Your suggestions, criticisms and witty remarks are wanted!

Inspired by the fantastic decks posted this week I decided to try my hand at something new, and so I put together a Syndicate/Order of the Silver Twilight rush deck. I have absolutely zero experience with the Order, and while I've played the Syndicate some, I've never used them as in their exhaust/skill reduction capacity. Right now I'm feeling out of my depth, especially with the Order. I can see that their cards have a lot of synergy, but I'm just not sure how to capitalize on it.

One caveat: My deck does include a few CCG-era cards. Not many, but a few. I am willing to trade those out for white-border LCG cards if presented with better (or at least equally intriguing) options. I'm also willing to buy any cards I don't own, though I have just about everything available in the reprinted format, as well as x3 copies of the Core set and Secrets of Arkham cards.

Without further qualifiers, here's the deck:

RINSE n' REPEAT

CHARACTERS: 30
x3 Anarchist
x3 Triggerman
x3 Fugitive (CCG)
x3 Bagman
x3 Young Initiate
x3 Lodge Barkeep
x3 Protector of Secrets
x3 Initiate of Huang Hun
x2 •Dirk Sharpe
x2 •Dr. Baker
x2 •Lord Jeffrey Farrington

EVENTS: 15
x3 Low Blow
x3 Forcing the Truth
x3 Adoration of Maahes (CCG)
x3 Steal the Soul
x3 Hidden Agenda

SUPPORT: 5
x2 •The Oubliettes
x3 Dutch Courage

Total 50 (24 Syndicate/26 Order)

The CCG Cards:
Fugitive is a 2-cost, 2-steadfast Syndicate Criminal. He has CI, 2 skill, Willpower, and Action: remove Fugitive from a story it is committed to. Then, ready Fugitive.

Adoration of Maahes is a 2-cost ritual with Action: ready all exhausted Criminal characters.

The heart of the deck is investigation + Adoration of Maahes + Hidden Agenda. My goal is to go into the stories and get a few success tokens, then ready all of my Criminal characters with Adoration of Maahes (I have 17), add a second story phase with Hidden Agenda, and hit every story unopposed for 3 more success tokens in the same turn. If I'm lucky, I could win the game in one swoop. Otherwise, it could get ugly.

To help me achieve this, I have 18 characters with investigation. I also have some Willpower and the ability to give my Order characters Willpower with Young Initiate + The Initiate of Huang Hun.

To help slow down an opposing rush deck, or to keep first turn blockers with terror from hindering me too much, I threw in The Oubliettes and Protector of Secrets. All of my characters save the Anarchist have printed skill 2 or higher, so The Oubliettes shouldn't hurt me too much. Finally, the deck includes a few exhausting effects, such as Low Blow, Forcing the Truth, and Lodge Barkeep, but no Panic. Is that a mistake?

I wanted to include Panic, but I'm worried about resourcing. Hidden Agenda is a 4-cost loyal card which hurts. I'll need to build up to that as quickly as possible, so I don't think I'll have the time to dedicate many resources toward a big Panic attack. This is the main reason most of my characters are 2-cost, as well as my Event and Support cards. On the flip side, including Panic would give me an alternate method of sneaking into the stories unopposed.

I imagine my resources will be 4-3-2 at their highest (6 turns), with a 4 Order resources on 1 domain, a mix of 3 on another, and 2 Syndicate on the last. Is that too slow?

Here are my problem cards:

I'm not sure about Triggerman. His loyal-2 could hinder my delicate resourcing balance, but I'm worried about losing his investigation. I'm also unsure about Steal the Soul. It sounds neat, it's cheap, and it could sway the balance at a story, but would another Order Event or Support card fit my deck better?

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this, and as always, any feedback is welcome.

I'm not that familiar with Silver Twilight either, but I am familiar with running Syndicate with a heavy emphasis on character exhaustion/removal/tying up.

If you want to add more exhaustion (perhaps to allow you to use different events/characters somewhere else), Syndicate has a lot of characters that exhaust on coming into play. To fit your Investigation needs maybe look at Extortionist? Hard Case is also good but doesn't have Investigation.

