There has been a discussion in the forums here lately on whether or not mono colored decks are viable. I believe the answer is yes. Some factions can do it better than others but I absolutely believe mono faction decks are not only viable but competitive as well. So, because I am bored and because I would like to get some discussion going on in the forums I am going to post the mono colored deck for each faction I am currently rocking in my deckboxes.

I decided to do them in alphabetical order so first up is the agency. They are one of the mono faction decks that have the most potential to be truly competitive imho. Here is my take on mono agency:

Characters: 32

3 descendant of eibon

3 special agent clarkston

3 shadow team

2 agency groundskeeper

2 marshal greene

2 steve clarney

3 undercover security

3 government exorcist

3 unorthodox psychologist

3 trial judge

3 the terrible old man

2 paul lemond

Support: 9

3 prize pistol

3 beneath the burning sun

3 the rays of dawn

Events: 9

3 shotgun blast

3 a small price to pay

3 catastrophic explosion

As you can see I chose to go the government route. I started out by just playing with what I thought were some of the best agency characters. After I realized that the majority of them had the government subtype I decided to try and go that way with it for flavor and for speediness since special agent clarkston can make everyone come out sooner than they should. Also, I have a sprinkle of day cards thrown in the deck to maximize the usefulness of the trial judge. The day cards are good on their own but they just happen to make the trial judge cheaper as well which is awesome. The rest are pretty much staple agency cards, all except catastrophic explosion. Its a powerful loyal card that seemed like a no brainer in a mono agency deck. Tell me what y'all think.

Next up in alphabetical order is cthulhu. Cthulhu has so many different deckbuilding options. The faction has a bunch of different ancient ones to choose from and different paths you can take the faction down. I mean you can choose to build a deep one deck, a serpents deck, a deck that focuses a lot on the terror struggle, etc... They have a lot of variety I feel. However, I chose to go with a classic deep one themed deck. Here is what my list looks like:

Characters: 33

3 cult of bathos

3 insmouth troublemaker

3 diseased sewer rats

3 young deep one

3 lurking deep one

3 backwater deep one

3 family of fishers

3 deep one stowaway

3 ravager from the deep

3 deep one rising

3 hydra

Support: 11

3 khopesh of the abyss

3 shadowed reef

3 devil's reef

2 temple of r'lyeh

Events: 6

3 deep one assault

3 in the wake of the sleeper

There is a lot of synergy in this deck. My favorite being the synergy between hydra and the temple of r'lyeh. Its sick when you are killing a deep one rising to make your opponent sacrifice a character and then you pay 2 to bring him back and destory another one of your opponents characters. Most people dont tend to come back from that. Same as before. Feel free to chime in with comments, criticisms, and critiques.

Third on the list is hastur. I'm not gonna lie. I have had a doosey of a time trying to pull together a viable working mono hastur deck. They have some of the best cards in the game but they seem like they are better at supporting another faction than trying to do it solo. Nevertheless I am hellbound to build a mono colored deck for each faction. Here is what I came up with:

Characters: 33

3 seeker of mysteries

3 granny orne

3 demon lover

3 dangerous inmate

3 messenger from beyond

3 victoria glasser

3 crazed arsonist

3 old man of the woods

3 byakhee servant

3 moonbound byakhee

3 hastur

Support: 14

3 scalpel

3 the guzheng

3 stygian eye

3 infernal obsession

2 arkham asylum

Events: 3

3 scotophobia

Im sure this deck has a lot of room for improvement. I wanted to show off what each faction could do well in every deck and for hastur its making people flip their **** and go nutso. To help with this idea I played a lot of cards that took away icons or just straight up took control of an opponents characters. This list I'm really unsure on so please chime in with any thoughts...

Nerds are 4th on the list. They were quite a challenge as well since they suck so bad at terror and combat. However, I feel much better with this miskatonic list than I do the hastur list. Here's what I came up with:

Characters: 33

3 mad genius

3 student archaelogist

3 professional counselor

3 cafeteria lady

3 archaeology interns

3 obsessive insomniac

3 visiting author

3 chess prodigy

3 jamie winthrop

3 anthropology advisor

3 obscure linguist

Support: 11

3 scientific text

3 open for inspection

3 blackmarket artifact

2 mask of sthenelus

Events: 6

3 binding

3 dr. carson's treatment

This deck was based around the anthropology advisor. He is one bad ass nerd. He makes all nerds out there proud. The deck gains a lot of speed because of him. I chalked the deck full of investigators because you get to play them for so much cheaper with him on the field. Possibly free if you have more than one advisor on the field. The rest of the deck was geared towards keeping the nerds from going insane or dying by blanking my opponents characters icons. Binding, jamie winthrop, and obscure linguist all help to keep the nerd flock around. If they happen to go insane their is always dr. carsons treatment! I debated forever on whether or not to play dr. carson but in the end decided that the obscure linguist was better suiited for the deck. I may be pesuaded to go back to him though...Let me hear your thoughts!

