What have people found to be the best and/or easiest ways to get Ancient Ones (or in the case of human factions, those high-cost characters) into play?

Cthulhnd - Probably has the most effects, and most are centered around the big guy himself, Cthulhu. Aziz is pretty easy if you time it right, but it will clog your draw for a turn. Padma is also easy if you use that Serpent event to tease her into play…four card combo, ugh.

• Aziz Chatuluka

Type: Character Faction: Cthulhu
Cost: 2 Skill: 1 Icon: (A)
Cultist.
Villainous.
Action: Sacrifice Aziz Chatuluka and drain all your undrained domains to put an Ancient One character into play from your hand. At the end of the phase, if the Ancient One character is still in play, place it on top of your deck.

• Padma Amrita

Type: Character Faction: Cthulhu
Cost: 5 Skill: 4 Icon: ©©(A)(A)
Serpent. Servitor. Cultist.
Forced Response: After Padma Amrita is destroyed, put a [Cthulhu] character into play from your hand.

Lord of the Silver Twilight

Type: Character Faction: Cthulhu
Cost: 2 Skill: 2 Icon: (T)(A)
Cultist
Lower the cost to play Cthulhu by 1 (to a minimum of 1).

Underneath the Surface

Type: Event Faction: Cthulhu
Cost: 3
Disaster.
Loyal.
Action: Sacrifice 3 Cultist characters to put Cthulhu into play from your hand.

Shub-Niggurath - Mostly reduction effects, but Under the Porch is pretty nice even though it's one turn. If you can get cards in your discard, then Dreamlands and Three Bells are also very easy.

• Arthur Todd

Type: Character Faction: Shub-Niggurath
Cost: 3 Skill: 2 Icon: (T)(A)(A)
Servitor.
Action: Sacrifice Arthur Todd to reduce the cost of the next [shub-Niggurath] character you play this phase by 5 (to a minimum of 1).

Under the Porch

Type: Support Faction: Shub-Niggurath
Cost: 3
Location
Action: Sacrifice Under the Porch to search your deck for a [shub-Niggurath] character, and put it into play under your control. At the end of the phase, return that character to its owner's hand.

Dreamlands Conspiracy

Type: Conspiracy Faction: Shub-Niggurath
Cost: 0 Symbols:
If you win this story and control at least 1 Shub-Niggurath character, put into play up to 3 Shub-Niggurath characters from your discard pile.

• The Three Bells

Type: Support Faction: Shub-Niggurath
Cost: 1
Artifact.
Action: Pay 1 and exhaust The Three Bells to have each player choose and sacrifice a character. Then, place a success token on The Three Bells.
Action: When The Three Bells has 3 or more success tokens on it, exhaust and sacrifice The Three Bells to put into play under your control 1 character from any player's discard pile.

Yog-Sothoth

Things in the Ground

Type: Support Faction: Yog-Sothoth
Cost: 2
Environment.
Action: Exhaust Things in the Ground to discard the top 2 cards of each player's deck. Any characters that would be discarded by this effect are instead put into play insane.

Opening the Limbo Gate

Type: Event Faction: Yog-Sothoth
Cost: 4
Spell
Play during your operations phase.
Action: Choose and put into play one character from each player's discard pile.

Revelation of the Spheres

Type: Event Faction: Yog-Sothoth
Cost: 4
Event.
Action: Reveal the top 5 cards of an opponent's deck. Put into play a character revealed this way under your control. Then shuffle that opponent's deck.

Servants of Glaaki

Type: Character Faction: Yog-Sothoth
Cost: 2 Skill: 2 Icon: ©
Servitor.
Servants of Glaaki gains a (T) for each copy of Servants of Glaaki in play.
Lower the cost to play Glaaki by 1 (to a minimum of 1).

Silver Twilight - I think the timing of Nathan allows you to put in Senator Rhodes and draw from the discard…not that efficient, but an interesting combo.

