Pacta Arcana - Allmother's Eve

Welcome to another week of Pacta Arcana, this week we take a look at a style of deck that the recent FAQ really affected and try to make something new from the ashes of the old.

Yuletide is soon upon us and what better factions to mix than the Christmas colours of Shub-Niggurath's red and the Silver Twilight? While the Lodge gather for midvinterblot their allies the cultists of Shub-Niggurath prepare the summoning of the Thousand young and the great Y'golonac. Thus the celebration of Allmother's Eve will soon be upon the world!

Shub-Niggurath and Silver Twilight

Like a lot of Cthulhu players I had a Shub-Niggurath deck focused on Nug (SoK) and other resource acceleration cards. The trick was to get Nug (SoK) into play as soon as possible, preferably via Under the Porch (THBtS) so it returned to your hand and could be replayed next turn for a total of six three resources across three domains. My deck combined this resource acceleration with expensive Silver Twilight and Shub-Niggurath characters such as High Wizard of the Order (TOotST) and The Mother's Hand (SoA) which not only has decent stats, but which also gives a great enters play trigger.

Now with the restriction of most acceleration cards and the change to Nug (SoK) making Under the Porch (THBtS) useless as a way of getting it into play, this deck is no longer as viable. There is still a three card combo with Arthur Todd (TbtA) and any of the reducer characters to make a turn one Nug (SoK) possible, but the archetype is reliant on playing so many resource accelerators so that not drawing Nug doesn't cripple it, that the loss of cards such as Feed Her Young (WaB) makes it too unreliable.

What do I get out of this deal?

So what can we do to keep the alliance between allmother cultists and dastardly lodge members going strong? We still want them to do something that no-one else really does, preferably something even more unique and interesting than simply accelerating into expensive characters with enters play triggers.

Let me introduce you too a new deck – Draw-Go. For players familiar with Magic the Gathering this is a deck-type that focuses on not doing anything on its own turn but instead counter whatever your opponent tries to do until you can both play your own threat and counter whatever the opponent tries to use to counter your win condition. This does not translate very well into Cthulhu terms since there are no cards that deal with opponents characters as they enter play, which is probably for the best. What the Cthulhu has though are lots of good characters that enter play cheaply for a phase (Master of the Myths (IT)), some decent enter play effects (Grasping Chthonian (IotF)), especially when combined with very good tutors (Shocking Transformation (Core)).

The concepts is deliciously simple. We won't need the resource acceleration if we can stall the game long enough with our bounce characters such as Black Dog (WoP). Then we drop a Shocking Transformation (Core) during our opponents turn and turn the table around with just the character needed for the situation. To allow for even more shenanigans during our opponents turn we have included one-offs from other factions such as The Terror of the Tides (TTotT) and a suite of world championship cards with the Hall of Champions (WaB) to cheat them into play, preferably on our opponents turn.

The Deck
Characters - 39
3x Master of the Myths (IT)
3x Dirk Sharpe (TBJ)
3x Protector of Secrets (IotF)
2x Lord Jeffrey Farrington (TOotST)
2x High Wizard of the Order (TOotST)
3x Grasping Chthonian (IotF)
3x Black Dog (WoP)
2x Hungry Dark Young (Core)
3x Basil Elton (KD)
3x The Mother's Hand (SoA)
2x Y'Golonac (Core)
2x Stalking Hound (PT)
2x The Terror of the Tides (TTotT)
3X The Mage Known as Magnus (TWC)
3X Mentor to Vaughn (KD)

Support - 3
2X Hall of Champions (WaB)
1x Under the Porch (THBtS)

Events - 6
3x Shocking Transformation (Core)
3x Burrowing Beneath (Core)

Conspiracy - 2
2x The Mage's Machinations (TiV)

Notes on the Deck

So how do you play this strange concoction of a deck? First of all you need an opening hand containing both surprise blockers and resource destruction. The perfect opening is Master of the Myths (IT) to block attackers and Burrowing Beneath (Core) to deal with supports like Flux Stabilizer (PT) that can throw a serious wrench in our plans. The plan is to do as little as possible on your turn and instead keep your opponent guessing, so prioritize keeping cards like Shocking Transformation (Core) in your hand and don't be shy about destroying one character to fetch a better one from your deck.

When to wait and when to act is the most important part of playing the deck. Sometimes it will be in your best interest to act on your turn rather than trying to surprise your opponent. If your opponent is temporarily out of resources but you are quite certain that they can destroy your Hall of Champions (WaB) on their turn it is much better to activate it during your turn than wait and hope they don't have any support destruction after all.

The second part of playing the deck is tempo. If you can effect a huge thing during your opponent's turn you should try to capitalize during your next turn. This deck is not so much about delaying its actions as it is about capitalizing on the tempo you can gain this way. If your opponent drops a Khopesh of the Abyss (TSS) on a character and you immediately answer by Shocking Transformation (Core) into Lord Jeffrey Farrington (TOotST) you will not only have stalled a whole turn from your opponent you will have gained a window in which to gain a massive tempo advantage during your turn. In that case drop your whole delaying plan and just go for broke at stories if possible. This is the key to playing the deck, your opponent will not know when you will explode into action while you always (well not always, but as often as possible) know what your opponent has played and commited before making your expensive play during their turn.

Resourcing can be hard with so many neutrals and two off-faction cards, but fear not, many of your characters enter play out of phase and without any resource requirements and all those neutrals don't need any matches at all. As long as you have at least one Shub resource on your big domain you should be fine. Getting a Silver Twilight on there as well should not be all that hard. The resource order should mostly be 2-1-1 into 3-1-1 into 3-2-1 most of the time finishing at 4-2-1 at the end.


Unlike my last attempt to help out here at Pacta Arcana this deck is not exclusively my own brain child, it was born as a G+ discussion with a lot of input from other Cthulhu cultists, all of whom I don't have the forum names off. If they wan't credit for their hard work and chanting I am sure they will call out in the comments below.

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As an avid Lovecraft fan and compulsive collector of games with Cthulhu in their name, I have spent far too much time on the Call of Cthulhu LCG since I was introduced to it three years ago. With a dismal lack of active players in northern Sweden, I continuously try my best to engage new players in the game by building and sharing decks, cubes and organizing Game Nights. If you ever find yourself near the polar circle in the western hemisphere feel free to drop me a pm to schedule a game! - Midian