Next up is a faction I have never played with, the order of the silver twilight. I built this deck solely based off of looking at cards I thought were good or decent and threw them together to make a deck. Here is what I came up with:

Characters: 33

3 young initiate

3 recruiter for the lodge

3 initiate of huang hun

3 protector of secrets

3 lodge barkeep

3 unscrupulous acquistionist

3 lodge housekeeper

3 knight of the outer void

3 master of the myths

3 lord jeffrey farrington

3 high wizard of the order

Support: 5

3 silver twilight lodge

2 the oubliettes

The events for the order of the silver twilight are:

3 you know too much

3 elder binding

3 brazier enchantment

3 steal the soul

6th on the list is Shub Niggurath. Everyone seems to immediately want to build a dark young deck when they think of shub so that is why I went a different route with my mono colored deck. I wanted to abuse the ghoulish worshiper so I made my deck a monser themed deck with a couple ancient ones thrown in. Here is what I came up with:

Characters: 41

3 priestess of bubastis

3 ghoulish predator

3 twilight cannibal

3 albino goat spawn

3 mind eater

3 diseased sewer rats

3 ghoulish worshipper

3 insect swarm

3 slime covered dhole

3 grim wraith

3 hungry dark young

3 grasping cthonian

3 y'golonac

2 nyogtha

Events: 6

3 shocking transformation

3 burrowing beneath

Support: 3

3 under the porch

With this deck I wanted to show shubs ability to swarm the opponent with suffocating numbers. This deck runs a lot more characters than normal but that is what shub does. Shub tends to drop lots of characters and fast. Plus, shub doesn't really have that many interesting event or support cards to be honest. The ones that are really good I already have in the deck. Anyone that thinks I am missing something feel free to let me know.

7th on list is the underbelly of the cthulhu world and one of my personal favorites-syndicate. Syndicate is known for being able to reduce characters skill and exhaust characters so they can take stories unopposed. My mono take on them involves the criminal theme putting a heavy emphasis on the skill reduction and punish characters that way. Here is my list:

Characters: 33

3 clover club bouncer

3 clover club torch singer

3 johnny v's dame

3 triggerman

3 anarchist

3 extortionist

3 hard case

3 richard finchington

3 tattoo artist

3 diseased sewer rats

3 mr. david pan

Support: 17

3 ice shaft

3 crow bar

3 tear gas

3 dutch courage

3 gun runner's club

2 the seventh house on the left

Yup. No events. It just so happened that this deck doesn't play any. No intimidate, kidnapping 101, low blow, etc... This deck uses the skill reduction cards like the clover club duo, tattoo artist, and tear gas to kill people it shouldn't be with crow bars, ice shafts, and tear gas. Instead of temporarily getting rid of the problem this deck looks to permanently get rid of it. It's a lot of fun to kill people with crow bars and push people down ice shafts. It's just so criminal like :-)

Last but not least is the recursion master himself, yog sothoth. This deck I can take no credit for. It is a list that I believe was posted by hellfury over on cardgamedb.com. I tweaked it a little to fit my playstyle but the general concept is the same. It is a good mono yog mill deck that abuses curse of the stone. Here is the list:

Characters: 30

3 cannibal ghast

3 guardian of the key

3 faceless abductor

3 bird demon

3 wilbur whateley

3 evolving shoggoth

3 hermetic scholar

3 the large man

3 flying polyps

3 yog sothoth

Events:12

3 journey to the other side

3 curse of the stone

3 speak to the dead

3 opening the limbo gate

Support: 8

3 things in the ground

3 terrors in the dark

2 prism of many views

The deck wants the opponent to have as many characters out as possible so when you cast curse of the stone you mill a ton of their deck. Thats where things in the ground shines. It does double duty because it is milling their deck while at the same time putting characters into play for your opponent. It also plays limbo gate to cheat yog into play so you can cast curse of the stone twice in one turn or whatever spell you may happen to need. My hat goes off to the creator. It is very good mono yog deck and it does a great job of exploiting the other win condition in the game.

After all of these decklists no one has anything to say....?!? Come on people! This is what forums are for! No one has ideas or disagrees with any of mine? I find that hard to believe. Come on peeps. Get some discussion going!

I generally find it hard to judge a deck just by looking at the card list. I typically play a couple of mock-up games to find out if, how, and how well a deck works against other decks. When I'm content the next stage is playtesting them against a real player. At what stage are you right now? Did you make any playtests yet?

I'd also like to note that I'm not a fan of mono-decks, since I don't think they work as well as two- or three faction decks. I'm not convinced it is possible to negate the (more or less well-known) weaknesses of a faction without adding cards of a complementary faction.

I think if your goal is to inspire conversation about the decks, you might be better off putting each deck in a distinct thread. It is a bit overwhelming to see the giant list of cards for all factions (where's your neutral deck, by the way? :-).

