Hi guys, there was some interest in Tom's thread, so here is the deck I used in the World Championship event. I went 3-1 during the swiss rounds, made the top 4, then lost to Tom in the semi-final.

I call it 'Turbo Things in the Ground' and is originally based on my friend Corey's very similar build. The idea is to rush characters out as fast as possible with Things in the Ground, win quickly via story if possible, if not then play defense and discard their deck.

It worked well, I had two wins via discard, and one via story. It is sort of a high risk/reward type of deck, and probably not classical strong tournament deck as consistency is one of its weaknesses. However, if you get the engine running it is can be difficult to beat since Curse of the Stone will hit very hard. I decided to play this since I have a lot of experience with Things in the Ground decks, and I felt that was worth it over something new.

The ideal opening hand has both Dr. Carson and Things in the Ground. This can be brutal if your first use of Things hits Glaaki or another strong character like Obscure Linguist (who you would restore and ready with Dr. Carson). Other cards to have in your starting hand are Museum Curator or Journey to the Other side. These are both used to dig for Things in the Ground as fast as possible.

Other cards that work great with this is of course Stalking Hound. With so many characters coming into play via triggered effect, these guys constantly stay in play. Marcus Jamburg is also great for pulling Things in the Ground and Ice Shafts from your discard pile.

I was a bit worried about combo decks, and Flux Stabilizer. One thing I learned from Gencon was the deck types faced would probably be all over the map, and the same was true for Worlds. I felt like if I added too much to defend against these, they would most likely end up as dead cards in my hand. I ended up adding two Snow Graves, and could have just left them out.

I also should have added in two copies of Yog. He was originally in there, but pulled at the end for Constricting Elder Things, which I ended up not needing either.

Character (32)
Forgotten Shoggoth x3
Stalking Hound x3
Glaaki x3
Constricting Elder Thing x3
Faceless Abductor x3
Archaeology Interns x2
Obsessive Insomniac x3
Museum Curator x3
Dr. Carson x3
Obscure Linguist x2
Eryn Cochwyn x2
Marcus Jamburg *** x2

Support (12)
Things in the Ground x3
Arkham Asylum x2
Ice Shaft x3
Derby Hall x2
Snow Graves x2

Event (6)
Curse of the Stone x3
Journey to the Other Side x3

I was happy with my results, I did as best as I could against Tom's deck, I even got Glaaki out on the first turn. However I had no answer to Nyarlathotep and lost a crucial Curse of the Stone to a domain. Once that happened I was pretty much done for, as Tom had the edge on stories at that point.

Thanks for posting this badash56!

The deck looks very good. Given your luck at getting Glaaki in turn one, I imagine that you would have had a good chance against Tom, if he hadn't also been lucky drawing Nyarlathotep so early.

Congrats in making the top four!

Looks like a cool deck, wish I could have been there to challenge it. Seems like a bit of a mixed approach to me, partly discard, partly getting big things into play without paying for them and trying to un-insane them quickly.

Do you think this hybrid style helped by giving you two avenues to victory, or do you think it would have been better to specialize mainly on one side or the other?

Wicked, evil… mean deck.

Whether badash agress with me or not, I would say that his versatility did aid him.

He definately had a chance of beating me, as even after I gained the upper hand I was still within striking distance of losing due the discard portion of his deck.

Though, I was lucky enough with Nyarlathotep and Master of the Myths buying me so much time as a leading with a turn 1 Glaaki while I get nothing off of the Things in the Ground was super rough to overcome.

Having two paths to victory is the only way to go in my opinion with this type of deck. I played a Things in the Ground deck at Gencon also, but that was a pure discard Yog/Shub deck. That deck was decent, but I had to win via discard or I would lose. In this version the Obscure Linguists and Eryn Cochwyn helped a great deal with those tough situations where we each have 15 characters on the table. I could blank the big guys, and swipe an extra token with her.

Thanks for the insights. btw, that's the "Curious and Precocious" version of Eryn Cochwyn in the deck.

I haven't really tried a Things in the Ground deck before, so I'll have to give it a try sometime soon.

I tried out your deck for a few games tonight. Mostly it worked well and one game was over before it started when I scored Glaaki and a Forgotten Shoggoth on turn 1.

One thing I wanted to ask you about though… What's the deal with Derby Hall? You don't really have that many students & faculty in the deck, and only a couple of them have a come into play effect (the main reason you'd want to bounce your own guys). I was wondering if there was something I'm not noticing because right now it just doesn't seem that worth it.

I did note that the deck can be inconsistent. Three out of four games it worked really well getting Things early and so on. One game all the copies of Things were buried a fair way down the deck and it was horrible. I got punked SO hard with almost no playable characters (I drew mostly high cost guys). Dr. Carson versus a few Deep Ones doesn't work so well if anyone is wondering

Anyway, it was a fun deck to try out - thanks for posting it.

Thanks for posting the deck and grats for making 4th place!

It reminds me a bit of Darkmans deck I faced last year in Liege - except his version didn't include an option to win by discard.

I love the idea of a deck that works either by winning regularly or by milling, so this looks very interesting to me!

Thanks for the comments all - Derby Hall is used to bounce Museum Curator to your hand, nothing else. In those situations where you don't have a good start doing so can be a huge help. In one game of the tournament I had to use Derby Hall about 4 times before I hit a TITG. I had considered dropping it - it's kind of one of those cards you don't need all the time, but when you do it's huge.

The deck is inconsistant and probably not a 'classic' tournament deck because of this. Having one of those bad games is the risk of playing it. I try to minimize that as much as possible with Museum Curator and Journey to the Other Side, but it still happens. However the reward is pretty big I think - if the engine starts going it can be a tough deck to beat with Curse of the Stone looming.

Yep, that's kind of what I was thinking was that it was for bouncing Museum Curator and to a lesser extent Archaeology Interns. I just wasn't sure if that was the whole thing or not. I guess what I don't have a feel for yet is how often the bad case happens and how often Derby Hall/Museum Curator can rescue you in time to recover the game. That kind of thing takes quite a few plays to feel out.

My opponent mentioned wanting to try out Tom's deck next time we get together, which will be in 2 weeks due to Thanksgiving. Maybe I can score a little vengeance for you if I haven't got another hot new deck to try out

I was the last person that faced this deck in the Swiss rounds. I was also playing a Things in the Ground deck, but it was purely a mill deck and was frequently in danger of losing to stories.

One of thing subtle things that I appreciated about this deck was his use of Ice Shaft.

One of the risks of using TitG is that you might bring up your opponent's big guys, too. Badash killed two of my ancient ones with the Ice Shaft when they were drawn through TitG. It wasn't nice, let me tell you.

Yep, I was talking about that with a friend of mine that there are so many cards that can do bad things to low-skill characters, including insane ones. Just a simple Tear Gas might be all it takes!