Good day to all.

I'm in the process of learning the game and Shub appeals to me the most, since with all those fatties and is resource acceleration, it kinda reminds me of Forest in MtG, which was my favorite color back in the day. Syndicate, with all its cheap nice cards, its debuff aspect and the ability to neutralize annoying characters, seems like a nice complement to the All-Mother, so I've decided to put together a deck comprising of those two. The deck's main theme is somehow centered around having greater skill numbers than opposing characters, though, even if stories are resolved in the traditional way, the deck should be able to hold its ground. My problem is that its currently comprised of 54 cards and I cannot seem to be able to trim it down further. In addition, it sports only 12 Syndicate cards and I 'm not sure whether this is enough, even though The Festival should take care of any resource match problems.

Here it is (card costs in parentheses):

Characters (31)

2 Priestess of Bubastis (1)

2 One of the Thousand (1)

3 Ghoulish Predator (2)

2 Clover Club Torch Singer (2)

2 Overzealous Initiate (2)

2 Hungry Dark Young (3)

2 The Mother’s Hand (3)

3 Insect Swarm (3)

2 Elite Hit Squad (3)

2 Mr. David Pan (3)

2 Y’Golonac (4)

2 Dhole Ant-Lion (4)

2 Small Ghouls (5)

3 Nug (5)

Events (9)

3 Tear Gas (1)

2 Shocking Transformation (2)

2 Burrowing Beneath (2)

2 Even Here She Dwells (2)

Supports (14)

2 Snow Graves (0)

3 The Festival (1)

3 Bound and Gagged (1)

3 Parallel Universe (1)

3 Under the Porch (3)

Any advice on how to make it more appealing? Mind you, I have only 2 copies of each card in the CS and the SoA.

Many thanks.

Hey there - I think you're off to a good start. I would suggest for new players to try to stay around 32-34 characters at least. So looking at your deck I would suggest cutting some of the events and supports down.

So what to cut? Here is what I would do to get you down to 50:

Cut-

• Ever Here she Dwells x2
• Under the Porch x1
• Tear Gas x1

I also think you're correct in the assumption you don't have enough Syndicate in there. I would cut a few Shub characters and replace with Syndicate. I would suggest trying to find some criminals to swap in for:

• Small Ghouls (just too expensive)
• Dhole Ant Lion
• Overzealous Initiate

It looks like you have Seekers of Knowledge - so you really want to try to get Peter Clover in there I think. He's great if your opponent gets some big Ancient Ones out. Also, I'm not sure what your card pool is like, but Tattoo Artist is great in a skill deck.

Hope that helps!

Well, I'm not a fan of the Overzealous Initiate, so that's something I'd cut. Unless you have some specific use for them in mind, I'd probably also cut the Small Ghouls. Replace them with four Syndicate characters and you will also have a better faction ratio for resourcing.

Apart from that I quite like the deck and would recommend to not change anything before you've playtested it.

My first iteration of a deck typically features up to 56 cards and I only cut it down to 50 cards after I've seen in actual play what works and what doesn't.

Like I've already said, the Syndicate is somehow underrepresented, though that doesn't bother me much, since the Festival fixes resource matches trouble. I'll probably stick to 12 cards for now and see how it goes. The Ghouls were there for their high skill and their response, which, on par with the Festival, could allow me to re-use some cards I've already played. I think I'll leave them out however. Out goes the extra domain strategy too, since, in the meantime, I was given a valuable piece of advice to learn playing with the normal number of domains or I may end up relying on extras. From what I see, you guys are on the same path too. I was also given the same as yours piece of advice to leave the deck a little above 50 cards, so as to allow testing of cards I'd otherwise leave out. We shall see.

Anyway, after much tweaking, the current version of the deck looks like this:

Characters (32)

2 Priestess of Bubastis (1)

2 One of the Thousand (1)

3 Ghoulish Predator (2)

2 Clover Club Torch Singer (2)

2 Sewer Rats (2)

2 Hungry Dark Young (3)

2 The Mother’s Hand (3)

3 Insect Swarm (3)

3 Grasping Cthonian (3)

2 Elite Hit Squad (3)

2 Mr. David Pan (3)

2 Y’Golonac (4)

2 Nug (5)

3 The Terror of the Tides (6)

Events (7)

3 Tear Gas (1)

2 Shocking Transformation (2)

2 Burrowing Beneath (2)

Supports (11)

3 The Festival (1)

3 Bound and Gagged (1)

3 Parallel Universe (1)

2 Under the Porch (3)

Seems solid on paper. Practice will tell.

Thanks to both of you.

I have a shub/syndicate deck as well but ours looks somewhat different. If you are looking to compete with this deck don't forget to take out the rats. For whatever reason fantasy flight has decided to ban them.