So if you have two of them in your starting hand (or get two early game) that's a free resource every turn, which seems really really good.

And w/ Marcus Jamburg it'll just be a real ***** to deal with, fast access to all sorts of crucial supports. It seems like it has all sorts of combo potentials, but it also seems like it plays to the big advantage of the dominate meta (yog-shub AO), which is too bad.

only had a quick look at the card a short while ago, and the old subconcious deck builder has been running in the background, but from memory of the text, wouldn't you need just a single Festival in your starting hand to draw the next Festival from the deck into resource, and then from turn 2 have a free resource every turn?? for an initial outlay of 1 cost ??

it's a shame really. something is proven to be a winning strategy (ie resource ramping), and for some reason it's deemed suitable to exascerbate the problem with MORE resource ramping in a way that is far easier to do. go figure. no complaints though. just an increasing apathy towards continuing with the game (still haven't bought Seekers).

i'm simply not understanding the designers. if it only takes 10 minutes of not really thinking about it to already see the ridiculous loop mentioned above, then what is the intelligence quotient of those leading the process here?? or do they simply not care about the ripple effects and combos that occur with their decisions, as long as we shell out our all important dollars to keep them happy?? which of course i am no longer doing.

OK, so let's map this out. I start with The Festival in hand.

Turn 1: Exhaust The Festival and sac a resource to fetch another The Festival and put it in an drained domain. Let's say I'm going for a max-sized domain, so now I am 3-1-0.

Turn 2: Resource, bringing me to 4-1-0. Exhaust The Festival and sac a resource to swap The Festival in my domain with some other card. Then trigger The Festival from my discard to re-attach it. Now I am 5-1-0.

Turn 3: Resource, bringing me to 6-1-0. Now I can play a big Ancient One. Swap again but don't benefit until next turn.

I can also kill both my other domains and be 6-0-0 at the end of Turn 2, but I'm unlikely to want to go 7-0-0 so I don't think this offers any real benefit.

With normal resourcing only, I'd be at 4-1-1 on turn 3 instead. One less useable resource total.

If you play it on turn 1, then on Turn 3 you have one extra useable resource, I'm not sure that this is a killer due to the time investment. Feed Her Young gives you an extra useable resource one turn from now instead of two. And, The Festival can be destroyed or blanked which breaks the loop.

The "attach to a drained domain" is a bit of a pain because I can't drain a 0-domain. The only way to rebuild these is to resource from hand, which I can't do during the boot-up without slowing it down more. In theory it's pretty awesome but it takes a couple turns to kick in and a few turns later then it really doesn't matter much anymore as your domains are "done" unless you're running a discard deck and want to have a 12 domain to use with Blackmoor Estate. The card is still useful for moving cards from one place to another, but the resource part has a limited window I think. If you pack your deck with huge cards, you risk a horrible loss if you DON'T draw The Festival in your starting hand.

Anyway, I suggest playing with the card and see how it goes, whether it's a game-breaker or not.

it's a very nice card on it's own, and perhaps not a game breaker, but they gave it to SHUB !!!!!??? who already has Feed Her Young and Harvesting Mi-go. now a Shub faction can have almost a guarantee of getting either the Festival and/or Feed Her Young in the starting hand. true in that it can be destroyed, but guess what factions are able to do that as cost efficiently as them playing it. hmmmm. Shub and Cthulhu, both factions that now have the 'dreaded' resource ramp capability. so is everyone supposed to limit themselves to these factions to a) keep up with the Jones' and b) be able to destroy it for 1 cost ? i dunno. it's not the card that bothers me as much as the lack of faction diversity that it MIGHT create.

let's look at this crazy example as well.

Turn 1.

play the Festival with a 1 domain and use it to remove a character from the 2 domain (after using) and replace with another the Festival. 2-1-1 like everyone else.

Turn 2.

remove the Festival from resources and replace. by chance you've also drawn a Harvesting Mi-go by now to return the character from discard. activate the Festival in discard and by turns end you'll be at 4-2-1, while the opponent is still mucking around at 2-2-1.

Turn 3.

remove Festival ya-da-ya-da and again luckily you've got a Feed Her Young for end turn resources of 5-3-2. opponent still at 3-2-1.

Turn 4.

