Since there wasn't one up yet I wanted to create a thread for everyone to share their Gencon decks. We had 19 people in the tournament this year, which is up from 16 last year. Let's see how many of those 19 we can get posted

My own deck was a mix of Silver Twilight and Shub, with the emphasis on Silver Twilight. I tend to build my decks in more of a toolbox fashion rather than combos or super-optimized, so you'll see there are a ton of 2x cards rather than all 3x's.

Silver Twilight: 31 cards

2xLodge Neophyte - cheap skill, possibly return a character with a good come-into-play effect to my hand
2xInitiate of Huang Hun - bouncing, but I try not to rely on him too much which is why I only pack 2 copies
3xMeticulous Scribe - solid early character for grabbing success tokens
3xProtector of Secrets - another staple 2-cost guy, I'd take more if I could
3xLord Jeffrey Farrington - everyone knows Jeffrey, he's pretty much a default in most ST decks
2xMaster of the Myths - A solid defender but I don't need 3. Early on I'd rather build up permanent characters so I can wait for him to appear
2xSarah Van Shaw - She's easy to overlook, but in the current meta +2 skill-ups for her are common
3xPass Grip of a Master - Very handy card, gives you whatever you need at the time to come out on top at stories
3xSteal the Soul - Similar, another great story surprise and personally I think the better of the two most of the time
2xThe Oubliettes - Contingency card for weenie-rush decks, only used it once in the warmup tournament, not at the real one
2xRitual of Exclusion - Put in for fear of Cthulhu destruction decks, didn't have to use it
2xRitual of Inferno - Take out Locations for me, also kind of aimed at Cthulhu decks who can run a lot of them
2xT'tka Halot - Goes well with Sarah Van Shaw and just in general on anybody, the 3rd copy was a tough cut from my deck

Shub Niggurath: 19 cards

2xOne of the Thousand - Early story blocker with Terror and possibly discounter if I need to get a big Shub character into play
2xBlack Dog - Net me some Combat wins and deterrent value
2xHarvesting Mi-Go - Help build up my domains faster and provide a consolation prize against destruction
2xWooden Homunculus - Early Terror blocker, then get him killed to power my various "pay 1" effects
2xYa-te-veo - Defensive guy with a mini-shotgun, but it sucked when Hastur opponents took control of him
2xGrasping Chthonian - A late addition, giving me more fighting icons and support removal (replaced Lodge Librarian)
2xHungry Dark Young - Help me get characters into play quickly or recur from discard
2xY'Golonac - Just an all around useful guy
3xThunder in the East - Support removal and a free card, not bad even i my 1 domains are sometimes the wrong color

Shub was mostly there for some acceleration, a few big uglies for defense, and some support removal. As you can see, I had a variety of contingency cards, probably a bit too many, but our local meta is pretty small and I wanted to be ready for a wide variety of situations.

There's been a lot of forum talk lately about supports being so big and support removal being so critical - I may have put a little too much stress on that. However, I think many players were thinking that if the meta was going to be big on support removal they'd go light on supports instead because I didn't use too many of them. A few times, but not so much. I'm not sure Tom's deck even *had* any supports in it, I never saw one get played anyhow.

I was also maybe a little too worried about mono-Cthulhu decks which were big at Regionals as we all know. However, I didn't run into any of them. That doesn't mean they weren't there, but they didn't show up in my pairings. That might just mean the Gencon meta was well-prepared against them and they hit the 0-1 bracket early in the tournament. Which is kind of what I was trying to say earlier in one of the "support removal rules all" threads - that no deck beats everything and you can afford to be a bit weak against things that you know the meta is probably tooled against right now.

So, how did it do? Pretty well actually. I won all my games at the Warmup tournament until it was just me and Tom. We had a pretty tough game but he managed to beat me with a Miskatonic/Hastur deck - very cool combo! It was after that that I decided to take out Lodge Librarian (who had done nothing for me in any of the games) and replace him with Grasping Chthonian.

