So I've been collecting this game for a while now, but unfortunately I don't get to play it that often. Honestly, I've probably played less than a dozen games all together so far. I have a couple of friends that are interested in learning though, and learning to play using Core set decks is simple enough. My problem right now though, is figuring out how to build several decks that are at least somewhat balanced with each other, while still being diverse enough to keep things interesting. My goal is to put together decks that I won't have to deconstruct, since they'll all be built from my card pool. I've seen people talk about putting together a set of mono-faction decks, or a set of dual-faction decks. I would definitely prefer dual-faction, but with my limited experience with the game so far, it's been difficult for me to figure out how well some of the factions would mesh. I'm actually planning on doing 8 dual-faction decks total, with 4 being faction pairs on the same "side", ie; 2 human factions together or 2 Mythos factions. The human factions are pretty simple, Agency/Misk., likely with an investigator theme, and Syndicate/Order, board control. The Mythos factions are harder for me to figure out though, mainly Shub. What are the best pairings for the Mythos factions? Cthulhu/Hastur is strong, but do Shub and Yog play well together? What about the cross-faction pairings? Cthulhu/Agency would probably just be too overwhelming for what I'm trying to do. Miskatonic/Shub rush seems fun. Order/Yog seems like a pairing that would be great for combos. That leaves Agency/Hastur and Syndicate/Cthulhu. Are either of these doable? Or should I do entirely different pairings? Right now my collection consists of everything that's been released in the 3x format, plus 3 Core sets and 3x of SoA, so the only cards I don't have access to are things from the Dreamlands cycle.

OrionPax21 said:

Back when I did an extended playtest using only the core set Syndicate/Cthulhu was actually the most successful two-faction combo!

Considering the size of your card pool, I think pretty much every two-faction combo can work well. What you may want to consider is leaving any of the restricted cards out of your decks. A deck featuring one (or more) of these cards will likely be stronger than one without.

Yeah, I had though about leaving out restricted cards, but honestly most of them aren't an issue on their own, and since I'll be splitting up most of the "good" stuff for each faction between 2 different decks I wont be putting the full 3 copies of them a single deck. Neutrals are another story altogether, I definitely wont be putting Rats or Descendents in any of the decks, unless one deck ends up significantly worse than the rest and needs an extra push.