you may be sick of hearing about it, but after a full 7 hours straight of playtesting with a friend and our new ebla restored packs ( we're actually boardgamers used to 10hr full day marathons and this is our groups first card game ), i'm happy with this deck and am posting it here in it's completed form, along with notes on play and strategies that the games brought to light. we used most of my friends decks, and after he gave up trying, we netdecked the biggest and baddest one's we could find. yet to be beaten but it's still early days ( and i do apologise again for my fervour, but i AM quite proud of my first destruction deck ).

HAVOC KAZ-ED-DUM EL ROMBOKO LOMAX
( the monster who slays monsters )
Version 1.3

Cult of Bathos x 3
Guardian of the key x 2
The Carpathian x 3
Lurking deep one x 3
Many angled thing x 3
Laboring gug x 3
Guardian shoggoth x 2
Deep one rising x 3
Ravager from the deep x 3
Elder thing scavenger x 2

Cursed skull x 3
Khopesh of the abyss x 3
Cthaat aquadingen x 2

Deep one assault x 3
A single path x 3
Dampen light x 3
Twilight gate x 3
A single glimpse x 3

Well, what can I say about this deck. As Queen once said, “it’s a killer”. I’m more a Yog / Shub devotee and have my sacrificing decks but steered clear of the ubiquitous Cthulhu until now. I’ve seen a lot of ‘pure’ destruction decks in my time and if I was going to make one I wanted to have something a lot different to mark it as my own. And I ain’t seen nuttin’ like this !!

To begin, we have the good old deep ones. Headed by Cult of Bathos, after the first deep one is played, all others are at -1 to cost per deep one. Basically Lurking deep one is a leap frog card so soon enough you’re playing Deep one rising and Ravager from the deep for 3 cost – 2 cost – do I hear 1 cost ?? And once Cthaat aquadingen is in play, every deep one played shuffles an opponents support card back into their deck, which annoys poor Mr. Jamburg to no end. Super !!

But what you really want to hear about is the destruction / sacrificing potential of this deck, and it is deadly. Deep one assault, A single glimpse, Many angled thing, Deep one rising, Cursed skull, Khopesh of the abyss and Ravager of the deep. Almost half the deck are cards of death, and the rest are merely ways to recur, enhance and speed about the coming of. But to simply name them without some explanations doesn’t do them justice.

- Cursed skull can be drawn from the discard with elder thing scavenger, again and again. Bypassing the cost, it then effectively becomes a 1cost sacrifice. I’ve found it extremely useful to commit the scavenger during the opponents story phase somewhere it’ll get the refresh. Then exhaust to bring back the skull and then it’s your turn with this nasty piece of work and a refreshed scavenger ( unless you sneakily twilight gate it into a story it will definitely refresh in and get the investigation win ).
- Khopesh of the abyss attaches nicely to both Guardian Shoggoth and Laboring gug, who, every time the Khopesh is activated, not only wounds but allows you to draw an extra card !!! So by the time it’s finished, that’s 3 wounds dealt and 3 extra cards in hand. Yippee!! Attached to the ravager, it can wound 2 characters at one story and then launch into another to wound all characters there.
- Ravager of the deep gets resourced the first time it comes out. During your opponents story phase, after he’s committed, it’s a sinch to twilight gate it out and wound everyone at the story of your choice. Combined with A single path, this can be the deadliest of outcomes. This little twilight gate trick also works well with Many angled thing and Deep one rising, which can be done in your own operations phase if you like to get the destruction and lower the cost of an in hand deep one if Cult of Bathos is in play. One thing I love about the deck is this actually wanting to resource your big cards.

Now when it comes to sacrificing, The Carpathian is ever ready to let you search the top 5 cards of your deck for another Khopesh or Cthaat aquadingen every time this occurs ( limit once per turn ), thus accelerating the destruction madness. And sacrificing in my opinion is the most powerful form of character removal in the game, as it bypasses all cards and rules associated with ‘wounding’ and ‘destroyed’. There IS no escape AND it effects Ancient Ones.

