Dwellers Below

As a character, this guy falls a little short.  As a means of character removal, he's a one-for-one trade.  While the flexibility he provides is nice, he is substandard no matter how you use him.  Plus, the opportunity cost is great because the 3-drop slot is usually the sweet spot in terms of character speed and power.  Playing a jack-of-two-trades, master-of-none character in lieu of a character with better icons, skill, or abilities to compete at stories won't usually cut it.

Still, in a dedicated Deep One deck, this guy could be a consideration.  The terror icon is welcome in such a deck if you haven't found your Devil's Reef yet.  Alternatively, if you combine him with Robert Friendly and Irish Channel and a bunch of criminals, you could have a very thematic deck that enables you to draw the Dwellers from the bottom of your deck for repetitive abuse.  Still a little on the slow side, but it could be fun for casual play.

Dwellers is an okay character with some narrow potential for abuse if you build the right deck around him.  Otherwise, I'd look elsewhere for my 3-drop characters.

Faceless Abductor, the most obvious comparison, is one of the best characters in the game.

The extra one cost really hurts Dwellers, but their ability to target more powerful characters and hit them more permanently makes up for that to some extent.

If you'd pay 3 to Deep One Assault, Shotgun Blast, or Push Peter Clover, you should definitely pay 3 to have a character that can do it on command.

Almost any sort of effect is better on a character than on an event or a support.

I have to respectfully disagree with you there, GrahamM.  Deep One Assault and Shotgun Blast can cause a lot of collateral damage when timed right, and Peter Clover's ability is a repeatable ability on a statistically efficient body.

I agree that Faceless Abductor is probably the closest comparison, but I think it's superior to Dwellers for a variety of reasons.

The problem is the Dwellers' main strength is not in the use of its ability, but in the THREAT of the use of its ability, which you lose once you use it.  It wants to stay in play to remain a threat, but then that puts you in the tough spot of trying to get by with an over-priced Faceless Abductor.  You're hampered if you don't use the Dwellers' ability, and you're losing the Dwellers' biggest advantage - the fear it creates - if you do.

The big advantage that Dweller has over Faceless is that the character goes to the bottom of the deck instead of their hand.  That might be worth the extra cost, but like Track8 said above, the 3 cost slot is generally for characters with a stronger impact and that is why Dwellers is often overlooked.

I have to respectfully disagree with you there, GrahamM.  Deep One Assault and Shotgun Blast can cause a lot of collateral damage when timed right, and Peter Clover's ability is a repeatable ability on a statistically efficient body.

 

I agree that Faceless Abductor is probably the closest comparison, but I think it's superior to Dwellers for a variety of reasons.

 

The problem is the Dwellers' main strength is not in the use of its ability, but in the THREAT of the use of its ability, which you lose once you use it.  It wants to stay in play to remain a threat, but then that puts you in the tough spot of trying to get by with an over-priced Faceless Abductor.  You're hampered if you don't use the Dwellers' ability, and you're losing the Dwellers' biggest advantage - the fear it creates - if you do.

Ah sorry, wasn't saying Dwellers are better than Peter Clover, I was saying using Dwellers on Peter Clover is just as good as using Pushed into the Beyond on Peter Clover.

This really comes down to the question of what's better, a surprise or a character. My theory is that characters are better. A surprise can be more devastating, what with the collateral you mention, but any decent player will preparing for a DoA/Blast/Black Dog/Pushed anyways. At that point, you are actively harming yourself by keeping domains open to play your surprise. You're paying a steep opportunity cost for a potential good play that the opponent can see coming. It's (one of many reasons) why Performance Artist is so much better than Power Drain.

A character, on the other hand, can be great without ever triggering its ability. Your opponent is still forced to play around that potential 3 cost event, just like they would be if you left the domain open, but now you have an extra guy on the board you can do whatever you want with. Frequently, your opponent is forced to make plays that offer you something in exchange for using the Dweller. They want to play Peter Clover so they have to play Naomi first so you'll use Dwellers. And you get the chance to decide which of these offers you take!

The opportunity cost of Dwellers is that you aren't playing a better 3 cost character. There are some 3 costers that are way better (Descendant, although Dwellers is a great counter to Descendant), but in Cthulhu, chances are you're either getting a dude with toughness (maybe ok if you're going all out on Khopesh, but I'm not sure how strong that archetype is), an arcane icon with a marginal ability, or some combo card, none of which are typically worth including over Dwellers.

Also removal wins games, and the more you can include, the more you should include. I'd be surprised if you could show me a non-splash Cthulhu deck without Dwellers that couldn't be improved by Dwellers.

That being said, Faceless Abductor is still better.

Interesting points, GrahamM.  You might be right.  I think it just depends on your preference - event surprise vs. character utility.  I know that I've read multiple times that CoC, more than most card games, can have its outcome determined by combat tricks, so that's where my preference lies.  Not that DoA is always superior to Dwellers in every circumstance.  I'd just usually prefer it.

Thanks for the feedback, GrahamM.  I really enjoy talking card analysis about CoC.

Yeah for sure--been awhile since I've had the chance to play but it's nice to talk.

I think the correct answer is usually both DoA and Dwellers.

As far as combat tricks, I like to think of Cthulhu as a game where you try to do everything as efficiently as possible. Combat tricks are a very efficient way to get rid of your opponent's stuff, or make their plays useless, but the other crucial aspect of efficiency is making the most of your limited number of domains. This makes 1 cost combat tricks waaaay better IMO than anything that costs more (since its a rare deck that can play or would want to play 1 cost characters/supports every round), and makes jumpers like Stalking Hound and Dreamlands Fanatic incredibly good.

Of course, sometimes your opponent can have cards that it's just really hard to out-efficiency (Descendant, Peter Clover, Stygian Eye, B Ramsdale) and that's where expensive events like Pushed and DoA, and also Dwellers, come in handy, the difference being that Dwellers on the field guarantees full use of your domains and forces your opponents to spend something to play their hyper efficient cards. For example, in one tournament, an opponent had to use his Pushed into the Beyond on my Faceless Abductor in order to get a Khopesh in play, which meant that he didn't have it for my Descendant or Master of the Myths (great characters who are also combat tricks!) and I could win easily.