For other Syndicate events, consider Kidnapping 101 (better than exhaustion), Intimidate (cheaper than Low Blow, maybe important if you're trying to rush and win early), or Bound & Gagged (more limited based on skill, but also more permanent).

I wouldn't include Panic as it's Loyal and you're going to have enough trouble with Loyal cards already I think. It sounds like you'll mostly be wanting to resource Silver Twilight cards to get Hidden Agenda to work. In that case, I'd avoid any Loyal Syndicate cards that cost more than 2, and Panic's not really useful at that level. I'm a little leery with even those, which is why I'd maybe swap Triggerman for Extortionist.

I agree that Steal the Soul isn't really necessary. You probably don't want to tip the cards to far towards Syndicate though or it makes Loyal 4 harder to achieve. Other Silver Twilight cards to look at might include Brazier Enchantment (can take the place of Dutch Courage in a sense), maybe Rumor Mill (protect a story), Elder Binding (make exhaustion more permanent), Eon Chart (push a story over the top, a hedge if you don't have Investigation for some reason?), The Deodand (keep character away from stories, at least one of your two story phases).

That's from someone who doesn't really know Order though

If you want to put in one of the aforementioned Syndicate events, you can potentially take out or reduce copies of Dutch Courage. It doesn't seem directly related to pulling off your win - just a generally useful card.

So i guess the two questions I'd want to test are:

1. Is Loyal/resourcing a problem?

2. How good is the deck at setting up its Hidden Agenda trick to win? That includes getting my domain ready, getting the card, and being able to clear the way so my characters can actually do it. Find out which of these is the weak link and then make some card changes to specifically address that link.

Not familiar with what Adoration Of Maahes does, so cant advise much, but i have a Syndicate/Order rush deck with little control elements and that has proven to be a very deadly combination. So, going for a more simpler theme and ditching the combo could also work well.

Shangfu said:

Adoration of Maahes is a 2-cost ritual with Action: ready all exhausted Criminal characters.

Combined with Hidden Agenda, I'm hoping to have 2 story phases back-to-back with one of them unopposed. I can go all in on the first one to (hopefully) force my opponent to commit everything as well. Then ready everyone and hit the stories for 3 success tokens on the same turn.

Good advice all around, thank you kindly.

@Shangfu

I think you're right that the combo I'm shooting for may be a overly complex and a simpler control deck would be superior, but I'm not quite ready to give up yet! I have some fairly effective decks already, so what I'm really hoping for is to surprise my opponent just to see the look on his face as I pull a stunning come-from-behind victory.

Of course, I don't want to lose 10 times in a row just so I can pull off a nifty combo. To provide my opponents with a challenging game, this deck still needs to be viable as I'm working up to my "big play". Which leads me to...

@dboeren

Great suggestions. Both The Deodand and Extortionist made the short list and were the last cards to be cut. Taking a second look at Deodand, I'm going to put it back into the deck for some added defense, removing Stealing the Soul.

I'm tempted to swap out the Triggerman for the Extortionist, but then I may run into trouble with The Oubliettes. Does anyone have any experience with that card? Perhaps it should go and I should take Rumormill in its place, as you suggested? Yes, I think that's a good idea.

I hemmed and hawed over Low Blow vs Intimidation vs Kidnapping 101 vs Bound and Gagged. I opted for Low Blow because it can target Ancient Ones and lately my group has been putting them into play like they're off a Mythos assembly line.

Now what to do with Dutch Courage? I know I'll be facing Ravager from the Deep, Khopesh of the Abyss, and multi-combat round Agency decks quite a lot, which is why I stuck it in there. Khopesh on some Toughness +2 Shoggoths is really troublesome as my opponent can wipe me out pretty easily. I may have to keep it for now or swap it for Brazier Enchantment.

Thanks again! I've got a game night coming up in a few weeks so I'll let you know how it does. In the meantime I may run solo-play tests against some of my other decks

Some of these are I think essentially Meta related questions, which are of course hard for others to answer who aren't familiar with your Meta.

Ancient Ones are of course a drawback of Intimidate compared to Low Blow. I like the cheapness, but it's not quite as strong a card. If you see a lot of Ancient Ones, that may indeed tip the scale towards Low Blow. Best thing to do I think is to take note of the instances you would like to play Low Blow but it would have helped a lot if you could have played it for 1 and reserved that 2+ domain for something else. If it happens a lot, maybe switch to Intimidate.