On the day of the real tournament, it was still working pretty well. We were doing three rounds of swiss, then cutting to a top-8 for single elimination. I won my first three games and made the cut. Only Tom and I were undefeated at that point, so the format basically puts the strongest record against the weakest so I figured I probably wouldn't have to face him until the end if I made it that far. And in fact it worked out just like that. I won both of my next 2 games and then it was Tom and I in the final for this year's championship.

Tom had switched to a different deck - now running Shub/Yog, so I had no idea what was in his but he knew roughly what I had from playing it in the Warmup. I had a good start though, and found myself up two stories to zero with 3 success tokens on another.

Thing is, I knew I was playing a relatively fast deck and his deck was building up more pressure bringing out big characters and I wouldn't be able to face them forever. Glaaki was already out for instance, and a host of 3-4 cost monsters such as several The Mother's Hand, Stalking Hound, and others. It was pretty much one of those "now or never" moments and I had to go for it.

However, it looked pretty good. I had a lot of skill on the table plus more Investigation than him. We went all-in to that story thinking he wouldn't be able to match it. I think Tom probably took about 10 minutes to figure out that turn, but he barely managed to save the story and that was pretty much game right there. With pretty much my entire side exhausted he ran all over the stories and was more or less untouchable. In a casual match I'd have conceded after our big push failed, but that didn't seem appropriate for the final match so I kept fighting on even though I knew it was a pretty bad situation.

I was very happy to make 2nd place, beating a variety of decks including Three Bells, Stygian Eye/Infernal Obsession, and others. I got so close in that final match, and I can't wait to take another crack at it next year.

btw - feel free to ask any questions about the deck, I'll be happy to explain the rationale of any card in there. If I could change just one card, I think I'd find one of my contingency cards to take out (probably one of the Rituals) and put in Altar of the Blessed. A couple of my games tended to follow the same pattern of getting an early lead and then having to throw some weight into a story to win on skill - and a +1 for all my characters would have been super-useful. Our local meta is still underdeveloped so I didn't really see this effect until I faced some of the stronger decks at Gencon.

I definitely like your deck idea. I'm happy to see ST doing well enough to win 2nd place! The deck I would've brought had I been able to make it was a ST/Agency deck, though I'm not confident on how well it would have faired.

I was trying to figure out what Tom was running in the GenCon wrap-up video. The 3-cost 2-skill Terror/Combat Shub guy that he had 2 of… was that The Mother's Hand? I saw a Many-Angled Thing, Fanatic, and Glaaki, but couldn't figure that one out as it was mostly covered.

We have a guy that we play against at work (my wife plays CoC and also works with me) that runs a Misk/Hastur deck centered on Julia Brown and some Lunatics. I would've loved to have seen Tom's take on that faction pairing to see how different it could possibly be.

Congrats again sir! I'm definitely looking forward to seeing all the different decks posted!

"I definitely like your deck idea. I'm happy to see ST doing well enough to win 2nd place! The deck I would've brought had I been able to make it was a ST/Agency deck, though I'm not confident on how well it would have fared."

I actually saw a decent amount of Silver Twilight there, although a lot more on the Warmup day than the real tournament. There was a little Master of the Myths splashing too but it wasn't everywhere. I think people are still feeling them out, unsure if they're ready for the big time yet - hopefully I demonstrated that they are. Not in mono form yet, but certainly enough to be a main faction in a 2-faction deck.

"I was trying to figure out what Tom was running in the GenCon wrap-up video. The 3-cost 2-skill Terror/Combat Shub guy that he had 2 of… was that The Mother's Hand? I saw a Many-Angled Thing, Fanatic, and Glaaki, but couldn't figure that one out as it was mostly covered."

Yes, it was The Mother's Hand. He played several of those and made really good use out of its ability to play multiple copies in a row using the same domain.

"We have a guy that we play against at work (my wife plays CoC and also works with me) that runs a Misk/Hastur deck centered on Julia Brown and some Lunatics. I would've loved to have seen Tom's take on that faction pairing to see how different it could possibly be."

