Deck 3 - Blasphemous Fish-Frogs of the Nameless Design (CoC LCG)

So I did some decks for one of the many LCG's I play Lord of the Rings. This time around I think I will take a look at an LCG I have been playing since it was a CCG, Call of Cthulhu. I really really like H.P. Lovecraft and way back in 1997 Fantasy Flight Games produced a CCG based on his works. That year at Gen Con my friends and I played in the first tournament ever for it and it was a blast. I left Gen Con having purchased 3 booster boxes and several decks. I was hooked and I have remained hooked buying up story packs and the like ever since.

Just a quick background on myself since I am showing my age and time involved in CCG's with the above. I have been playing card games of some form of another since Magic the Gathering came out. I missed my chance to own an Alpha deck, but started with one Beta deck and went on from there. I have played many CCG's since. To name a few; Netrunner, Heresy, Shadowrun, UFS, Seventh Sea, Warlord, Doomtown, Rage, Jyhad/Vampire the Eternal Struggle, Guardians, Dark Age, and so on. If there was a CCG I probably played it. My main stay CCG for a long time was Legend of the Five Rings. I did well in the game and also played its sister game Legend of the Burning Sands (which is one of my favorites still to this day). After my stint in that which was several several years I played VS. system for awhile. I have won local tournaments in various games and even did well in some non-local qualifiers of various games. But lets get back to the constructing of the deck.

This deck is based on an older design which included CCG era cards Ancient Deep One, The Great Old One Rises!, Arise, Children of Dagon!, Unnatural Stealth, and the old promotional 7 cost Cthulhu, The Thing That Should Not Be. So with these cards elimitated I was left with a bare bones of a deck but still looking through cards I was able to pull I think a cohesive strategy out of my old deck. Generally the old deck was about smashing face as much as possible and winning through luck most of the time.

So the strategy of this deck is to force your opponent away from being able to win multiple stories in a turn. It also has a healthy dose of destruction in it.

How do you go about forcing your opponent away from getting multiple success tokens on multiple stories in a turn? Well first the only decks going to be able to do said thing from the get go will be low cost, low skill characters with investigation icons, generally. So a few cards are included to stop that first turn of story barrage whether you go first or second. A Single Path (THBtS) keeps a player honest and forces them to only one story that phase and Deep One Assault (Core) can also pick off small characters easily on those turns. Also in a pinch you could play a Young Deep One (Core) and use a combination of Touched by the Sleeper (Core) and Pulled Under (Core), which would be card disadvantage but like I said in a pinch. I have also included in the deck mixed faction hate in the form of Communal Shower (TTftS). This can also force single story assignments and allow you some control. As the game progresses the shining light of the deck is Cave Mouth (AtMoM) which will allow you to control the game as you see fit, or hopefully it will.

One great thing about the deep ones as a deck design is you should be able to give beat downs at the single story you need to assign to. Beyond the Syndicate faction there shouldn't be too many times when someone will out Combat icon you durring that struggle. The deep ones with Shadowed Reef (Core),Sword of Y'ha-tallo (Core) and Touched by the Sleeper should be able to control the terror struggle without too many problems or at least have few to zero of your characters go insane. Deep ones also come with a decent helping of Arcane so you may win a few of those struggles and if not you always have Lord of Y'ha-nthlei (SoA). Then you have to worry about those pesky investigation icons and that struggle, which is where all the destruction comes in. With Ravager from the Deep (Core), Guardian Shoggoth (Core), Hydra (SoA) and Khopesh of the Abyss (TSS) you should be able to destroy a fair amount of characters. With Khopesh of the Abyss and a Guardian Shoggoth you can kill 4 non-toughness/invulnerability characters in one go, granted your opponent doesn't disrupt it somehow. You also have Deep One Assault, Pulled Under and Deep One Rising (SoA). Hydra can if in play allow you to reuse Deep One Rising which is highly advantageous.

There is also some support hate in the form of Deep One Assault and Mature Deep One (Core).

Lots of locations in this deck so I included one copy of Scylla's Well (IT). It can be used with Khopesh of the Abyss and the transformed location can also be a strong character to boot. I would mainly play it on Communal Shower or Shadowed Reef. Don't want to lose Cave Mouth unless of course you have a second copy.

My main concern is the lack of card draw. I could possibly fit in Julia Brown (TPtY) or Princess Zura (SotD). The Yuggoth Contract (WitD) wouldn't se so bad either if Hydra is out. Though luckily in CoC you draw 2 cards in a turn so you don't feel totally screwed if you draw dead unless it is too many times but with a 50 card deck that shouldn't be too often.

Hope someone out there enjoyed this article and next up will be one of my many A Game of Thrones decks, Targaryen Burn.


Character
Mature Deep One (Core) x3
Young Deep One (Core) x3
Ravager from the Deep (Core) x3
Lord of Y'ha-nthlei (SoA) x3
Guardian Shoggoth (Core) x3
Adult Deep One (Core) x3
Dagon (Core) x1
Deep One Rising (SoA) x3
Hydra (SoA) x1


Support
Communal Shower (TTftS) x3
Cave Mouth (AtMoM) x3
Sword of Y'ha-tallo (Core) x2
Shadowed Reef (Core) x3
Khopesh of the Abyss (TSS) x3
Scylla's Well (IT) x1


Event
Touched by the Sleeper (Core) x3
Pulled Under (Core) x3
Deep One Assault (Core) x3
A Single Path (THBtS) x3




Green is the colour of my god. -The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, Colour Me Green