Khopesh and Ravager. Well, the Ravager should be easy enough to handle with exhaustion, kidnapping, etc... His skill is low enough to be affected by Bound & Gagged as well. Since you don't normally want to commit other characters with Ravager, I expect your opponent is likely to not have many other characters ready to defend either, making his sudden unplanned absence all the more damaging. Khopesh though... Exhausting or doing any of these things to a character does not help. It does not exhaust them, it does not need anything from the host besides their existence and their life. In this situation Low Blow is indeed worth the cost if you can drive them insane so they drop the Khopesh. Perhaps another reason not to make that trade. Unless you can come up with another solution then, probably leave at least 2 copies of Dutch Courage in. Safe House can make the Khopesh sting a bit less, but it's not a real solution.

I cannot find the thread now, but I remember talking about Thief for Hire and the Khopesh. Maybe a solution, but I'd like to find that thread.

About Oubliettes... This is sort of a Meta question too, how many skill 0-1 characters do you tend to see in opposing decks? Enough to make the card useful, or are they rare?

Sorry about bringing in the Meta game aspect, that makes it difficult to maintain an online discussion about deck-building.

I will say - beyond my own groups' preferences - that I typically make my decks with Cthulhu in mind. Cthulhu seems to be the single strongest faction at the moment, with excellent character removal, access to good characters themselves, and adequate Support card destruction. It's also straightforward to build and play a mono-Cthulhu deck, so in a new environment I know I'll be facing a lot of this faction. If my deck can handle things like Khopesh, Ravager, or Cthulhu himself, I know I've got at least a fighting chance against "kill decks" like Agency, or character-heavy decks like Shub.

Again, thanks for your in-put, it's been very helpful. I forgot that Ravager only has skill 2, so I may go with Bound and Gagged as well as Low Blow. That way I can save my Low Blows for any Ancient Ones, and toss aside characters like Ravager of the Deep permanently. Protector of Secrets + Initiate of Huang Han would also work. As for Khopesh, I don't have much of an answer without Dutch Courage, but perhaps that's just the way it is.

I'll keep track of how many times I can't play Low Blow due to its cost, and see if I shouldn't switch it (or Forcing the Truth) out for Intimidate.

A quick thought: I could forgo the Dutch Courage and take 2 copies of Nigel St. James. This might help me build up my resources faster and pull off my combo. Hmm, can I keep off the booze? it might be hard to stay on the wagon...

Yipe said:

You mean the Meat Wagon? I've used that card too

As discussed further up thread, I made a few alterations to this deck - namely taking out Triggerman, Steal the Soul, and the Oubliettes - and then ran 4 test games yesterday.

For the first 2 games, I pitted it against my Serpents and Deep One mono-Cthulhu deck. To give my Syndicate/Order deck a fighting chance I had Cthulhu go first. The words brutal, savage, and "a complete massacre" come to mind. Neither game went beyond turn 4, with Cthulhu wiping out any opposition and strolling into the stories for a quick and painless victory. Well, at least I know the tweaks I made to my Deep Ones deck worked out well.

The biggest problems? Versus Deep Ones, the Order's character bouncing abilities from Initiate of Huang Hun and Lord Jeffrey Farrington were a liability rather than an asset. Also, getting out characters and playing Events proved far too slow for what amounts to a rush-investigation deck. Finally, the terror struggle was giving me trouble.

I went back to the drawing board to address these problems. As dboeren suggested, Low Blow was too expensive so I replaced it with Intimidate to speed things up. Though most of my cards only cost 2, resourcing is a delicate balance and I needed more 1-cost Events and characters to maximize my domains during the first few turns.

In addition, I needed more defense against Terror, so I put the Triggerman back into my deck while taking out Bagman. This not only gave me 6, 2-cost characters with Willpower, but made a big difference in speeding up my character production as I could focus one domain on spitting out 2-cost Syndicate characters, 1 for playing Order characters, and the last for tossing out Events.