5-4-3 and so on and so on.

it's not the card on it's own that concerns me. it's the compounding it creates with other cards that (though it does i admit require luck) create a very difficult scenario to win against.

and don't forget there's Nug as well……………….

now i started this game with a Shub/Yog AO deck when Feed Her Young, Nug and the Festival didn't even exist, using solely Harvesting Mi-go, and I was STILL able to punch out AO's in turn 2 or 3 (albeit using Limbo Gate). it was hard, but do-able, and in my mind was about as likely to happen as it needed to be, as it still gave the other guys a chance. if i were to update that deck yet again after the new expansion comes out (as it was done to create the Worlds deck), then i'd simply not be interested playing against it. any fool could build it now, and if the Shub/Yog decks weren't boringly prevalent last Nationals (which is why last minute i changed), then this year it would be even less fun attending for all the red/purple decks you'll be seeing (as next expansion is Yog, and they'll PERHAPS squeeze another one in before next Nationals).

BUT. they may have plans for future expansions to somehow combat this. who knows. so Dboeren is right in that sometimes it's just a sit and wait game with these things. but the future does not look promising, and power creep is indeed here people, with games decided in the first couple of turns. if I'm ever playing against Shub/Yog i'll simply ask:

'do you have the Festival, Feed Her Young and perhaps an Under the Porch or Harvesting Mi-go in hand?'

and if the answer is yes i'd be tempted to just get up and walk away.

BUT. still not complaining. i have my HAMU deck that doesn't really care what resources you have. the possibility of 0 skill each turn and the chance of all my opponents going insane in 1 turn is enough for me. bollocks to Shub/Yog (haha).

I wish I wasn't going out of town tonight, as Thursday is normally my Call of Cthulhu night and I'd be able to try this card out. As things stand, I probably won't get to test it for another week.

I see your point about it not being broken on its own, but that it does help create a "critical mass" of acceleration cards. Again though, I'd like to actually see it in action before passing judgement. Maybe devoting too many cards to accelerators will leave the deck open in other ways.

I mean, how often did you ever see a deck with 3xPriestess of Bubastis and 3xOne of the Thousand? Not so often. And then add 3xFeed Her Young? Maybe 3xHarvesting Mi-go? How about 3xEat the Dead? It's BEEN possible to have a lot of acceleration, but until now not many decks tried to cram it all into one deck. Certainly not enough of them to make it "boringly prevalent".

Why is that, and why do be believe that that reason no longer applies?

Anyway, that's just the way I prefer to operate. I'm not ready to believe that this breaks the game either alone or in conjunction with other accelerators until I try it out and see how a real game works out against opponents who have their own tricks going on too. Any deck after all can rip up a straw man with ease.

haha. that's because One of a Thousand sucks and is one turn only. as does Eat the Dead because most factions can remove characters (or drive insane etc.) but not supports, and can be worked around by not destroying the character. resource acceleration is FAR different from cost reduction as well. i'm with you though, ever the calm voice of reason, and i mean only to postulate, not **** irrefutably. and i never cried 'broken!!' (haha). we shall see………..

and what took top 3 spots of Aus. Nationals??

1. Shub/Yog AO deck

2. a fairly standard Hastur/Cthulhu control/destroy deck

3. Shub/Yog AO deck

i'd call that boringly prevalent myself.

another point to mention is that this now allows a Shub/Yog deck to populate it's resources with a host of cards to use with Twilight Gate. need a Many-Angled Thing in there or a Constricting Elder Thing?? no problem now !!

My first deck ideas (and i still like the idea) was mas acellerated AOs. The problem is - it sucked hard. Priestess is kinda useless card you play for 1 that does nothing herself, then it kinda helps you one turn (or doesn't) and then you have domains and its useless again, not to count topdecking it and cursing late game. Eat the dead as well - gone insane - no bonus, got sacrificed - no bonus, attachment destruction - no bonus and you need to get rid of character putting you behind on all aspects: cards in hand and characters and domains used, and while effect when goes off is good its unreliable.
[edit: Priestess is great, i ment One of a thousand and Seeker of Mysteries - I also tried them but they're bad, if icould run 9 priestesses i would gladly, and Festival is even better]

This card is too good to be true, especialy with Yog/Shub {i started adding Yog for cost circumventing plays of big guys, discard recursion is also great}. Not only does it acellerate resources throuoght whole game in a reliable fasion whole game long, but can be also used for searching cards like stalking hounds that fire off discard pile (often i wanted a card in discard pile in Yog/Shub, this card can do that). The second problem it solves is often late game you want to get something into play thats stuck under a domain - here you go, the card that makes your early game is still nice late.

