I'm new to the game, but so far I understand how to play all the factions in the core set and what some good combinations are. However I recently obtained Order of the Silver Twilight and I don't really get how to play to their strengths very well. What other factions do they mix well with and what is your general gameplan when playing with them?

Thanks for your help, I think they look really cool I'm just not sure how to play them effectively.

they loooove 'bouncing' opponent characters back to hand. the characters lord jeffrey farrington, high wizard of the order, unscrupulous aquisitionist and initiate of huang hun are all good for this. though this is only one part of their strategy i'm sure but seems to be the most prevalently used.

there also seems to be a lot of discarding cards from hand to gain effects but still working on the merits of this concept myself. i've been trying to combine them with syndicate as they're fairly average skill across the board and syndicate have some nice 'if less cards in hand' cards and can then make use of the lodge barkeep (syndicate steadfast).

Silver Twilight is a little more tricky to play, they seem to rely more on tricks & combos than the other factions. Just keep at it, you'll get the hang of them.

There are a few ways to use Silver Twilight: bouncing, hand manipulation, and sacrificing. I prefer bouncing, but I wouldn't really mix those too much. Of course, with the new cycle of cards coming out their focus may be shifting a bit…

ssjevot said:

I love Silver Twilight! They're my favorite faction and if you buy the Silver Twilight expansion, you can get a very consistent, powerful, fun to play deck out of the box. Let's see if I can give you a hand.

ST is all about board advantage and tempo. You want to have more and bigger guys than your opponent. ST does this by bouncing enemy key characters and then, hopefully, going to stories unopposed. Another big them is sacrifice, which compliments the general strategy well. Many characters have powerful abilities that trigger when they come into play (Lord Jeffrey) or when they leave play (Rich Widow).

Arguably, the best character of ST is Lord Jeffrey Farrington, at least in the ST big expansion, because he's very cost efficient, has an investigation icon and can bounce ancient ones. If you're interested in the faction, you should get a hold of Master of the Myths and Initiate of Huang Hun as well -- the former for incredible defense and nasty tricks and the latter to clear the board. The Initiate is probably what makes the whole concept tick. It's not really a character, you see -- you have to see it as an event of cost 2 that can be also played as a character and which reads: "Target opponent returns a character to his hand. Then, return this event to your hand". As soon as that clicks, you will realize the potential of the faction.

An ideal first turn with a mono ST deck is, for me, Recruiter for the Lodge and maybe Steal the Soul or Master of the Myths for a nasty surprise when defending. Then, on your next turn, you could play Lord Jeffrey, bouncing whatever your opponent has played and adding 3 success token to a story, or perhaps playing the Initiate twice to bounce two guys. On your next turn, keep bouncing with High Wizard of the Order or Initiate of Huang Hun. As you can imagine, ST does better against slow decks with few characters, or decks that rely on attachments. Decks with a lot of wounding or insanity can be problematic, and rush can be tricky. Also, if you go monofaction, your only defense against support cards is Lodge Housekeeper, so a few copies of Political Demonstration wouldn't hurt.

As a general rule, I try to keep at least one character that allows me to return my own guys to my hand to abuse cards that do something when they enter play, like Recruiter for the Lodge, Young Initiate, Lord Jeffrey or High Wizard. The Initiate of Huang Hun is perfect for this, but believe me, Knight of the Outer Void works fine too and is a beast of a character to boot!

One piece of advice though: I haven't been able to use any of the rituals with success. They may look tempting, but they do absolutely nothing by themselves and they're costly. I prefer efficiency There are also characters that get pumped up until the end of the phase when a character leaves play, like Disgruntled Chef; as you will be doing most of your bouncing during the operations phase, you won't have the bonus in your story phase, so I would stay away from them.

In case it helps, here's the deck I used in this year's regionals (I finished second). Shub-Niggurath is there to maximize the "enters play" abilities. I hope it inspires you! (Also, feel free to replace the Initiations with Shocking Transformations. It will work better.)

Silver Swarm

Silver Twilight:

3x Lord Jeffrey Farrington

3x Initiate of Huang Hun

3x Protector of secrets

3x Master of the Myths

3x Recruiter for the Lodge

3x Rich Widow

3x High Wizard of the Order

3x Steal the Soul

3x Initiation

3x Dark Secrets of the Order

Shub-Niggurath:

3x Priestess of Bubastis

3x Hungry Dark Young

3x Y'Golonac

3x Grasping Cthonian

3x Harvesting Mi-Go

3x Burrowing Beneath

Cthulhu:

2x Dreamlands Fanatic

I can also send you a decklist using only cards from the ST big expansion if you think this will help. I hope you'll give a chance to the Lodge, they're really fun and rewarding to play

Wow thanks for that summary. I'm definitely going to be making a Silver Twilight deck and taking advantage of your advice.

Sarah VanShaw with Master of Myths and Black Dogs and other jumpers is fun!

dummiesday said:

What he said!

One other note, as per his deck list, Shub-Niggurath synchronizes really well with them, as Shub can really speed up the deck, as well as deal with nasty surprises like certain support cards.

I would only qualify that Rituals can be powerful in certain situations. Ritual of Power, for instance, can be really handy with bouncing cards that require a cost, e.g. Master of the Myths or Black Dog. Ritual of Inferno is a decent, if somewhat expensive solution to dealing with lots of Locations, e.g., Cthulhu decks that rely on Shadowed Reef, etc. Overall, I wouldn't build a strategy around a Ritual, but if you're already running a Twilight deck, it may be worthwhile going through and seeing if there are any individual Rituals that may help boost the deck.