Last, I found Brazier Enchantment to be redundant when also playing with Dutch Courage, and as it doesn't help my Syndicate characters, I removed it in favor of Steal the Soul. This turned out to be extremely helpful, especially in combating terror.

For the next 2 test games, I squared off against my Hastur/Cthulhu "Sacrifice Yer Cultists" deck. This deck can pop Ancient Ones for cheap, remove terror icons, drive characters insane, and boost up Carl Stanford by feeding him some of its 25 cultists.

These games went much better. Characters came out faster, bouncing Young Initiate back-and-forth helped with the terror struggle as did Triggerman, and the lower-cost exhausting/removal effects allowed me to hit the stories unopposed. Even with Hastur showing up as a turn 1 blocker, I was able to win both games handily.

The most important thing these tests taught me?

I learned that my domains must be resourced in the following manner: 1 domain with 2 Syndicate resources, 1 domain with 2+ Order resources, and 1 domain with a mix. I found it was most helpful to initially resource 1 Syndicate and 2 Order cards, then get the double-Syndicate domain running first and go from there.

Sadly, I was never able to pull off the Adoration of Maahes + Hidden Agenda combo. In fact, I never played either card. I may need to be more flexible with how I use them. In order to play my sneaky combo I would hold onto 1 card while waiting for the other. In hindsight, it may be better to play them individually as the need or opportunity arises.

Star cards: Intimidate, Bound and Gagged, Steal the Soul, and Dirk Sharpe.

Here's what the deck looks like now:

CHARACTERS: 30
x3 Anarchist
x3 Extortionist
x3 Triggerman
x3 Fugitive (CCG)
x3 Young Initiate
x3 Errand Boy
x3 Protector of Secrets
x3 Initiate of Huang Hun
x2 •Dirk Sharpe
x2 •Dr. Baker
x2 •Lord Jeffrey Farrington

EVENTS: 12
x3 Intimidate
x3 Adoration of Maahes (CCG)
x3 Steal the Soul
x3 Hidden Agenda

SUPPORT: 8
x2 O'Bannion Warehouse (CCG)
x3 Bound and Gagged
x3 Dutch Courage

Total 50 (26 Syndicate/24 Order)

O'Bannion Warehouse: 2-cost location with action: exhaust to choose a character. That character cannot ready while O'Bannion Warehouse remains exhausted. You may choose not to ready O'Bannion Warehouse during your refresh phase.

I remember O'Bannion Warehouse, I've got one of those downstairs in my CCG-era box and it would be a cool card to see turn up again in a future pack. Probably a LCG version would have some sort of restriction on the character choice but still...

I guess same with a new version of Adoration, an LCG version would be nice but I expect it might only ready SOME characters rather than all. Up to 3, all with skill < X or cost < X, that sort of thing.

Anyway... I think what you need to do is re-run your modified deck against the Cthulhu decks that were giving it trouble, otherwise you won't know if your changes helped. The original deck might have done fine against the Cultist deck all along you know.

If your combo isn't working, and it sounds like it's not, then you can drop some of those cards and turn it into more of a "if it happens" thing. Maybe go down to 2xHidden Agenda too. You can't play it that early being 4 cost so it's probably OK if you don't find it until later on. Find out what IS working as your primary strategy and replace them with cards to emphasize that.

Is Adoration turning out to be as useful as you'd hoped? I notice you've got 12 Syndicate characters to 18 Silver Twilight so it only functions on 40% of your guys. If it doesn't seem to be pulling its weight you can maybe replace it with Forcing the Truth that works with all of them.

dboeren said:

Quick reply to just this question:

Adoration of Maahes triggers off the Criminal subtype. All 12 of my Syndicate characters are Criminals, but Dirk Sharpe and Initiate of Huang Hun are as well. In total, I have 17 of 30 characters that are Criminals (not quite 60%). The good news is that 14 of those 17 have investigation, which is the majority of my deck's investigation (and that's critical to using Adoration of Maahes).

The question still remains: Is it working? I don't know. I think it could work in ways I didn't initially intend, such as to ready my Criminals with investigation so I can score successes on the block. I have to be more open to playing it rather than waiting for Hidden Agenda. If I do replace it, I'm going with either Low Blow, Forcing the Truth, or Kidnapping 101.

