I've only been skimming it so far, but I see a lot of important clarifications and errata!

Notably, the Descendant of Eibon is nerfed yet again - ha, ha!

Likewise Apeirophobia and Uroborus are nerfed and 'The Doorway' finally gets its Trigger condition, yay!

…

I'll post again after having had time to read it more carefully…

I wouldn't say Descendant was nerfed so much as clarified. Back when he came out there was no such thing as a success token anywhere else but on a story.

New FAQ uploaded on cardgameDB

Eibon was cleared, no real nerf - using other sucesses than from stories seems like a small hole in rules rather then intended behavior.

Apeirophobia change was one i was thinking of, this card was so stupid when someone put an early hi skill with T like yogs Cannibal ghast and not only got hand thrown away but also lost resourcing and ability to play anything. Now its nice for limiting options, and planning ahead, but not to 0.

Uroborus unique makes sense to me, still nice card.

Dorway trigger is still basically anything, but this wording looks better.

.Zephyr. said:

I call that "skill". it's obvious to not play cannibal ghast again an hastur discard deck. The problem with discard's decks is that they are useless. opponents draw 2 cards minimum per turn, they play them and you just can't do anything because all discards cards have the condition "during you operation phase".

Apeirophobia was one of the only cards of the revelation cycle where I thank : "cool, that will boost the discard's theme and that will be finally interesting as an option against destruction decks, relics and glimpse of the void. That's not the case anymore.

only problem was, apeirophobia wasn't boosting any 'discard theme'. it was simply getting slapped in EVERY hastur deck i came across. not only would you be losing your characters to infernal obsession and stygian eye, you'd also lose your hand cards after they were drawn to apeirophobia. i was actually getting so tired of playing against hastur decks that had apeirophobia / obsession / stygian / cavern of flame / guardian pillar / performance artist and the lunatics that i was thinking of changing games. and i kid not. at one stage every 2nd game was one of these decks, once 3 times in a row against different opponents, and i literally lost count how many times my shub decks destroyed guardian pillar. so, i tried mixing my shub with some hastur and the vale of pnath. then THEY started appearing everywhere. im starting to refer to them as 'the dreary dreamlands decks'.

so, blah blah blah aside, yay for the apeirophobia change. perhaps now ONLY discard decks might start using it.

.Zephyr. said:

jhaelen said:

I think they are trying to establish a new world record in card games under the category "card that received more rewording ever"

Honestly, I'm surprised that after this clear mistake (because, IMHO, Descendant is the only BIG clear mistake of the game…next to Magah Birds probably) they keep putting out characters that comes into play for "free".

It is clear that this mechanic, in a game like CoC, is overpowered. One of the strongest thing you can do is bypass the "number of cards" cap that you can play each turn (3, usually). Still, they keep printing cards to bypass it, and then nerf them down (Uroborous being just the last in the list….).

Meh, as long as the game is alive, fine with me

Konx

Konx said:

What bothers me is when these are colorless (whether they're free or a "pay 1"). Now we're seeing Master of the Myths for example showing up in decks of all factions. It's OK when a particular faction gets a neat new card but I don't want to see everyone else poaching it with no drawback - same issue as with zero cards that have no Steadfast like Snow Graves.

If these type of cards just had a single Steadfast icon added to them then it wouldn't be so easy to splash Master of the Myths, Black Dog, Snow Graves, Stalking Hound, Dreamlands Fanatic, etc… into any deck you wished.

COCLCG said:

And that is NOT a problem with apeirophobia. As i see a lot of decks with only the cavern of flame and not a dreamland location's theme. That's why we have a restricted list. And now, nobody will play this card because the discadr theme deck doesn't work at all because all effect fo discards are during the operation phase. So in no way you block a brainless rush deck. Or a destructive deck. this errata is just destroying a real alternative in competitive decks and it won't change anything in hastur decks with pillar, cavern and stygian eye.

What we need to see are put into play abilities that must be payed with a specific resource type. I am very surprised that this was not applied to MoM or Black Dog!? These type of cards allow mono faction decks to 'cheat' and do nothing to promote true multi-faction deck building.

dboeren said:

Do we need to promote "true" multifaction deck building? Most decks seem to have two factions in them.

And Black Dog and Master of Myths still "obey" the three card a turn play limit, they force the player to leave a domain open for a temporary character. This is not an advantage in and of itself. Actually you could make a real debate that it is a disadvantage generally speaking since it is essentially a card which the first turn you play it you gain the surprise factor and stymie his plans all for paying 1. But each time you put him back into play you get diminishing returns. It isn't a surprise anymore (unless your opponent is incredibly distracted) and by the third play it is officially costing you more to do this "trick" than just having had played the character normally.

