Hi all,

First, sorry if this is addressed in these forums somewhere already, but I found the searching a bit... difficult. And the posts I did find all seemed to refer to previously released cards and stuff like that.

I'm *very* new to this LCG, but I've played and collected other CCGs before. I've been trying to get a real good grasp of how this plays so that I can introduce it to my other good gaming friends, but I'm having a bit of a hard time constructing some decks that are good and fun to play against eachother. I'm hoping somebody here could maybe provide a sample deck or two under some "basic constraints" that I might be able to then use as example decks.

For reference: I've managed to make one deck that I think is fun and at least somewhat balanced that is build around two factions. Sorry, not sure the names of the factions, but the deck is dual faction built around Shubby and Dark Youngs as one faction and the other has Yog--Sothoth and a bunch of cultists. I tried building a insanity/discard deck to play against the first one with, but with all the willpower + terror symbols in the first deck, its not really fun to play. I also didn't want to just grab two factions for each set from the base game as I think my friends will be much more intested in the game if they can get a quick feel for how the deck "works" and perhaps has a theme around it, etc.

Now... the "basic constraints" I mentioned before is that the example decks to play with would need be built from only the core set of LCG (3 copies), and 3 copies each of At the Mountains of Madness and Ancient Horros. (I.e. I've access to no earlier released cards, but have gone a bit hog-wild with buying the LCG stuff. *grin*). The decks need not be super tournament competative or anything like that. Just two decks that work somewhat well with themselves, or at least have a general "idea" for how they're played. If they could have a good theme (like the Shubby deck) that is all the better.

Thanks a bunch all,

Kalli

For reference (and possibly for any other newbies who might be looking for a sample LCG deck) this is that Subby/Yog deck I mentioned in the first post:

3x CS F121 •Shub-Niggurath, The All Mother
3x CS F126 Ancient Guardian
3x CS F128 Watcher of the Woods
3x CS F131 Hungry Dark Young
3x CS F140 Shocking Transformation
3x CS F123 Priestess of Bubastis
2x CS F124 Slavering Gug
3x CS F133 Shadowed Woods
3x CS F101 •Yog-Sothoth, In Whom the Spheres Meet
3x AAH F17 Opener of the Gate
3x CS F103 Son of Yeb
3x CS F108 Arcane Initiate
3x CS F111 Disciple of the Gate
3x CS F116 Opening the Limbo Gate
3x CS F117 A Single Glimpse
3x CS F118 Gathering at the Stones
3x CS F119 Unspeakable Resurrection

Total 50

CS = Core Set. AAH = Asylum Pack : Ancient Horrors

(Caveat: I'm a big newbie, so it's probably a pretty badly put together deck. Feel free to comment, chuckle, throw fruits and vegetables, etc )

Ghoulish Worshipper would be good in the deck. Also note the interaction between Priest of Bubastis and either Y'Golonac or Ancient Guardian; You can keep readying you Priest to get some extra cost reduction out of the priest, which is especially awesome once you get access to extra domains (for instance per Eldritch Nexus.)

Since the example deck uses Shocking Transformation, Under The Porch may work wonders for you too. You'll get 2 activations out of Hungry Dark Young that way!

While I cannot comment on the deck, I'm a bit confused about your approach.

It seems you're completely new to the game - why do you start building decks without any game experience?

Wouldn't it be more effective to play a couple of test games first using the 'pre-built' two-faction decks from the Core Set?

I guess you have more experience with collectible card games than I have but It took me several games with (almost) every faction combination to get a feeling for the game and some ideas about successful tactics...

And I still have only a very vague idea how to build a deck that would work significantly better than the default ones (except the obvious removal of cards I don't like and using triplicates of cards I like).

jhaelen said:

Jhaelen, my fault entirely, I didn't really clarify my approach, and request for the sample decks adequetly. Let me try better.

I have indeed played a bunch of games by myself with just the single Core Set in order to see if I liked the game, how the different factions worked, etc. (Steve... Clarney? Threw me for a loop when I ended up with two random faction pairings of 21+20 vs 20+19. "Did they really make these two factions different sizes?" heh) These "by myself" games (maybe 10 of em?) definitely led me to liking the game and understanding the rules better.

But that was also where I ran into the problem that I knew just picking two factions at random and handing em to my buddy and having him play against two other random factions wouldn't really get him interested. Like.. take the Cthulhu faction in the core set. There are three deep ones, and that one deep one location card (giving them the Terror icon). In a 50 card deck, he'd be unlikely to run into having them together, and wouldn't see that particular combo. The... Miscatonic? faction with the investigators would be more likely as there are a bunch of them, and there are multiple cards that affect investigators, so he'd be more likely to see that combo/theme.