• Ritual of Summoning

Type: Support Faction: Silver Twilight
Cost: 3
Ritual.
Action: Sacrifice a character to place a success token on this card.
Action: Discard 5 success tokens from Ritual of Summoning to put a character into play from your hand.

• Nathan Wick

Type: Character Faction: Silver Twilight
Cost: 4 Skill: 3 Icon: ©(A)(A)(I)
Lodge. Independent.
Action: Discard a card from your hand to put a Lodge character into play from your hand. If that character is still in play at the end of the phase, discard it.

Syndicate - This card could be huge, since the character enters play permanently

Hanyatl's 12:3

Type: Event Faction: Syndicate
Cost: 0
Prophecy.
Play during any player's draw phase.
Action: Place this card face up on your deck.
Response: After a character has its skill lowered by a card effect, discard Hanyatl's 12:3 from the top of your deck to put a [syndicate] character into play from your hand.

If you are going for pure speed, I think Broken Space, Broken Time is the way to go. That of course could backfire depending on what your opponent is playing, but it is pretty easy to rush a domain to 4 (quicker if you are willing to use transient cards).

Most of the time if I play Cthulhu, and end up using Decendant of Eibon, I almost always will include the big guy (Lord of Rlyeh). You always end up with 4 on a domain, so using Eibon to bring him out is pretty easy.

One card that does interest me like you said is the Syndicate prophecy. Haven't had time to really test it yet, but you could easily drop a high cost character - even on the first turn if you have a Clover Club Bouncer out.

Yeah, I didn't list any Neutral cards: Seeker of Mysteries is worth mentioning, I guess. BS,BT is very easy and people are likely going to run at least a couple Ancient Ones just to be able to get something.

Have you tried using transient on turn 2 to use BS,BT to pull out Nug? Killer. It mitigates the early transient resource and builds you up to 3-2-2 by turn 3. You can't get much better than that… or can you?

Haha. Actually you can. Under the Porch on turn 2 for a 4:2:2 domain and then turn 3 play Nug out for 6:3:3 domains and all your other ancient ones from there. Quite stupid really. I don't know what they were thinking. Actually so darn stupid I'm doubting their creative practices. Throw in a couple of Feed Her Youngs with the right draw and you could be looking at 6:5:3 domains in turn 3. Just reinforces the absolute need for immediate support destruction in the game or a lucky Flux Stabiliser draw and neuters a lot of fun decks, and wont this one be milked to death. I will yawn every time I see it. Hee Hee. They'd better have some pretty dandy un-Nug-ing cards being released in the future expansions.

Competative tournament decks are boring and unimaginitive as it is without the extra help they're giving them. Notice the lack of Agency and Syndicate at the Worlds ?? Hmmm. Perhaps because they don't have the arcane to support Shub-Niggurath ?? A faction that takes a whopping 17 card slice of a fictional 8 faction deck. Shub support destruction and domain-ing or Hastur control / Hastur control or Shub support destruction and domain-ing. Which should I choose ?? Or maybe I'll just go with a Shock Transformed Logan. Or perhaps I'll just build a deck with all 3 !!! Haha.

Not jumping the gun or anything. Just musing. It seems that Shub may now have a kind of 'god hand'. If they draw Under the Porch and the opponent hasn't drawn an IMMEDIATE Support destruction, AND saves the domain to use it 'just in case' and so sacrifices the character play it would normally be used for in the early game, then likely it will be 6:3:3 domains while the opponent is still fart arsing around at 3:2:1 ( and not even Lucas Tetlow can stop this one ). Does this mean that all the other factions now need such a 'god hand' consisting of a single card, only stoppable by the opponents luck of the draw and hobbling their progress in case its there, that basically determines the games outcome, and that everyone will be mulliganing if they haven't got it in the first draw ? And if so, will it then become a matter of just asking if a certain card was drawn and if there's no response in your hand just ending the game ?? I do hope not. I look forward to seeing what these people do with the future expansions. If nothing is done then next tournament season may turn out to be a very mundane affair, with Nugs and Porches and Feed Her Youngs and Shub players mulliganing everywhere.

