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Gate of the Dead Dreamer
| Submitted by: | Hellfury |
| Submitted: | Jun 08 2012 06:51 PM |
| Last updated: | Jun 08 2012 09:44 PM |
| Category: | Call of Cthulhu Decks |
| Deck Name: | Gate of the Dead Dreamer |
| Deck Strategy: | Destruction. |
| Deck Contents: | Total Cards (50) Story (0) Character (23) Seeker of Mysteries (SoA) x3 Lord of the Silver Twilight (Core) x3 Silver Twilight Temptress (THBtS) x3 Dreamlands Fanatic (ItDoN) x3 Deep One Rising (SoA) x3 Hideous Guardian (TPtY) x3 The Terror of the Tides (TTotT) x3 Cthulhu (TWB) x2 Support (10) Called by Azathoth (TSotS) x3 Cursed Skull (MoE) x3 Khopesh of the Abyss (TSS) x3 Prism of Many Views (TTB) x1 Event (17) Deep One Assault (Core) x3 A Single Glimpse (Core) x3 Calling Down the Ancients (SoA) x3 Twilight Gate (TH) x3 In the Wake of the Sleeper (TOotST) x3 Underneath the Surface (TTB) x2 Conspiracy (0) Destruction. So many ways of describing this idea. Exterminate, ravage, extirpate, ruin, demolish, massacre, shatter, eradicate... ... and all describe possibly the strongest deck archetype in Call of Cthulhu right now. This dual faction Cthulhu/Yog-Sothoth deck strategy intended for intermediate players revolves around that description. Destroy your opponents characters and support cards until a barren wasteland lies fallow before you so that you may challenge each story nearly uncontested. Your cultists allow Cthulhu to be played early, either through their own abilities or through sacrificing them to The Sleeper with Underneath the Surface. Cthulhu's prime ability, besides being an utter bad ass, is forcing your opponent to sacrifice a character to his glory. But while a large portion of the deck seems to be geared towards his Awakening, the real underlying power lies in a weapon of extraordinary efficacy: Khopesh of the Abyss, Manifested Malice. Indeed, its subtext is quite succinct. For the powerful ability to destroy is manifested within this artifact, and anyone you use it against will seethe with malice towards you. But you cannot just use any plebeian to properly wield this precious item. No, indeed you need bodies with the fortitude to withstand the utter evil contained within. This is where The Terror of the Tides and Hideous Guardian come in. While these two are equipped with the Khopesh, you can deal 6 wounds to your opponents creatures without killing the wielders. Even the lowly cultists can effectively wield the power of the Khopesh while the Guardian is in play without worry of harm. And it is important that you do not kill them, because you might need to put them back into your domains for resources... What's this madness? Madness indeed, for when Cthulhu allies with The Gate and The Key, wondrous things become possible. If you happened to resource The Terror of the Tides or Hideous guardian early in the game (In fact it is recommended that you do so) then Yog-Sothoth Who Once Was and Will Be Again can cast Twilight Gate allowing these vile monsters to temporarily become manifest and wreak havoc upon earth once more. Give them the Khopesh and render souls unto the Dead Dreamer, before they once again dissolve back into the aether to be used as resources again. The gate is useful for Deep One Rising as well should you need it in a pinch. With the Twilight Gate, The Terror of the Tides alternate cost, Cthulhu's ability to Awaken early, you likely wont ever have to resource past 3 cards in any domain unless you choose too, which makes for a fairly fast experience. A large amount of cards are a cost of 2 in this deck, so resourcing to 3 won't be required until you feel ready to strike. The rest of the strategy is fairly straightforward. Use the numerous destruction cards at your disposal to eliminate what you must and then aggressively challenge stories. |
| Graphs: | |
Sample Hand  |
10 Comments
I came in second place with it, out of 15 people.
I feel this deck worked very well though I think i prefer my agency / cthulhu destruction deck .. still the one real problem I found was that the yog was such a slight splash. In one game I didn't draw a single yog card till turn 3. I think that the yog cards are very powerful and the decision to resource them, is a very harsh one... but forced as you can not be counted to draw a new yog card at any kind of regular time.
Also the blinking out of the domain and then Khopesh of the Abyss (TSS).. spam 4 wounds combo while great on paper didn't seam to go off many times and I left feeling that this was not nearly as great as I thought it would be. Though I think I need to play with it a bit more to really work on it.
