How do you plan on countering Khopesh and Temple of R'lyeh when building decks. These cards seem to be the meta game changing cards. Only Shub seems to be ok at doing it but the game depends a lot on draw of both players then. Other factions than Cthulhu and Shub I can't see doing it to so much. Cards like Breaking the Ward I can't see helping much against Khopesh.

There is usually a board swipe and lot of card advantage for C'tulhu player when Khopesh hits the table. Khopesh does the damage instantly usually and Cthulhu player has already had a lot of card advantage when it is your turn again. Huang Hun might be ok against Khopesh but that means you are playing slow and you still need to stop Cthulhu rushing for stories. First question I ask when building a deck is how I handle Khopesh + other destruction. With some factions it becomes very hard. I don't see rushing working very good against Cthulhu either and with rushing (like Miskatonic) you are only hoping to get good hand and Cthulhu a bad one so it gets just game about luck. One option is just out speed Cthulhu like with Things in the Ground deck but haven't got that deck working yet.

The way to battle it is to have Support card destruction/bouncing. Either that, or play with some Invulnerable characters (helps against Khopesh, not so much against Temple of R'lyeh). Snow Graves would also stop it I believe, since it has to enter the discard pile before being shuffled into the deck. You just… have to get rid of it first, meaning killing/bouncing its carrier or destroying it.

You raise an interesting question re: Khopesh leaving play. It never enters the Discard zone, therefore, Snow Graves wouldn't stop it. At least, that's how we've ruled it thus far

I would certainly be curious on others thoughts and/or other official rulings.

Dimzer said:

If my opponent’s Stygian Eye (Ancient Relics
F96) leaves play and I have a Snow Graves
(Forgotten Lore F15) attached to his discard
pile does this prevent Stygian Eye from being
shuffled back into his deck?
Yes it does. Stygian Eye reads, “After
Stygian Eye leaves play, shuffle it into its
owner’s deck.” Since the passive effect
does not initiate until after it has left
play it must be placed in the discard pile.
Snow Graves reads, “Cards cannot be
moved out of attached discard pile for
any reason.” This prevents Stygian Eye’s
passive from being able to resolve.

Thanks, I was reading up on the FAQ for an unrelated question (re: taking control of a card), and ran across this after the FAQ (pun intended). Thanks for re-iterating what the FAQ said. Guess that's one way to mitigate Kopesh

To defeat temple I try to simply have more characters than you're garden variety cthulhu deck and attempt to keep the cost of those character's as low as possible. And if its a good idea, play as many characters as possible as quickly as possible. Cthulhu is typically a slower faction so flooding early and often can get around 1 for 1 trades the temple allows. This is all in addition to typical location/support destruction of course.

As for the khopesh. Gravitate towards effects that don't give a hoot about how much toughness a character has. Or simply add some attachment specific removal. Normally I wouldn't recommend such things due to them being so narrow, but between Hatusr's steal-a-character cards, khopesh, prize pistol, and a few other cards, attachemetns are a bit more common place in all teirs of play these days so they are far less of a liability.

While the khopesh (+temple) can downgrade some 'middle of the road' to slow (speed wise) strategies to a lower tier of competitiveness there are plenty of options out there, but it does require some adjusting.

Hope that helped and good luck.

dutch courage also helps in a more indirect way. Not as elegant a solution as removing the attachment but an option if you're playing syndicate.

djtool said:

Oh ya, forget to mention that. Effects that manipulate toughness (either adding or removing) are also not a too terrible way to deal with the current meta.

Having recently played a bunch of games against various decks with my Khopesh-Deck, I've found the only one that could compete was a Mono-Shub deck with plenty of support destruction. I doubt it's as versatile, though: It may work well as a counter to Khopesh decks, but does it also work well against the Lodge's bouncing, Yog's milling, and any of the other popular deck themes?

I haven't seen the Temple in action yet, so I'm not sure how to best deal with it apart from playing as many characters as you can. Obviously, support destruction may also be the key here.

jhaelen said:

Jhaelen speaks the truth! I was the unfortunate opponent. I must say, however, that I didn't really think beforehand that any of the decks I was trying against him would perform exceedingly well and would hesitate to consider any of them tournament-level, but I would like to say a couple things about the Khopesh and wounding in general, as this was my first time playing against the card. I really hope what I'm going to say doesn't come off as a rant, because I really only want to discuss the card, but here's the summary: the power level of the Khopesh is unusually high IMHO.

