Here's my multi-faction yet still 100% Mi-Go deck.

Of course, in order to pull off a Yog/Shub deck that has only Mi-Go characters (the Doppelgangers just turn into more Mi-Gos), I had to dip into some CCG cards. But I think that's the fun part of playing with the old black-border stuff. With an expanded card pool you can pull off just about any theme you want and still make it viable.

I originally made this as an all Shub Mi-Go deck. Much to my surprise, it performed well when going up against my main opponent's Investigator decks and remained undefeated for a time. However, when pitted against my own decks - most of which are Mythos-based - it has since gone on a long losing streak. I realized it lacked ways to directly target opposing characters, had few surprise elements, and relied solely on the icon struggles to win. Not good. I'm hoping the inclusion of some better Events and the new Mi-Go Skull relic will help it out.

I've also considered adding 2 copies of Yog-Sothoth (perhaps In Whom The Spheres Meet?) and then sticking the Mi-Go Skull on him just for kicks. I'm not sure how well that would work out resourcing-wise, but it might give this deck a much needed boost in longer or multi-player games.

Here's my revised edition:

CHARACTERS: 27
x3 Harvesting Mi-Go
x3 Mi-Go Caretaker
x3 Ageless Mi-Go
x3 Mi-Go Guard
x3 Mi-Go Scout
x3 Mi-Go Observer
x3 Mi-Go Slave (CCG Yog Mi-Go)
x3 Child of the Kingdom (CCG Yog Mi-Go)
x3 Doppelganger

EVENTS: 12
x3 Balance of Thoth (CCG)
x3 Casting off the Skin
x3 A Single Glimpse
x3 Calling Down the Ancients

SUPPORT: 11
x2 Inter-dimensional Transporter
x3 Mi-Go Skull
x3 Mi-Go Scalpel
x3 Fungal Growth (CCG)

Total 50

CCG CARD SYNOPSIS
Mi-Go Slave (Yog Character): 3 Cost, Mi-Go, CA Skill 3, Transient, Action: pay 1 to return Mi-Go Slave to your hand if it entered your discard pile this phase.

Child of the Kingdom (Yog Character): 3 Cost Steadfast 1 Shub, Mi-Go, CI Skill 3, Action: sacrifice a Mi-Go character to choose a character. That character gains TI until the end of the phase.

Balance of Thoth (Yog Event): 1 Cost, Spell, Action: remove a wound from a character. Then, place a success token at a story of your choice.

Fungal Growth (Yog Support): 1 Cost Steadfast 1 Shub, Mutable, Each Mi-Go character gets +1 skill, Action: pay 1 to have Fungal Growth become a Mi-Go character with skill 1 and I until the end of the phase.

On a side note: Most of these CCG cards are from the Forgotten Cities expansion. In that expansion there are a ton of cross-faction cards - similar to what Shangfu posted about in the General Discussion forum - that have some interesting abilities. None seem overly powerful, but help reinforce certain dual-faction themes (such as Yog + Mi-Go).

Yeah, those are just the kind of cards i was talking about!
And this one seems like a cool deck overall and got me interested in trying a Mi-Go deck again. Mi-Go Skull has been interesting me for a while now, been thinking of different ideas how to abuse it to the fullest. Would love to hear some of your ideas about that card.

Regarding Mi-Go Skull, it's the reason I ended up making this Yog-Shub Mi-Go deck.

After a big losing streak, I realized my Mi-Go needed more punch but I was stuck on how to improve them. I didn't want to include any characters that weren't Mi-Gos - or that I couldn't make a Mi-Go - which severely limited my options.

When the Mi-Go Skull came out, I immediately thought about sticking it on an Ancient One for the skill bonus and investigation. Looking at the available Shub AOs, I considered attaching it to Y'Golonac as he's cheap and has Invulnerability. But for some reason The Obscenity just didn't fit with my Mi-Go theme and so I could never put him in the deck.

Back to the drawing board, I started to look at a multi-faction Mi-Go deck that retained all Mi-Go characters save one big bad. After opening a booster box of Forgotten Cities I had my answer - Yog-Sothoth.

Recounting my Spell cards, I see there are 12 in this deck. I think that's more than enough to justify Yog-Sothoth, In Whom the Spheres Meet. I should be able to get his cost down to around 4-5 without much trouble. I'm not sure how well Yog-Sothoth meshes with the Mi-Go either - my Lovecraft trivia doesn't run very deep - but I don't remember there being any connection between the two other than the time and space travel part, which I guess might be enough.

