Although I really enjoy playing Call of Cthulhu, we are starved for players here in Dublin. At the moment it is just a friend and myself, we have had no luck in finding other players over the last year.

Since the Keepers of Knowledge deluxe expansion came out last year my friend has been using a rush miskatonic deck with an Explorer theme. And it has largely broken our game. I have beaten it once over the past 5 months. I have tried, Shub / Cthulhu, Hastur / Yog, Mono Cthulhu, OST / Syndicate and Mono OST. The only deck to have managed to beat it was the Mono Cthulhu, and I was pretty lucky in that game.

The problem is that with him using the same deck (refining it as he goes based on what I come up with) our meta is basically all about rush. Which I have had no success in beating. The only option left is to make my own miskatonic rush deck … but I'm not really interested in that and I think it points to a broken meta in the game when I have to play a particular strategy / faction in order for us to have any competition in our games.

I was hoping that the Key and the Gate would bring a lot to Yog that I would be in a position to compete with this cused Miskatonic deck .. but sadly I don't think that is the case.

Personally (after 5 months of being pounded by the same deck) I really feel miskatonic are overpowered since the expansion.

Any suggestions on what to do would be great, but with out any competition in our games the appeal is really leaving this game for me.

Thanks in advance for the advice!

Well, I guess there are some questions:

1) When you played that Cthulhu deck, what was it that was most effective for you? Was it sacrifice or direct wounding?

2) When you play, what 1 or 2 cards in particular give you the most trouble? Are there jumpers? Are they immune to effects? Does he do multiple investigation struggles?

3) What have you tried that you thought would be successful, and why didn't it work the way you expected?

Getting information like that would be helpful for us to give feedback.

In general, there are a number of things that you could try. For one, I have considered several times to use Devil's Hopyard, since a lot of the MU disrupts have become rather powerful. Explorers also can be slow to start since they are all 3 cost, often depending on the 1 cost location to jump them in; you can use the new Prepared Alienist to prevent that. Also, Negotium is a great conspiracy against MU rush because it dictates one story (which is essentially a double story) that they have to go to. Cthulhu (and a few other factions) also has a number of effects that slow the game down, mess up struggle math, add struggles that investigators are weak to, or dictate which stories players can commit to and how. This can seriously mess up rush decks. You want to make sure you have enough cheap characters to chump block to slow the game down for you as well.

Thanks for the tips Danigral, some more info and examples of play I am facing.

The other day he hit me with a sneaky opening turn trick to get characters into play really fast (Using Ultima Thule to put someone in play for a phase and then Mathew Alexander came straight into play from his hand). By the third turn in the story phase he had 5 characters out.

And of course Station Eismitte has really rendered my OST bounce effects, and Cthulhu direct wounding / sacrificing useless. (Although the new text blanking from Yog might be worth looking at, but I need it to be faster into play). This is the same problem as Negotium - I need it quickly in order for it to have effect (also not all his characters have low skill I think).

I think the main problem I have is with such a small pool of players (i.e. two of us) there is no variety, and the games are the same. Also he can tailor his deck specifically to target my decks abilities (i.e. Station Eismitte arriving after my Cthulhu deck scrapped out a win)?.

I am curious to what's friend's Miskatonic build is. I am still having some difficulty creating a human deck that can effectively deal with my Shub: Mi-Go, Shub: Dark Young, and Cthulhu Deep One.

Perhaps here are some ideas you can consider when building your deck against Miskatonic Rush deck. If your friend is using mostly Explorer and Scientist from Seekers of Knowledge expansion, they are often slow to enter into the board due to the 3 costs (unless your friend is also using Anthropology Advisor).

Dealing with Station Eismitte, you can put in Deep One Assault for Cthulhu and for Shub, consider using Burrowing from Beneath and Grasping Cthonian . Since your friend is playing a rush deck, I guess the strategy is to fight fire with fire. For my mono-Shub: Dark Young Deck, I put in Priestess of Bubastis to reduce the amount of paying for my characters and Feed Her Young and Nug for resource acceleration. There are occasions where I am able to get Y'Glonac out in the first turn by either playing 2 Priestess, exhaust them and then my domain with 2 resources to put this abomination into play or I play Feed the Young to build a domain with 3 resources and 1 Priestess. However, this strategy has a weakness against the immediate presence of 3 character in the beginning game where the Miskatonic player can attack 3 stories in one turn leaving Y'Glonac having to contend in dealing one of them.

Nevertheless, this deck will have to gradually put into the play the Dark Young and once you have Shub Niggurath: Dark Mistress of the Wood, it can be very difficult for your opponent to continue fighting for stories.

Another card you should consider is Ya-te-veo (I have 3 in my deck) where it can hinder the offensive of the Miskatonic player until they either get Station of Eismitte and/or Brette Wuffsen out. The former will render trigger effects against Scientist and Explorer null due to the immunity benefits it bestows on them and the latter provide each Explorer with Toughness. Still it can be useful against other types of cards your friend plays like Students, Faculty, or Investigator.

You may also want to look into Ghoul Taint to stop characters it attaches to from attacking a story and Maleficium to uncommit a character committed to a story and then subsequently force your opponent to pay 1 if he chooses to commit it to a story again.

Will post to you my mono-Shub deck later.

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My Shub: Mi-Go is not a mono-deck as it uses the many of the Hastur's event card. You can use Blind Submission to have your opponent's character to switch side and thereby giving you a win at the Investigation struggle. You can surprise them with Agoraphobia to surprise your opponent and put his character back into his hands especially just prior to the story struggle. In addition, I have in my deck Infernal Obsession where i can take control of the opponent key character but the problem, as I believe, is despite you taking control over the Explorer type character, they still give benefits to your opponents.

To counter some early attack made by MIskatonic, I have inserted Black Dog as the only non-Mi-Go character into the deck. Here is my decklist for my Shub Mi-Go Deck.

Character (27)
Ageless Mi-Go (SoA) x3
Harvesting Mi-Go (TTB) x3
Mi-Go Caretaker (MoE) x3
Mi-Go Commander (SoA) x3
Mi-Go Guard (TSC) x3
Mi-Go Scout (Core) x3
Mi-Go Warrior (Core) x3
Mi-Go Surgeon (SoA) x3
Black Dog (***) x3


Support (9)
Inter-dimensional Transporter (TTB) x3
Mi-Go Skull (IT) x2
Specimen Room (MoE) x2
Infernal Obsession (TAD) x2


Event (15)
Mi-Go Dreams (SotD) x1
Horrid Mutation (Core) x2
Agoraphobia (Core) x3
Blind Submission (Core) x3
Scotophobia (Core) x3
Power Drain (Core) x3

Total Card: 51

What is important in this deck is to be able to play your Inter-dimensional Transporter in the first turn in order to play your Mi-Go early and spam the board. If you see my cards, it is not only to deal against human rush deck but also decks with Terror Icons becaue Mi-Go characters do not possess such icon with the exceptionof Mi-Go Observer (which I don't have at this moment).

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My guess is that your friend may be playing 3 Station Eismitte to increase the probability of drawing it or that he is using Board of Directors from The Ritual of the Order: The Initiation of the Favored expansion to immediately into play Eismitte as soon as possible.

Try playing the above build and see whether you can beat your friend. If he still beat you, do let me know how. Happy playing.