Guardian of the key is also there to protect these support goodies so you can use them when you need them, and just in case a Cthaat gets destroyed, Elder thing scavenger can also bring this back in your OP phase if you've got some supports to remove ( or any phase with a twilight deep one ), along with any tasty’s that might be hiding in your opponents discard pile. The Cthaat also frees up the Deep one assault to be more a character and relic destroyer.

Lastly, to mess with any ideas the opponent might have of mounting some form of resistance, there are the previously mentioned dual purpose A single path, but also Dampen light, to lay waste to plans and combos and turn the opponents sense of glee into one of shock and horror at the undoing of their designs for the turn ( and also when you can read an opponents unused domains in your story phase as some sort of manipulation ). At 1 cost apiece, its most likely that from turn 1 your opponent will be on the back foot ( which you’ll then hack off ). I believe that it’s vital to not let any rush decks outmaneuver your destruction deck, and this pair does that nicely, and cheaply.

There was some decision about Terror of the tides, but I’ll be saving my twilight gates for the deep one destroyers and early resourced Many angles, so the extra wound on Guardian Shoggoth makes more sense as this is it’s sole purpose. To wound, wound, wound……. and then wound again if needed. It also means it might be still around when the Terror wouldn’t be. But with the Carpathian in play I’m of the mind to just wound out entirely as the next Khopesh won’t be far away, and sometimes an extra wound = an extra card !! Also i prefer the lower skill and have tried to keep it this way overall. You don't need a lot to win an undefended story, and a high skill makes for a deadly apierophobia.

On the issue of Twilight gate, something that can be overlooked is it’s incredible resource manipulation powers. Resourcing in this deck is vitally important to get it to peak performance. Ideally the characters you wish to summon will be in a domain you've already drained. When you draw out the character, at the end of the phase you can then re-attach it to an unused domain, possibly even launching a second Twilight gate or powering up a Deep one assault by another notch. Your main domain should be made up of 2 x Yog and 1 x Cthulhu so Guardian of the key can be played as early as possible. If it can’t be played straight away after the draw then I usually just resource them as they’re not always necessary.

In terms of strategy, I try to sit back for the first couple of turns if I can, destroy what comes out and hinder the rest ( if any ) with my 1 cost blockers. This allows me to build up some nice domains and cards for an all out onslaught. Of course it differs according to what factions I’m up against, as sometimes it’s hell for leather right from the get go, and this deck has no problems keeping pace ( or slowing pace ) with any other decks, being quite low cost with only 18 cards over 2, most of which have cost reducers or can be twilight gated.

As a footnote, I sometimes play this deck substituting Guardian Shoggoth with Gug sentinel. For every wound you dish out with the Khopesh, you also get to exhaust another character !! 2 for the price of one and makes him stick around a lot longer. The only reason I usually use the Shoggoth is for the terror icon, and most times there’s no-one left to exhaust !!!

So forget all your plans, and your dreams of building up to some event, and just hope that you have at least one character left to commit to a story, and do it fast, because it won’t be around for long. This is a nasty nasty nasty deck, POSSIBLY the worst destruction one I’ve ever had the misfortune of letting someone else play against me, and is aptly named ‘The monster who slays monsters’.

Looks like a brutal deck, and I'm not sure I would be all that interested in playing against it.

A couple of points. Some of the other Khopesh decks I've seen floating around out there focus very heavily on actively retrieving the Khopesh to get it into play as soon as possible. Your deck could have a bit of trouble should the other guy get his out first and start knocking off your Cultists and your Guardian. A deck very similar to yours, but focusing exclusively on speed rather than on hitting power. A Misk/Cthulhu deck that really focuses on both fast characters and retrieving the artifacts could be a serious problem.

I can think of a couple of other novel approaches that could potentially cause problems, but that would be mostly theorycrafting. At this point, I think what you have is a solid deck, and just the sort of thing that players should expect to face at tournaments.