Play Under the Porch to get Nug on turn two. Very annoying! I am noticing a marked tendancy to pump out new 'power cards', beginning with Jamburg, the Shub Necro, and bunch of cards in the Seekers expansion. Sure I want to see new cards that change the meta, but I'm a little worried that bad decisions on the part of designers could 'break' the game.

Yes. It's been my fear for a while that this game is reaching towards the dreaded 'power creep'. It's not so much the new cards but the way they interact with the old ones and that the designers simply aren't thinking of this. Whoever dreamt up Logan surely wasn't thinking about the attachments that were to come !!

Honestly, a 'god hand' would have Under the Porch / Basil Elton / Feed Her Young in it. Yes please. I'll go first and have Nug on turn 1 right there. 4:2:2 domains on turn 1. Are you kidding me ?? And 6:3:3 on turn 2 !! ( that's 9 turns worth of resourcing ). Thanks for playing. I'll concede right now. Haha. With a very nice draw you can even start the Glimpse of the Void cycle in turn 2 or 3. This simply should not be possible, even remotely.

I used to love this game for the subtle story battling and little tricks involved like Steal the Soul / Casting off the Skin / Removing Characters or icons etc. but am sadly dissapointed with the ( appearance of ) whole shift to deciding the game before the stories are even considered. Booooo. Gone are the days of the tricky original deck it seems. I fear soon that it'll be : I have this card to combat this ridiculous power play ( check ) This card to combat this ridiculous power play ( check ) This card to combat this ridiculous power play ( check ) These cards to use my own power play ( check check ). And that is simply poo.

COCLCG said:

Turn 1: resource a [shub] card -> 2-1-1 -> Play Basil, Feed Her Young -> 3-1-1 -> Trigger Basil, Play Under the Porch and trigger to fish Nug -> 4-2-2 -> Nug bounces back to hand.

Turn 2: resource a [shub] card -> 5-2-2 -> Play Nug -> 6-3-3 with 3 cards in hand. Assuming 2 of those are characters you can have Nug and 2 3-cost characters out on turn 2. Not too shabby.

With almost no characters on the board, the Shub player, even with the God hand will be very susceptible to sacrifice and bounce effects. How about a Yog/ST deck that will keep bouncing your Nug so that you deck yourself with his effect, or simply play Huang Hun. Or insta-wound events out of Agency.

There are a number of ways to disrupt it, but I agree that Nug is very strong.

And how exactly is the opponent supposed to do this with a 1:1:1 domain ?? and 2nd turn with a 2:1:1 domain on the opponents turn, with an Invulnerable character, having used your 2 domain to play out a character of your own ?? Don't forget there's still a 2 domain spare in the first turn. By turn 2 its no longer needed so there's no chance of decking. You simply wouldn't play Nug again if he got bounced, need never resource again and play through with 6:3:3 domains. And as noted, all it takes is Under the Porch to do this by turn 3. Throw in a small side of Miskatonic card drawing and it's happy days.

My point is, the chances of this are VERY slim on turn 2, quite possible with a mulligan on turn 3, but the chance should not even exist. What chances do they need to give the other factions now ?? And how many of these 'chances' may we soon need to build our decks around. My fear is ( and perhaps its unfounded ) that soon all flavour will be gone and our decks will simply be counters upon counters upon counters with a play of our own buried within.

P.S. sorry for hijacking.

COCLCG said:

What about Performance Artist? That's easy to disrupt even with 1 domain. Skull could sacrifice Basil before he triggers (also 1 cost).

