• Marcus Jamburg
Toughness +1.
Action: Return Marcus Jamburg to your hand to choose and put into play a support card from your discard pile.

Draw back is cost, needs this 3-3 or better domains, but if you focus on stalling surviving 4 turns doesn't sount that hard. Especially with negutium in the game, just ideal for jamburgs cost And obviously you clear your own stuff too, but if you win the game it doesn't really matter. Key part is that it doesnt require much effort and if opponent can deal with it you don't have to relay on this trick: jumberg is ok in any deck with usefull supports and rift is alos nice to have if things go wrong late and you have card advantege and opponent used up his support controll.

Oh wow, yet another combo to keep in mind when building a deck…

Other ways of dealing with that combo (next to direct destruction already mentioned by you) is having a rush deck (3-3-1 takes some time), or a resource destruction deck. Professor Peaslee will put into play all destroyed characters again, so that the Rift only destroys supports… And the new serpent, Naaginn (Response: After a support card is destroyed, put Naaginn into play from your discard pile), will be immediately in play again after the Dimensional Rift, and can drive Jamburg insane. Dreamlands Messenger + Voice of the Jungle can prevent the Rift from doing its job, too.

Well, it all hinges on getting rid of Jamburg or his ability somehow.

You can blank him, drive him insane, take control of him, kill him, cancel his ability, etc…

Killing him actually isn't the best solution as there might be another copy or a card to try to retrieve him from discard. You might be better off permanently blanking him or taking control of him and then since he's unique your opponent can't play another.

Another approach would be to attack their means to take advantage of the combo. They need to drain a 3-domain to play Jamburg, then another 3-domain to activate the Rift. To make this "work" they need to somehow turn their remaining domain(s) into success tokens. Typically this will be by playing a character of course.

So, you might be able to look into ways to drain the last domain, destroy resources, attack his hand or draw, or deal with the characters as they come into play. They're going to be fairly weak characters for a while, that might help, and there will not be many of them.

I'm not worried by anything relying on retrieving cards from the discard pile because I always have Snow Graves in my deck.

So my worries typically shift towards cards that can destroy my Snow Graves

That's not a problem because you can protect it with Guardian of the Key. So then you're worried about losing him.

But THAT isn't a problem either because you can equip him with a Disc of Itzama. Ah, but what if you lose THAT?

You can stop effects that will take out your Disc with a Power Drain.

Wait, what was the problem again?

I've actually got a mono-Yog deck that exploits this combo quite a bit ;-) Make them sacrifice things along the way until you can get your combo going. Then, profit!

dboeren said:

Unfortunately, taking control of him doesn't prevent your opponent from playing another. Both players can have the same unique card in play at the same time.

You cant play new one if you own one in play (even though it was stolen).

The biggest downside is that you also have nothing on the board, so if opponent stopps you from firing Rift he gets free stories. Second is cost of draining double 3.

Blanking/Taking control is not that simple, as in ideal scenario you want to swap Jamburg for Rift at the end of your story phase, and now there is only rift left. If rift does get destroyed cheaply, it might be enough to win stories and make it not worth it. But Rift player can still try it next turn, it might fail again, but how much support control do you have, and opponent might have some cancels or other tricks.

Snow graves im not so sure. Rift can be played normally for 4, or with guys like Museum curator and it will destroy snow graves when fired, then Jamburg brings it back. Rift can be in play the whole opponents turn, fired at the beginning of story phase. Snow graves will not matter then. If its graves + support removal it will help.

Master of the myths is quite nice as he can jump on opponents turn and defend, then go back to hand. He can attack if rift is fired at some weak guy played in operations phase.

Some event forcing opponent to sacrifice character on his turn will force Rift+Jamburg to play a guy that will take the hit or loose Jamburg

There are some options, but still recycling Rift that easly with no card cost is stupid IMO, maybe in top tier risk is too much, but it destroyed my opponents will to play quite much. He said he doesn't like having to buy new cards, and this kind of recursion is uncompareable to what was in earlier CoC LCG pool. Any character based deck without enough control options will be anihilated without any fight.

GrahamM said:

Unique is based on ownership of the card, not who currently controls it. Even if your opponent takes control, you are still the owner and cannot play another copy of the same unique card.

Taking control of Jamburg is not a great option, as he's useful only after the Dimensional Rift has blown the world up - so the player is going to keep him in his hand until after that, and very likely will pick up him before the end of his turn, and quite simply, there just aren't the cards available to take control of a character in the enemy player's turn.