I'm going to replay this new deck against my Deep Ones and see how it turns out. I probably won't get the chance until next week, but I'll report back with the results. I have a feeling this deck is going to undergo a metamorphosis into something quite different than my initial vision, but far more streamlined.

I'm just wondering if I can really take advantage of the Order's cards? I already have a highly-effective Syndicate/Miskatonic rush deck. I don't really need a second, lesser quality copy.

dboeren said:

dboeren,

This reminds me - I remember reading that you're looking for a set of Eldritch Edition story cards. I don't know if you saw my previous offer (on the thread about designing a deck with the stories in mind), but if you want a set I'm happy to mail it to you. I also have an extra set of the Arkham Edition story cards (and domains) if you need those as well.

Let me know.

Sincerely,

Yipe

Ding-Ding-Ding.

Round 2 of Cthulhu vs The Mafia! This time it's for the money. Or something like that.

I ran another test of my revised Syndicate/Order deck, this time against its hated nemesis - my Serpents and Deep Ones deck. In 2 previous games it had been annihilated in what can only be described as an undersea apocalypse. How did this game go? Oh the horror, the horror! Oh the humanity! Oh... well actually, the revised Syndicate/Order deck did far better.

Cut to the chase: The Order won 2 stories, had 2 success tokens on a third, and actually managed to kill a Cthulhu character (Brood of Yig) through the sneaky application of Steal the Soul. That's a big improvement over scoring 0-1 stories and not sending anyone to the discard pile.

That's not so say things went all that well - it's still a rough match-up. It didn't help that the Deep One deck spawned 5 characters in the first 2 turns (3 on the first, 2 on the second), as well as putting Yig, Father of Snakes into play on turn 4 (action: exhaust to choose and destroy a non-Ancient One character with fewer T icons than Yig). Deep One Assault, Deep One Stowaway, and Deep One Rising all came into play too. In fact, I was killing so many Syndicate and Order characters that I resourced a pair of Pulled Under cards, and there was at least 1 turn mid-game where my Order deck didn't have any characters in play at all. Ouch.

All of that put a big crimp in the Syndicate's investigation-rush advantage. But even in the face of such a devastating onslaught (they lost 7 characters in 5 turns), they managed to hold on for a while, which I feel bodes well. Sort of.

I'm still unsure about the Adoration of Maahes + Hidden Agenda combo. I'll probably need to do play some games vs a real opponent before I decide to take it out. One thing I am sure about - my Serpent and Deep One deck is mean n' nasty. It used to be fairly slow to develop (due to high-cost characters), but after changing around the deck's cost curve it now gets moving right from the start and doesn't let up.

When i build decks that will use combos a lot, i usually try to think something like this:

1) Is the combo strong and fast enough to win the games quickly and consistently on it's own?
-YES: Build the deck around it to maximize the chances of it happening as early as possible.
-NO: Go to question 2.

2) Are the cards in the combo capable of multiple purposes within the deck?
-YES: Build a more simpler deck (Rush/Control/Midrange) and if i get to use the combo, i will, but my game and none of the cards in the deck are dependant on it.
-NO: Unless it is a really fascinating combo, i mostly end up not using it at this point.

Let's take my favourite deck, the Shub/Hastur trickerydeck as an example:
The deck was originally built around the Victoria Glasser/Hungry Dark Young/Shocking Transformation combo. The combo will never win me any games, but, it can shift the balance in my favour. Also the cards in the combo fill multiple purposes within the deck and actually can be modified to various different small combos depending on the situation. So, i went for it!

Other example would be the Domain Drain Of Doom deck i once experimented with. It uses the powerful combo that uses multiple cards to lock opponent with Itinerant Scholar (dont remember everything that went into the combo so wont post it at least for now). The combo is pretty much an autowin if i get to pull it off, so i built the deck completely around it to make it happen consistently.

Well, that's my view on the combos in Call Of Cthulhu and cardgames in general. Hope this helps

Follow-Up: After Action Report vs Live Opponent

My main Cthulhu adversary and I threw down both last night and this evening. We played a total of 8 games, 5 of which I used my Syndicate/Order deck as requested by my opponent. He's been waiting to see the Order in action, and wanted to give them a full test run on their initial outing.