Ultimately if it proves to be overpowered, Damon will do something about it, since I don't think he has a fondness for OP combos. It could be restricted along with Under the Porch. It could be "limit once per game". The card pool could get more cancel. Agency used to have a theme of resource destruction - that would certainly put them back on the map…although it's hard to keep pace with creating 3 new resources per turn…

And as to games being counters upon counters, isn't that essentially what meta-gaming is? You have to assess the biggest threats existant and either tech against it, play around it, or do it yourself. I think your fears have a strong basis, but we have yet to see what will come of it. There's still another deluxe box coming out in several months!

Yes. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps the mood will shift to WANTING to play first to get your counters out. But performance artist is only in 1 faction. What about a poor struggling Syndicate / Agency deck. If they recieve no card to perform likewise, do we simply forget this mix without the viability to defend against what can only be imagined a fairly popular play. And teching against or playing yourself is my biggest problem. Decks may become so similar in their designs that it's too boring to play anymore ( who WONT have Nug and the Porch in their Shub decks ), and that games will devolve to simply luck and not much more. They drew the power play / Did I draw the counter. I've never played MAGIC, or any other card game for that matter, but that's what I imagine it to be like, and is the EXACT reason I chose Cthulhu instead of something like the others. Because these big plays did not exist. Shub excels at domain upgrades, and now they've been given the card to resource 4 x per turn ( or more ) as early as turns 1 or 2. Cthulhu excels at destruction. Hastur at control etc etc. I am scared to see the match to this jump in power.

As for restrictions, unfortunately they usually take tournament plays to fully identify the problem. Tom Capor owes what I believe to be 2 of his titles to cards that are now banned, and it took both of them to finally click and do it. In a pool of exceedingly powerful plays, when one dominates and is removed, the next in line will simply step in to fill the void, and so on.

Musings of course. Simply musings.

With my current ancient one deck i can get a first turn ancient one on the board. its easy to do.

all you need to do is pull 6 shub cards 3 random to resource and you need

or

After that you use one of a thousand or priestess to play arthur for 2 then sacrifice him to lower the cost to play Nug by 4 to a minimum of 1 and then tap your last domain to play Nug for 1. then his ability allows you to resource 1 card from the top of your deck to each domain. after that its impossible to lose. seriously. next turn i play another anceint one or i can pop a broken space broken time.

So that's 2 slim but possible ways of getting Nug turn 1.

Priestess of Bubastis

One of the Thousand

Arthur Todd

Basil Elton

Nug

Feed Her Young

Under the Porch

What possible reason would you have for not using Shub with some form of this play in mind ?? Boring.

Fill out with some Mothers hand / Black Dog / Master of the Myths / Y’Golonac / Shubby, a splash of Miskatonic card drawing and arcane / investigation, a sprinkling of support destruction, and you’ve got yourself a deck.

God. I don't ask much. And I know we don't talk that often. But please inspire the designers to create some form of magic in future expansions to make this formula both risky and / or unviable, and without just making equally powerful combinations. Haha.

its not as hard as you think. with 3 copies of all the cards i listed and a mulligan, if you need it, you have a pretty good chance ot pulling it in a 50 card deck. i can pull it off about every other game, but still even if you get it on turn 2 or 3 or 4 its still brutal because after you do you can pay to have multiple ancient ones put down the next turn if you have them.

You're preaching to the choir here buddy. Imagine how easy it is just to pull Under the Porch and do it Turn 2 in any case, with basically the same possibility as yours of doing it turn 1. Like you said. Turns 2, 3, or 4 will do nicely as well. And Under the Porch gives you 2 uses !!! Especially if a Performance artist or the like screws the first ( which would stuff Arthur Todd ).