And now, cue the complaints about netdecking . . .

Runix said:

That's okay, as that is 98% of what the deck building subforum is about.

The effect of Deep One Rising does not trigger when put it into play with Twilight Gate.

too true. thanks for that. it's a rule i just learned a couple of days ago and i'm still getting used to the 'when you play'. of course it doesn't change the deck at all, it just means many angled thing / ravager / scavenger will be my targets from now on, and since 95% of the time it was the ravager in the opponents story phase, it doesn't really effect the decks strategy. but thanks again, could've been quite embarassing ( raps on head - 'when you play', 'when you play' ).

Runix said:

yeah, i saw those ones and played it against one. the carpathian is practically a museum curator who activates every turn you can force a sacrifice, and since the cards go to the bottom of the deck, its a rather quick way in itself of getting to a khopesh early. deep one assault and a twilight gated deep one when cthaat is in play ( also gained by the carpathian on the way ) are ways of removing an opponents khopesh, or if alone then a sacrifice will do the same. i usually don't keep a lot of characters on the board with this one anyway, and even if i do bear the brunt of a khopesh, i've still got a single path and / or twilight gate for ravager to ease the results.

and don't forget dampen light will be slowing these 'quick' decks, focusing on speed, and is EXACTLY why this and a single path are included, instead of something like sacrificial offerings. rush decks are kryptonite to destruction decks, but this one doesn't seem to have a problem with them with the inclusion of these 2 cards. funnily enough, in a destruction deck, these are couple of my favourites, and to clarify when i say POSSIBLY the worst, i don't mean in terms of brutality, because it isn't, but i played a few games against it and if all the death wasn't enough, just when you can see an opening, it often gets slammed shut with a single path or a dampen light.

and please, please, please, theorycraft away. any and all problems this may face are very welcome and appreciated, and hellfury is right in that this is what the forum is for ( or how i see it ). a place for the sharing of not only decks, but more importantly ideas to be nurtured and explored. just remember that a deck designed to counter it also has to be viable against all the other deck types as well.

at the end of the day, i STILL hate cthulhu, and don't find decks like this very satisfying to play or play against. i do hope that some decks are devised to totally screw with destruction decks AND remain viable, and am always working on ways to do this, so yes, let's brainstorm and beat these babies………..

Had a long response which got sent into the void, sigh.

The one issue with your deck would be what we've been discussing in the meta thread: Glimpse of the Void recursion, or simply event recursion in general. While I strongly suspect that FFG is going to do something to limit that in the near future (I have to think that the updated tournament rules are going to expand the restricted/banned list), it's still worth considering.

Within Cthulhu and Yog, there aren't particularly good solutions. Blackmoor Estate may help break up a recursion - maybe, and only if the other player is relying at least in part on moving cards to the top of the draw pile, which is not a guarantee. Eltdown Shards is a nice thought, except that once the engine is up and running you may never get a story phase. That leaves unreliable tactics like Mnomquah's Serpent and Snow Graves. The most reliable approach would be mixing in some Hastur - but that would significantly weaken the deck overall.

In short, I don't see a good way to keep the strength of the deck as it stands - and it does appear to otherwise be a very strong deck - while at the same time building in protection against Glimpse of the Void recursion. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing - direct destruction is such a strong strategy right now, that I think it's good that there's a strategy out there that could potentially create difficulties for it. The one thing that is unfortunate is that it's not easy to build counters to Glimpse cycling without resorting to Hastur and Shub.

yeah…. glimpse of the void…. i guess if a player doesn't mind being looked at with disdain and scorn, and puts winning at any cost over actually being good enough to win on their own merits, then win they probably shall. i should but don't really take this into consideration when building most decks ( like this destruction ) unless it can be easily implemented and multi purpose. there will be decks that can stop this strategy i'm sure, and i'm willing to take a loss or 2 to them and hope they get weeded out before the finals ( if i ever made it ), which i think may happen anyway.

