I've been playing some test games of my mono-Cthulhu deck vs. my mono-Syndicate deck, and Mr. Green has been been getting smacked around like the hysterical woman in Airplane.

The typical pattern is that Syndicate gets a few characters out and start running stories unopposed, exhausting any characters Cthulhu managed to play. Using characters like Hard Case and Extortionist they can generally do this without losing tempo, and handle any leftovers with Intimidate, Kidnapping 101, etc... Sometimes Cthulhu has enough strength to contest the last story but it's generally too late and they lose 3-0.

Y'ha-nthlei Statue helps a little, but it's expensive to get out quickly which puts me further behind on characters, and a good chunk of the Syndicate characters have Skill 2 anyway. Now that I've gotten some more cards in I'm planning to add Degenerate Serpent Cultist but I'm interested in what other cards might be useful to slow down or otherwise deal with a rush deck.

A Single Path seems like it might be a good one. Cards like Dark Quagmire or Sleep of Reason can defend one story, but I suspect they'd just give that one up and go after another. Buys me a turn at best.

I could take the Khopesh and just see if I can mow them down as fast as they show up, that might buy me some time.

If I was lucky enough to get my hands on both, I could combo Y'ha-nthlei Statue with Called to the Sea for one turn, but I'd probably lose some of my own guys too. Might be worth it, but something that takes 2 cards is less reliable.

Anyway, looking for any other ideas you guys might have.

I'd suggest using Nodens if rush decks are giving you trouble. Sure, you'll lose some of your own guys, but generally it's worth it if you are really behind on characters mid-late game.

Due to slowness of cthulhu, rush is a pretty hard matchup. Sac. Offering is great in early game, and many of the cards you mentioned also help. The cheapest two serpentmen (can't remember the names) are also good unless syndicate drops a Triggerman first turn. Personally, i would add a faster faction along with cthulhu to provide support early in the game and with cthulhu focus on the 3-4 cost characters, and cthulhu has plenty of those (and of whom pretty much everyone is awesome). For example, i use agency/cthulhu combination and it has been much more effective than plain cthulhu.

Nodens is also very powerful, or mentor to vaughn and sewer rats. So, as cthulhu can't really handle speed, Neutrals or another faction are your best bet. Even though cthulhu has some cards to deal with early rush, it doesn't have enough of them and many of them aren't as good as other factions tools against rush, which leads to a situation that you have to cut out cards to make room for much worse cards centered around one opposing decktype, if you focus only on cthulhu.

Sometimes it really annoys me how overly effective early rush strategies are in this game, as it invalidated lots of different strategies that could be played. Then again, serious speed hate would result into way too overpowered cards and bizarre tourney enviroment too easily....

Sacrificial Offerings and Dreamlands Fanatic are a good option, imho, to counter rush. And Temple of R'lyeh (when available, your exhaust characters can destroy one of their commited ones) and other tricks (as the Sleep of the Reason) can slow the rush enough to control.

What about Feeding Frenzy and Beneath the Mire, would they be efficient to halt the rush start? Haven't been able to start playing yet but am looking forward to it now that I've accumulated the cards. And mono Cthulhu feels really tempting.

Adding to Loprw and Shandfu suggestions of Sac Off, DL Fanatic, and the 2 Serpent Men:

Deep One Assault: Every Cthulhu dominant deck needs x3

Deep One Stowaway and Sewer Rats: Since they wound/remove you will gain traction on their early character advantage

Deep One Rising: Character advantage, also 4 skill is good vs Syndicate

Carl Stanford: He is UBER against anyone for 3 cost

General Play Advice: Make sure you use wounding/killing tech on their Characters after they commit to stories on their turn to control the flow of token placement. Remember, you have removal so your main objective is to stop them before they are in a position where they can win on one big turn then you can steamroller their weaker characters. Also, do not be afraid to grind it out once you have the board. At the point that you have a superior position really hold back on those removal events to take care of any of their attempts at roguish runs at stories.

Thanks for the tips guys.

I've been working on making mono-faction decks for each faction in turn on the theory that it's a really good way to learn each faction along with their strengths and weaknesses. So, I haven't been putting in any Neutral cards or doing 2-faction decks so far.

I'd put in Dreamlands Fanatic if I could, but I'm not going to buy any of the Dreamlands cycle until they're reprinted in the 60 card format.

I did have Feeding Frenzy, Deep One Stowaway, and Deep One Assault in my deck. I don't get to draw that many of them before the game's over though. In my last test I took out one guy with Stowaway, and one with Assault. Feeding Frenzy didn't turn out to be useful against Syndicate rush because none of my guys are at the story to be wounded, they're all exhausted/kidnapped. Deep One Rising usually isn't playable until too late.

I put out Y'ha'nthlei Statue one game but too many of them were Skill 2.

Good tip on using Events/abilities AFTER they commit, that's something I wasn't thinking of that should help significantly - ideally it will thin a story out enough that I can kill another one on combat icons.

Beneath the Mire looks very good, I haven't picked up Conspiracies of Chaos yet but as soon as I do I'll be trying that card.

Anyway, you've given me some things to try out and I was planning on tuning up the deck a bit anyway. I'll do some revisions and give it a few more goes, maybe trying out some of the Neutral cards so long as it's not too many.

Thanks!

Aziz x3. That little bastard can wreck a rush decks day. Just stalling him out for a turn so he is too scared to commit to stories on his turn might be enough for you to get your midrange guys in play. Especially if you combo him with Azathoth. Boom goes the dynamite.