The Khopesh, by itself, is not specially dangerous. It needs to have a character in play and it can, of course, be destroyed. It is, however, very easy to abuse. As characters are the primary method of winning (moreso than, say, creatures in M:TG), chances are you won't have a lack of them, so the first point is virtually moot. When destroyed, it will shuffle itself back into the deck, -- experience tells me that if you see a Khopesh once in a game, it will come back. Also, building your deck around it is relatively easy, as every point of toughness on your characters is pretty much equivalent to +1 card advantage when it arrives.

Every time the Khopesh hit the table, my side was decimated. Characters in CoC are very fragile things indeed, and so wounding is an extremely powerful effect, so much so that the powers that be put the combat struggle after the terror struggle to balance it out against the other main form of removal. For me, the fun of CoC is in the struggles of the stories, but the Khopesh eliminated a lot of the tension, as after a Khopesh there would be little to no defense on my side of the table and thus no real possibility of trading or performing interesting tricks.

Unsurprisingly, the only deck that did relatively well against the Khopesh deck was a mono-Shub that had a lot of support destruction. I was also lucky to draw over the game my 3 copies of Burrowing Beneath, as my cards wouldn't come back from the discard pile but my opponent's Khopesh(es?) were. I think it's a pity that none of the other decks I tried, and to which I had dedicated far more time to polishing, didn't perform nearly as well. Perhaps I was unlucky in some of them (I didn't even get to draw a Khopesh myself when I was using a Khopesh deck!) or simply played poorly, but I sincerely believe that the card is a tough nut to crack. If I'm not mistaken, the only monofaction decks that's doing well in tournaments is Cthulhu, and the Khopesh is only a manifestation of the feature that elevates it above the rest -- out-of-story wounding.

All in all, the only real answer I see is instant support destruction or instant wounding. Do NOT rely on cards that can only be played on your operations phase, such as Grasping Chthonian or Thunder in the East. Toughness works too, of course, but if you're playing against Cthulhu or Cthulhu/Shub, you'd better be ready for seeing your Dutch Courages (and so on) destroyed. Maybe an insanity-heavy deck with powerful events would work too. As a side note, I think taking control of the "Khopeshed" character will not work, as the control of the attachment doesn't change.

After all this wall of text, Jhaelen, please don't think I didn't enjoy my time playing with you, it was an extremely fun (and fruitful) evening and I'm looking forward to test my new creations with you!

I feel you will just get Khopeshed sooner or later, support destruction might not change it. Better just accept the fact and try counter it somehow (need to test this more http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=40&efcid=4&efidt=643568 ). I also don't believe decks being "Khopesh" decks. You have to think that Cthulhu was very strong even before Khopesh. Deck still has lot of other destruction cards.

Somebody said Dutch Courage is good against Khopesh. I think that card works great with my Cthulhu deck. I have been making decks and then start to think that this deck would so much better with 3 x Khopesh, 3x Emerging Deep One and other good Cthulhu cards. Then I start to add more Cthulhu cards and deck comes as Cthulhu deck with about 15 off faction splashed. But decks with Cthulhu and about 15 other faction support cards are very strong. Some Cthulhu decks with good support faction and Khopesh will counter other Cthulhu decks. Now I am having success with Cthulhu+Syndicate.

I am thinking more that icons and icon struggles doesn't matter much anymore. Much more effective to control the table with other means. I also think Khopesh decks might not be so good when players will counter them more but meta game might be much different than before. Khopesh should had been something like: "exhaust and wound this character to choose and wound a character."

I guess I just don't see the big deal here. Yes, it's a strong card. And yes, there's a lot of character destruction in the game right now (focused on Cthulhu, but not monopolized by it). However, there are ways to deal with Khopesh of the Abyss. As an attachment that relies upon toughness, Khopesh is vulnerable to several different cards. The same goes for the Temple being a location.

I've battled and lost against Khopesh decks. I've also won against them, and lost when playing them. Sure, it's no fun to have all of your characters wiped from the table, but from my perspective, character destruction has always been present in the game. It's something I plan for when designing a deck. You either need your own means of destruction, some type of prevention, or defense. This isn't anything new in CoC deck building.