Now of course with the MoM there is a little something extra going on since he can soak up a wound protecting your other characters, but you are locking yourself into a specific and predictable strategy. When your opponent can predict what you are going to do and how you are going to do it they can plan around you and none of these jumping characters has a bomb ability that shifts the dynamic of the game forcing your opponent to constantly deal with an ever shifting playscape.

Don't get me wrong. They are powerful cards and I do include them in a fair number of my decks, but not in all my decks, and generally speaking I only put anyone of them into play twice.

Descendent was clarified AND nerfed. Damon gave a ruling, but I was under the impression that he had meant for it to be clarified in the last faq. Whether it was left off on accident or he just delayed it to let the metagame try it out I've no idea, but I'm positive that grabbing them from non-story cards was never part of the intent.

Its not really cheating - just think of them as neutrals with some fraction synergy. Also MoM and Black Dog is more like an event than character as far as his function is concerned - one time surprise with added bonus of not costing a card. I still think 1 is a bit too cheap - especialy MoM with some Lodge resource match needed to trigger would be a nice boost for Lodge only. Or even pay 1 if you have lodge resource, 2 if you dont would be ok. And Stalking Hounds love those reccuring characters . And guys like Fanatic still cost you a card - theyre good characters, but not really game changing.

Dont know how strong is Glimpse, but losing operation phase, resoure advantage and card advantage for 2 was really stupid, not playing with any 3+ skill insane proof characters limits too much - i dont really think its viable for "normal" decks, and with recycling you can keep your opponent on 0 cards… It sounds worse than Glimpse as it destroys your economy, especialy as card draw is not that common effect.
Glimpses problem is not that much you can do to counter it and it might also need rework or some cards that deal with it in future packs. But it doesnt reduce your economy to 0, needs more cards to do anything more than buying you 1 turn and needs some time to be even playable. Stuff like recycled Internant Scholar is worse than Void, but at least there many things that hurt characters. Voids problem is there are not much things that hurt events. And even with constant void opponent needs to mill you faster than you can mill him and keep recycling Void. With stuff like The Stone on the Peak it might turn out you can actually win if there is no story phase. Maybe its too strong, maybe not, but the idea is not completely stupid.

yep. black dog in no shub = 1 use. after that you just commit 2 characters a story and your opponent has a dead card in his hand, possibly 2 or 3.

my only MINOR concern is no steadfast on snow graves. i really feel like im cheating when i play this in non shub decks and shuts down recursion decks with any faction mix against some recursion combos that cant remove it permanently. but meh. i'll live with it.

then again, ive never used fanatic in non cthulhu, hound in non yog etc. dunno, i know i should but dont feel its morally right, to my detriment.

B_P said:

hmmm. what im seeing here ( and i could be wrong ) is that you'd prefer to win games in a non-honorable and skill-less way by simply recurring apeirophobia and shutting down the draw phase. im not up for that, and if i was a new player and saw this happening, id move on to another game.

ive lost to plenty of mill decks before this card was even invented. the theme is viable and can work.

COCLCG said:

Now be nice COCLCG… there's nothing wrong with playing a lock deck. It's not honorless and most certainly not skill-less.

That being said, Painful Reflections still exsists. Apeirophobia is still a good card and still is a huge deterrrant to play high skill+fearless characters (and there are so few of those). So I seriously doubt that we'll see a decline in the useage of Apeirophobia. My only concern is wether or not it will deter people from playing the faction at all without it's "signature" card…. oh wait. I'm not concerned at all about hastur with the exception that it can't deal with support cards very well

Ways to beat Glimpse = Hand Disruption, Cancels (you only need enough to open 1-2 story phases, you don't have to be able to recurr them), Marcus Jamburg (or other recursion) + Snow graves, location removal (just keeping Stone off the field can sometimes net you a win). It defiantely warps things a little, but not terribly tough.

Descendant did indeed get another nerf (technically). It's not much of one, but since FFG is not going to use a token type other than success this was likely overdue.

hee hee. ok tom. im trying to change my ways……….

thanks for the reminder.

but in its LAST from, this was definately possible. apeirophobia is now a just a nice card, not a lock card with only it and alyssa. still very powerful, but not ridiculous like it was. and thats the only lock deck i had a problem with. others do take skill.

i apologise for any offense incurred by my previous statement.

And if you really hate recycled Void, recycled Apeirophobia is even worse as you literally cant do a thing without any cards.

