O, R'lyeh? - Byakhee Attack

To those that don't know, the Hastur faction generally gets the reputation as “the control faction” amongst Call of Cthulhu players. What I mean by “the control faction” is the faction aims to control the game by either literally taking control of your opponents characters through cards like stygian eye or infernal obsession, controlling what your opponents can play by cancelling events and character or support card abilities through cards like power drain or performance artist, or by controlling what's in your opponents hands by making them discard cards through cards like byakhee attack or apeirophobia. Hastur is also famous for being the faction that likes to drive people insane, whether it be their own characters or their opponents. You will typically see Hastur paired with another faction as they aren't the strongest by themselves. Controlling the game is good but only if you can capitlize on the control you are seizing from your opponent, which is sometimes a challenge seeing as how Hastur is a slower faction overall. The faction can be pretty effective when paired with one of the faster human factions, because together you can get the speed and control.

When perusing through my collection for a Hastur only themed deck I had originally planned on exploring the lunatics of the Hastur faction but upon examining them I wasn't that impressed to be completely honest. Lunatics ooze with flavor but I couldn't seem to put together a cohesive deck that consisted of Hastur ONLY lunatics. It could be that I was undervaluing and overlooking some things about the Hastur lunatics but in the end I decided to go a different route-that route was BYAKHEE! They just so happen to be the most undervalued and overlooked theme Hastur has to offer in my humble opinion. There are plenty disgusting and creepy looking byakhees to form a core deck centered around bringing the madness that the byakhees love to bestow upon their enemies.


The list today is titled Byakhee Attack:


Total Cards: (50)

Character: (33)
3x Performance Artist (Core)
3x Victoria Glasser (Core)
3x Victoria's Protege (SftSK)
3x Fledgling Byakhee (TC)
3x Stealthy Byakhee (TTotT)
3x Swooping Byakhee (TSC)
3x Shrieking Byakhee (CoC)
3x Moonbound Byakhee (TGS)
3x Byakhee Servant (Core)
3x Obscene Byakhee (SoM)
3x Messenger from Hali (SoA)

Support: (8)
3x The Setting Sun (TH)
3x Stygian Eye (IT)
2x The Cavern of Flame (ItDoN)

Event: (9)
3x Byakhee Attack (Core)
3x Power Drain (Core)
3x Apeirophobia (NN)

Conspiracy: (0)


With the byakhees I wanted to explore an avenue that most people don't give a second thought to when playing Call of Cthulhu-hand destruction. Hand destruction can totally catch an opponent off guard and mess up their best laid plans. The first time you make an opponent discard their key card(s) through a timely byakhee attack or apeirophobia they will begin to respect the hand destruction. Also, with this list I wanted to explore the Night mechanic. I mean afterall the byakhees are at their best when roaming at night, just ask fledgling byakhee. The deck can be a little slow getting started so the setting sun really helps when going against aggressive decks and any deck that doesn't have investigation icons in it like this one. The messenger from hali is a servitor character like all the byakhees and he is also Night on a stick so he helps out to thwart opposing Day decks and turn on fledgling byakhee as well.


Key Cards:

Swooping Byakhee: He has decent stats for his cost and he does what the decks main theme is, making your opponent discard his cards.

Obscene Byakhee: A little costly being 4 to bring into play, but a random discard can really mess your opponents plans up.

Byakhee Attack: Seeing as how the deck's theme is making your opponents discard their cards this is a natural include and a necessary card in the deck.

Apeirophobia: This card can absolutely blowout your opponent! The first time they play one of their high skill charactes with willpower or a terror icon you will make them dump their entire hand and then win shortly after.

Power Drain & Performance Artist: Both of these help to control/stop things you dont want your opponent doing.

The rest of the deck is fleshed out with the remaining byakhees to help complete the byakhee attack theme.

The restricted card I chose for this deck is stygian eye. This card can take control of the best non-ancient one character your opponent controls that he didn't want to discard. It's a shame that both stygian eye and infernal obsession were put on the restricted list. I opted for stygian eye over infernal obsession though since stygian eye is cheaper and does basically the same thing.


When playing the deck:

You want to empty your opponents hand as fast as possible through cards like swooping byakhee, obscene byakhee, byakhee attack, or apeirophobia. If your opponent makes the mistake of playing a high skill character with a terror icon or willpower than it should be a quick match if you play apeirophobia. Once your opponent realizes what you are doing they will start playing their best characters as quick as possible and that's when you can nab them with a timely stygian eye to turn the tide of the game around. You will typically start out building up domains to 2-2-1, then 3-2-1, and then finally to a 4-2-1 or 3-3-1 to play your biggest characters.

That's all for this week! As always, feel free to leave comments, criticisms, or suggestions you would like to see in future articles! I will try not to take so long in between the next few articles. I plan on finishing up the 8 part series before gencon this year so that would mean one article each month leading up to gencon. Thanks for reading guys!