I kinda liked the discussion which this combo sparked. I have opinions on its merits and place in the game but I'll keep them to myself, as it would derail the purpose of this topic.

Now, I have read that mono Miskatonic (which I agree is not yet tourney ready) has no chance to stop this combo turn 0.

As a thought exercise, I begun to think of a way to stop it with Miskatonic University cards. Turns out there is. In fact, mono Miskatonic has at least two ways to. Most of these methods are statistical and may employ non strictly Miskatonic cards, but rest assured that they are meant for a deck which will be 90 to 100 Miskatonic cards.

1) Night Class -> Natural Philosopher. The Large Man can recover only the topmost event in the discard pile. If you can force another event over it, the combo breaks down. Now, if you put 3x Night Class and 3x Natural Philosopher, while the opponent is allowing you to draw as many cards as you want -including, for instance, Professor Morgan or 3 Rich Widows which will get into play when your Philosophers leave play-, you can force the opponent to discard his whole hand, which means that, if he has at least one other Event card in his starting hand, the combo is broken. By the way, do not forget to grab a Notebook Sketches or two to seal the deal the next turn.

2) Night Class -> Museum Curator. Another statistical method, it allows to fire the Curator thrice. Now, on the top of my head, the Curator could try to find a Notebook Sketches, or a Cursed Skull, or a Khopesh of the Abyss, or an Infernal Obsession (FUN!), or a Seventh House on the Left, or a Bound and Gagged, or a Terrors in the Dark, or a Snow Graves, or, well, do I really need to go on? Remember, this combo allows you to draw as long as you like it, so why not prepare your Peaslee infinite loop meanwhile?

Interesting. I hadn't looked at Night Class, only Full Ride Scholarship.

Very nice ideas! I am pleased to see such clever solutions. Congratulations!

Nevertheless, the 3-times-philosopher combo will discard one card less than necessary: the 9 cards the opponent gets at the beginning of his turn (8 cards + 1) are used this way:

- 3 cards are "sourced"

- Large man is "sourced"

- Twilight gate is played

- An offer... is played

- 3 cards stay in hand.

Playing the philosopher 3 times will destroy the 3 cards left, but the combo will remain usable!

But the Curator idea is very very nice indeed.

Actually the idea is not to discard A Offer You Can't Refuse, but just to force the opponent to discard another event on top of it. Still, a very shaky solution, Curator works much better.

Obivously, the original post was meant to sya "90 to 100 PERCENT Miskatonic cards"

Wow.

I missed the "discard another event on top of An Offer..." idea. That is a great solution, because a deck integrating the combo is very likely to include other events. Playing the loop on T1 against MiskatonicU will be even more difficult: you will have to make sure you have no other event left in hand!

How to deal with The Large Man - An Offer You Can't Refuse with any faction, for 0, in two easy steps.

1) Add to your deck 2x Feint and 1x or more shotgun blast.

2) I lied, there is no step 2.

Great! Everyone is likely to counter the loop in an unpredictable way.

This means that no competitive player will ever dare to launch the loop on T1 unless he has a Regeneration in hand. It becomes a four-card combo.

I guess we can conclude that the loop does not hurt the game.

Hold your horses on the game not getting hurt: this is just a post for some creative solutions, not some proof the combination doesn't work or needs not to be addressed.

Please do not drag me into a power vs. playability discussion; I've had plenty of those and all are quite boring.

Let me ask you this then... you are in a tournament playing the Large-Gate combo, and draw into it on turn 1. Are confident enough to risk your placement in the tournament to trigger it knowing that your opponent gets to draw his entire deck into hand until he finds the way to kill your combo? Because unless there is a statistical anomoly he'll get his combo breaking card(s) before he gets half way through his deck and will have such massive card advantage for the rest of the game if you can't shut him down and lock him out in one or two turns you run the risk of never being in the game.

Personally that is too much like going all in on the first hand of poker before you even see the flop for me to ever want to try it, at least against a deck with the right faction(s) to contain a combo breaker.

Penfold said:

As I said before: I kinda liked the discussion which this combo sparked. I have opinions on its merits and place in the game but I'll keep them to myself, as it would derail the purpose of this topic.

Btw, if you read the thread you would have seen ANY faction is the right faction to contain the combo breaker .