Also, like jhaelen, I personally don't get a good gut reaction from a deck by looking at the list. It makes more sense for me to have them in my hands and play some games with them.

I know that is silly - it should be equally satisfactory to think through a deck list by looking at the names of the cards, but partly it is because my memory is not so strong, and I need to see the icons, the skill, the abilities spelled out in detail...

kamacausey said:

I partially blame the crappy forum software. I've been checking these forums for the past days thinking there were no new posts when in fact it just wasn't showing the new post light. Now it's cleared up and I've missed some discussions

LIke the other guys, I have trouble picturing a deck from the listing. I'm just not experienced enough to remember everything about what each card does without it in front of me either physically or in a deckbuilder app of some kind.

I'm intrigued by your mono-Syndicate deck though. My own is so very different - it relies heavily on exhaustion, kidnapping, Bound and Gagged, that sort of thing. Lots of cheap characters and cheap events to run unopposed. I'd like to try this sometime and see how it works out.

I notice that you have a lot of 3xUnique cards scattered throughout your decks, that's another point where we diverge. Since you can only have one in play, I usually limit them to two copies unless the deck is very specifically built around that character in some way.

I recently made a mono Shub Monsters deck as well and it's been working very well for me. Thread is here:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=40&efcid=4&efidt=599288

My monster list isn't so different from yours (although I don't take as many) but my events/supports are quite different:

Events: 12
2xHorrid Mutation
2xThunder in the East
3xEven Here She Dwells
3xIa! Ia! Shudde M'ell
2xThe Black Goat’s Rage

Support: 8
2xAltar of the Blessed
2xGhoul Taint
2xWolf Hunger
2xOpen Grave

Burrowing Beneath I think you may find superflous, at the least you may not need 3x copies. I've stocked with some 1 cost attachments that I can destroy to destroy enemy characters with the Chthonians as well as use for some control. It's partly a toolbox, but I just haven't found that I need more characters really - we're already fairly swarming with them. Actually Thunder in the East's card draw does kind of act a bit as an extra character when I draw one. When I update it I may slot in some Shocking Transformation though, it won't be hard to trim a card here and there to make room.

Event cards look pretty powerful, I esp like Open for Inspection. Academic Obfuscation is a great one to play with that (SOTD:AD); handicap the story by adding two tokens, but give yourself the advantage with Open for Inspection.

I am a *little* surprised that Albert Wilmarth isn't on there, you can lose a struggle that way, and potentially get past nasty tentacle-fest cards or multiple skullys.

I don't have all those APs but I hope there are ones out there that have more hope for Arcane struggles involving Miskatonic U. Not having a constant refresh is a real handicap (at least for me). Professor Sam Campbell (AR:TSS) does a great job of that.

Thanks for putting these together .

Oops my post was for the mono Miskatonic deck if that wasn't obvious.

Grant

I love themes. Themes for this. Themes for that. Themes for anything. Every deck I build is to a theme as I get so much enjoyment from the visuals and feel you get (I'm a very atmospheric player) so mono-theme decks are a favourite of mine. I'm taking a Cthulhu mono to the Australian Championships on June 3rd so i'll let you know how I go with it and post the list after that. It's a lot different to yours though. I also like multi faction theme decks too, like my 'Welcome to the Clover Club' deck, Syndicate/Agency deck. There's a whole lot going down in there but I'm getting off topic now.

OH. And if you're thinking mono decks (and excuse me but I'm new to the game and haven't even played yet so may not have it right) the Cthulhu would definately be the choice. For one. Simple. Reason.

"COMMUNAL SHOWERS"

This can really mess with mixed decks. Check it out.

(Funnily enough I couldn't fit it into mine......... So many cards. So few to play with)

"My favorite being the synergy between hydra and the temple of r'lyeh. Its sick when you are killing a deep one rising to make your opponent sacrifice a character and then you pay 2 to bring him back and destory another one of your opponents characters."

I believe you are playing incorrectly. The effect for Deep One Rising occurs "[a]fter you play" the card, not on every occassion when the card is put into play. Hydra allows you to "put it into play", but not to play. See FAQs, for the distinction between "play" and "put into play".

Dark Initiate said:

He's playing this combo correctly. COCLCG is referring to the card "Temple of R'lyeh" which is found in the Never Night AP from Ancient Relics. Temple of R'lyeh is a 2-cost location that reads:

ACTION: Sacrifice a Cthulhu character to choose an opponent. That opponent must sacrifice a character he controls.

So you sacrifice a Deep One and then bring them back for 2 with Hydra's ability, and then sacrifice them again.

Otherwise, you are correct that Deep One Rising's ability can't be paired with Hydra to destroy a character.

"you are correct that Deep One Rising's ability can't be paired with Hydra to destroy a character."

That's all that I meant.