I'm not a big fan of forced events that need to be played in your own operation phase.. while they are fine I guess they are really borad sweepers and fail to be used in any klind of cleaver whay that can affect teh decision making of the opponents. I think this might be a personal preference.. but I just feel that these cards are frustrating as you can only cast them at this certain times, and with all the dig effects like dark ones and in my opponents deck the serpents .. I just feel that a destruction really needs to be able to be played during story resolution so you can screw up tehre icon resolving planning. These cards just seam weak to me and can even be unplayable vs some decks with lots of gravyard play.
Candidates for swapping i think would be...Silver Twilight Temptress (THBtS) - Underneath the Surface (TTB) probably for some yoggy goodness.
All in all though i think this deck is very fun and it sucks that you use a dreamlasnds character
Deep one is "when you play" not "enters play", but still nice card.
Don't you find Khophesh... like... broken... place it on anyone, story phase, commit, opponents commit, play twilight gate for Hideous Guardian, kill all enemy characters that are not invulnerable.... in like 3,4 turn... take all uncontested stories... I really think it should exhaust or pay 1 or sth like that. And with
Shocking Transformation (Core)
into
James Logan (WitD)
with
Flesh Ward (TWC)
Getaway Vehicle (TWB)
Patrol Wagon (Core)
you can clear opponents table for 3...
We banned it in our plays.
PS Are dreamlands planned to get reprinted? I dont have them and wonder whether it makes sense to wait for reprint...
I am not a fan either. I think destruction is a pretty powerful archetype and think it is high time that the design team make card design that hinders destruction somewhat.
I think this is evolving in that direction from all the trick decks and good rush decks I am seeing.
I think Khopesh is a very powerful card. There is no doubt about that. But there was a card during the CCG era that became just as infamous and it was called "Fetch Stick"
Now, there is also no doubt that Khopesh is far and away more powerful than Fetch Stick. As an aside, it is ironic how the CCG era contains much more powerful cards than the LCG, yet the CCG era still relied heavily on characters to the point where many players cried foul over Fetch Stick. Khopesh is analogous to the M:tG card Umezawa's Jitte for the killing power and how reviled that card was and still is in Magic.
Yet once that card entered the meta, people eventually were able to cope and evolve, just like CoC players did with Fetch Stick.
With the meta evolving away from simpler character mechanics (due in part because of cards like Khopesh) we start to see how little Khopesh matters in a strong meta of creative decks.
I would not bring a Khopesh to a friendly, casual game though, that's for sure. I do think it could use some errata beyond just restricting it. But exactly what that would be I am not certain.
Thanks for the catch on deep one rising. I only caught that after I uploaded the decklist and you cannot edit it after it has been uploaded so it sticks there like a sore thumb mocking me for such an obvious oversight...
Considering how much money I spend on traveling just to play a couple of CoC games, the cost was negligible. I just hate having nine copies of so many cards, now...
I think Dreamlands has some amazingly good cards that are integral to many decks. This reprint has to happen one day I hope. The think is they are waiting for current stock to go out of stock.. but NO one is buying it so it will nvr go out of stock.. or just a few really frustrated.
I refuse!!
Hell, I wish they would just drop the entire asylum pack crap and just give us deluxe expansions, because I really wish they would expand further on what dreamlands has to offer thematically and mechanically, and the 6 asylum packs just doesn't really whet the appetite.
Kind of like how a single asylum pack along with another in ancient relics was devoted to polar stuff. Crying shame to see potential spread so thinly.
This is the hidden secret of the LCG format. I have spoken about it b4 in other sites... notably a "What packs should I buy" thread for Lord of the Rings at BGG. The LCG is marketed as "buy the pack for the card you want" but the reality is, with only 2 maybe 3 new faction cards per pack the card synergies and combos are so spread out that you are required to own a large chunk of the entire collection to field any kind of decent decks.
On top of that you have the "lost mechanics" problem mentioned above. Night and Day is another example of a great system that has nvr been explored due to the way LCGs are structured.
Done, and done!
Anyway, thanks for the deck - I think this will be the default "your deck will need to beat this one to be considered competitive" deck.
I personally don't think Khopesh of the Abyss (TSS) is the end of the world - I think they made it too cheap, should have been a cost 3 or even a cost 4, but it's reasonable enough to deal with by means of either support removal or direct character removal, and insanity will also work in many cases. That said, I think it's entirely possible that FFG considers it to be too much of a disruption on casual play and is having too much of an impact on tournament play, and ends up throwing it onto the Banned list. Not likely, but possible. In casual play, house rules that forbid it will work fine for keeping casual play friendly.