ok. here is by far the deck i am most excited about, to see if it works, that i have ever made. it all began with flux stabiliser / snow graves to limit the ubiquitous line jumpers and risers from the dead in all the common meta type decks. but as my mind often goes on tangents, it ended up including neither. i'll post the deck and then give a brief explanation of the engine. it is far from finished and will take many games on lackey to perfect the right mix of its requirements ( if it works ), but as usual i'm open to suggestions and input please. the * denotes a card in question for replacement which i will explain further below. welcome to…….

THE WINTHROP DROP
( Version 1.0 )

Obsessive insomniac x 3
Archaeology interns x 3
Focused art student x 3
*Ghoulish predator x 2
Black dog x 3
*Dean of admissions x 2
Dr. Laban Shrewsbury x 3
Jamie Winthrop x 3
Corrupted midwife x 3
Y’Golonac x 2
Professor Morgan x 3

*Feed her young x 2
Horrid mutation x 3
Thunder in the east x 3
Shocking transformation x 2

Abhorrent spore x 2
Scientific text x 3
Disc of Itzamna x 2
Infirmary x 3

as you can see, the deck revolves around Jamie Winthrops ability to blank icons when a card is drawn.

Jamie Winthrop x 3 - engine driver. can be resurrected with corrupted midwife
Shocking transformation x 2 - for earlier play

there are several that do this:

Obsessive insomniac x 3 - can be utilized more efficiently with Y'Golonac. can be done after opponent commits
Archaeology interns x 3 - standard draw card. ressurrected by corrupted midwife as if from hand
Focused art student x 3 - see above
*Dean of admissions x 2 - 7 students in deck for card action when played that can also be resurrected. card in question about usefullness see below.
Dr. Laban Shrewsbury x 3 - will never see the board ( heroic ). used to draw action or remove ancient ones. nice when links with others
*Feed her young x 2 - play to draw card. increase resources for quicker play. can be done after opponent commits
Thunder in the east x 3 - play to draw card. snow graves / support defence / Jamie box blankers
Scientific text x 3 - exhaust every turn to draw card. can be done after opponent commits

Professor Morgan x 3 - if drawn in any of above, comes into play. very handy first turn !! or shocking transformed.

Abhorrent spore x 2 - all for keeping Jamie in play but useful for most characters
Disc of Itzamna x 2 - see above
Infirmary x 3 - see above

*Ghoulish predator x 2 - for initial terror protection
Black dog x 3 - see above. also good blocker
Horrid mutation x 3 - see above. very useful as surprise play versus human factions after opponent commits

Y'Golonac x 2 - well, he's ancient one for starters. used as his usual readying tricks but also obsessive insomniac in any phase ( after opponent commits )

Corrupted midwife x 3 - resurrecting the above as if from hand ( when you play ). no operations phase condition so can be used i believe to do this after opponent commits ( doesn't matter if can't. not important and only just came to me. will ask Damon )

will now explain cards in line up for replacement / possible deck modifications after playtesting.

here are SOME cards busting to get into my deck and why:

Binding - a nice early icon blanker to get the ball rolling. can be done after opponent commits. event spot in question
Full ride scholarship - to play Jamie in turn 1 possibly, again, to get the ball rolling. can also be used with card draw students after opponent commits. event spot in question
Feast of famine - not so much in favour but it useable after opponent commits. event spot in question
Visiting author - speed of deck. 3 cost spot in question
Board of directors - to put infirmary into play. 3 cost spot in question
Open for inspection - need i bother explaining ??
Rabbits foot - good to have a chance of removing combat early but again not in favour. is not a 'draw' card.
Basil elton - really would like to see how he goes. 2 cost spot in question

some 1 cost misk. characters would also be nice. research assistant draws cards but i dont have room for tomes and with so many card draws i dont want forbidden knowledge ( too many cards !! ), so i would be relying on the opponent having tomes. as always Dr. Carson would fit as well. will see if it needs more of a rush than it has.

also although Ancient guardian is far inferior to Y'Golonac, it could refresh both obsessive insomniac and scientific text, but i really don't see this happening. EDIT : speaking of ancient guardian, i can see him being used with 3 bells constantly.

but there will probably be more as i research further now that i'm home and i'll need to playtest and shuffle to get the right mix. as usual only had the idea today as i was trying another deck build, and made it at work and posted it pretty much well straight away.

any comments or suggestions ??

oh, and i forgot stone on the peak, in case i find that the deck draws too quickly.

EDIT : i just read new asylum pack and looks like ya-te-veo will be replacing ghoulish predator. of course if blind submission continues to be a problem with this character it'll change again.

EDIT 2 : add Erin Moirai to the 3 cost spot list. good for both obsessive insomniac and scientific text. also professor of folklore, but only if draw actions are sufficient to lose some.

I personally prefer to use Y'Golonac offensively to force the opponent to commit his biggest characters to his story leaving the rest of my guys free to dominate the others stories.

he IS nice and you're certainly correct. as stated used in usual manner like this but even better is the big guy having no icons in the middle of a story !! ( just a little 'out of the box' thinking )

- thanks for the reply !!!

just wondering if i should rename it THE WINTHROP STOP…… haha. any other ideas ??

actually, the ability of corrupted midwife is a very important factor in this deck i just realised, to be able to resurrect students in the story phase ( was at work and distracted by customers so missed Jamies stoopid 'till end of phase' rule - which is why i dont think he gets utilised much - but i think ive found a way to make him work ).

BECAUSE !!.

a lot of the cards can be done in story phase anyway, and the way i see it ( or read it ), the ability of corrupted midwife is sound. shocking transformation and the like can play characters out of the operations phase, so its not against regulations for this to be able to happen. with no operations phase restriction the ability on the card supercedes any game rules ( i think ?? ).

this actually doesn't really effect the deck that much. in self playtesting i've found that the students get played before jamie anyway, so i may include some self sacrificing shub cards to mill them into my discard for the resurrecting ( archeaology interns can also do this for me ). and full ride scholarship is definately making it into the deck for playing students into story phases.

its going to be a little bit tougher than i first thought but thunder in the east is the only card i will not be able to somehow activate in story phase. thus jamie and corrupted are both very important cards to be protected at all costs ( was thinking of dropping 1 x infirmary for another spore / disc anyhows ). it will now just become a real 'thinkers' deck, that requires a lot of concentration to play it right, but if this can be done there's lots of story phase icon blanking to be done !! will keep you posted !!!

i've had 3 hrs sleep in the past 42 hrs, so i'll work on it after a break. i am the personification of the obsessive insomniac !! - haha. i know the IDEA is sound, but i'm gonna have to work on it. eg. twilight ritual basically becomes a draw one card binding which ensures ghoulish predator can commit if its day kinda thing.

so this is the version i'll playtest for a bit.

THE WINTHROP DROP
( Version 1.1 )

Obsessive insomniac x 3
Archaeology interns x 3
Focused art student x 2
Ya-te-veo x 3
Black dog x 3
Dean of admissions x 2
Dr. Laban Shrewsbury x 3
Jamie Winthrop x 3
Corrupted midwife x 3
Y’Golonac x 2
Professor Morgan x 3

Feed her young x 2
Full ride scholarship x 2
Horrid mutation x 2
Burrowing beneath x 3
Shocking transformation x 2

Abhorrent spore x 3
Scientific text x 3
Disc of Itzamna x 3

i've done some random drawing and i can see that most times it works ok, sometimes it fails, and sometimes it plays so well its scary. if only one thing, this definately cements me as a 'johnny' player. it doesn't win all the time, and i don't care, because when it does win it does it with style and originality. exactly what a 'johnny' player wants !!

just had my first playtest. it was very close !! but i lost haha. i swapped dean of admissions and did some shuffling for 3 x visiting author instead, but checking after game he was in deck spots 47, 48, 49 !! so didn't see how effective he'd be. all in all i was very pleased with the way it played and having jamie stolen with infernal obsession early changed the game a lot from 2 stories up to 3 stories down. also never saw any burrowing beneaths all game to fix the problem. but that is how lady luck will be !! professor morgan jumped in turn 1 and black dog was useful. never saw ya-te-veo either so i'm thinking my shuffle was horrid !! but all congatulations to the winner who had some very nice combos of his own, and was also a 'thinker' who made a deck full of things i hadn't seen before, so i enjoyed it very much..

has shown me that this deck CAN work ( and nearly did !! ), and with some more refining, familiarity, and a nice draw of cards will be worth it to keep working on.

i have also learned that sometimes this deck needs patience. i need to hold back very occasionally from committing my story phase and pull out the tricks in the opponents turn. this impatience ( and the 4am because of time difference ) MIGHT have cost me the game, going all in to my last story win with my tricks when i had no way of winning it as i was too tired to actually do the math ( and really i just wanted to use my jamie trick for the first time - haha !! ). but it was too close to really tell. so patience it will be. this is my first deck revolving around story interactions / manipulations, and i just found out how different you need to play them than any other style.

thank you to my first deck testing opponent and congratulations on the win. with some lessons learned and a couple of modifications, i will be back for a rematch!! see you on lackey !!!

Ahah Thanks ^^

your deck is really powerfull but need some patience like you said to us all tricks you made.

Maybe you need more support control (add cthonian grasp, so you can use it in from discard pile too with the new shubb card !)

the dog can be a pain for your opponent but it only works if only 1 character commit

I have only one infernal obsession, but it's a very usefull card in mid game

See you soon, i'll adjust some cards too

good idea with the grasp. chthonian and the rare suggestion !! ( shuffle, shuffle, shuffle )

and it was just my luck on the night ( or morning ! ) that you drew your only infernal when you needed it, just before a dual jamie winthrop drop that would've sealed the game 3-0 !! i didn't realise you only had one - hahaha. i was sitting there PRAYING, take morgan, take morgan, take morgan, but you were smarter than that !!

i will take another moment to thank KrissS666 for all the hard work he's put into lackey and updating the cards before they're even released in australia. i can't stress how good this program is for testing your decks and ideas, and how far the interface has come with all his work. of course it can never be used if you're all into winning and being serious, as there is the inherent ability to cheat, but as we both agreed, this would simply be crazy to do when using it to test decks, as if it works with cheating in lackey, it will probably get crushed in the real world.

i am on there nearly all the time, running in the background as i work, and have many decks to test and refine, so pop on in and we can have a game !!

oh, as always, i am only too happy to teach with much patience………

Sorry if it seems like this is hijacking the thread. I'm pretty new to CoC, and there are almost no other players in my area, so this Lackey program sounds fascinating, ESPECIALLY if there are more experienced players using it that dont mind helping out the new guys. I've gotten tons of help from dboeren on the BGG forums, but being able to ask questions during an actual match? That would be simply glorious. Is there a spot on these forums i just overlooked where i can find more info about lackey?

Delios

no probs at all. and id be glad to show you the ropes, especially if you have skype its so much easier. there are new updates coming, but install lackey ( google search i suppose ), and in preferences - update from URL, copy and paste :

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/327207/CtuhlhuCcgLcg/updatelist.txt

then download all missing cards. also in the general discussion forum there are some posts about lackey and some skype addresses.

any more questions, as its 5:30am here and im being a bit vague, then fire away !!

I used to have an investigator deck that abused jamie winthrop. Here is what an updated version would look like:

3 cafeteria lady

3 obsessive insomniac

3 archealogy interns

3 loyal art student

3 professor of folklore

3 professional counselor

3 visiting author

3 anthropology advisor

3 jamie winthrop

3 chess prodigy

3 open for inspection

3 scientific text

3 infirmary

3 the mask that makes someone invulnerable

3 combing the archives

and a splash of something else that im forgetting

yeah. nice. but what really makes winthrop shine is dropping students in story phase with full ride scholarship / shocking transformation or feed her young. otherwise he becomes a bit useless in the operations phase. no matter how many cards you draw with students, it dont really effect much unless youre using it to drop icons for back line hastur terror or the like.

dr. laban is great for this also. i once, using a simple full ride scholarship and an archaeology interns, with 2 x dean of admissions and a scientific text, blanked 5 icon boxes ( as i drew laban as one of the 5 cards as well ) in the story phase. pure mayhem. he's a great card ol' winthrop.