My concern was/is, the core set, two random faction approach is too diluted to give him a real feel for the game and get him hooked on it. He'd be more likely to come away with a feeling such as: "Hmmm some interesting mechanics here, and the Lovecraft theme is cool, but it just doesn't seem to really come together at all". Now, of course, if he played like 10 games as well, there would be no problem, but I'm pretty sure that I'll only be able to cajole him into two games max, and if he's not hooked at that point, he'll drop it and want to play Arkham Horror instead (how we usually spend Saturday afternoons).

Marius, thanks for the comments on the deck. The re-readying of cards that lower the cost is definitely a solid idea. I'll definitely look to see about a different balance there. I was unable to find the Under the Porch card though. Is that an earlier card?

So last night when I got home from work, I decided to give a whirl at makign another core set + first two asylum pack deck. I made the following Miskatonic+Cthulhu deck, and played it against the Shubby+Yog deck. Even though both decks need a *lot* of fine tuning, they seemed to work for what I was after. Two different decks with basic ideas that play in different ways. My buddy will hopefully be hooked and I'll have somebody to play with now. (Hard to find CCG/LCG opponents in your 30s when you live in the middle of nowhere heh)

Anyway, an example deck to go against the regenerating Shubby+Yog deck is here for anyone interested. The first game seemed that it was mostly Miskatonic investigators that came up (probably because of the 2/3 majority/imbalance) but that seemed to work ok as it just steamrolled through the story cards. The second game was a little more even, probably due to a better shuffle. Deep ones never even came out in game 1, but in game 2 there were a lot more.

3x CS F25 Anthropology Advisor
3x AAH F4 Cafeteria Lady
3x CS F22 •Dr. Ali Kafour, Middle Eastern Scholar
3x CS F27 Mad Genius
3x CS F21 •Professor Albert Wilmarth, Folklore Expert
3x CS F24 •Professor Nathaniel Peaslee, Scholar of the Arcane
3x CS F26 Visiting Author
2x CS F37 Feast of Famine
3x CS F40 Unearthing the Ancients
3x CS F35 Atwood Science Hall
3x CS F48 Adult Deep One
3x AAH F10 •Bokrug, The Great Water Lizard
3x CS F51 Mature Deep One
3x CS F46 Ravager from the Deep
3x CS F52 Young Deep One
3x CS F56 Deep One Assault
3x CS F55 Shadowed Reef

(That first game ended up with a starting hand of two anthropology advisors and two visiting authors... Ali Kafour hit the table on turn 3, and then it was an investigator mob running around)

Anyway, thanks again for the comments + suggestions. I'll let you know what my buddy thinks of the game/decks.

KallistiBRC said:

Cost reduction is very good, as you can only resource once per turn. This makes Priest of Bubastis practically free to play, as she can be played from an unbuilt domain (as in: A domain with just one resource) and turns a second domain into a 'virtual 2-domain' so you'll get more action more quickly. She also provides a 'roaming' resource, which she can dynamically assign. Combined with the 'ready' effects mentioned, that's even more potent.

After all, while some cards have high cost, and you want to make one domain really big, having access to just one extra domain to play cards with doubles your development speed - and the priest helps out giving you both speed (more active domains) and strength (higher built domains.)

Under the Porch comes from The Horror Beneath The Surface , this month's Asylum Pack.

It allows you to search for Hungry Dark Young, get some poor Shocking Transformation victim back from the discard pile, then sends the Dark Young to your hand, so you can play something again. Or you get Shub-Niggurath - The All Mother for a turn, and maybe have a domain free to let her look up a Dark Young. Ancient Guardian is a Dark Young too, so if you have the Priest in play at that time, next turn you'll be able to have a domain of 4, and you can exhaust the Priest 3 times to play Shub-Niggurath for real this time . - As long as your opponent doens't succeed in killing your team, ofcourse...

And I bet you'll find more synergy if you'll look deep enough...

I saw this post and thought it referred to deck ideas for the upcoming Call of Cthulhu Adventure League. After I saw the sample deck using all the 3x's I realized it wasn't Adventure League decks.

Anyone have any ideas for Adventure League decks using the available card pool and construction rules?

I tried a deck using the Adventure League construction rules during our last monthly CoC tourney day and got crushed. My opponents were using the CCG and LCG cards with the 3x deck limits. I can see why the new Adventure League is limiting the card pool.