And if it gets destroyed, guess what? You can trigger it from discard pile still getting acceleration you wanted…

But all in all i dont think resource acceleration is the problem here. There are so many useless big cost cards, making them playable is ok IMO. Ignoring costs was quite comon idea in CoC so its just - want expensive cards - get Shub and youre done. If there will be enough discard recycling hate and hi-cost hate cards the meta will go totally crazy but can still be fun IMO. Black dog, MoM and recent MU cards show that having cheap but powerfull effects doesnt break the game. The uniqueness of 3 domain mechanic shows its true potential here. The problem is can anyone controll design when the power level and combo potential is so insane.

COCLCG said:

Well, if you _really_ want to make sure to get those extra resources, just destroy the character yourself. Regarding the current (perceived?) dominance of Shub, I'm not particularly worried. The meta changes all the time. Previously other factions have been dominant, e.g. Agency, Hastur, or Cthulhu.

Over at the Cenacle we had a quiz/contest a while ago to see how many resources you could stack at a single domain in turn one (theoretically!). Here's what I suggested:

Required hand cards:
1. Museum Curator
2. Twilight Gate
3. Feeding Time
4. -6. Dedicated Butler

Required starting resources:
1. Domain: (any Silver Twilight card)
2. Domain: (Visiting Author)
3. Domain: (Mi-Go Harvester)

I-III) I play 3x Dedicated Butler for free, all of them getting sacrificed right away
IV) I drain the second domain to play Museum Curator to draw Under the Porch to put Nug into play; Visiting Author enters the discard:
Domains:
1. Domain: (any Silver Twilight card) + (any Shub card)
2. Domain (drained): (any card)
3. Domain: (Harvesting Mi-Go) + (any Yog card)

V) I drain the third domain to play Twilight Gate to put the Harvesting Mi-Go into play and add a Butler as a resource to the first domain.
At the end of the phase, the Harvester is also added as a resource to the first domain:
Domains:
1. Domain: (any Silver Twilight card) + (any Shub card) + (Dedicated Butler) + (Harvesting Mi-Go)
2. Domain (drained): (any card)
3. Domain (drained): (any Yog card)

VI) I drain the first domain to play Feeding Time to add 2x Dedicated Butler and Visiting Author to the first domain:
1. Domain: (any Silver Twilight card) + (any Shub card) + (3x Dedicated Butler) + (Harvesting Mi-Go) + (Visiting Author) = 7 cards
2. Domain (drained): (any card) = 1 card
3. Domain (drained): (any Yog card) = 1 card

If I'm the starting player I can add a second resource to the first domain in the Resource Phase for a total of 8 cards in the 1st domain.

I'm actually almost sure you can achieve more than eight resources…

Disclaimer: all that is written below is just my opinion. It is not intended to be the revealed truth about the game/card/mechanics in any form. If you, dear reader, think that my statements are too strong or given with too much emphasis, I apologize for my bad English. I mean no disrispect. Just add an "IMHO" in any point of the sentence.

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IMHO, this card will be banned in a time span of max 2 years, and not for the capability of providing "acceleration".

This card does a lot more (and more powerful) than simple acceleration. It's a tutor, it plays with statistics = decks become more consistent. With time, a card like this can only profit more from future expansions. This is not a card that will become "obsolete" at some point (unless they print something more powerful, maybe…).

The article explains very well all this. The resource acceleration is actually quite "fair", in itself (maybe paired with other forms of acceleration it will become degenerate); what is less "fair" is that now, if you want, you can play a side-faction with (in theory) only 2 cards of that faction in the deck: one goes into the domain to provide the matching, the other one you can play! This was simply not possible before The Festival. And it is a huge step forward for the game.

What I really like is that this is not a card tht requires luck. This card requires skill from the player. A couple of years ago (before all the errata) the game was basically a game of "who is playing more and earlier" Eibons. The Festival is the opposite. It provides a great deckbuilding tool. I'm more worried about the non-obvious interaction that this will generate, than about resource acceleration or getting an AO into play on turn2 (which is already possible, and it is a factor to consider when building decks).

This is why I think it will be banned at some point; restricting the card is not even enough to limit its power.

TL;DR: awesome card, can't wait to play it, it comes with the label "watch out for banning".

my 2 cents

Konx

I agree that feeding into the Yog-Shub AO build is unfortunate, but I think the card overall is really balanced. It's cool to see a champ card that isn't only about "efficiency."

I actually like the idea of a card allowing you to toolbox other factions, to potentially create viable semi-rainbow decks - I think this card does it in a smart way (i.e. not just reducers).