From what i have experienced and read from the forums, rush seems to be the dominant strategy in CoC and on the other hand, dedicated control decks seem to be very rare. I have background in MtG, so for me dedicated control deck would be something like DrawGo, Counterpost or Black Discard decks in that game. Is anything like that possible in Cthulhu? A deck that actually sits back and stays alive long enough for opponent to run out of steam and then finish with a big threat that is almost impossible to eliminate.
There are many obstacles in this game for that type of strategy. The fact that you draw two cards each turn makes discard effect all but useless, because you are limited to three domains you cant hoard cards and resources to counter anything opponent plays and characters are extremely fast and more deadly than in MtG. Still, even with all these handicaps, i have attemped to create a deck that focuses more heavily on control elements and does not aim to attack agressively until deck has established control. The deck is not intended to be off top tournament quality, but it should still be strong enough for casual games.

Here is the decklist. I would really love to know your opinions about this type of strategy and how would you improve this deck, considering that my aim is to keep the deck as little aggro as possible:

Characters:

2xSeeker Of The Profane
2xThomas Olney, Traveller With A Purpose
3xBoard Of Directors
3xMuseum Curator
3xLaboratory Assistant
1xDoppelgänger
2xGlaaki, Inhabitant Of The Lake
3xBird Demon
3xMany Angled Thing
3xIntruder From Beyond
3xServants Of Glaaki

Events:

2xUnspeakable Resurrection
3xInitiation Of Glaaki
3xA Single Glimpse
3xA Journey To The Other Side

Support:

2xThe Necronomicon, The Book Of The Mad Arab
3xM.U. Museum Of Natural History
2xThe Hall School, Institute Of Higher Learning
3xCursed Skull
1xCanopic Jar, Vessel Of Souls

Board Of Directors, Museum Curator, Cursed Skull, Museum Of Natural History:
The combo this deck is based around. Cycle the skull to force opponent to sacrifice creatures every turn. The characters help fetch out the combo pieces early.

Seeker Of The Profane:
Good character for stalling opponent during first couple of turns when resources are low and opponent has plenty of cards to play.

Thomas Olney, Canopic Jar, Unspeakable Resurrection:
Resurrection effects (ok, Jar isn't) that help the deck to use the Comes Into Play abilities of several characters multiple times. Jar is extremely useful this way as when this deck starts functioning, plenty of characters will be dying and thus feeding the jar.

Team Glaaki, Lab Assistant and Bird Demon:
The beaters of the deck whose job is to finish the game when opponent locked without enough characters on the field.

Hall School:
Great way to mess with story phase mathematics, as extra terror icon or combat icon might be just enough to scare the opponent from going for the stories. Also boosts investigation and thus adds speed if the need arises.

Necronomicon:
Just plain useful in so many situations, even though quite costly.

Intruder From Beyond:
Just another beater, who also can mess with opponents strategies, as each time opponent plans on playing an event card, he has to calculate if the effect of the event is big enough to risk releasing one of these fiends into play.

Then there's of course plenty of ways to force opponent to sac more characters and Journey To The Other Side to fetch any cards you might need.

So, that's the deck, what does everyone think?

Oh, and i try to avoid using neutrals, and especially any extreme powercards like Sewer Rats or Descendant, because it would not be fair for my other decks

I'll keep my comments focused on one card, and I'll let players with more experience make a detailed analysis of your entire deck.

RE: A Single Glimpse

I haven't found this card to be as useful as I thought at first glance (hah-hah, oh sorry...) and I have since taken it out of my Yog deck. I can see why you included it - to hopefully sacrifice a character early on and stall a rush deck, as well as to piggyback on your other sacrifice effects. However, I've discovered it has a couple of draw backs.

One, you want to play it when your opponent has few characters out, forcing them to sacrifice someone valuable. This means you want to throw it down in the opening turns for it to be most effective. Unfortunately, it costs 2. Therefore, playing A Single Glimpse simply takes up a domain slot where you could be playing a character early on, making things at most a wash or worse depending on who went first and the speed of your opponent's deck.

