Will of Azathoth

Can this be attached to Conspiracies? Like Negotium Perambulan in Tenebris?

Indeed it can, forcing all cost 2 or lower characters to just watch in your example.

And neither card restricted now? I am currently thrashing my Mono Syndicate Rush Desk with a no non-Ancient One characters Deck exploiting this. What is the Syndicate answer to such? All I have is currently is Melisande LeBeau.

Descendant of Eibon and Peter Clover are both phenomenal, plus maybe O'Bannion's Inner Council and then any number of Syndicate's other awesome 3 cost characters

If your opponent does lock out all your 2 cost and below characters with that combo, as soon as they win a story, it is discarded and they have to start again, whilst you have your turn to use that open window.

Descendant of Eibon or Peter Clover won't destroy Will of Azathoth. I need Support or Attachment destruction and Syndicate seems weak here. Can't rely on Ancient Ones Only deck winning another Story to open up Negotium again soon, as it prefers building up resources and then spreading wins across three other Stories

Well the idea is that you run great 3 cost characters so that negotium doesn't actually effect you. Failing that, all you can do is force space for Foiled! which is a sad use of deck space at times. Besides, even if you remove will of azathoth, you still have to commit at negotium again for a couple turns at least, so dealing with Will isn't at all ideal anyway.

Yeah. Not every faction can really deal with the same problems in the same way--I find its better to have a deck with a flexible play style than one with all the "solution" cards. I recommended Descendant because he's absurd and should be in every deck, and also gets around your problem. I recommended Peter Clover because when people have a very limited pool of characters they can commit to stories, he's even better than the insanely good he is in normal situations. Peter can easily be splashed into a Syndicate rush deck without ever having to move a domain up to 3 with Johnny V's Dame and the Syndicate prophecy.

 

If your cheap characters are good with skill reduction, put in Mr David Pan or O'Bannion's Inner Council so you're still getting use out of your weenies. If you're running Immurement, stick Naomi in there. 

I have several 3s in my Syndicate Rush Deck but they can't stand against the Ancient Ones prowling the Stories without the 2s backup (although Peter Clover would help here). Support Destruction would also help against Plague Stone. 

To me it sounds like you need

1) more three costs. Which do you currently have, and how many? Three costs should be MUCH faster than Ancient Ones and you should be able to build up a nice advantage early.

2) A splash of another faction. Syndicate can't really deal very well with Plague Stone if you aren't getting lots of success tokens before it's dropped. But with Johnny V's Dame and more three costs this should go better for you. A weak, in-house solution might be The Golden Pocket Watch. Otherwise, some Hastur for Performance Artist (plus other exciting things like Cavern of Flame, Stygian Eye, and Apeirophobia) or even just characters like Stalking Hound, Dreamlands Fanatic and the Claret Knight can really help minimize the damage from Plague Stone. PS is a huge investment for your opponent, and anything you can do to minimize its effect will really hurt him

I do have Pocket Watch to deal with Plague Stone , and Crooked Attourney for what he's worth, but can't be sure to have them. The 3s I have in the base deck are David Pan, Melissa LeBeau, Clover Club Bootleggerx3, Arsene Renard, and Cascio Di Boerio. I'm considering some other 3s but don't want to bring them in, breaking the mainly 2s rush principle just for Negotium. I like Doma0997's Foiled! suggestion as that will handle Endless Festivities too. 

To be honest, I'd get rid of all the 3 costs you have except MAYBE Melisande and replace them with 3 costs who are better against big characters. You don't want to have too many cards in your deck that are specifically designed as counters and fulfill no other function.

The 2s heavy Syndicate deck works surprisingly well unless hit with Negotium . The problem with going for cards better against Ancients is that it will weaken the Deck against other Decks and complicate a deck, which is currently very simple and easy to play well.Foiled! is the only specific counter card included now, apart from one Ancient One (I'm considering adding another) for Opponent playing Rift in Time and Space. I will probably bring in Peter Clover though.

I would say that Peter, Naomi, and St. Claire (plus Descendant) would all be better against most decks than the Bootlegger, Arsene Renard, Cascio de Boerio. Why did you choose them in the first place?

 

These are just my personal opinions, by the way, if you're perfectly happy with the way your deck is now just let me know.

3xClover Club Bootlegger because it's intended as a beginner deck with high repeats of a few simple but potent cheap Criminals. Bootlegger is an always comittable Fast double-wounder Criminal. Arsene Renard provides support denial better than LeBeau and who can resist a Gentleman Thief thematically? Cascio Di Boerio helps with slogging through Negotiums. Now that I have Peter Clover, he's in too.

A bit late to the party here, but...

I'd be tempted to put Political Demonstration into the deck and trust that a couple of your 3s can pull off the necessary trigger condition for you.

A little more elegant and certain of a solution is Fixer. If I played Negotium and the Will in turn 1, and my opponent played a Fixer on his turn, I'd feel pretty disappointed. Fixer also seems perfect for a beginner deck because he's just meat and potatoes, nothing fancy, but still effective in a dedicated rush strategy. He should fix your problem.

And if all else fails, there's always Hack Journalist!

Can I commit obsessive detective to a story, then next turn play will of azothoth on that story, leaving OD to win that story for me?

That is debatable. "be committed" is overloaded in CoC, it means the act of committing and the state of currently being committed. So it is inherently ambiguous. Oh for a Grim Rule like Arkham Horror Lcg.

 

In a cursory search I can find nothing definitive. The FAQ says nothing explicit, but each mention of 'be committed' seems to take it in the sense of the commitment process, not the ongoing state. So, more likely than not, that passive effect bars people committing characters, rather than barring them being in the committed state.

 

That makes for a nice little combo, but hardly a broken combo vs some others in the game.

I’m going to put this combo in an angency syndicate deck that prioritizes spell recursion, card draw and attachment hunting. If I throw in 3 copies of obsessive inmate and relentless stalker I think I could pull this combo off consistently enough to win games. Any extra room in the deck can be a modified day deck.

While it's a neat trick, I think such a deck might end up being kind of gimmicky. And since you can only have 1 Will in play at a time, you'd still need to be competitive at other stories despite running sub-standard characters.

I think it could be doable with the rest of the deck focused on uncommitting characters (something lodge is good at) and playing some hard defense (something that agency is good at). I’ll mess around with it and post it once it has beaten a strong mi-go deck consistently.