I'm fine with all of that. My Yog sac deck with Jamburg/DS recursion will easily handle a Nug. Sure, big guys are likely to resurface very easily with a deck that let's you get resources stacked like that, but boy would they have trouble keeping those guys in play

I don't see that reasoning I'm afraid. The number of characters played will be the same as any other deck, in fact with Basil and Mothers Hand possibly more, and they'll be 2 to 3 times more powerful than most other decks with the resource jumping. With something like Hungry Dark Young / Corrupted Midwife recurring the weenies you're sac-ing ( and by weenies this may be a 2 or 3 cost character to this style of deck ), I don't imagine it will be as easy as you…. well…. imagine.

It's possible, but relying on random draw to give you 3+ specific cards in my experience isn't all that reliable.

One thing to note here is that if you DON"T start with your super-combo in hand you're probably going to be at a major disadvantage. This is what you've put your emphasis on, and you've probably upped the average cost of cards in your deck in anticipation of having big domains early. When it doesn't go off you're going to have a hand with a lot of unplayable cards I think.

dboeren said:

Thr original suggestion of COCLCG relied on Under the Porch (i.e., one card) in hand, plus a copy of Nug in your deck. With mulligan, I believe it's better than a 60% chance to have Under the Porch in the starting hand, and about 65% by turn two when you need it. Also the opportunity cost of including 3 Under the Porch and 2-3 Nug in a Deck isn't too significant in the right sort of deck (i.e., the sort that COCLCG is eluding to).

Exactly. I got carried away with the super duper combo. You just build a normal-ish deck with Porch and Nug. If the one card you need pops up you're resourcing your lower costs and playing the big costs. If not you just play your lower costs till it does. Also you've got Feed Her Young coming through as well. Without going into it as I refuse to build such a stupid deck ( just like I refuse to use decks like the Euro champs ), I would probably mix with Silver Twilight for Carl Stanford to stop opponents playing reduced cost characters and having Master of the Myths / Black Dog. Initiate could theoretically start sweeping the board from turn 2 or 3 and also for the hell of it keep returning Nug if you wanted. The whole situation could end up being fubar if I put the time into it.

I definitely agree that the power level between Feed her Young and Nug in terms of creating resources is just incredible especially at the price point.

I think everyone agrees that Feed Her Young/Under the Porch/Nug is the best combo (going back to the OP), since hard domains is better than transient or temporary put-into-play effects.

How successful have people been with Syndicate's prophecy? Hanyatl's 12:3/Clover Club Bouncer or Singer/Johnny Valone is a pretty good combo, especially since he can exhaust any early AOs that get into play and buy some time to build up. At 0 cost, this is probably the best prophecy.

Por XV 14:19 (the Cthulhu one) is also good, since it allows you to do two turns of resourcing for one sacrifice effect. A couple combos here:

• Dabbler in the Unknown - 1token and 3-2-1 on turn 1
• Dedicated Butler - 3-2-1 on turn 1 with no resource drains
• Errand Boy - better on opponent's turn probably

And my favorites:

• Itinerate Scholar - turn 1 play Scholar (2-1-1), on opponent's turn 1 or 2, sacrifice him to drain opponen'ts domain and get 3-2-1 (with 3 undrained for a nasty effect like Dragged into the Deep (which is probably a waste unless they tease in an early big character.)
• Overzealous Initiate - turn 1 2-1-1 play Initiate (2-1-1), then sac him for 3-2-1-1 (this may work really well in a serpent deck to get an early lead on those 1 resource domains for icon manipulation.)

AGoT DC Meta said:

It's been working fine for me, although I've usually been bringing in cheaper guys like cost 3-4. The prophecy is extremely reliable, you just need to get the high cost character in your hand at the same time. By keeping to someone not TOO expensive who is also a Criminal I've been able to retain the option to play them normally in conjunction w/ Johnny V's Dame if the Prophecy doesn't show up at the right time. So, guys like Hack Journalist, Mr. David Pan, Peter Clover, Nassor, etc… In a way it seems wasteful to use it on 3's but Syndicate's 4+ cost characters don't wow me that much.

Anyway, it's a free drop when I get it, often allowing me to play two 3-4 cost characters that turn instead of one.