Hello there fellow Cultists and beings.

Here is a deck i started working on a while back. It is far from ready to be played, so i turn to you and seek your forbidden knowledge.

So any tips and recomendations are welcome.

As you can see from the cards, it is all about skill manipulation and Mr. David Pan.

Deck: 41

Character (20)
Mentor to Vaughn (KD) x1
Tattoo Artist (MoE) x3
Sergeant Donnelly (***) x3
Mr. David Pan (CotJE) x3
Elite Hit Squad (SoA) x2
Clover Club Bouncer (Core) x3
Clover Club Torch Singer (Core) x3
Master of the Myths (IT) x2

Support (9)
Ice Shaft (NN) x3
Parallel Universe (TTftS) x3
O'Bannion's Ledger (***) x3

Event (12)
Beneath the Mire (CoC) x2
Strung Up! (TWC) x2
Tear Gas (TTftS) x2
Eldritch Nexus (Core) x3
Like A Moth (Core) x3

i've only ever mucked around with a skill based syndicate deck once with mr. pan and parallel universe, and it was mixed with shub.

personally, and i stress personally, i didn't muck around with things like the bouncer and torch singer, which are limited beyond their abilities, and instead focused on maxing out my skill instead of lowering theirs, with things like ghoulish predator, insect swarm, brazen hoodlum, border runners and jon pechon, along with miranda keeper to seek out the syndicate support goodies.

these characters operate excellently with pan / parallel but are also quite reasonable on their own.

johnny v's dame is a given, and hard case being brought in from discard with hungry dark one is nice.

you also get altar of the blessed for +1 skill for every character you own, shub or syndicate.

plus all the support destructions and shock transforming in tommy bananas who loves being paired with a shub co-hort for some insane combat struggles, or shock transforming in hack journalist just at the right time.

tyler scindere always makes it into my syndicate decks as he's excellent value for money and costs only 3 with johnny's dame.

and you can then use the underground conspiracy which for some strange reason is a shub domain card, and the tattoed thug for some cost 2 madness. tragic celebrity comes in handy then for 3 cards drawn per draw phase.

outback poacher for more cards if you're using ghoulish predator / insect swarm / dhole ant-lion, and richard upton pickman is always sweet.

triggerman and expendable muscle are very good as you must remember that pan / parallel won't always be available and you need a fall back if he gets taken out by destructions every time he pops up, which the aforementioned shub characters are good for.

far too much for one deck, but might give you some ideas if you'd like to expand beyond the syndicate. if not then that's very cool too as a mono - syndicate can be quite the trick to play against.

Thanks for the input COCLCG.

I will keep it mono, for now.

no worries buck-a-roo.

just make sure you build a deck that can survive without pan / parallel. my mate LOVES the syndicate but was very dissappointed when a certain deck with magnus kept killing dr pan, support destructions kept taking out his guitars and parallel universes, and he was short on any replies to a terror laiden, 7 and 8 skilled ancient one backed assault.

so my advice for mono syndicate is don't get carried away with the skill focus, keep it reasonable and effective, and cover some ground in other areas so you're not caught out. versatility goes a long way in this game. i've made some strongly oriented decks with a defined focus, laughed my way through a few decks as it tore them to pieces, and then hit a big brick reality wall when a simple deck design totally negated my one tracked plan, without even being a deck designed against it.

for example. have a look at the list above and decide how you can help it deal with a mono-cthulhu serpent deck with heaps of terror, and deep one assaults killing dr pan and get it offs destroying parallel universes.

Current iteration is this.

Character (31)
Mentor to Vaughn (KD) x1
Tattoo Artist (MoE) x3
Sergeant Donnelly (***) x3
Mr. David Pan (CotJE) x3
Elite Hit Squad (SoA) x2
Clover Club Bouncer (Core) x3
Clover Club Torch Singer (Core) x3
Master of the Myths (IT) x2
Expendable Muscle (TPtY) x3
Johnny V's Dame (AoA) x2
Tyler Scindere (WitD) x2
Hard Case (Core) x2
Triggerman (Core) x2

Support (9)
Ice Shaft (NN) x3
Parallel Universe (TTftS) x3
O'Bannion's Ledger (***) x3

Event (10)
Beneath the Mire (CoC) x2
Strung Up! (TWC) x2
Tear Gas (TTftS) x2
Eldritch Nexus (Core) x1
Like A Moth (Core) x3

now playtest till your eyes bleed ( i'd suggest the afore mentioned mono - cthulhu for starters ), shore up any weaknesses that might appear / mill the cards that don't seem to get used much, and you're good with a deck!!!

it can be done quite well just by yourself. make a simple deck with no surprises like the serpents. not sure what your card pool is but i knocked this one up in 5 minutes, and you can do the same with each faction. just play it like you might play it yourself and see how your deck goes.

Seeker of mysteries x 3
Degenerate serpent cultist x 3
Brood of yig x 3
Lurking deep one x 3
Shadowy figure x 3
Carl Stanford x 3
Disguised serpent man x 2
Terror of the tides x 3
Ravager from the deep x 2
Uroborus x 3
Yig, father of serpents x 3

Stygian idol x 3
Deep one assault x 3
Get it off x 3
Sibilant cry x 2
Khopesh of the abyss x 3
Called to the sea x 3
Dragged into the deep x 2

once its had some tuning, its then ready for opponent playtesting and even MORE tuning. its the only way to build an efficient deck unfortunately. get beaten lots and fix the deck each time to cover it.

Might I suggest crowbar? If you're going to be manipulating skill, particularly with Tattoo Artist, it potentially infinite wounding

One random suggestion for pretty much any Syndicate deck: Thief for Hire, who I dub "Khopesh-b-gone". He's not a spectacular character on his own, but he's low cost and can wreak havoc on enemy decks that rely heavily on specific attachments.

A simple card that gives destruction fits, is "Dutch Courage". I would replace eldritch nexus and beneath the mire with that. BtM is really nice but it is really expensive.

Runix said:

haha. i dub him 'snow graves be gone'.