netdecking is also perhaps a 'win at any cost' frame of mind as well, but as i'll never make it to a worlds, and the 'winner' will never have to face the decks of many people who PERHAPS could take the title but geographically cannot attend, then i wouldn't be too bothered if someone netdecked, as long as they playtested it hard, did it justice, and gave credit where credit was due to whoever made it ( and perhaps make sure the owner wasn't attending cause that's be just embarassing and it'd be courteous to ask first ). but then again, a deck is really only as good as the player, so any netdecked deck might not be a real representation of its capabilities, or may even be better. who knows ??

in my experience also, some people make ridiculously good players, but poo deck makers, and vice versa. sometimes the potential of a deck is only reached when the 2 combine, and i see no reason to limit people by these strengths and weaknesses.

My easiest solution to Glimpse is Snow Graves x3 and Marcus Jamburg x2. Just keep locking down the discard pile as much as possible. I think it's the best way without gimping your deck to other deck types.

pretty sure the glimpse deck had support destructions and snow graves, which negates that combo, and if it didn't, it should. but anyway F*#K the glimpse deck, this is about THE HAVOC DECK!! - haha.

As long as you can clear snow graves from your own pile Jamburg helps a lot against glimpse in my tests. They will run out of support removal.

But anyway about your deck, looks good! I would suggest at least snow graves to help against something like Unboros.

yes that would be nice, but any deck with uroborus should have get it off / DOA and any deck using the discard should ALWAYS have some way of getting rid of it, and unless you devote even MORE cards to recurring it then i don't see the point. if that's what your deck does then fine, and i've created ones like this myself, otherwise i wouldn't waste the card. in my opinion snow graves is an excellent card in a deck designed to make it last, but useless to slap in each and every old deck just for the sake of it. in todays game it will just wind up back in your own discard.

i personally think marcus jamburg is overrated and a HUGE waste of a 3 domain just to return a 0 cost card. the only reason i would EVER use him is to return a 3 cost support, otherwise the simple maths of the equation has you going backwards while the opponent is using their 3 domain to do something WORTH the 3 cost. i prefer cards like corrupted midwife and elder thing scavenger, where the character remains in play and you don't have to keep using a 3 domain to get it back.

but really it's neither here nor there as i don't believe i'll be changing the line up, unless something better comes along in future AP's. every card is linked or part of the overall strategy, so take a link out and the chain is broken. also a big red snow graves would look poo in my nice green and purple nightmare - haha.

as always though, thanks for the opinion, and sorry to harp on mine!!

and oh, i forgot, why would i snow graves a discard that elder thing scavenger can pillage from ?? as for changes, only further playtesting will reveal, but i SUPPOSE yha'thlei statue could replace the cthaat and bathos / lurking could switch to something else, but this would only happen if a situation like that managed to overwhelm me one day, otherwise presto, no chango.

and a word from experience, putting snow graves in a non shub deck is not always wise. one of my first decks was a clever ( or so i though at the time )yog / hastur deck AND hand miller that was working beautifully until one day i came across a deck which played down jade salesman first turn. snow graves was dead in my hand as it was now a 1 cost with no shub in my domains and the deck almost lost because of this.

My point was just this: it's relatively straightforward to design a deck that works against a generic deck that plays out characters and tries to win stories. The problem is, that's not the direction the meta is going. Decks will need to have more flexibility to deal with unexpected situations. Your Jade Salesman experience is a perfect illustration - CoC is full of "never saw it coming" type effects. The first player who has to face the mythical Dreamlands Messenger / Voice of the Jungle is going to find that out the hard way.

Overall, I think it's better to have a strong deck theme, but to build in options, and to anticipate certain broad themes, and have some "insurance" against them. In a lot of cases, that's a specialized support card or event card - which, in many cases will be junk (I can see Snow Graves getting resourced in a lot of games), but in others, is a life-saver. It isn't great for deck efficiency, but flexibility has a lot of value in and of itself.