Well, maybe when Tom posts his deck he can put that one up as well. I don't recall much of it but I remember Dr. Mya Badry was in there, Stygian Eye, Danni Devine, Demon Lover, Performance Artist, Victoria Glasser, Flux Stabilizer, Cavern of Flame. That's all I can remember at the moment, we didn't get home last night until 5:30am so maybe I can recall a few more after some sleep

"Congrats again sir! I'm definitely looking forward to seeing all the different decks posted!"

Me too, I remember bits and pieces but it would be good to have the full listings and of course to hear what people were thinking when they designed them that way. I know there were some Three Bells decks going on, some Serpents, Syndicate skill w/David Pan, and also some Hastur control but I didn't get to see all the decks of course. I even faced a mono-Syndicate deck which was pretty cool.

Thanks for the recap and the deck list!

It's good to see Silver Twilight doing well - I know there had been doubts as to their viability, hopefully this will help address that. Also great to hear that there was a diversity of factions in play and being competitive, which is also great news. It doesn't surprise me, though, that Shub was in the two top decks - I think they have the best tool kit available right now across all the factions.

I like the 2x format with some cards - that really gives the deck some additional flexibility. I find have in 2x of 3 cards with parallel roles but slightly different abilities to be superior to 3x of 2 cards - and that goes double with unique cards. 3x is good for cheap disposable cards, and for cards critical to the deck, but for everything else, 2x may be a better default.

I'd be interested to see what as in the Three Bells decks - had I come, I likely would have played my new mono Shub Three Bells deck. Good to see I'm not the only person who sees some potential there.

Interesting that you found Meticulous Scribe to be a strong component. My Tome-based Silver Twilight/Yog deck used Knight of the Eclipse in roughly the same role, but I found it difficult to get him out due to the cost combined with the Loyalty requirement - Meticulous Scribe may be a decent replacement that I can roll out faster. Although I'll probably still try to find a place for the Knight, with the T'tka Halot he is just so, so good.

Speaking of which, I have found the T'tka Halot to be a solid addition to a Silver Twilight deck. The additional investigation is great, but it also helps with card advantage and keeping your Rituals and Spells in play.

3 clover club bouncer

3 clover club torch singer

3 tattoo artist

3 demon lover

3 victoria glasser

3 master of the myths

In our second game, he hit me with two Byakhee Attacks practically back to back and losing 4 cards from my hand was indeed a major stumbling block - I had to make some really hard decisions on what to throw out and then that forced some unpleasant resourcing decisions because the cards I had left were all ones I really wanted to keep. Actually, I think this was probably the biggest reason why our second game was so much closer than the first one. My deck usually comes out strong out of the gate and gobbles some early stories/tokens and we just didn't get our usual good start that game because of the discard.

I would add that I saw a good bit of Marcus Jamburg, you weren't the only one recurring Ice Shafts that day and it works quite well. If your factions are such that you can put in several strong Support cards which have an instant payback then he can really become anything you want whenever you need it.

"It's good to see Silver Twilight doing well - I know there had been doubts as to their viability, hopefully this will help address that. Also great to hear that there was a diversity of factions in play and being competitive, which is also great news. It doesn't surprise me, though, that Shub was in the two top decks - I think they have the best tool kit available right now across all the factions."

I think they're pretty viable for dual faction, just not for mono yet. They could really use a few more options though. There was another Silver Twilight/Shub deck in the top 8 (a Three Bells deck) and I think a couple more somewhere but I didn't face them. Supports weren't as big as folks have been saying, I didn't run into all that many of them. I think I could easily have replaced my Shub part with several other factions without much problem - trade getting my characters out a little faster for whatever…

"I like the 2x format with some cards - that really gives the deck some additional flexibility. I find have in 2x of 3 cards with parallel roles but slightly different abilities to be superior to 3x of 2 cards - and that goes double with unique cards. 3x is good for cheap disposable cards, and for cards critical to the deck, but for everything else, 2x may be a better default."