The most straightforward solution is to cancel the event. But that's really only an option for Hastur - Power Drain and Performance Artist will both work fine, as they cancel the effect but not the sacrifice of the Rift, which is part of the cost. After that, it becomes a matter of who can get the cards out of the discard pile faster (Hastur already has Alyssa Graham for that, but now has a Prophecy that allows them to recycle the discard pile with ease, so it's not a guarantee that the Jamburg/Rift player will win the race).

Rendering Jamburg insane would also work. That would either delay the combo for a turn, or for longer than that with something like Song of Suffering. But again, that's really only an option for Hastur.

Using an Event of some sort to destroy Jamburg as soon as he comes out would work, at least for Cthulhu with Deep One Assault, although other factions may have similar options.

For delaying tactics, Master of the Myths would work, and Dreamlands Fanatic could also make things interesting.

There are also some very situational solutions. Cthulhu Serpent decks would laugh at this combo - the discard pile is a perfectly fine place for Serpents to be, as the Cthulhu player can spring Uroborus at no cost, and can bring back the whole lot with one Sibilant Cry. For Miskatonic, Professor Nathaniel Peaslee would shut this combo down with little effort. Library of Pergamum plus any Tome in play would work decently well.

In the new expansion, The Claret Knight is totally immune to triggered effects (not just targeted effects), so would presumably survive these sort of "mutually assured destruction" combinations; plus, he's neutral, so he goes into any deck, and he can beat Jamburg in a 1v1 story matchup. (I wish the Disk of Itzamna worked the same way, but since it mentions the attached character being the target of a triggered effect, I don't think it does.)

Overall, though, I think the best solution would be more tools for shutting down discard pile fishing. All we really had previously was Snow Graves (and some more limited use cards like Trophy Room); but Atlantis from the new set gives the player a lot more control over the other side's discard pile, so I think the game designers are actively thinking about this problem, and may have other solutions going forward.

I suggest you play against this as i really don't see how some of those suggestions help. This is not a recycling character advantage gaining play. Its a play of "I have only Jumberg but you have nothing and i will clear your table when your guys try to get any tokens on stories".

The idea is that Jamburg can recycle rift every turn and Rift destroys everything during opponents story phase before stories resolve, so player playing this combo has clear table on his turn.

The Claret Knight actually hurts more then he helps, as Rift player will include him in his deck 100% and not all other decks will do it - it will be even worse. He will help against this but he makes this combo so much better. With recycled Ice shaft you can kill a guy for cost of 3, nice but Rift is much different, no matter how many how strong characters opponent has, even AOs, if he doesn't stop this he has lost the game because his characters cannot do a thing during his story phase and keep going to discard pile. You don't need to recycle anything, you only get successes with Jamburg and then get rift back into play.

Direct counter is control, but it only buys time, cancelling Jamburg will still get him to hand and can play him next time, if you can win during this time (and opponents table is empty for this turn) its enough, but this is quite direct and doesn't work that well. Reliable cancel like Painter of Delusion will stop this and any character dependent combo play but its not like every deck will have this much control. If you see too much Hastur don't play this extreme way.

The best thing is bringing Jumberg down, this does stop it good. The good thing is that table gets small when you rift each turn so those "kill/sacrifice weakest" effects might do harm to Jamburg. Cthulus Deep one assault and other strong destroy effects will be enough (Deep one assault kills pretty much anything…)

Snow graves are nice, but if its the thing you suspect and the rift combo turns out to be winning games (I'm not sure its that strong with better opposing decks, but its 2 cards that stop really much, and there will be whole deck to back it up) you can always have deep one assaults in rift deck just to get rid of snow graves, for 0 - no resource match needed, and Rift deck might be a Cthulhu deck, as its 2 neutrals combo.

Other thing to make it stronger is including your own control to cancel effects that try to stop it, but its resource heavy to play and fire rift each turn - needs 3-3 and its this idea biggest weakness - you cant do much more so if youre stopped its really bad, if you're not stopped you win.

Master of the myths will be quite nice to defend, but attacking is still not an option, and Jamburg does have an I icon to get those sucesses. He also laughs at black dog with his toughness and going back to hand. (though softening him for other wounding effects will make him much easier to take down)

Fanatics don't do much - you use jumberg to get rift and then rift in opponents story phase after he commits, even if they survive and are played after rift they will only help defend one turn and get destroyed next turn.

Serpents also do almost nothing. Serpents player gets cleared after he commits, so even if he brings all back with sibiliant cry he will still have defense for 1 turn and get rifted next turn (although if he gets jumberg with Deep one assault he's probably won the game as other side has nothing)

I'm not claiming its strong in pro play (idk really, i have too little experience), its just absurdly simple 2 neutral "i win" type combo that's not that easy to fight against.

Professor Nathaniel Peaslee shuts it down completely, but again, how many decks include Pealslee and this combo is only 2 cards, a deck based around this combo should have some way of getting rid of obstacles. My deck was MU/Hastur with Curator to get it quickly, but i start to think Cthulhu with a splash of MU would be really nice, MU for curators and Cthulhu with destruction getting rid of such problems, and Called by zatoth if some character is irritating enough. If opponents does have enough control to cancel it or support control to get rift often enough for it not to be worth playing you still can have relatively normal Cthulhu deck.

I think this is a bit deep into the theorycrafting, and we may be talking past each other a bit. Let me see if I can straighten things out a little.

Setting aside counters that completely shut the combo down, in a "typical" situation, the Jamburg/Rift player is only going to have one or the other on the board going into the other player's turn. If the Rift is on the board, that means Jamburg has been taken back into hand to get it out; if Jamburg is on the board, that means the Rift is still in the discard pile waiting to be lifted back into play. Either way, one of the two is out, and the Jamburg/Rift player has one domain open with three resources available.

That means that the other player has an opportunity. If Jamburg is in play - presumably, the most likely situation - he can be hit with character destruction, with direct control, or with insanity. If the Rift is in play, it can get hit with Support removal. Either way, the other player will have a chance to respond.

E.g., if it goes into the other player's turn with Jamburg on the board, the other player can snap down Snow Graves, and Jamburg is useless. The other player can also put down Neutral Ground, same effect. If it goes into the other player's turn with the Dimensional Rift out, then the other player has a chance to hit it with support destruction. Even cards that require an activation will work - e.g., if the player drops Seventh House on the Left, then if the Jamburg/Rift player responds by blowing up the Rift, the other player still has two more domains available and the rest of the turn uncontested; if the Jamburg/Rift player does not respond, either his Jamburg or his Rift goes into the discard pile, and again, the other player has domains available and the rest of the turn uncontested.

Admittedly, factions with very bad support removal (I am thinking specifically of Silver Twilight) could potentially struggle, as the Jamburg/Rift player is going to make certain that Jamburg is in hand and the Rift is on the table by the time the other player's turn rolls around. I have to say though, that that's a persistent issue with the game, and one that really does need to get fixed in the long term.

Look at it faction by faction. We've already established that Cthulhu and Hastur will have few problems with this; that's a given. Shub and Yog both have support removal and direct damage cards, so they should have tools to deal with this. That really leaves Silver Twilight, Miskatonic, Agency, and Syndicate.

Even among those, though, there are some interesting counters. MU can make things difficult with Magnetic Spike (which is a fairly common card in Misk decks - and I would argue that Peaslee is strong enough that he will also be a more frequent presence in MU decks). Syndicate has Seventh House on the Left (again, just a solid card that really should be in a lot of Syndicate decks). Agency can Torch the Joint to cut down the resources available on the remaining domain for the Jamburg/Rift player, which could potentially leave him unable to fire off its effect. ST can Unbound Jamburg as soon as he appears - not a great solution and not a very efficient card, but it should do the job.

I think there are solutions to this. If the starting point of the discussion is "setting aside Deep One Assault, Power Drain, Burrowing Beneath, and all the other cards that can counter this", then yes, it's a difficult combo to deal with. But one of the keys to the game is having tools in the toolkit to deal with the wholly unexpected, just like this.

I realize I am getting a bit long-winded here, but I went back through the Seekers of Knowledge set, and there are even more solutions there.

Miskatonic now has two solid responses: Lucas Tetlow, and Eschatologist. Lucas is the more reliable (and certainly the more annoying) option, but Eschatologist plus any Prophecy will also work. A Voros Hal'l Jon will help the MU player recover from a Dimensional Rift going off (note that the Rift does not affect Prophecies, as they are Events), and Fraternal Ties will help the MU player make sure he can rescue the cards he needs out of the discard pile. So the MU player is in decent shape even if he does not want to run Peaslee in the deck.

