Hey all!

So I played a lot during the CCG era (with Chris Long in central PA, I went down to a Pittsburgh tournament once) and during the very beginning of the white bordered sets. When I went away to college I temporarily lost interest in the game, but now I'm back (hopefully) to stay. Anyway, I was a huge fan of the Agency, and I still am, so I was kinda disappointed to find that you have to scroll back pages and pages to find a real Agency deck on these boards. Is Agency still a competitive faction? The only new agency cards I've see post-Summons are the ones from a few packs of Ancient Relics, and for the most part the whole attachment/support card recursion thing strikes me as somewhat gimmicky and not like the Agency I used to know. If anyone could update me on the Agency scene at present moment I would really appreciate it! Thanks!

lately, and im loving it and been waiting for it, they've been getting all churchy and good at deflecting wounds and stopping events / character abilities. they were really popular at one stage, but the meta changed to cthulhu destruction, but now agency ( and everyone else it seems ) is getting a nice balance back with the new asylum packs. never really played them but there will be people on here who can fill you in.

from what i can tell as a fairly new player, they were really good at combat but lacked a bit in the willpower department, had a brief spike due to some now banned cards along with hastur, and then another with a strong agency DAY deck. then died off. but should now be coming back!!

BTW, i think a lot of cards have been transferred from CCG or similar ones, but they toned it down a bit thank god.

They're competitive as far as I can tell, but personally I find them a bit boring thematically. Any of monsters, cultists, gangsters, or students of forbidden knowledge seem to me a more fun theme than cops. But, that's 100% personal opinion. I also never play humans in sci-fi games where aliens are available and try to avoid protagonist factions in general.

thats why im loving the 'people of faith'. already now:

THE POWER OF PRAYER ( Version 0.0 )

Government exorcist
Teodor corvin
Sister sofia
Priest of two faiths
Brother james

Holy rosary
Beneath the burning sun
Shotgun
Military bike
Daemonolatreia
St. Amabilis

Shotgun blast
Small price to pay
Cover me
intervention

what i really wanna see is a location church or monastery !!!!! already got this deck on the way, just need some low cost characters and actually working on it……… also 607 walter street as they all seem to be independents. thats the power of prayer !! instant resurrection !!!

( and where would sister sofia be without her motorbike and shotgun ?? )

i did alright with a retweaking of The Professor's Agency deck from world's last year. it was holding its own until our recent regional at which it got blanked. i still think there's a lot of power in that deck, i was just not particularly ready for the meta. government does have some nice options i think.

that said, i am moving on to a different deck, since i latched onto mono agency right at the beginning of my CoC days and i've not yet had the chance to branch out much. and there are sooooo many other cool choices out there!

GrahamM said:

I have a mono agency deck that holds its own pretty well. Here's what it looks like:

3 undercover security

3 trial judge

3 unorthodox psychologist

3 government excorcist

3 repo man

3 agency groundskeeper

3 special agent clarkston

3 boarder patrol

3 shadow team

3 descendant of eibon

3 the rays of dawn

3 beneath the burning sun

2 prize pistol

3 short fuse

3 a catastrophic explosion

3 shotgun blast

3 a small price to pay

I started out just playing what I thought were some of the strongest agency cards and then realized they were almost all government cards so I decided to use special agent clarkston to help get them in cheaper. Also, since some of the government cards were better or cheaper to play if it was "day" I threw in beneath the burning sun and the rays of dawn which are good in their own right by themselves to help fuel the deck as well. So far the deck has served me fairly well and its a pretty strong mono faction deck. Hope this helps you get started down the right path.

COCLCG said:

True, butt kicking priests is a better theme than "cops"

And +1 for Beneath the Burning Sun. It's a solid card whether your characters rely on Day or not.

i'm going to have to put this deck together COCLCG. looks cool and i'd already be reasonably familiar playing with it. keep us posted if it evolves. i would be interested in seeing it. some day if i can get the online thing working, i'd love to go a few rounds with you.

and id love to go a few rounds too !! im ALWAYS on lackey, but very few others are .i have heaps of decks to test and refine, and not ones you see or hear about so ive been told they're interesting to play against ( i have a wierd mind when it comes to creating decks - there is no box - haha. and i dont hang with all the cool kids ).

obsessive detective is a must for the deamonalteria ( or whatever ).

i was a bit daunted by lackey but its quite easy. and fun !! and quicker than i thought.

knocked this up in 15 minutes for you to have a play with piszcadz after an epic lackey battle against 2 very competative decks that neutralised each other. things in the ground ( his ) vs flux stabilizer ( mine ) was one. very interesting !! it was so surprising as we played cards and then the opponent played theirs that equally matched them.

i've never played agency before so you can probably refine and tweak it better than i can until i really have a look at it. unfortunately still some "cops" but waiting for more "churchies" to be released. and if they're also independents then 607 walter street will make an appearance.

THE POWER OF PRAYER

3 Canine Guardian
3 Government Exorcist
2 Paranormal Specialist
3 Undercover Security
3 Obsessive Detective
3 Teodor Corvin
3 Sister Sofia
2 Priest of Two Faiths
3 Local Sheriff
2 Brother James Xavier

3 Shotgun Blast
2 Small Price to Pay
2 Cover me!
2 Intervention

2 Beneath the Burning Sun
2 The Rays of Dawn
2 Shotgun
2 Military Bike
3 Holy Rosary
3 Daemonolatreia

cool! i've got lackey installed, but the deck wouldn't find most of the cards in it. looks like sets are named differently. i'll have to figure out how to get this thing working, but i'm a week closer than i was before. thanks for the deck update, dude.

is there a post telling you step by step how to prep lackey for play with the latest and greatest of everything CoC-related?

yes there is. its in general discussion under lackey update. to cut it short, if you have lackey installed, then just go to preferences / plugin - and in the white text space next to 'update or install from URL' type / paste

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/327207/CtuhlhuCcgLcg/updatelist.txt ( with the cthulhu spelling mistake - haha )

and let it go !! then restart lackey and if the cards images aren't downloading then in preferences / plugin click 'download all missing card images'

should be easy as that. look forward to seeing you on there.

all cards but the latest AP but for some reason xavier is missing ?? so i just subbed marshall greene for now.

i am happy to teach ANYONE the interface which is really easy after only a game or two ( i am a patient teacher ).

to enter my game if its on ( and i can give you deck building interface advice from there ) just go to server tab mext to preferences, connect to server and you'll see my game there if im there.

COCLCG: i'm sleeving this up and taking it to our game day today. i'll let you know how it plays. i don't have "twilight horror" so "the rays of dawn" is out and 2x "daybreak" were in… until i read the 607 card. so now 2x of them instead. had fun last night on lackey. sorry the game crapped out. it was late anyway, but i have a taste of how it works now and will for sure be back for more!

Piszcadz : hope you have fun !! like i said i'm not an agency man so no idea really what i'm doing there. i just love the theme of the deck. play and change as you see fit. i think you'll miss the setting sun though. it's a shame but whad'ya do ?? and yeah bitchin' about lackey misfiring. never happened before and its usually very reliable. can't wait for the rematch !!

The Rays of Dawn is a great card. I think there are still some copies of Twilight Horror out there for sale, though you will really have to look - I did a full search on Google, and probably looked at more than a dozen online retailers before I found one (and then bought the last copy - sorry! ). A lot of the Terror trouble for investigators comes from cards that have only one [Terror], and without that they are just so much easier to deal with. Also, Rays of Dawn aren't unique, so they stack - really handy for dealing with Serpent decks that rely on those icons for a lot of their abilities as well. Yes, it doesn't work on unique characters, but a lot of the cards that fill typical decks aren't unique.

haha. i meant rays of dawn, not setting sun. been up for faaaaar to long. but setting sun is just as good against miskatonic rushes.