Now what do I need to drop? Probably the 3 Doppelgangers, though I really wanted to make a ton of Mi-Go copies with them. I think that would be pretty funny.

There's another CCG card I might add as well:

Mine of Yuggoth (Yog Support): Cost 2, Location, While you control a Yog character, the cost for opponents to play events is raised by 1. While you control a Shub character, your opponents' characters lose Willpower.

I haven't put it in yet because I'm not sure those are great advantages for the Mi-Go. I do like the card art though!

P.S. A crazy Mi-Go Skull idea would be to have a Shub/Cthulhu deck with all Mi-Go characters + Cthulhu himself, and then all Cthulhu events and support cards to round out your resourcing. Playing multiple Ageless Mi-Gos + Khopesh of the Abyss would be awesome!

What does the "Mutable" keyword do? I don't find it in my rulebook so it must be a CCG-era term.

The Mine sounds worth trying to me. Making Events more expensive will cut down on unexpected tricks your opponent might play. Losing Willpower maybe isn't a big deal other than against Agency. I don't know, give it a shot with maybe 2 copies and see?

dboeren said:

I'll have to double-check my CCG rules. It is used as a keyword on at least 2 LCG cards - Guardian Pillar and Scalethorn Asylum (though I'm not sure why the latter has it as this keyword is obviously reserved for support cards that can transform into characters).

dboeren said:

It's not a keyword, it's just a subtype.

Ah, ok. So until a card comes along that keys off it then it has no meaning.

Yipe said:

No connection between Mi-Go and Yog as far as i can remember thematically. Mi-Go aren't really that religious anyway but they tend to use these Ancient Gods for their own purposes sometimes. For example the Mi-Go colony near Dunwich used Elder God Abbhoth (which i consider to be an avatar of Ubbo Sathla) as a power source for their base, but that plan pretty much backfired. Mi-Go also have close ties with Shub Niggurath in their fertility rites, as Mi-Go have lost all their emotions and compassion aeons ago as they evolved beyond such primitive functions. This has led Mi-Go to become very cold and nihilistic to the point that they pretty much hate each other bitterly, but work in harmony due to hive mind. This does not work when it comes to mating, which usually leads to the death of both participants as their base hatred takes them over. This is where fertility goddess Shub Niggurath comes into play. Each "year" Mi-Go hold a massive fertility celebration/feast/orgy and invoke Shub Niggurath to get themselves horny enough to not kill each other, thus making mating possible. Or so i've read.....

Back to the cardgame:

I have used Y'Golonac in a Mi-Go deck and it proved to be a very succesful choice. Y'Golonac can be played early and he can keep opponent locked down for a while for the Mi-Go army to build up large enough.

jhaelen said:

My apologies for the typo. Yes, it's a subtype and not a keyword.

Shangfu said:

Mi-Go Skull has been interesting me for a while now, been thinking of different ideas how to abuse it to the fullest. Would love to hear some of your ideas about that card.

Shangfu, this is for you:

NTIs

CHARACTERS: 27
x3 Ageless Mi-Go
x3 Harvesting Mi-Go
x3 Mi-Go Caretaker
x3 Mi-Go Guard
x3 Mi-Go Scout
x3 Mi-Go Surgeon
x3 Mi-Go Commander
x3 Mi-Go Observer
x3 Cthulhu, Lord of R'lyeh

EVENTS: 3
x3 Pulled Under

SUPPORT: 20
x2 Inter-dimensional Transporter
x2 Mi-Go Scalpel
x3 Mi-Go Skull
x2 Y'ha-nthlei Statue
x2 Sword of Y'ha-tallo
x3 Bite Marks
x3 Called by Azathoth
x3 Khopesh of the Abyss

Total 50

Key elements: This deck relies heavily on Ageless Mi-Go, as well as Mi-Go Caretaker + Y'ha-nthlei Statue. When combined with Khopesh of the Abyss, you should be able to run the board. When faced with stubborn characters that have Toughness or Invulnerability, throw down Bite Marks or Called by Azathoth. When the times comes (possibly aided by Harvesting Mi-Go), launch Cthulhu, slap Mi-Go Skull on him (and Mi-Go Scalpel if you're so inclined) and go to town. The rest of the characters are there to grant bonuses, act as fodder for the Khopesh, and stall.

Other cards that might be nice: Horrific Light would combo well with Mi-Go Caretaker, though it's a bit expensive. Mi-Go Dreams is another good option for bringing your characters back after killing them with the Khopesh. If you go this route, you might swap Cthulhu, Lord of R'lyeh for Cthulhu, the Great Old One. Sacrificial Offerings is another effective card to consider.