Silver Twilight's options are actually a bit better than I initially thought - they can use Lodge Housekeeper to send the Dimensional Rift back to the player's hand, or can use Initiate of Huang Hun or Lord Jeffrey Farrington to send Jamburg back, depending on who is out at the start of the player's turn. The new expansion also helps out with Hanyatl's 1:9, which helps plug the critical support removal hole for ST. With Hanyatl's in play, all the ST player needs to do is put Master of the Myths into play to destroy any support on demand, which is really nice. The only challenge then is making sure the player has Hanyatl's available on a regular basis, which is still a bit of a challenge until ST has better ways to recover cards from the discard pile (Satchel of the Void isn't exactly efficient).

Let me clarify and say that I'm not implying that there isn't a problem. I generally agree with a number of people here that Marcus Jamburg is probably too good at what he does. Jamburg plus Ice Shaft was annoying enough, but with Dimensional Rift he is entering into a new level of irritation - and that's not even taking into account the ease with which he can put off-faction support cards into play. Jamburg may certainly be a candidate for a fix.

I also think that some factions tend to struggle with unexpected situations. Cthulhu and Hastur both have very nice "get out of the bad situation you are currently in free" cards in Deep One Assault and Power Drain, respectively, and other factions just don't have the equivalent. Some factions have enough tools in the toolbox that they can put together a response to unusual combinations - I think that's true of Shub and Yog, and arguably now MU - but even then, it's often unreliable. That may be something for the designers to think about going forward.

What I am saying is that, with a really deep card pool, there often are solutions to these problems, and it's often just a matter of looking.

The problem with "normal" means it that very often you're buying one turn - only one turn. It might be enough, but its still only one turn and you've used your cards while rift player can repeat it forever. How much control cards that can stop it do you have? Is one turn enough?

If its support destruction then rift is still in the discard pile and Jumberg can still pick it up. If its seven house on the left the rift is still there and if you use it during your turn it can be triggered during opponents turn (though it does stop it a bit and i didn't consider exhausting rift so its an additional way to buy time at the cost of a nice card)

Magnetic spike looks nice as it will put rift in hand for low price and reduce draw and i didn't consider it. It still buys one turn but better than average.

ST bouncing with Lodge Housekeeper also buys one turn and increases cost to get rift from Jamburgs 3 to normal 4.

The best answer is killing Jumberg, but its not that easy for many fractions. (Cthulhus destruction will have no trouble) Yogs destruction will also be nice here. But for others, it will be hard as he will probably be best swapped for Rift just after Rift player story phase ends. Driving him insane is also nice but its still buying one turn. And i wonder about more lunatic/control + a splash of MU version.

Neutral ground is something i start seeing more and more use. With Red Gloved into negatum, Rats, Descendant of eibon and those new neutrals mentioned in spoilers it might be a really good choice. After rifting starts it wont help alone, but destroy rift and then neutral ground stops this.

And theorycrafting aside I played a few games that ended in riftlock, but my games tend to be quite long in general and this buying time didn't seem to help enough. Maybe with stronger decks one turn is more then enough. But still, constant rift threat seams really nice, and this recursion is too easy in my eyes. Also my deck was MU/Hastur focused on taking control and hand discard so this rift threat is not in a vacum. Rift was intended as a mean to clear the board if im behind on characters too much, it turned out to win games with Jumberg alone. If you keep your guys in hand i will discard them, if you play some ok guys ill take control, if you play too much i'll clear the table - but it turned out no matter what you do ill rift and get 3 sucesses with jumberg if you dont have a really good way to stop it, most ways will buy you a turn and if its not focus of your deck you might not have enough of them. While rest of the deck seemed to perform okish, this interaction could bring the game to the point where opponent couldn't do anything. I wonder if its actually good or just needs proper answer. This discussion i find quite helpful as i see more and more ways to stall or stop it. This will help me both play it and play against it. I really wonder how strong a deck with this as one of its tricks can be. Especially as in my deck Jumberg was not intended for rift only and he can recycle Infernal Obsession and Ice shafts too.

Maybe it hits the table too late, but my Curators with enough card draw could get it pretty fast. And i really think a better deck than mine could be designed around it.

I'm not implaying its broken, i just find it unexpectably strong and wierdly easy and wonder what can be done against thi and what flaws i'm not seeing.