral cards, they've been put into line. I don't really mind if new cards shake up the meta for a while. It's only a problem if they continue to dominate it over a long period of time.

And the one good thing about the Initiate is that I finally got around to study the Lodge faction in more detail and actually found a bunch of cards that I'd like to include in a deck, when before I've just not been interested in the faction

jhaelen said:

Reading this made me die a little inside.

Dreamlands Fanatic emphasizes the need for this little ST brokenness to include a smattering of:

MU for Flux Stabilizer, with the side benefit of card draw to get to broken stuff faster.

or

Cthulhu or Agency for directed destruction/wounding removal (one of these options would be more stable and probably a better choice).

My point is there is no easy counter that does not have an answer that is equal or better in terms of reliability for ST to maintain power use of this card. I really hope people start ruining their meta with initiate to prove that it is meta warping and creates a NPE.

My favorite part is that you guys didn't mention Rich Widow as you can use that in the same way you can use the fanatic.

Silver Twilight is on the map with Initiate of Huang Hun and Hidden Agenda. Power Drain and other cancel effects are now relevant. Ancient Ones are now extremely close to neccessary in every deck thanks to Broken Space, Broken Time lest you have a good plan against it.

We're in a really wierd spot in the metagame right now. One of the best ways to get around a few strategies is to rush stories and dump a bunch of characters into play. But, with mass removal and cards similiar to the ones above make that extremely difficult.

To me, its starting to feel like the CCG again. Wether that is a good thing or not I'll leave that to each person to make up their own opinions.

I'm not a fan of Initiate of Huang Hun. I think It's too much power/utility in one card. The removal of 3 character per turn, every turn is just too much IMO. The fact that people here are talking about putting something in every deck they make to counter one card is proof enough.

Granted, once people play with it and get more experience with how it works in a deck, that opinion may change. But right now it's looking like it's too much.

Blood Magician is another card that is just crazy good. Granted, he is much easier to deal with, but after playing a few games with him in my Yog/Cthulhu deck, it's pretty clear the power he has.

Don't forget too, if you opponent is bouncing 3 characters a turn, thats all they are doing and they don't increase their field presence at all. While on the other hand, if you continue to play 3 characters a turn you can take advantage of the situation.

Initiate is strong, but it needs more than just itself to be effective. However, if I were to head to a tournament right now, theres no way I wouldn't be ready with a plan for it in some way. Don't forget too, beyond Dreamlands Fanatic, Rich Widow, getting more that 3 characters into play a turn, and cancel effects you can also use hand discarding.

Soo... ya. A little warping, but there are several easy to play options to lessen the possible blow of the Hun.

PS. Eldrich Nexus to play a 4th character a turn is another card you can use too.

Magnus Arcanis said:

This. If you seriously want to abuse Initiate, you will end up focusing on it 100%, which stops your progress. So, using Initiate early in the game might not be a good idea as you will have too few characters on the board to gain maximum benefit from it. Then again, later in the game opponent propably has figured out that the Initiate is bound to arrive soon and has prepared for it.

So, in the end, it is an extremely powerful card that will have an impact on the metagame for sure, but seriously overpowered? I don't think so. In my Syndicate/Order deck Initiates job will be to clear the board in the right time for my horde of gangsters to claim victory quickly. Of course, originally i saw Initiate more as a serious control card to keep the opponent locked, but the more i though about it, the more i came up with methods to eliminate him. Still very cool card, and finally some serious power for Order ^^

Some notes:

Initiate will be played just enough to round out the x9 slots the 2-4 cost ST Characters take up who bounce opponents characters and stay in play, making it a progressively larger board advantage.

This deck also uses Widow+Fanatic.

Testing it this weekend I am finding the deck works best with some focused destruction/wound removal. Got Cthulhu? Have you ever wanted to play Deep One Rising every turn?

Obviously there is much more to explore in this concept, but one thing is for certain. Initiate warps the environment, forcing people who do not play him to meta against him. Regarding Broken Space, Broken Time, as Magnus mentioned, including an Ancient one in your deck is almost essential. I favor Nyarlathotep becasue he is playable if drawn and screws with slower build decks. Any card that has the word "broken" in its title twice is trying to tell you something... Anyway, I have also been thinking about parallels to the ccg, more like feeling it in my gut like a stomach ache... The problem with this latest influx of cards is they have the danger of seriously limiting the playability of the card pool due to an increase of must plays to deal with them. Too early to tell really, these are thoughts, bad dreams in the witch house, possibly the mere paranoia of someone who has suffered through plagues of infectious power leaps that leave everyone as zombies or those fighting zombies... in black and white silence except for the blood and screams...

Tokhuah said: