this topic has actually been transferred from another topic, so where we're up to is what the current meta of CoC may be, any thoughts on the subject and where the game may lead. we were currently discussing a wierd shift towards Yog decks and the recursion strategy, which has taken out 2 regionals so far this season, one with a very clever glimpse of the void / mill strategy, and the other with a re-occurring support destruction strategy (both shub / yog and still some hastur / yog winners not released (as it is possible to clear snow graves with a 0 cost deep one assault and have something like a recursion power drain)). is this the way to go or are there others not yet revealed by their creators yet?? it seems to differ from continent to continent with the khopesh making only a small impact in the USA but plenty of khopesh's are appearing in europe.

it won't let me edit the above, but i have a Yog addiction and have made recursion decks for all factions with deep one assault, and the possibilities are endless, including a recursion misinformation (heh heh). so the question is also, is this viable in todays game??

I don't think CoC has even meta yet. When there are so few players and tournament size about 4-6 it is very hard to develop more serious meta. We need a way more tournament reports to think about meta more.

and thats what we're here to discuss. is there one appearing and even if it is to soon, are there any predictions or signs of one to come? but perhaps i have the term wrong. this is only my 1st card game and i've only had it for 3 months, so perhaps 'appearing trends' is a better term.

COCLCG said:

As a guy who plays this a lot, it is viable but not what I would consider 'tier 1'.

Hellfury said:

I think it might not be so hard to lock the table with Glimpse of the Void recursion against slower deck. Marcus Jamburg + Dimensional Rift is maybe easiest lock to make but there are more answer against it but some decks just might auto lose to that. There are other strong recursion things also. All these things like everything else you just have to meta against. Anyway I am interested to see new tournament results with deck examples. I think CoC meta is starting drift away from icons and struggles and it is starting to be more about powerful card effects.

EDIT I also think Support destruction is starting to be very important. Shub has a edge in this so it is not surprising to see more Shub splashed in a deck (with Black Dog and Snow Graves it is easy to include other Shub cards).

Surreal said:

You are right, I had a slower Cthulhu/Shub deck at my regional, and was totally locked vs a Glimpse of the Void deck. I did not expect this type of deck and it was basically an auto-loss. After seeing what it can do, I would not play the same deck that's for sure. But, live and learn.

badash56 said:

Yea, that seemed like a very cool deck and I am sure it was a surprise for many. Khopesh is not very effective if the opponent is not planning to really even use characters other than come to play effect. Winner thought very well about what kind of decks he might face and built the deck according to that.

Hellfury said:

well apparently it is, as its winning regionals.

Surreal said:

support destruction is definately becoming vital i believe with so many powerful game changing cards coming in. with marcus jamburg recursion support destruction may become equally important, and i believe yog / shub is probably the only combo to do this. the other factions could definately do with some of their own and to make it a fair fight i think this should happen. it then becomes more of a 'best deck' challenge with the perfect balance of attack / defence being the winner. i personally think marcus jamburg is a poor choice for FFG as it only intensifies some supports and i fear that soon story phases will be redundant.

this is exactly why i included shudde m'ell but more importantly recursion telepathic chthonians in my regionals deck. the only way to stop relics which keep coming back / supports is to make the opponent FEAR playing them, and i think this card will definately see more game time.

COCLCG said:

Anecdote does not equal data. Or rather, just because a few people got surprised by a deck type they do not normally face, or have ever experienced doesn't make recursion 'Tek'.

I fare well with it, but then again I play an inordinate amount of games with it. But a few other deck types are simply better, faster, and stronger. Specifically destruction.

That said, I agree with Surreal that CoC does seem to be showing more of the potential of the game through card effects.

The future is certainly bright for the more combinatorial decktypes that do not rely on "The Maths of Icon Struggles", but I do not think it is quite to its zenith.

I kind of like it where it is right now. Fun to play but not really "THE" deck to beat yet still capable of not looking foolish at a tourney some of the time in capable hands.

I agree w/ Hellfury. Mainly what this proves is that it's at least a pretty good deck, and that it's effective against people who aren't familiar with it.

It's going to take more testing to tell whether it remains that strong once players know and plan for that sort of deck.

Hellfury said:

Well problem is because there is practically almost no tournament data in CoC because there are so few players/tournaments. Just have to use the data that is given if somebody wants to discuss about CoC meta.

dboeren said:

dboeren said:

The notion "once players know and plan for that sort of deck…" means that it is part of the meta-game, by definition, no?

Now that we have to worry and plan about certain archetypes of decks, the meta-game exists. One can no longer just make a deck they think is effective - they have to consider the other decks out there.

It is probably inevitable in any sort of expanding card game that this would happen, but I find it disappointing. I think it is more fun and exciting when every build has a fair option of succeeding, without worrying about "oh, I need to defend against this type of deck…" But, that's life. As my Latvian friend was wont to say "growing older is a process of losing one's illusions - like beautiful bubbles that pop into nothing."

TheProfessor said:

Yea, that is not possible in any customizable game. But also biggest skill and thinking in deck building comes because of that. I feel game only gets much better and tactical when meta gets more clear. There should be some draft format in CoC if you would want to see different playstyle.

YEAH ANNOYING!!

i wish that all decks were equal. there are so many cool combos / cards that can't be used due to having to defend against other deck types -haha. half my cards are in the 'useless' pile.

but what i do enjoy about it is that it really makes you think. you can't just slap a deck together and think it'll win (i think we all went through the initial phase of making a deep one sacrifice deck and thinking it was unbeatable).

like i said, i just wish things were a bit more even in some areas, where something like a miskatonic / twilight deck had some hope of removing supports.

I seem to find myself fighting this distinction a lot in various games

Just because some deck type exists doesn't mean you can't play what you want to, especially if your deck is otherwise a reasonable design. Sometimes being prepared for a certain type just means being aware of it and what to do if you see it coming at you and doesn't require your cards to change.

But more importantly, we're just talking about high level tournaments here, which believe it or not are a small minority of games played. Around the local store or in your basement with your friends you can play whatever the heck you want. You can just not worry about whether he has a Khopesh or Negotium or some lockdown combo or whatever and you can have a great time. You only have to worry about these "what-if's" if you want to be able to take on anything that might happen at a high level of play, ie - win major tournaments.

I'm hoping that tomorrow I can get in a couple of games with my friend at the local store (not sure yet if I'll be free), and if I want to bring a fun Deep Ones deck or Dark Young themed deck or whatever I can still do that and have a great time. If some deck is too dominating then it stops being fun and we both change decks again, which we do frequently anyway.

hear hear and a good point.

its out of tournament you get to have the real fun (and isn't that what it's all about??)

i think it's just that time of year that every one gets all 'tournament speak'

Much like the game's namesake, I like destroying my opponents and driving them insane. Therefore, I try to make tourney-viable decks as much as possible. My wife and I are also extremely competitive, so it also has to be that way We have some fun decks as well, but we're always looking to make them a little more tournament viable.

I like playing CCG/LCGs with best decks as possible also. It offers a lot of thinking and is very fun if there are many decks which are viable.

If its one thing I've learned playing CoC is that I generally have no clue what anyone esle is gonna play in any given tournament (aka, the meta).

I know what I come up with and have what I think are really good guesses as to what other people will come up with but the fact of the matter is… this game will always suprise me/you.

Take ohio for example. I expected khopesh in mostly shub/cthulhu and mono-cthulhu varients. Ya, I was half right, but on the other side I nearly got my clock cleaned by a skill based Mono-Syndicate deck not long after facting a cthulhu/mu deck that I never saw coming.

The best you can do is prepare to either ignore as much as you can and/or handle as many different strategies you can all the while having a clear path to victory.

One of the better things about this game is that there are a ton of strategies out there that could take home first prize. All it takes is a little tweaking and a little more focus.

The above aside though. Things to look out for seems to include being able to deal with attachments (be it snow graves, khopesh, stygian eye, etc..), more physical characters (Twilight Cannibal, Descendant of Eibon, Ancient Ones, etc..), combo peices (uroboros, ritual of summoning, large man, etc…), and big swings (ie. shocking transformation, nodens, etc..).

So, if your deck can reasonably handle and/or ignore those things then you have a decent deck (even if you use the above).