For our first game I battled his mono-Shub Dark Young deck that spawns large amounts of creatures. It is fairly straightforward in its approach - bring a lot of terror, combat, and skill to as many stories as possible. It has a few tricks, but it's mostly a number cruncher.

This game proved difficult for my Syndicate/Order deck. I had some initial success with Triggerman, Errand Boy, and Protector of Secrets, but after winning 2 story cards my deck started to stall out. By turn 5 (which is at least 1 turn beyond my deck's optimum time table) his characters outnumbered mine 2:1, with the big skill on multiple Twilight Cannibals and an Insect Swarm really causing me trouble. He then brought out a Mind Eater to start using my Investigation against me, and then shut things down completely with The Setting Sun. The game was now tied 2-2.

Fortunately, I caught a lucky break. An unexpected combination of Lord Jeffrey Farrington, Dirk Sharpe and a timely Steal the Soul let me bounce the Insect Swarm back into his hand and plow through the struggles to win a 3rd story. It was a great match that could have gone either way. Playing the Order against such a monstrous horde was quite challenging for me but extremely enjoyable. I had to pay special attention to my resourcing, and squeeze every combo out of my deck to get through his characters during those final turns.

For the next 4 games, my opponent wanted to match up his Agency/Miskatonic deck against the Order and their criminal lackeys. Generally speaking, I like to pit Mythos vs Investigator decks, but I decided it would be a good experiment to see how my deck handled itself being on the short end of the Investigation stick.

The Silver Twilight went 4-0, with 2 games won by turn 3 and the other 2 by turn 4. In all 4 games I don't believe me opponent won a single story card. He simply couldn't keep pace with my character generation (I was averaging 2-3 characters on the first turn), and he couldn't keep his characters on the board. Afterwards we stripped his deck down and found it to be A) too costly for what amounts to a rush deck, and B) have too few characters (26). Having just bought 1.5 Secrets of Arkham sets, he's going back to the drawing board to prepare for a grudge match in a few weeks.

Notable cards: Steal the Soul caused a lot of havoc, as did Intimidate, Bound and Gagged, and Initiate of Huang Hun. Dutch Courage also proved extremely helpful vs Shotgun, Shotgun Blast and his superior combat icons, allowing me to muscle through a story and grab the last few success tokens for a win.

I was never able to play my Adoration of Maahes + Hidden Agenda combo. It's simply too slow and too costly for this deck. I'm going to swap it out for cheaper exhausting cards or skill reducers. Perhaps Low Blow or Forcing the Truth?

More Reporting from the Field

My opponent continues to request that I play my Syndicate/Order deck. After 6 additional games during our last few outings it still remains undefeated. Most wins are happening by turn 4, or turn 5 at the latest. So far it has beat a mono-Shub, mono-Hastur, a multi-combat round mono-Agency, a day-focused mono-Agency, mono-Syndicate, and an Agency-Miskatonic deck.

I'd like to think it's a strong deck, but I'm leery of putting too much stock in these wins. My opponent tends to favor strong, high-cost characters, which works well in our multi-player games but is a disadvantage when facing a rush deck in the standard one-on-one format. Since losing so many games in a row however, he has gone back and made his decks both more streamlined in their strategy and more cost efficient, so that's been a plus for him.

On a final note, I dropped the Hidden Agenda + Adoration of Maahes combo. It was simply too slow to prove effective. I may put it back in when playing multi-player, as rush decks tend to stall out after a bit and I may need a sneaky way to capture my third story card.

In their place I took x3 Fortifying Ouzo to help against terror (and cards that can target my characters to drive them insane outside the terror struggle), and x3 Master of the Myths. This card has proven extremely effective. It can suck up a combat hit, adds more Willpower to my deck (for a total of 9 characters with Willpower + the Young Initiate and Fortifying Ouzo), and gives me the edge in Arcane so I can ready and block if necessary, or to deny my opponent a character to block during my turn.

Honestly, I'm not sure how this deck works as well as it does. Every time I play it I'm convinced I'll lose because I have little in the way of terror or combat defense. Yet somehow I'm able to exhaust, bounce, surprise, or just plain bluff my way through to victory. So far it's been very enjoyable to play.