Perhaps it's because my group has played with a mix of black- and white-border cards for so long - with some cards being extremely brutal - that I haven't noticed a big uptick in character destruction? Converting to all LCG decks for the upcoming regionals, I almost feel relieved.

I agree it might not be a big thing. I haven't ever played or seen the black bordered cards so I don't know how things were before. You should plan your deck to face character destruction but I feel this also diminishes the icons and icon struggles. I don't have very much experience of this game yet so haven't grasped the whole meta game. It just feel weird like for example with newest Asylum Pack Syndicate is getting more cards to lower skill of opponents and even destroy 0 skill characters also. I don't see so much point of skill lowering, icon/struggle manipulating and driving insane etc. when you can just destroy other character quite easy.

Yipe said:

Now, to Yipe I have this reply:

I think you're underestimating the effect of the Khopesh on the metagame. It's true there are counters to the Khopesh (and the Temple) but it requires a deck focused on defending against it (or them). Including a Khopesh into your deck, however, simply makes whatever main strategy you're using just way more effective. It's an extremely powerful addition to every deck.

I also feel you're wrong to think it's a card relying on Toughness. It works well enough when attached to characters without toughness that you're willing to sacrifice. In many games I simply used Miskatonic's Museum Curator to search my deck for a Khopesh, attach it to him (for free!) and get him killed, taking down two characters from my opponent in one stride.

In many games I was able to play a Khopesh every turn! It's very hard to destroy them that often before I get a chance to use any of them.

The problem with the Khopesh is that it turns _every_ character into a killing machine.

I'm glad it's finally on the restricted list, but it will probably still dictate the kinds of decks we'll see. One family of deck types it completely eliminates is the combo deck. You simply cannot hope to keep any key characters in play long enough to set up any kind of combo (unless it doesn't involve any characters).

As a final note, I should say that I haven't looked too closely at the last four or five AP's that have been released. It may well be that among them there's a more effective counter (or an even better card!) than there was before.

I guess the fact that the Khopesh-"problem" reappears with quite a frequency on this forum already shows us that people seem to have certain difficulties to handle the card, which should be a good indication that it may be a bit too powerful.

From the more recent packs cards like "Mask of Sthenelus" and the "Disk of Itzamna" are my top cards for combo decks to protect my key-characters from the Khopesh (but unfortunately not from the Temple and other sacrifice effects).

Of course playing Snow Graves helps against the reshuffling of the Kopesh (and other Relics), but the damage has been done.

Another quite interessting card to handle the Kopesh and the Temple is the Yog support "Breaking the Ward", which allows you to copy triggered effects of opponent's support cards without paying the costs (you simply discard the top card of your deck).

So if your opponent triggers the Kopesh or Temple, you get to wound/destroy one of his characters too, effectively eliminating the use of the Temple (he sacrifices 2 characters against my 1 character and 1 card from my deck).

Of course, most of the time you can only play this card when the damage has already been done to a certain degree, since it's a support card and you have to attach it onto the Khopesh or Temple.

The new Yog event "Walk the Path" (or something like that) does the same as the Ward, but can copy any triggered effect, i.e. is more flexible, but costs you 2 resources to play (the Ward costs 0).

jhaelen,

You're probably right. My experience seems like the outlier here. Perhaps I simply need to play against decks with the Khopesh more often, or my regular opponents need to use it more effectively?

As for the meta-game, I generally find that level of game understanding is beyond me. To my knowledge there isn't any overarching meta in the Pacific NW so it's hard to tell what affect Khopesh is having on deck-building. We have our first CoC tournament coming up in June - I guess we'll see then. I could be in for a nasty Khopesh + Temple surprise, or maybe I'll be joining the slaughter and bring it myself?

Generally I ignore the Khopesh. My characters are almost never important enough to protect. It is just investigating stories that I have them in there for. You pay to put a character and Khopesh into play and kill off two guys of mine… okay but I've dumped three characters into play last turn and will probably do it again… you lost a character and the attachment… By my math I'm still breaking even.

That said Khopesh plus Curator is a great idea because there is no loss of character advantage since I get it fro free and can still put a character into play.

Penfold, I am interested to see those decks which you have success with. I don't say this as a mean way, I just want to be able to win against Khopesh with non Cthulhu cards (well I already do that but usually my decks have Khopesh) and find other strong decks. Dropping down three characters per turn means you are has better card advantage than Cthulhu. Khopesh is usually amazing for advantage because you can remove the key threats. And if your are dropping three characters per play per turn regularly I think the deck might be better with Khopesh and some other Cthulhu cards.