On the downside, the characters in this deck are spendy. It has x9 at 2-cost, x9 at 3-cost, x6 at 4-cost and x3 at 6-cost, which makes it relatively slow to develop. Dropping something for a 3rd Inter-dimensional Transporter might not be a bad idea (perhaps Pulled Under). I wanted to toss Mi-Go Commander but I'm leery of having only 24 characters in the deck. We just need another 1-2 cost Mi-Go...

Oooh, i really like that deck! Gotta try to build that and test it out, but i might swap Cthulhu for the Terror Of The Tides (or something like that, the spider thingy, dont have my cards near me), as it has plenty of Toughness to abuse Khopesh. And also, if needed, he can be played cheap to get some more surprise element to the deck. And the Terror is a spider, so works great with the Mi-Go space insect theme! ;D

It's funny you mentioned Terror of the Tides because I was just coming back here to post the same thing. Other good options for the Ageless Mi-Go + Mi-Go Skull + Khopesh of the Abyss:

The Thing from the Shore - Though it only has a base Toughness of +3, you can reset it if you succeed at story. That's not hard to do with the Mi-Go, and so you could have an endless Khopesh loop. The Thing from the Shore also costs 5, making it easier to play than Cthulhu or the other big Ancient Ones. You can bring Terror of the Tides into play for 3, but then it doesn't have as many wounds to use for your Khopesh.

Bokrug or Ghatanothoa - As their text boxes can't be blanked, you don't have to worry about losing Toughness.

No guesses yet on what the Mi-Go/Cthulhu deck's title means?

I played 3 test games today with the Mi-Go vs my Serpents and Deep Ones deck. The Mi-Go lost all 3 games in 5 turns or less (generally by turn 4), often with 1 or no characters remaining on the board. They also failed to win a single story in any game.

The Cthulhu deck was putting out 2-3 characters on turn 1 each game, while the Mi-Go were lucky to get out a single character at the start. Backed up by a ton of character destruction, the Deep Ones were able to shut the Mi-Go down completely and waltz into the stories unopposed.

Like my Syndicate/Order deck, the Mi-Go cards are simply too expensive in order to stall long enough to build up a solid base of characters. Not having any 1-cost characters in the deck hurts, but there's little I can do to change that fact at this time. I'm going to strip out some of the cost 2 Events and see if they can be replaced with 0-1 cost cards to speed things up a bit. It breaks my heart to say it, but one of my favorite cards - the Mi-Go Scalpel - might have to go. Decisions, decisions.

If anyone has suggestions for some 0-1 cost Yog cards (preferrably Events) that would work well with this deck, please let me know. Right now I'm looking at Journey to the Other Side, A Gift of Knowledge, and Lethargic Miasma.

I'm already using Cursed Skull and Chant of Thoth in another deck, so I don't have access to those cards.

I really like Lethargic Miasma and would recommend that if you have trouble especially with Terror or Willpower characters, being unable to go insane really makes it a nasty card.

Journey to the Other Side is pretty solid as well, especially if you have room to overpay for it.

It sound like speed is one of your major issues, what about putting in Dampen Light so you can slow down your opponent and sort of even the playing field?

I haven't really messed with A Gift of Knowledge. Can you afford to wound a guy though, if slow character development is an issue? You'd have to try it to see, but I can see that being a potential issue.

Yipe: Tried today the Mi-Go deck you posted to me, and it almost worked. It is really slow to start, but after turn 3 or 4 it really gets going. Too bad i was facing my new Deep One deck played by my brother and he had a insanely good start, so all i could do by then was to slow down the inevitable.... Have to develop that theme further and maybe put in some more cost reducers and speed cards.

I'm finding that the Mi-Go are sloooow, but I guess that's understandable - they're made out of fungus after all.

Revising my Mi-Go/Yog deck has been extremely challenging. There are a ton of excellent Yog cards I want to include, but then I'm short on characters. At one point I was down to only 25, which I felt was too low. One problem is that my group plays a lot of multi-player games, so I need to ensure my deck can be fast enough in one-on-one, but also have the stamina to survive a prolonged battle. It's a tough balancing act.

Taking some of dboeren's suggestions, I've tried to speed things up. I removed the 4-cost Mi-Go Observer in favor of the 2-cost Mi-Go Worker. He's nowhere near as useful, but I just need bodies to hit the table. I've also removed the Doppelgangers and thrown in some heavyweights. You're already familiar with Yog. Ithaqua is from Forgotten Cities.