I like to put 3x of only the critical cards or the ones I want to make sure I get early in the game. Unique cards, anything high priced, and anything I don't want until later will probably be a 2x. For instance Master of Myths, some people might think he's an automatic 3x - but at the start of the game I need to be putting into play permanent characters - like my plentiful Meticulous Scribes and Protector of Secrets. That may result in a 1-domain being unused but I do have several other 1-cost cards and effects and a lot of them can result in a surprise kill of an enemy character which usually beats what MoM will give me.

"I'd be interested to see what as in the Three Bells decks - had I come, I likely would have played my new mono Shub Three Bells deck. Good to see I'm not the only person who sees some potential there."

Honestly, I think most people see a lot of potential there - it looks like a really good card and I'm sure lots of folks are working on tuning up 3Bell decks as we speak. Just not all of them were willing to try to do it in time for the tournament, it was kind of short notice and many of us of course don't get to play that regularly. The girl who was running it happens to be in an active meta that had several players in the tournament so I'm sure she had enough test games to properly work on it.

"Interesting that you found Meticulous Scribe to be a strong component. My Tome-based Silver Twilight/Yog deck used Knight of the Eclipse in roughly the same role, but I found it difficult to get him out due to the cost combined with the Loyalty requirement - Meticulous Scribe may be a decent replacement that I can roll out faster. Although I'll probably still try to find a place for the Knight, with the T'tka Halot he is just so, so good."

I love the Knight of the Eclipse - he was in an earlier version of the deck but I just had too many problems because of Loyal. I'd either not be able to play him, or I'd have to resource extra cards just for him that probably wouldn't be needed afterward. So, he got cut. If the deck was mono-ST or had about half the Shub it has today he'd definitely go back in though. Meticulous Scribe is valuable because you can play him cheap, get 3 tokens on an unopposed story, and re-ready him by winning Arcane. I find that in the early part of the game people tend to be more worried about putting down someone with a Combat or Terror than Arcane. Protector of Secrets helps keep the stories clear so he do his unopposed thing, so does Jeffrey or anything else that does bounce. Also, I can back him up with one of six different icon-granting Events, a Black Dog, or a Master of the Myths. So, SOMETHING is probably available if he runs into trouble and I have two ideal situations - either he runs unopposed or else i get to pop out another card for 1 cost that kills or crazies his opposition (and THEN he's unopposed). I think how good you'll find him will partly relate to what sort of backup he has in this fashion. Getting Willpower is nice, but I never rely on it.

"Speaking of which, I have found the T'tka Halot to be a solid addition to a Silver Twilight deck. The additional investigation is great, but it also helps with card advantage and keeping your Rituals and Spells in play."

This was one of the last cards to get trimmed from 3x down to 2x. The Atlanta meta is pretty small and not as experienced as some of the better ones so I really was a bit waffley about what I might run into . I learned quite a lot just by playing against a bunch of strong players at the con, I'm confident I could make several improvements to the deck now. Anyway, my deck happened not to have many spells or rituals, just a few and the ones that WERE there were mostly contingencies that I would seldom need to recur. Sometime I want to try a spell-heavy deck and see how that goes when I can bring back whichever spells I need on demand. I wish Pass Grip or Steal the Soul was a spell/ritual

One thing in particular is that I think I could make good use out of some strong Neutral cards. i tend to avoid using those much - old habit from other games perhaps, as well as trying to avoid resourcing issues, but having just a few isn't a big deal. In fact, one of the reasons I switched from Dreamlands Fanatic to Black Dog was for smoother resourcing even though it was only a few cards. Well, actually at the time I also had Eldritch Nexus but I swapped that for Wooden Homunculus too and ended up pure silver & red.

dboeren said:

Please tell me she called her deck "Silver Bells".