Ok when you lose all characters it will not remove your hand, but Hastur will get enough stories by then and when you eventually play a character he can keep recycling.

Except playing around Apierophobia was not at all difficult for any balanced deck.

Deck with no T/Willpower with cards like Bloated Leng Spider, Dangerous Inmate, Erich Zann, Lost to the Madness against you or no skill? Really I dont see this space to play around, first one or two turns probably yes, but it does force you to play weird stuff and losing hand after few turns is still painfull. New Apeirophobia will still discard hand so its tougher to play recycling, plan a more devastating play etc, just your left with two random cards insted of zero.

Hmm maybe im not clear.

I really would like to see how can you work around it. For me it seems like working around it will put you so behind it doesnt really help.

And Yog/Hastur Aperio recursion can have stuff like Blood Magician just to give T to your highest skill character. It is expensive but if you destroy all hand so opponent cant do much and keep recycling Aperiophobia it should be still worth it.

Well… you could try playing a human faction. Most of them don't have willpower or terror available in any strong amount. A rush deck or tempo control out of Miskatonic or Miskatonic/Silver Twilight just sends tons of weenies to stories and forces you to return cards to hand as soon as you try to get a presence on the board. Toss in Combing the Archive and you don't even have to worry about going insane or being wounded by way of struggles. You can resource the handful of characters with willpower you have if you facing a deck with Hastur, and everyone else you can safely put them into play.

The cards for the most part are centered around 2 cost so a 2-2-1 domain has you dumping stuff out every turn and drawing additional cards so even if they hit someone with Apeirophobia you want to stay insane you can ditch the cards or of course use a card that cancels or cures insanity.

With Seekers of Knowledge coming out in three months or so this strategy is only going to gain steam.

About Eibon, i'm thinking this card should be banned because you don't need to do a specific strategy, that card help ALL decks so it useless because if you don't use it, you'll be in trouble.

A deck non using restricted card, will put Eibon and will powned opponent deck.

This card is brainless, skilless, strategicless => go ban !

KrissS666 said:

I think we need a better criteria for banning cards.

Ignoring my usual arguments for not banning Eibon, it’s clearly not on the same level as say… Endless Interrogation.

Eibon is merely a well stated 3 cost neutral character that is can be surprising and is difficult to get rid of for the cost of 2 success tokens per jump.

Endless Interrogation will empty an opponent’s hand, likely on your first story phase, giving an opponent almost a zero chance of coming back.

You can fight a well stated character with ‘any’ deck, you can’t fight (at least not with any real consistency) that much of a hand disadvantage so early into the game.

To me, that is a huge difference.

For me the line for banning cards comes in when a card can too easily create a completely unfair situation. Preferably to the point where… the only way you can win the match is to run it yourself and hope to plays yours first or else likely lose the game.

Eibon is a strong card, in which most decks could benefit from. He is something you have to at least consider when building a deck. True, this guy can wreck some decks that are poorly built or built by players with a smaller card pools (which is why DoE tends to dominate more casual scenes). However, in its current state, it is most certainly not ban-worthy. Many decks are perfectly viable without the use of Eibon.

Didn’t mean to rant on you there. But seeing the words like skill-less again… usually makes the Magnus angry! RAWR.

in fact that's the point i want to focus :"Eibon is a strong card, in which most decks could benefit from."

what's the point to have a STRONG card which , not most, but ALL decks could benefit (only thoses using a restricted card can't, but without the restriction they will !!! ).

that's the same with Master of myth :all deck can use it so all decks will use it (because cost neutral resource , cheap cost AND very strong in defense).

But as it's a defense tools, it's less critic than eibon with investigation icon !

I don't understand the good point to have a card that suit in all decks, that's non-sense in a game using different strategy depend on factions used.

And why ban this card?, because without it, the meta won't change but with it , it's a pain for many decks.

Lot of players remove it in casual game, but if you want to compete, you need to focus on it…

Plus, i can say an other thing : as you can use it from your hand to play by paaying success, only the player in advance can use it so it will be worst for the player in trouble: you can't tell that card save you when you're in trouble, because it give more advantage to the player with more success (so basically the player in better position to win).

That make a bigger gap between player conditions!

KrissS666 said:

I call some serious bullcrap on that assertion.

KrissS666 said:

This assertion is bullcrap in an even more major way. The kneejerk crying for card bans needs to stop if people are to be taken even remotely seriously. With such blatant dismissal of cards, it is very easy to just as easily and blatantly dimiss those opinions that lack any cogent reasoning as to why. I normally lurk to read these forums, but enough is enough already.