I haven't seen any posts from him lately. Has he moved to another board? Has he drifted away from the game?

I'll bet some of our Dutch players know.

Cannon has disappeared as well, but he's hanging out on the Boardgamegeek CoCLCG forum now.

Chick

The boards are much better with them around.

Couldn't agree more, Shoes.

johnny shoes said:

I'm still there, lurking in the shadows, and still dedicating a lot of time towards CoC. Recent threads on the general discussion forum haven't been things I've been able to comment on though. I have commented on rules issues just the other day. So, I'm still there!

Thanks for asking! Watch this space!

Yay Marius !

I'll have to check out the rules part of the board.

Chick

I suspect you haven't already because you know the rules, and so do I.

Newbunkle said:

That's a good reason to visit it, and trying to answer questions about the more delicate interactions.

johnny shoes said:

Love you too, Johnny.

For me, I mostly got tired of all the negativity from half a year ago, and then forcing me to recreate my account several times over didn't help me bother to try coming back. I'll try to stick around this time, but this forum has pretty much been off my radar for a while now.

cannon said:

most of the negativity is gone. it pretty much became beating a dead horse. hopefully you decide to stick around or come around more often.

Where did we leave off, I often wonder. Before white borders and before worlds 2008 there were a couple decks battling for supremacy. I believe both came from the same region. The story of the tactics of that era has been written but fades. A closing CCG chapter outlining the strengths as they had progressed would be grand - a final arc of the earliest to final strongest decks. Good to see still active the Articles List.

Ignoring the game as solely a LCG environment, few if any new cards have severely upgraded the classic CCG decks. No new kill all combo emerged. Do you agree? There are many AP cards that are vamped up versions of earlier cards.

I find a bit difficult to comment on mixed border environment, as it officially doesn't have rules. But let's assume it is 3x, all the cards allowed with LCG stories, this is my opinion.

From my limited experience, Shub reanimator and Lavinia Whateley decks got a nice upgrade with Under the Porch, a yet to be used WB card is a huge addition to a particular combo deck and added density in particular kinds of cards enable new, yet to be exploited, kind of decks.
This said, resource destruction got shafted really bad, almost to the point of being unplayable -as usual, your experience may vary-, MonoC isn't in such a good shape.

So, I'd say we got: a new type of deck, a new piece for an old combo engine, a leg up for Messengers and quite an improvement for "on the ground" Shub-Cthulhu decks. On the other hand we lost a viable (if expecially nasty) strategy.

Nice Carioz. Shub Reanimator and Lavinia Whately decks gain from Under the Porch.

WB refers to White Border? Not Wid Beasts, William Bain or Wish for Bologna, right?

Resource Destruction especially and mono-Cthulhu are on the down slope, could you elaborate for wider consumption.

Did Shiny Trap's new ruling really change that environment?

Resource Destruction especially and mono-Cthulhu are on the down slope, could you elaborate for wider consumption.

Build a Resource Destruction deck and pit it against Dumb Synd Rush. It will lose 4 out of 5 games. Why? My take is on lowered 2 resource out events density and only 3 Nodens available.

MonoC more or less shares the same fate: the loss of 4th FI, 4th SacOff, 4th DOA and 4th Assistant (on the other hand the loss of Dream Summoning doesn't mean too much) hurt its ability to deal with combo decks.

Shiny Trap is still Shiny Trap: the old ID deck can hardly be built anymore, but Shiny still does its job.

Mono-Cthulhu Control has always been rather dominant, and even though it loses a 3th DOA, it gains a lot of new tools too. Extra blanking for instance. Though I don't mind that gameplay focusses a little more on development and a little less on control. For Resource Destruction the same. It's also pretty boring to play against once they have control. I think these archetypes are just as viable as before, but there are more archetypes getting closer to playable. Trap Combo gets some new tools too. Mixed border will still be about temples, mausoleums and gregs though...

I -gasp- agree with Marius on Azathoth Attachment being a viable choice. I do not see, however, lots of new tools against combo, but then again, last time I played Mountain of Madness was the newest set.

As for mixed borders dominance, who knows, maybe a new decktype now possible will trump temples, mausoleums and assistants. For sure jump and messengers won't be the monsters they were before.

What is all this talk about a mixed-border format? It sounds like Marius is pretty sure the black-border cards will someday be tournament legal, but at the same time, we have all the proof that we're stuck with white-border only. Nate has said there will be no BB anymore, the Worlds are WB-only and the only current format is WB only.

So Marius, do you know something we don't or are you simply hoping for a mixed-border environment?

PS. I've tested Called by Azathoth a little in a grey-borders environment and sorry to tell you, it's way worse than it first seems. Still, it's not unplayable, it's okayish.

Bard said:

It's all been up in the air for a looooong time. I can imagine though, with Paul leaving and the Gencon incident last year, they'd rather focus on one event and do it well, instead of splitting things up. It's a bit of a shame, but at least you know where to find the world's 'grey' championships now.