Second, as the game progresses your opponent will invariably have lesser quality characters that they can sacrifice freely, making A Single Glimpse far less threatening for a relatively high cost.

My suggestion would be to go with Binding. It's not as destructive as A Single Glimpse, but it only costs 1 (allowing you to play it on the first turn and bring out a 2-cost character). In addition, a well-placed Binding can set up a nastier surprise for your opponent during story resolution, and it retains its usefulness throughout the game. As you're looking for a long-haul deck, that factor might be important.

I'm fairly new to CoC but I feel like I've gotten a pretty good grasp of the game so far. Below is my attempt at a "control" deck in this game. So far it has done fairly well for me.

yog : 30

3 servants of glaaki

3 initiation of glaaki

3 glaaki

3 faceless abductor

3 doppleganger

3 cannibal ghast

3 a single glimpse

3 many angled thing

3 journey to the other side

3 calling down the ancients

cthulhu : 15

3 lord of the silver twilight

3 sombulant dreamer

3 degenerate serpent cultist

3 deep one stowaway

3 cthulhu, lord of r'yleh

shub : 2

2 snow graves

neutral : 3

3 seeker of mysteries

The idea behind the deck is to drop a glaaki or cthulhu by turn 2-3 and then try to overcome my opponent by making him sacrifice all of his dudes.

One thing useful about A Single Glimpse is that it's a sacrifice effect so it can take out Ancient Ones. If the rest of your deck is good at character removal (so that there aren't any cheap guys around to take the hit), you may be able to play it to stop a last-ditch effort that might otherwise have turned the game around. It happened to me at Gencon earlier this year when Y'Golonac got killed by it - he was supposed to buy me the time to play Shub next turn and drop a bunch of characters back into play

I think the main issue here though is that the concept of a "control deck" isn't going to be the same when you're comparing two different games. Because the mechanics and goals of the game are very different, the same strategies may not work the same way or even make sense.

So what is "control"? Is it anything that doesn't try to attack/destroy enemy characters directly? Would a deck built around exhaustion be control? A deck built around hand discard? Around resource destruction? Returning characters to the hand? Insanity? I don't really know. At some point you're going to have to go for those stories, and there has to be a better definition than just saying a control deck is one that waits until later to do it and stalls until it's ready.

First about the card A Single Glimpse: Yeah, i know that that card has limitations, but due to heavy amounts of other removal effects, it has a decent chance of doing useful things also later in the game. Also ties nicely to a theme in my deck. Binding could replace it, but usually i have found more use for A Single Glimpse than Binding in games. But still, good suggestion and i will keep it in mind if i feel i need to tune the deck some more.

The more about the concept of Control Deck. This is actually what i had in mind when starting this conversation. I was thinking, what makes a deck labeled as Control Deck in CoC. Characters are here more central to the game mechanic and the game greatly values speed and rush over longer strategies. What i had in mind was that could i be able to build a deck that actually could play the stalling game and gain control of the game. I define deck as strictly Control Deck when it's main strategy is not to build your own game, but disrupt opponents game and on some level take control of what goes on in the game. This can of course be done with various different methods, like for example, Insanity. Then again, a deck that uses insanity just as a method for gaining character superiority and rush for victory would be more in the Aggro/Control category, which is what i'm not after here. Pure Insanity Control would achieve win by locking opponent completely behind Insanity and then slowly grind away. Just wondering could that kind of strategy be possible within LCG format now? I know that type of decks were played during CCG era, but from my experience LCG functions a bit differently due to cardpool.

Kamacausey: Hmm, interesting deck. That's something what i would have aimed for if i hadn't gotten this insane (or inane? ) idea of a heavy control theme rather than the usual rush.

Shangfu, just so you know restricted doesnt mean you can only have one the certain card that is restricted. it just means that you can only play one of the cards that are on the restricted list. for example diseased sewer rats, descendant of eibon and doppleganger are all restricted. you can only play one of those cards in your deck but you can play 3 copies of it. I only bring it up because i saw in one of the other threads you had only one lord jefrrey farrington in your deck. you can play 3 copies of him if you want.