And, perhaps more importantly, if you wield your deck/stratgely well. You will do well. As thats probably the greatest factor for Cthulhu tournaments right now, play skill.

mono-syndicate is a tough one!! one thing i did find handy to plan for is having at least some way of removing a character who can literally demolish you if not taken out. i played a friends mono - syndicate and went 2 stories down all because of david pan. i only had 2 mage ka magnus in my deck and it wasn't until he came out that i clawed back for a victory. after that i quickly went to 3 x magnus!! (thanks for the card tom).

it may not work for some but it worked for me, in that i sat for hours dry-running the first 6 or so turns against no-one in particular so it wasn't time heavy or require anything beyond my deck, playing literally 100's of non-games, and substituting random events like taking out my lynch-pin characters or the entire lot to see how it could bounce back. the main reason was so that my deck became almost like 'muscle memory'. having seen probably every combination of cards that could come out of it made it so that playing my old friend 'the deck' was almost like running on automatic.

knowing what to resource and which factions in your resources (for mixed factions) to bring about the desired result with the cards in your hand is to me THE most important part of play. no use having a 1 cost card that can save the day if your last single domain is the wrong faction!! (ie, i like to limit my 1-costs to a single faction as much as possible to make the most use of the 'lagging' domain).

lastly, from AN experience, i wouldn't recommend a deck that requires too many cards being saved in the hand for some big combo or series of plays. in my tournament i got the best draw i could possibly hope for with both yog-sothoth and limbo gate in hand. i was going second and in the opponents 2nd turn he byakhee attacked me and i had to discard them both to keep some low cost characters!! always have a back up plan, and hand discards will be more common in games i think especially with apierophobia (look out ghoulish predators!! - which is a prime example of a card that looks good but can be your own downfall and i will NEVER use it as an early opener against hastur). in other words, know every deck and build one that has a different possible play style against each of them.

lastly lastly, i also try and do some pre-game damage control and making opponents cards (that i think i might come across) dead in the hand. for example: i try as much as possible to not include monsters, as pose mundane is one of my fave ST cards and can swing a game considerably, and i also try not to use supports, possibly making an opponent sit on his 'get it off' card waiting for something that never comes and resourcing something that would be far more useful to him. in other words try and be a little unpredicatable.

that's just from my limited play time anyway and i hope its somewhat useful. i'm far from being any sort of 'guru' - haha.

P.S. im going away for the weekend so breathe a sigh of relief and look forward to 2 full days of not having to listen to my blathering.

COCLCG said:

Silver Twilight has plenty of ways of removing characters, so removing attachments isn't a problem. Standalone supports are more difficult, but that's what Lodge Housekeeper is for. Adding in some Recruiters will help find the Housekeeper when you need her, and Silver Twilight also has some reasonably good discard-pile fishing techniques - like Lodge Defenses - to help bring her back to clean out additional supports.

Overall, though, the cleanest approach may be to mix in some Shub Niggurath. Shub is excellent at both destroying supports and fishing the discard pile, and Twilight is excellent at feeding the discard pile, so it is a potentially strong combination. Twilight/MiskU/Shub could be a bit too unwieldly of a combo, but then again, maybe not, if the card proportions are handled well. MiskU/Shub is not a bad combo either - bring on the Cthonian Stone!

To the original point, as a new player, here is my impression of the "meta". The metagame out of the core set seemed to be focused very heavily on characters, with either a "fast" approach that focused on cheap characters or a "slow" approach that focused on expensive but powerful characters. But either way, the metagame was very focused on characters and, consequently, the icon struggles.

That seems to have shifted with the release of a large number of cards that allow for direct character destruction, as well as a number of cards that accelerate the deployment of powerful characters. The metagame shifted to directly targeting your enemy's characters until you could push the big heavies out, at which point winning the game was a foregone conclusion. Cthulhu is arguably the best at both direct destruction and getting powerful characters out fast, so not surprisingly, it's currently the dominant faction.

It's possible that the metagame will shift to control and/or recursion, however. Control decks, recursion, and milling all benefit immensely from the type of card combinations that were not readily available in the past. Milling is a good example: while Blackmoor Estate was available in the core set, there really weren't good ways to protect it. Now, you can attach a Lodge Defenses, or have a Fire Extinguisher handy, or retrieve it from the discard pile using any number of techniques, and keep the mill running. At the same time, there are great blockers available to help limit the damage until the recursion or the mill is up and running.