Black Dog is a new favorite of mine - that critter can really cause trouble for early game rushes, and (unlike Master of the Myths) can trim down the other side's board at minimal cost. The main difficulty is that if they survive to the skill struggle, you can't effectively block with just the dog alone, as it's 0 skill. But a lot of early characters aren't going to get that far.

The main problem I have with Black Dog is as soon as the other side gets a serious Combat character out, or - worse - an early Invulnerable character, like Y'Golonac or Carl Stanford. At the point that the "heavy hitters" start coming out, Master of the Myths becomes the superior choice by a good margin.

Runix said:

You know, I have no idea what anybody's deck names were (if any).

Black Dog is best when you don't know where he's going - and one of the points he has over a lot of the pop-into-play characters is that he is put into play COMMITTED so you can use him on either turn. On your own turn, Master of the Myths loses a little shine because you have to put him into play and then commit him to a story - your opponent gets to see where he's going. Black Dog isn't like that, you can put commit him late on either player's turn.

You're right though that later in the game he's no longer quite the threat he started out to be whereas Master of the Myths is still pretty strong. At that point you'd probably consider using him as a resource or possibly just paying 2 to put him into play permanently and free up a domain each turn.

There were 19 people in the tournament, and I know some of them are on the forums or maybe just have a friend who is that can post for them.

I think we should be able to do a little better than just two decks. I'll give Tom a pass because FFG is probably asking him to write an official news post about his deck, but maybe some of the rest of you can find time to put something up?

I'll post mine later if anyone is interested. I didn't make the cut though, so I assumed there wasn't much interest hehe.

I think all the decks are of potential interest to someone, the reader can decide if he wants to ignore some and the poster can say whether it seemed to perform well or not to help him make that decision.

If nothing else, knowing more decks gives more insight into the current meta, whether they did well or not.

Characters (30):

Ghoulish Predator x3
Twilight Cannibal x3
Grasping Cthonian x2
Ya te vo x2
Y'Golonac x2

Elder Thing Scavenger x2
Forgotten Shoggoth x3
Stalking Hound x3
Yog-Sothoth, Lord of Time and Space x2
Faceless Abductor x2

The Master of the Myths x3

Marcus Jamburg x3

Support (11):

Snow Graves x3

Things in the Ground x3 (restricted)

Arkham Asylum x3
Ice Shaft x2

Events (9):

Curse of the Stone x3
Ritual of Bellephar x3

Burrowing Beneath x3

I'm not sure if this is the EXACT deck I used, I already pulled it apart and rebuilt it with changes post-tournament, and for some reason I can't find the old list. So, this is about 98% accurate I think.

The deck worked quite well, aside from one weakness that cost me in the end. I went 2-1 in the swiss and did not have enough strength of schedule points to break ties with others. The main idea is quite simple. Use Things in the Ground to flood the board with characters, and hit one or two big Curse of the Stones. Here is a quick run down of my games:

Game one: This was against a mono Miskatonic rush deck. The one deck type I was worried about coming into the tournament and I got paired with it first round. My deck worked great, I had TITG out and was flooding the board. Sadly the one card that I knew would ruin me did, Combing the Archives. Just ended up not being able to stop that story and ended up losing the match. Loss 1-3.

Game two: This was against a mono Shub deck. Again, my deck worked great and I won very quickly after hitting two huge Curse of the Stones. Won this match 0-0.

Game three: This was against Jim Black's mono Cthulhu deck. I thought this would be a good match up for me, since Cthulhu is slow and my deck is extremely effective against late game decks. In the end I think he had 16 characters out and just could not beat my high skill fast enough to make any progress on stories. Hit a big Curse of the Stone and milled his deck. Won 0-0.

In the end I was disappointed I did not make the cut, but still had a lot of fun. I still think mill decks like this are quite strong. There are enough cards out now that can stall the game and block at stories until you get TITG out to start milling. With additions like Marcus Jamburg and Elder Thing Scavenger, I had no problems keeping TITG in play. The main weakness is rush, and Combing the Archives. I think if I used Black Dog I would have killed off some of his normal rush in the beginning to slow him down.