Really? I thought that when a card gets restricted, you can have only one in deck and the "unique dot" is reserved for the "only one in play at a time" cards. Ok, have to do some more planning then!

Yeah, apparently you are right, i can have three doppelgängers in the deck!
Really great restriction rule, instead of just limiting, it opens up more strategic dilemmas. Which power card is most suitable for the deck? Always great when this type of choices bring more challenge to deckbuilding.

I understand your reasoning for A Single Glimpse, and combined with your Cursed Skull combo, could prove to be an effective tool for destroying enemy characters. By the way, I really like the combo of cards you've come up with for the Cursed Skull. It's tricks like that which make me really enjoy CoC deck building.

Another card that you may consider is Academic Obfuscation, perhaps in exchange for The Hall School? It would mean that an Investigation-focused rush deck would need 3 turns to win a story (unopposed) instead of 2. That could help buy you the time you need for your sacrificing to take its toll.

And let us know how it turns out!

Shangfu said:

Shangfu said:

It's actually a more straightforward and streamlined version of something I've been trying to create. The new relic cards are also great for this kind of deck, since they get reshuffled into your deck. It's a pity •Disc of Itzamna, Protective Amulet (The Breathing Jungle F57) isn't available yet since it would be a great boon.

One potential problem you may run into is having to deal with Snow Graves played by your opponent. You don't seem to have any way to destroy or get rid of support cards (or attachments). My current solution is unfortunately far from ideal: I've added a third faction to the deck...

Actually, I'd love to put even more factions in the deck, but I fear it will stop being playable

Yipe said:

Hmm, good point about the Academic Obfuscation. Have to try it out and see how it works out. Basically it and Hall School both provide the same basic function, stall for one extra turn. Then again, Hall School might stall opponent for few turns where AO for only one, but, Hall School required good amount of characters on the board so yeah, AO might be better. Also, not many decks are afraid of few extra combat or terror icons.....

And yeah, Snow Graves is a huge problem for this deck, but neither Yog or Miskatonic has any means for dealing with support cards. Even Neutrals can't help with those! Adding third faction would propably hurt the deck. I'm gonna wait a bit and see if any of the AP:s give anything for Yog, Miska or Neutrals to deal with Snow Graves, and then propably add Shub to the mix.... :/

kamacausey said:

kamacausey, unless I'm missing something here, you wouldn't be able to play this card since it has one steadfast Hastur icon.

oh wow....i totally missed the steadfast hastur icon...that sucks! i guess ill just put in the brood of yig instead or the dreamlands fanatic. thanks for catching that

kamacausey said:

No prob, I caught it because I did the same thing myself.

Played couple of games with the deck in the first post (with Academic Obfuscation in) and it worked quite well. Has hard time against massive character swarms rushing on the board and of course with Support cards, but if it gains control early, opponent has very hard time to recover. Seeker Of The Profane proved to be extremely useful, but then again, might have been due to matchup (games were against Shub/Hastur weenie swarm with recursion and terror). Also, Bird Demon was extremely effective as a beater for the deck, even though i have disregarded it for a long time for being too simple. Yog/Academy combination definitely needs efficient fighter like him (it?).

Overall, it's a fun deck with plenty of stuff to do during turns. Not top tier, but very effective in more casual enviroment.

Sounds good!

I've one question, though:

How do you actually use the second Response of Canopic Jar?

Here's the text:

Response : Exhaust Canopic Jar and discard a card
attached to it to trigger that card's ability without paying
any cost.

What is the trigger for this Response ? I.e. when can I actually use this effect? Also, what kinds of effect can I use with it? Will it even work with Disrupts , Forced Responses , or Responses ?

I've so far ignored the card, because I have no idea how it's supposed to work.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, i changed the Canopic Jar for the prism, as it gives at least minimal protection from Snow Graves. But, if i were to use Canopic Jar, i would play the Response as an Action, that turns into the effect you are using, for example a Forced Response. Might not really work like this, but i think this is the way it was intended to be used, so i'll play it like that until we get official (or almost official) ruling for the card.

