After being introduced and falling in love with other great CoC games from Fantasy Flight, including Elder Sign and Mansions of Maddness, I was definently on board with the concept of picking up the CoC LCG!

However I saw the massive number of expansions and thought, "No way can I absord financially or mentally that many cards," and wondered why it was not smaller. I just recently found out that for purposes of tournament play only some sets are legal. Now I am back on track for wanting to join!

My problem now is the following: How does the tournament format work as far as involvement with the base set and running?

1. Is base set always legal and the expansions change between what is allowed? If so do they reprint or change the base set every so often?

2. Is the list of acceptable expansions based on a time frame or release frame? Like is the newest 10 always "the" cycle or do they have a period of time where expansions released within said time frame form a play era much like the editions of l5r diamond edition, gold edition, ect.

3. I have an interest growing amoungst the fellows that play elder sign and mansions with in picking this up! Relaistically what are the inital buy in costs to get started so we as a group can look into this and what are the associated costs over time look like?

4. Finally what are the time costs asociated with this? Like besides playing the game makes you better how long considering average rate of games played between weekly group/club night and monthly tournament would it take someone to get to advanced concepts and be at a higher level of tournament play?

Thanks to all who read and even more thanks to those that answer!

Hi!

Glad to hear you're interested in CoCLCG--I've played a fair few card games and this one is by far my favorite. As far as monetary investment goes, you probably need 2 of the base set, the secrets of arkham expansion, and maybe one cycle of asylum packs. Most people recommend the Yuggoth Contract to newer players. Unless my math is absolutely terrible, that'd be about 200$ at retail value, cheaper if you're using ebay or something similar. And those cards would definitely give you enough variety to make a lot of interesting decks.

In terms of tournament usability, all white bordered cards are tournament legal, with the exception of a short banned and restricted list which you can find on the support page.

And getting to a higher level of play is entirely dependent on who you are as a gamer. It really doesn't take too long to familiarize yourself with the basic mechanics of the game, and from there it really varies from person to person. Some of my friends just enjoy playing casually and have never really put too much thought into clever deckbuilding, others go heavily in-depth. The great thing about this game is that it's very rewarding to both sorts of player.

I hope that helped, and I hope you get involved in CoC!

Otajima said:

Hopefully I can answer some of these questions for you. I got into this game because I wanted a card game less financially demanding than Magic, and I enjoyed the setting.

1. Yes, and this is by far my favorite part of the game. Nothing is worse than having to rebuy the same cards year after year in Magic. Here all the cards in the base set are legal, and there are no changes in the reprints other than the old 40 card Asylum Packs were reprinted into 60 card packs (this saves you money) and occasionally errata from the FAQ is incorporated. Currently the Dreamlands cycle has not been reprinted in 60 card format, but I remain hopeful it will be soon.

2. No, none of that crazy Magic timeframe/cycle stuff. All cards are legal except the banned card (currently 2) and you can only use one card (up to 3 copies) that is in the restricted list per deck. Though only the newest story card deck is used in tournament play.

3. If you just want to play a Core Set is enough, but if you want to get serious you'll probably want to pick up 3 Cores, Secrets of Arkham, and then start getting Asylum Packs that have cards you want (there are no random cards, so when you buy a pack you're getting 3 copies of all cards in that). If you want to be economical you can easily save money by trading cards between Cores and Arkham to get 3 copies of every card for whatever faction/s you play. The Core Set (1 copy of every card) and Secrets of Arkham (2 copies of every card) are the only sets you need more than one copy of to get 3 copies of every card.

So realistically, 25-100 dollars depending on how into it you want to get right away (assuming you buy online to save money off of retail).

4. I'm not sure on that as I'm just starting. Buy after playing for about a month with my local group I'm feeling pretty confident in my abilities. There is a free deck building program, and an online program you can use to test stuff out with and if you have a group of friends and post on the forums you should be able to make a tournament quality deck in no time.

And if saving money is your goal I recommend CoolStuffInc. Of all the online sites to buy off of, they're the least expensive that doesn't have terrible customer service (I made the mistake of ordering from CCG Armory in the past).

Cannot stress enough - NO CYCLES! All cards that have ever been released for the Call of Cthulhu LCG are legal and should remain so - FFG has never hinted at introducing the idea of cycles to any of their LCG games. The old black border cards are from the Call of Cthulhu CCG which is a different game. Some cards have been reprinted in the LCG, but most have not.

Personally, I got most of my cards from Miniature Market which is slightly cheaper than CoolStuff (and does have good customer service) but not significantly. Either is fine, and either will give free shipping if you buy $100 of stuff.