I think deck to beat is Cthulhu with some support faction (there are many which work very good.). I see Miscatonic ok because it could out draw other builds and provides some cheap investigation icons to rush some strories. Adding support of 3x Archaeology Inters, 3x Museum Curator, 3x Notebook Sketches, 2x Dr. Laban, 2-3x Unearthing the Ancients is good but I think I find other support factions a bit stronger.

Yipe said:

You've made several excellent points here. It is true that Khopesh is vulnerable to several different cards, but it's not less true that, well, it never really dies…

My main gripe with the Khopesh, really, is not that it's too powerful -- it's just boring to play against because it pretty much makes the rest of the game mechanics completely irrelevant at worst and strongly underwhelming at best. Here's an example: other attachments, including the new tomes, are just not that interesting to me now because if you lose the character, you will lose the attachment too. What's the use of playing these cards when targeted removal will just destroy most characters? "Have fun and experiment!", FFG seems to be saying with a lot of the cards they're showing in their previews. But in the end, not many people will bother to try them competitively because other cards are just more powerful and it's just counter-productive to gimp yourself.

What I'm trying to say is that some mechanics just trump the rest under most circumstances. Of course you can prevent removal in stories. Terror icons and willpower against terror. More combat icons than your opponent against combat. Tricks that add icons to your guys or remove icons from your opponent's characters. Temporal invulnerability. Fast. Icon boosters. Exhaustion. And every single one of them is useless when faced with an insanely cheap, targetted, reusable, indestructible form of removal that can be used before stories. Cards like Shotgun or Sacrificial Offerings are fun to play with or against because they allow for counterplay. Khopesh, not so much in my opinion. I really think it should have a minimal activation cost or at least a cost for shuffling it into your library, à la Tcho-Tcho Talisman.

I hope I'm not coming off as overly negative with these posts. I've just been dedicating some time to these thoughts lately in anticipation for the regional and I find the discussion very interesting

Edit: Minor addition.

My wife plays a Deep Ones deck with a Khopesh. She doesn't use Temple because her deck is too fast to need it. That being said, Khopesh is annoying, but not a game breaker against my Cops and Lodges deck. I bounce more characters than she wounds. And guess what? I wound her characters too. She plays a Khopesh? I Shotgun Blast that character immediately after. It turns out a 1-for-1 trade isn't as awesome.

@dummiesday

Your post doesn't seem negative to me at all. Your writing is concise and your perspective backed up with clear examples. Onto the topic at hand…

Your point about Khopesh reducing the playability of attachments or other cards that interact with the icon struggles - a central aspect to the game's mechanics and a primary way to create in-game suspense - really resonates with me. Will we see fewer attachment support cards because characters are now expected to remain in play for such short times? Will decks because more event-focused? I'm not 100% convinced, but I will give definitely it more thought.

AUCodeMonkey said:

That looks like an interesting strategy. I've thought of mixing ST and Agency before, but I couldn't find any really cool synergies. Do you happen to have a decklist?

I hope to see the Khopesh banned after the World Championships.

Khopesh upon arrival got used and abused by our group (8 players) just to see how far it could be pushed and naturally those same players also built decks to survive against it. More than half our number have full play sets and have participated in competitive events including a World Champ, other top 4 World finishers and various Regional Champs. We have found the Khopesh to be a strong card well worth playing. I agree with it being added to the Restricted list but in no way feel it should be banned. I for one enjoy playing with and against such cards. When building a deck I want to be concerned about the cards my opponent might be using. Who wants to build decks in a vacuum? From my experience Khopesh is not considerably different than other competitive cards I might face. Increasingly Support destruction becomes a necessity and Khopesh is only one of at least 6 reasons for it. When facing a Cthulhu deck I love holding some character destruction, just waiting to ruin their day. Temple, watch how quickly it is rendered useless as you maintain character superiority! I remember how all the players howled when 'Masks' hit the shelves and who could have blamed them. Now that we have some attachments worth playing we are already hearing the 'B' word!? There was The Large Man scare and now Khopesh. What will be the next boogeyman?! Okay, back to playtesting my Regionals deck.

I will post a decklist on the Deck forums when I get home. Don't have the deck with me at work.

dummiesday said: