.Zephyr. said:

I agree, although at this point the drawback with some of the cards mentioned will likely be that they will end up on the restricted list.

I admit that I love Apeirophobia, as it turns Hastur into a faction to be feared (ha!), which was not previously the case. But it's still way too good. Building a deck around Apeirophobia and forced discard is fine; but right now I can easily see it getting added to other decks that are neither primarily Hastur nor primarily control decks, which is a problem. That's an indication that it may be a candidate for the restricted list.

I disagree on Stygian Eye. It is powerful, yes, but has enough limitations to keep it in check. It's unique, it requires a [Terror] or Willpower to be anything more than a one-turn card, can be removed with support removal, and returns the character control back after it leaves play. It is not - like Apeirophobia - the sort of card where a player would be tempted to add it to a deck that isn't primarily Hastur or control themed just to try and get it in play.

Approaching a similiar effect from a different direction isn't neccessarily a power creep.

However, if you guys want a clear example of power creep feel free to use Hired Muscle -> Night Shift Security.

That being said, this game has very little power creep and when it does show it it is quite rare.

Also, not sure what everyone else considers to be a tier 1 deck, but I had Apierophobia in my regionals deck.

would you describe hastur as a "control" type faction? i'm still looking for a way to recreate a deck i loved to play in MtG. it was a red/blue permission burn deck… mostly i just used cheap cards to cancel characters and events, or to just burn them away with destructive spells. i would run a few characters and they had the ability to buff up whenever i cast stuff… so i had the ability to sneak in for decent damage every few turns all the while maintaining a foot on the neck of their deck.

does this strike anyone as sounding particularly like a CoC faction combo or play style?

piszcadz said:

They have the equivalent of counter spells, and they also can directly take control of enemy cards so they're definitely the closest to Blue, but the closest to Red is probably Cthulhu (lots of destruction).

piszcadz said:

What you're probably looking for is a Hastur/Yog deck. Hastur is excellent for countering events, disabling or taking control of characters, and forcing discards; Yog has some direct destruction abilities and some exotic abilities that synchronize well with Hastur. Cthulhu and Shub also have some destruction abilities that could work well in a control deck.

thanks runix. i'll check out hastur/yog. 2 factions i paid ZERO attention to up to this point.

I really like Hastur and Yog, but one caution: both are weak on support removal. You will need some ready means of support removal, as right now there are several very powerful support cards that really need to be removed quickly for any control deck to stay in control.