Ithaqua: Cost 4, Ancient One, Villainous, TAAA Skill 4, Action: exhaust to choose a non-Ancient One character in any discard pile with fewer A icons than Ithaqua. Put that character into play under your control.

I'm hoping that will help bring my own guys back and keep my Mi-Go horde rolling. Plus if I'm lucky, I can snag a character or 2 from my opponent (this might be especially useful in multi-player).

Finally, I axed the Mi-Go Scalpel (argh!), A Single Glimpse and Calling down the Ancients (double argh!), and trimmed 1 copy of Fungal Growth. In their stead I took Horrid Mutation for more defense vs terror (or to surprise my opponent), Dampen Light (to slow things down) and Lethargic Miasma. I'm wondering if having both Horrid Mutation and Cast Off Skin is redundant, especially as I have 3 copies of the Mi-Go Skull. Let me know what you think.

I can't say I'm happy with the deck, but I want to give it a shake before I rip it apart. Again. I've got a game night coming up this Monday so we'll see how it goes.

CHARACTERS: 28
x3 Ageless Mi-Go
x3 Harvesting Mi-Go
x3 Mi-Go Caretaker
x3 Mi-Go Worker (CCG)
x3 Mi-Go Guard
x3 Mi-Go Scout
x3 Mi-Go Surgeon
x3 Mi-Go Slave (CCG Yog Mi-Go, Transient)
x2 •Ithaqua, The Killing Cold (CCG)
x2 •Yog-Sothoth, In Whom the Spheres Meet

EVENTS: 12
x3 Horrid Mutation
x3 Dampen Light
x3 Balance of Thoth (CCG)
x3 Casting off the Skin

SUPPORT: 10
x2 Inter-dimensional Transporter
x3 Mi-Go Skull
x2 Fungal Growth (CCG)
x3 Lethargic Miasma

Total 50

I'm hedging on x2 Fungal Growth vs x2 Mine of Yuggoth. Ming of Yuggoth's ability to increase the cost of my opponent's Event cards by 1 would stack nicely with Dampen Light. The only problem is that I need a Yog character in play to enact that ability. I've only have 7 and they're spendy, so I don't know if it's all that reliable. Thoughts?

@Shangfu

What cards did you find the most useful in the Mi-Go/Cthulhu deck? And what did you think of the Inter-dimensional Transporter? I've kept it for now, but it's a candidate for removal. The 2-cost is hard to justify.

Inter-Dimensional Transporter: Yeah, it's costly and the effect is too small, but anything to drop the costs in a Mi-Go deck can be useful. During the game i actually had two of those in play and it helped a lot in bringing the 4-cost Mi-Go's on the table. Then again, it slowed my character development in the crucial early turns so i dont know, i'll keep it in for now but might drop it at some point.

Otherwise Khopesh was extremely useful (no surprises there....) and Mi-Go Commanders (??? the one that gives combat icons) were instantly targeted for destruction so at least they were a big threat, even though they died almost instantly. Overall nothing really stood out as powerful because i was much slower to progress than the opponent, so i was only able to react to threats rather than actively play my strategy.

Yipe said:

Man, Ithaqua must be Mi-go for "sexy". Wind Walker is probably just a mis-translation or something. That's a powerful ability he's got there for a 4 cost character and not needing to drain a domain to execute it. You can take your pick of the best characters from any player, AND you can mess up any of their effects that bring someone back from their discard pile. And once you steal their good stuff, you can slap Mi-Go Skulls on them.

Got any easy ways to refresh him?

dboeren said:

Your analysis is just what I was thinking...

How to refresh Ithaqua? The only card I can think of is Domestic Sacrifice, (Yog, Cost 2 Event, Action: Discard the top 2 cards of any deck. You may choose and ready a Yog character for each Yog card discarded in this way).

Of course, if you stick Ithaqua in a Syndicate or Miskatonic deck, then there are plenty of ways to ready him - even multiple times in the same turn. That would be ugly. The same goes for his Cthulhu counterpart Yig, Father of Snakes. He also costs 4, has 3 T and Action: exhaust Yig to choose and destroy a non-Ancient One character with fewer T than Yig. Ouch.

I'm actually having second thoughts about including Ithaqua in my Mi-Go deck. He's an amazing card, but I'm starting to veer away from my theme pretty heavily. Where to draw the line? Perhaps I need to be content with a Mi-Go deck that is flavorful yet not entirely effective.