I'm not one for rough guessing, so I just went to Miniature Market and threw all that stuff in a cart to see. Two Core sets, one Secrets of Arkham, and all six asylum packs from the Yuggoth Contract cycle (any six packs really, they all cost the same). It all comes to $126.48 with free shipping. You don't need this much to start if you don't want to, but you'll get quite a lot of cards to experiment with.

At a minimum I generally recommend one Core plus Secrets of Arkham, which is $42.19.

Nothing rotates. The game is not set so you must have every card in existence to make a tournament winning deck. You can easily make two or three different top tier tournament decks from the same $200 purchase, no problem.

I'd suggest a slightly different route than most people if you are looking into getting into the game socially with an eye for eventually going competitive. Here is my shopping list:

Core set x1
Secrets of Arkham x1
Order of the Silver Twilight x1
Rituals of the Order (entire cycle) x1
Ancient Relics (first pack Shifting Sands) x1

$130 on miniatures market.

The reason why is this gives you a very wide variety of cards to play with, includes the most recent story deck (vastly superior to that in the Core set and the Secrets of Arkham in my opinion, but also gives you the choice to mix them together if you want), and it introduces the 8th faction Silver Twilight, in a number that puts them pretty much on the same competitive plane as the other factions. You'll get a good idea how each faction operates and what some ideal faction pairings are for deck building.

When you are ready to give serious thought for tournament play I'd buy a second Core Set (a third is really not necessary unless you have a deck you absolutely must have a key card available in the core set x3) and the rest of the Ancient Relics cycle or the Revelations cycle.

If you want to have the Silver Twilight faction that's a very good alternative. I think Yuggoth is commonly suggested because it doesn't have Silver Twilight cards in it so it makes for a simpler start without any "dead" cards, buying Rituals or any of the newer packs also requires the Silver Twilight box if you want a workable faction.

Also, no matter how you start if you DO want to play in official tournaments you'll need the Shifting Sands pack because that has the current set of Story cards. In every game, a small deck of story cards is used, these are what players are competing over to win the game - with the first player to claim 3 story cards being the victor.

There are only three sets of Story cards in the LCG era - one in the Core set, one in Secrets of Arkham, and the most recent one in Shifting Sands. Whichever set is most recent is always the official one for tournaments, although in casual play people may mix them or do whatever they like.

I also agree with Penfold about the 3rd Core set not being necessary. I've got all the asylum packs now except Dreamlands and I still haven't gotten around to a 3rd Core. Two is nice, three is a luxury I would defer until much later if at all. I do plan to get a 3rd one eventually, probably when I need to add something to get to the free shipping level

i've bought EVERYTHING so far. 3x core sets, 2x secrets of arkham, silver twilight and all asylum packs. i'm even about halfway through picking up the dreamlands cycle (which, since it still in the old format, means you need to buy 3x of each of the 6 packs in that cycle in order to get 3x of the rares from those sets… FFG has since done away with this business model!).

even as an overzealous starter (with arguably more money than sense it would seem) this all can't have set me back much more than 400 or 500 bucks.

for EVERYTHING.

as a former MTGer, this seems like chump change to me. when i was interested in playing at a higher FNM level (far from real tournament play even…) i'd easily have spent that much in a year chasing rares, picking up 4x of certain planeswalkers or etc i needed to keep up with the joneses… i'm sure you know what i mean.

i really enjoy the game, my local group, the business model (especially the brand new one they've just unveiled), the flavor, etc. and most especially the fact that such a reasonable outlay gets me totally and completely caught up!

piszcadz said:

This is something I try to explain to all the Magic players around her who want me to get back into the game. I could make one decent deck for the cost of me getting 3 times of every CoC LCG card ever.

There are some clues in this thread should help lot of new players : simple analyse of faction / mix up for 2 factions.. maybe a dedicated topic should be great !

and of course all informations about extension to buy to play each factions, like you post here !

I have one core set and a few cycles, plus the first expansion (Arkham, 2x edition). I'm not playing tournaments, only friendly, and doing fine. A great start would be core set + Arkham and a full cycle (any of the ones before the Silver Twilight cycle should be *fun*). If you like it, get whole cycles (and associated expansions).

I think I have at least one deck without any core cards. I've designed a lot of decks for fun, friendly games and tried to make them as interesting and balanced as possible, while still keeping some synergy. Now I have many decks ready to go and just let my friends pick us a couple to play with

If you're a hardcore tournament junkie-sort who needs maximum draw and 3x everything, get 3 core sets, at least one of everything and start obsessing over optimal card combinations. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just expensive