dboeren said:

Konx said:

I'm starting to shake my head and I can't put it any clearer than the above 2 statements ( replies 2 & 3 ), and the glaring differences between them. Once again dboeren shows humility in admitting that he may be mistaken without experiencing the deck, offers up some possible reasons as to why, but never questions directly or makes infallible statements, where in konx's the very first line is an affirmation of his belief in absolute righteousness and then goes at length to explain why, all because someone questioned HIS views, which he seems comfortable doing himself to great degree. This is the difference just a little bit of respect makes, for others and for yourself.

It's gotta be clear. Really. Please. Otherwise I HAVE lost myself to the Ol' guy in Yellow, and not even sure who or what I am talking to right now.

I still think youre taking those comments too seriously like they're final verdict on your deckbuilding skills.

What I see in the begining of the post are remarks about two things easy to miss until you play (care, forbidden word) competitively.

For me, Konx just says:

- care for early game, in combo/hi-cost deck you need to survive to fire your combo/big guys and there will be players with fast decks

- care about consistency, when you play test games its not that important, but when you play at a tournament where "loss = you're out" making sure as many draw distributions as possible are actually good is key; hence suboptimal cards and less then 3 Gollonacs remark

Those are general remarks in my eyes, not particularly referring to your deck, they seem to be inspired by a few cards that are hard to use, like Overzelous initiate that is quite expensive and slow domain builder, and Speak with the dead I personally also find too expensive to use in a hard early game situation.

If your deck does well in those aspects than good for you, if not you just learned about a thing you didn't thought about. Its not like this comment is overly offensive, making laugh of your deck etc. Its like film critiques making a review - you don't have to know everything about a film to make a review, your review will be better or worse personal opinion anyway, one size does not fit all and non expert or biased expert review can still be valuable for some audience. Those comments are not objective truth about deckbuilding, their subjective opinions you can learn from or ignore.

I still think you assume too much about ill will of people who comment and some unrealistic vision on how should a community behave. Internet communication in general is harder to get right than normal communication as there is no tone of voice, body language, direct feedback for what you say etc. If you get too emotional posts tend to stop making any sense (see my ruling discussions where i tried too hard to get the rules and ended up even more confused and my tries to help in other ruling discussions only made them more chaotic), putting that much effort into making every word in the post tailored not to be regarded as non friendly seems like an overkill that can still not work. Ironic and protective tone can change too much if you assume it too much.

Skipping past the heated arguments . . .

This is fairly similar to a Three Bells deck I've been working on for some time. The comment that it's vulnerable to early game pressure has some merit to it. I've compensated for that with early game blockers - I don't have my deck handy, but I think I am using Black Dog and/or Master of the Myths to hold the line while I get resourced up. Ultimately, it needs something like a 4/2/2/1 configuration to be at maximum effect, but prior to that it can still do reasonably well.

Diseased Sewer Rats are key; they help handle flooding strategies, and help get early story progress. Once Three Bells are up, the Rats can be killed off and then brought back with Corrupted Midwife. Hungry Dark Young is handy for fishing up more fodder for the Bells (you don't get the play effect of Diseased Sewer Rats when you use it with Hungry Dark Young, so for the Rats you would ideally use the Midwife).

The key is to have lots of little interactions rather than one big interaction. But that's the beauty of this type of a deck, you don't need every card in your deck on the board for the combinations to start working. The whole idea is that you're destroying a lot of characters, but you're in much better shape to recover from the "mutually assured destruction" with Three Bells, Corrupted Midwife, and other cards like Hungry Dark Young.

One of the main issues is keeping Three Bells from getting hammered every time they make an appearance (e.g., Deep One Assault) . . . but that's why you have Marcus Jamburg around, to keep them up and ringing.

As for a second faction, Yog is a good choice, but it doesn't have to be that; I can see this working alongside Silver Twilight, Cthulhu Serpents, etc. A second faction can be helpful for providing more discard pile fishing and more support protection, as well as even more character destruction. I don't know that it's absolutely necessary, however, as the core cards are Shub and neutral.

i totally agree with you there runix that the key is all the small interactions that are happening within decks like this. i've found that with multiple destruction recursion combinations ( there's 4 or 5 of them i think ), it's virtually impossible to not have one of them meshing by the first turn or 2. the opponent is already on the back foot unless they can immediately respond. then the others start coming together and its a dooooooom slide.

the last game i played with this i remember at turn 4 sitting there with a 3:2:2:1 domain ( all because of overzealous initiate, a card that i stand solid behind when used in this deck ), with a default 2 opponents dead every turn ( due to bells / rats / midwife ), and still a 3:2 domain spare and continuing to rain down many angled things and recurring single glimpses. this was against a rush deck mind you, and the poor man had nothing on his side of the table nearly the whole game. a single ponce a turn that just had to sit there and wait for death in the next turn as it couldnt face even my mi-go. ahhhh. memories. the 4th domain is invaluable in this deck as you'd probably know from running a similar version. it grants you the possibility of using the bells, playing and using the skull, and still having your main domain free, keeping up the sacrificing tempo.

i just think its a shame when people cant seem to take the blinkers off in respect to certain cards or decks. to flog a dead horse, i'd initially started with eldritch nexus as the 4th domain option but it sucked out one of my important event / support positions, and in review of my 2 cost character front i found i was cruelly lacking in refresh potential. ya-te-veo, sewer rats and faceless abductor are fantastic cards, but very hard to use offensively as you know they probably won't refresh for the opponents turn. i looked at every single 2 cost arcane character yog and shub had to offer, and whether due to a 1 skill compounding the low skill dilemma, or being unique, i couldn't find a fit except for cultist of the key which i ran with for quite some time. but i never used her ability as she needs to stay on the backlines and exhaust to do it. i tried sleepwalker and this seemed to be ok but sometimes clogged my hand. then enter the overzealous initiate. what a dream fulfilled. not only did i get my much needed low cost arcane boost, there might even be an opportunity i can refresh one of my big bads with it and then sacrifice it for a domain and then get used by mi-go to fill that domain ! plus i get my event / support spot back !! ia ia i said. praise the elder gods.

you never know. y'golonac might even get the boot in luei of hungry dark young or black dog because of your constructive post and ideas ! it's always been a kind of 'i suppose so' card, and it is the only thing really forcing me to go to a 4 domain as elder thing scavenger is always resourced for a later twilight gate in opponents turn / commit to story for refresh and deny opp. refresh / then cursed skull recursion sneak attack when the opportunity presents itself. i can see black dog being a much better initial turns addition, as alongside the 1 cost of bells / cursed skull it could definately dampen any decks starting strategy.

i've opted for speak to the dead to regain my bells if necessary. same cost as jamburg, same effect of getting the bells back ( almost ), but you get a bonus card back and a wider discard pool to be using with other recursion techniques ( for this deck ), and a chance of finding another combo piece that you'd been waiting for in the next 4 cards. bonza. what a great card. as a spell it can also be recurred with shadow sorceress. but jammy jam jamburg certainly fits the bill.

keep it up and i hope your deck has many victories !!

( in case you were interested this was the initial version posted on cardgameDB a couple of months ago ) :

Character (30)
Black Dog *** x3
Diseased Sewer Rats SoA x3
Guardian of the Key SftSK x2
Harvesting Mi-Go TTB x3
Faceless Abductor TOotST x2
Grasping Chthonian IotF x2
Corrupted Midwife ER x3
Shadow Sorceress Unknown Card x3
Many-angled Thing TGS x3
Hungry Dark Young Core x3
Elder Thing Scavenger WaB x3

Support (9)
Snow Graves AtMoM x3
Cursed Skull MoE x3
The Three Bells TUP x3

Event (11)
Thunder in the East KD x3
Twilight Gate TH x3
A Single Glimpse Core x3
Speak to the Dead WitD x2

pre 4th domain days, so you can see we have some similar tastes. i'd been trying to keep this one low key, but once i saw the cursed skull combo thread i didnt think it'd be long till someone was working on a similar deck so posted it. you can see here the 2 cost arcane representation was horrible.

i've gone back to this one for a couple of days and i can tell you that another reason i'm getting used to the overzealous initiate is because it's like one of my favourites ( faceless abductor ) in that either if found in a story where someones played a sneaky trick ( possibly event combat icons etc ) or simply as a way to purposely split the opponents forces in story phase, you can then activate its action and get a consolation prize ( or something you're actually working towards ). when the time is right and i need the 4th domain, or i've got a mi-go in hand, it's been handy as a great diversion to a 2nd or 3rd story. its kinda like a free mini Y'Golanac ability as they really need to commit someone there, or thanks very much for the tokens and refresh with a 2 cost 2 arcane attack. if they do then its 4th domain time. this has been potentially damaging the opponents options at other stories too i've found.

and the black dog is back in, ousting Y'Golonac. it was in the first version, but re-introduced into the version with overzealous, and it's proving quite the little conundrum for the opponent. in the above diversionary role, if they commit just a single character to stop the initiate then WHACKO, in comes the dog, and i can sacrifice for the domain or not as i wish. if they commit more than 1 then diversion exceedingly accomplished and domain time it is.