Runix said:

Likely the most relevant post in this thread. Unlike most posts in this thread, it lacks extreme egotism and is neither provocative or condescending. Thanks.

yup. im egotistical. hit he nail on the head there. i admit it. guilty as charged. but i always point out that it is 'in my opinion' or 'personally', not that my word is law, so at least there is SOME saving grace.

i think that what you may find just as egotistical is when people say 'this is what i would do', or 'ive already played a deck similar to that', when no advice has been asked for, which it seems most of everyone is guilty of here. hmmm??? we're all intelligent, we all have our own opinions, and if egotistical is what it is, then i'm sure we all have a right to be.

COCLCG said:

I mainly lurk on the forums and rarely comment as you can tell by my post history.
I would rather give positive reinforcement to helpful suggestions that do not come across like they are given from atop a soap box that should never dared to be challenged.
Runix's post was an example of that.

****, i hate it when you're editing a post and someone jumps in before you finish. sorry for including you in the 'me me me' group. as you can see i'd been editing that out.

and i actually stand atop the container that the soap boxes came in.

but anyway, back to ME and MY egotism. i guess it's what has me posting on here so much. but what i get from those comments is that it's preferable to be selfish and not post on here at all. that's three times now i've been rebuked on this site. once for just posting / giving away ideas, another that i was a newbie with no idea what i was talking about because i was a newbie and 'only from australia', and now that my posts are too full of my own opinions and apparently myself.

makes me wonder indeed what the hell i'm doing here.

Perhaps one thoughtful post before you hit 'submit' would better serve to convey your message rather than dozens of posts that are constantly edited.

"and i actually stand atop the container that the soap boxes came in."

So we have noticed. Using provocative and often incendiary language is not the best way to promote healthy discourse. Which leads me to beleive healthy discourse is not a goal you pursue. Take for example the language used in the " A TRUE worlds event ":

"…the farcicle audacity of simply naming someone 'world champion' because they could afford to make it to a physical event in a pre determined country, and had the best deck and luck on the day ( although this applies to any game really ). i certainly pay no homage / respect to someone who's never even played me, let alone beaten me…"

It is sour grapes combined with a preachy, egotistical demeanor that screams "pay attention to me" and "your opinion means nothing to me". Laughably inept arrogance (farcical audacity) indeed. Sadly, my own responses just feeds into the bait you have laid out.

Now that I have been successfully trolled, I bow my head in shame for being reduced to responding to the bait and shall go back to lurk mode.

i shall take wisdom from your oh so gracious philosphies, and become such a lurker, popping out every blue moon to smite the provacative and condesending in ways that make me appear higher and mightier than thoust, and lay my blessings upon the meek.

oh, the error in my ways. it is i who am shamed in the light of your positive reinforcements.

******************************************************************************************************

COCLCG said:

You're posting decks so the rest of us can see what ideas are out there that we need to be ready for.

Looks like a fun one, I'm going to pull this one together and playtest it a bit. I'll post the results later.

Thanks for putting this out there.

-grant

i most humbly present my latest version of the HAVOC deck that includes protection versus all the card pinching and hastur control popularity.

so without further ado, and nary a condescending or provocative word passing my lips, here it is :

HAVOC KAZ-ED-DUM EL ROMBOKO LOMAX
( the monster who slays monsters )
Version 1.4

Cult of Bathos x 3
Guardian of the key x 2
The Carpathian x 3
Lurking deep one x 3
Many angled thing x 3
Laboring gug x 3
Guardian shoggoth x 2
Deep one rising x 3
Ravager from the deep x 3
Elder thing scavenger x 2

Cursed skull x 3
Khopesh of the abyss x 3
Cthaat aquadingen x 2
Sentinel hill x 2

Deep one assault x 3
A single path x 3
Dampen light x 2
Twilight gate x 2
A single glimpse x 3

i shall melt away once more to meditate on my past grievances………..