I do have an arcane-based mono-Yog deck that might be a good match for Ithaqua...

@Shangfu

I've dropped both Mi-Go Commander and Mi-Go Observer from my deck as they are just too expensive. Mi-Go Commander's ability is nice, but I've found Mi-Go Guard to be more effective and he costs 1 less.

For my re-revised deck (the version without Ithaqua), the cost break down is as follows:

0 Cost x3 (all Events)
1 Cost x15 (9 Events, 6 Support)
2 Cost x14 (12 Characters, 2 Support)
3 Cost x12 (all Characters)
X Cost x3 (all Events)
8 Cost x3 (with 12 spell cards in the deck, I'm hoping to play Yog for 3)

The problem is my characters. I have 12 at 2-cost and 12 at 3-cost, though I do have 3 Support cards that can turn into a character for 1 cost. Still, that limits me to 1 character on turn 1, 2 on turn 2, etc... and that's if I stick with the 2-cost Mi-Go.

I am looking at a new CCG card that might help out:

Aklo Sabaoth: Yog Event, 0 Cost, Spell, Respone: after you win an icon struggle by at least 2 icons, refresh all of your domans with at least 1 Yog resource attached.

This could help me focus on characters and then after I win an icon struggle by 2, play my Events and Supports (like the Inter-dimensional Transporter). It would be especially helpful when played during my opponent's story phase (on the block).

Funny you should mention Domestic Sacrifice. Just the other day there was a thread on BGG about disturbing themes in boardgames or something like that and I mentioned that out of all the Call of Cthulhu cards picturing sacrifices, murders, unholy monsters, and whatnot - this is the only card that I find even a little bit unpleasant in the artwork

That said, I'll use it in a heartbeat, but personally I really only look at it if I'm running pure Yog or pretty close to it. You've got a lot of Shub in there, I'd really hate to play the card and flip two Shubs and all of a sudden my planned combo is hosed, AND I'm down a card and a domain. Further, a pure Yog deck can usually find other ways to benefit from thing being in your discard pile and you're kind of going to be missing out on those too.

So I'd do this: Try out Ithaqua, give him a shot for a game or two. If he doesn't wow you then forget about him until you're doing one of those other themes that will work better with him.

About Yig, that's a CCG-era version of him, right? The LCG one costs 5 and does something else.

Maybe an all Mi-Go deck isn't quite there yet, they really could use another cheap character. Within a few days you should be able to pick up Monolith, maybe there will be some help in there. Well, not that likely though since we've seen a couple of Shub cards already so low odds of another Shub card and then it being a Mi-Go...

You may have to mix the theme to be Mi-Go plus something else.

Here is my take on the Mi-Go theme. I have played similar decks to this for a long time and if you mix up the Mi-Go with cost-reducers it can be quite effective. No theme can stand completely on its own, you just have to have a reason for including other cards in this theme. Here the cost-reducers worship the Mi-Go, bringing them out early, only so they can be sold to Yuggoth by the Mi-Gos new best friends Y´Golonac. Being the cynical bastards they are, Mi-Go should have no problem at all working together with the perverted Ancient One to bring down the pesky humans.

Characters: 30

3x Priestess of Bubastis

3x One of the Thousand

3x Ageless Mi-Go

3x Harvesting Mi-Go

3x Mi-Go Caretaker

3x Mi-Go Surgeon

3x Mi-Go Scout

3x Mi-Go Observer

3x Mi-Go Guard

2x Mi-Go Commander

2x Y'Golonac

Support: 10

3x Mi-Go skull

3x Yuggoth contract

2x Inter-dimensional Transporter

2x Altar of the Blessed

Events: 10

3x Eldritch Nexus

3x Burrowing Beneath

3x Thunder in the East

1x Mi-Go Dreams

The Altar of the Blessed is a filler since I haven't tried out this iteration of the deck and just thought it could have problems with late game big skill characters. It could be traded in for Mi-Go scalpel or anything else Mi-Go related. The cost reducers are key to making the deck work. Threatening a turn one Y'Golonac (which would then allow you to set up the Mi-Go Horde under his protection) means they will have to kill them off, granting fuel for your Harvesting Mi-Gos. If you can set up Y'Golonac with a Yuggoth contract you should be able to use any mid game cost-reducers to fill up your hand with more Mi-Gos and just out-tempo any and all comers. When this deck gets going no-one can keep up, and with the Mi-Go skull it doesn't even suffer from insanity as much.