Shangfu said:

I sent the following question about Canopic Jar to Damon Stone, an got this answer:
We're having some problems with Canopic Jar's second trigg ered ability, which reads "Response: Exhaust Canopic Jar and discard a card attached to it to trigger that card's ability without paying any cost." First, how do you play a Response that has no trigger?. Second, the ability says it ignores costs but, Does it also ignore discarded card ability's own triggers, like Diseased sewer rats' "after you play DSR..." or should they still be fullfilled?
The second ability on Canopic Jar should be Action: not a response. Something like Diseased Sewer Rats ability (after you play Diseased Sewer Rats, is not a cost, it is a play restriction. Since the DSR attached to Canopic Jar is not played it cannot trigger its response to them being played, unless the card says to ignore all restrictions.

(Link to source: boardgamegeek.com/thread/706200/chant-of-thoth-canopic-jar )

Extrapolating from this answer, I suspect you can only use Canopic Jar to trigger Actions.

I too am interesting in Canopic Jar, looks like a very interesting card.

It makes sense to me that it should be an Action rather than a Response (and this should be added to the errata as a misprint), but I'm not sure about the idea that you can only copy Actions.

The card text just says "ability". I believe this would include Responses as well, so long as their triggering criteria are met. As the linked thread points out, there is a difference between the cost of an ability and the trigger conditions of an ability. Canopic Jar only modifies the former. Therefore I would think that Actions retain their Action-ness of being triggerable on demand whenever you're in a box that allows them to be played, and Responses retain their own triggers - being playable if the conditions are met. Forced Responses I think basically become Responses since Canopic Jar gives you the choice of whether to use its Action or not. If you don't care to use the Forced Response then you don't exhaust, but the trigger condition is the same. The point that "must" or "forced" effects do NOT force you to do other things to enable them was driven home to me in the Rules forum thread about Y'Golonac and Binding Worm recently so the same should apply here I think.

Does that make sense to anyone else?

The way i feel it should work is like this: You exhaust it to use a characters ability like it were written on the Jar itself, but rules might not support this. We usually play here very casually so this type of open interpretations for rules are not a problem.

Shangfu said:

I've put together something similar, but utilized the decking abilities of Yog. Here's the list:

Characters: (11)

3 x Hermetic Scholar

3 x Museum Curator

2 x Yog-Sothoth

2 x Doppelganger

1 x Board of Directors

Support (20)

3 x Terrors in the Dark

3 x Cursed Skull

3 x M.U. Museum of Natural History

2 x Blackmoor Estate

3 x Academic Obfuscation

2 x Forbidden Knowledge

1 x Necronomicon

2 x Dimensional Rift

1 x Derby Hall

Event (16)

3 x Unspeakable Ressurection

3 x Eldritch Nexus

2 x Night Class

3 x Journey to the Other Side

1 x Beneath the Mire

2 x Chant of Thoth

1 x Curse of the Stone

1 x A Single Glimpse

Conspiracy (3)

3 x The Ritual Conspiracy

This deck works surprisingly well. Your opponent will have a ton of dead cards in their hand because you aren't playing many creatures. Basically you just play the Curator a million times using night class/ressurection/doppleganger to get out the Skull/Museum combo. You can slow your opponent down with obsfuscation and nexus while you mill them.

Catward40hands said:

Wow, looks cool
I tried a milling deck (yog/hastur) some time ago but it didn't work. This type of milling strategy on the other hand could just work!

Thanks!

FYI - I haven't played a game with The Ritual Conspiracy yet. Not sure if 3 is the right number. I'm anticipating moving it down to 2 but we'll see.

The deck works really, really well. You just gotta play Museum Curator as many times as possible to get out Skull, M.U. Musuem, and most important for decking, Terrors in the Dark.

Yeah, and the interesting thing with that deck is that the amount of vital support cards is doubled, but they are at the same time performing two separate roles. Therefore the deck survives better against support card destruction than my version. Opponent has to use much more destruction to really hurt the deck because if he blows up skull/museum combo, you can still keep milling him. On the other hand, if he blows up mill cards, you can still keep killing his characters and keeping him under control.