Mono-Cthulhu Deep One Deck with Khopesh

How has this deck done for you with the new changes you made this year?

Hi Lawpsided, 

Following are the result of the changes I made and some further consideration on how you can build your deck.

Poleman

A change from my initial Deep One Deck is the inclusion of Poleman.  Although I am not playing any Night cards, the use of Poleman is to help provide the discount for spamming Deep One characters when you combo it with Devil's Reef and the Cult of Bathos.  The former is not limited to just the first Deep One play, so essentially I find myself being able to play most of the Deep One characters with Domain of 2 Resources.

Also, Poleman being 1 cost can easily be played to provide some early defend against non-Terror characters.
 

Calculated Mutation

I find Calculated Mutation is so good with this deck due to the fact that each Deep One characters possess 1 Arcane icon.  I got this idea from another deck published on cardgamedb.com but can't remember specifically who posted it up.  This card can help surprise your opponent. For example, when attacking and you needed to push for a win of a story or two, you can suddenly change the Arcane icons into  Investigation icons if you don't need any of your committed characters to be readied for defence in your opponent's (or you have Lord of Y'ha-thelei to ready your Deep One character(s). This allows your Deep One to win on Investigation struggle.  

Previously, to win on Investigation, I had Magnifying Glass (Secret of Arkham) attached to Carl Stanford, due to his Invulnerability and insusceptibility to being made insane, or to Cthulhu.
 

If you are defending, Calculated Mutation can turn the Arcane icons into Terror icons especially if the opponent who is playing with some other monster decks or factions think that you don't have Terror icons to protect your Deep One.

Remove Dreamland Fanatics
Since Dreamland Fanatics are considered to be a Restricted card and you cannot have them if you want to play Khopesh, I have to make some choice of what cards to be used for replaced.  Here are some ideas.

• Include 3rd copy of Khopesh. I initially have 2 copies because I don't want to make this deck too powerful as my objective is to build some casual (yet to some extent competitive) decks that are more or less on the same power level in order to have a balanced game.
• For fun purposes, have 1 copy of Robert Friendly to fight against Government and Investigator  characters.  BTW, he also have a Deep One trait.
• Consider 1 or 2 Muddy Waters for character control via exhaustion; combo well with Khopesh, Deep One Stoway, Deep One Rising, and Deep One Assault as you use these cards' effect to destroy characters
• Having 1 or 2 copies of San Giorgio di Alga can help trigger Poleman if you pay the cost.  But perhaps, what is good about this card is that you can cycle your cards faster and determine which card you want most in order to perhaps spam quickly or find the right cards for character (or support card) destruction.
• You can experiment with Joe Sargent but the problem with him is that he is not a Deep One.
• You can replace Dreamland Fanatics with copies of Called by Azathoth but I didn't do it because I don't want to dilute the theme of this deck with Azathoth in it.
• If you want to get Cthulhu out fast and early, maybe you can consider having Aziz Chatuluka.
• Since you are only playing with all Cthulhu characters, it may be good to considering put in Watcher of Signs which can provide this deck with some capability to rush for story.
• You can include Guardian Shoggoth for its +2 Toughness but play your Khopesh on it enabling it to deliver 4 wounds before being destroyed.  I got this idea from NuFenix's Khopesh of the University deck.

Other consideration
I am uncertain at the moment whether to have 2 or 3 copies of Cthulhu.  I think I will take out Cthulhu, The Sleeper Below as I find it does not synergise well with this deck.  I put The Sleeper Below merely for fun measure to psychologically pressure my opponent with a Dormant card.  Ha! Ha!

Weakness of this deck

Also be wary if you play against other opponent's as this deck has several weaknesses.
1. Support cards can be easily "killed off" by Grasping Cthonian, Thunder in the East, and Burrowing from Beneath.  So be ready against this eventually especially facing off with a deck with Shub faction.  Also, Khopesh and Flooded Valut now have a weakness going against Frozen Time, which is a Yog card.

2. Character Control which is the specialty of Hastur with Blind Submission and Stygian Eyes.  Although Infernal Obsession is notable, it 3 costs discourage many people from including it into their decks and also it does not cycle back to your draw deck.  Also be careful of Yog's Prof. Nathaniel Peaslee as that card can be annoying.

I have yet to test this out against the Agency deck after the availability of The Greater Good deluxe expansion but I can foresee that it may present a challenging match-up against this deck.  This is due to the fact of some cards and characters that control effects being target at the Agency cards like following.

• The Great Work - prevents you playing Deep One Assault and Calculated Mutation unless you have characters committed to this conspiracy card.
• If it is Day, Church Operative can put a speed bump on this deck destructive as you have to discard a card to target the opponent Agency character.
• Red Tape - cancel the first effect triggered which against can slow down this deck destructive momentum.
• Things will become more difficult to manage if the Agency player successfully put The Foundation into play and have domain to spare in paying for its effect.

Your Starting Hand
Often your starting hand, you need to get a copy of Shadowed Reef and/or Devil Reef.  It will good if you can have at least 1 Poleman in hand also.

If you are playing on a competitive level, you can check out NuFenix tournament winning decks called Victoria Khopesh and Cthulhu-Shub .  However, his decks use combination of two factions so it may take some time to gain the experience and learn how to pilot a dual-faction deck.  But I have to say looking at his deck may give you some inspiration for some creative deck-building.

I hope you have fun experimenting.  Let me know how your deck plays out.