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1
Pacta Arcana - Deal with the Dweller
May 02 2013 06:00 PM |
Danigral
in Call of Cthulhu
Call of Cthulhu Pacta Arcana Danigral
Welcome to the third edition of Pacta Arcana, in which we will explore the depths of deckbuilding with multiple factions in the Call of Cthulhu LCG. In each article of this series we will be looking at combining two factions (sometimes more) together to form a cohesive deck around a particular theme, combo, or strategy.Silver Twilight and Yog-Sothoth
Last time on Pacta Arcana, we looked at the efficiency created when Cops and Robbers put aside their petty differences to work together against a greater threat. This week, we’re delving into the secret mysteries of the Silver Twilight lodge. What is it they do behind closed doors in the cryptic depths of their cellars? This time, they are tampering with power beyond their mortal knowledge and making sinister pacts with the “Lurker at the Threshold,†the avatar of the lord of time and space, Yog-Sothoth. Combining these two does a few things: 1) Silver Twilight provides some great bounce effects for characters and supports; 2) Yog-Sothoth provides superior mid-challenge character control in the form of events and characters; and 3) they both have excellent event card recursion in general.
What do I get out of this deal?
Silver Twilight thematically is about harnessing the power of the arcane to their advantage, and Yog-Sothoth constantly operates on the fringes of our time and space mucking around with our reality, trying to draw us in. So the idea of this deck is to hit your opponent in his hand and deck, before his cards even hit the table. With the stalling tactics of Silver Twilight, along with the recursive power of both factions, you can reduce your opponent’s board presence to a mere trickle, while slowly but surely milling their deck. This deck is a little more complicated to play, focusing on the alternate win-condition, but in my opinion, this is one of the coolest decks I’ve built and it’s so fun to play.
Key Cards:
- Umr at-Tawil (SoK) - His ability to cull your opponent's hand of his best cards, while simultaneously milling his deck, is very good.
- Carl Stanford (SoK) - he can get back the filter and mill events to great effect.
- Prism of Many Views (TTB) - this can help you get to a card you need faster, or get rid of a card your opponent needs before their turn; and you can wait until the right time to use it.
- Song of Charybdis (SotM) - when you are filtering the top 4 or 5 cards of your opponent's deck, you can push any characters there down further so that they are only drawing them after 2 or 3 turns usually. If you can manage this every turn, they will almost never see their characters until it's too late, and the one's they do get you can bounce and discard with Umr.
- Descendant of Eibon (TTotT) - he is the engine of the deck, since he fuels resources for Umr and your filter and discard events, and he is a surprise defender to drag out the game.
The object of this deck is to control what your opponent plays and control the board until you achieve one of two things: you slowly mill your opponent’s deck (which is a victory condition), or you create a “lock†on their hand so that they have no characters to play and minimal characters on the board (which is a pseudo-victory condition since you can then go to stories practically unopposed). And of course, you need to achieve one of these before your opponent gets his third story. This means that you can still let your opponent win a couple, as long as you ultimately achieve one of these things.
To start, you should try to have at least one Master of the Myths in your hand because that can really slow a fast deck to a crawl, and buy you some time to build up your domains. After that, you should build up one domain to 4 as quickly as possible, fielding some cheaper dudes along the way. Your other domains will likely stay at 1 in order to use them for Carl Stanford’s ability, Ritual of Bellephar, or for Master of the Myths.
The Deck:
Characters (32)
Carl Stanford (SoK) x3
Faceless Abductor (TOotST) x3
Lord Jeffrey Farrington (TOotST) x3
Master of the Myths (IT) x3
Stalking Hound (PT) x3
Umr at-Tawil (SoK) x2
Constricting Elder Thing (IotF) x3
Descendant of Eibon (TTotT) x3
Many-angled Thing (TGS) x3
Glaaki (AoA) x1
Nodens (KD) x1
Servant from Out of Time (Core) x1
The Large Man (TSS) x1
Lodge Housekeeper (TOotST) x2
Supports (8)
The Doorway (TBJ) x2
Prism of Many Views (TTB) x3
Snow Graves (AtMoM) x3
Events (14)
Pushed into the Beyond (TbtA) x3
Song of Charybdis (SotM) x2
Twilight Gate (TH) x3
Broken Space, Broken Time (CoC) x2
Ritual of Bellephar (IT) x2
Gathering at the Stones (Core) x2
- It has 54 cards, much to the horror of competitive players everywhere. Honestly, that’s not that big of a drawback since you’re focused on the long game. If for some reason your recursion effects don’t get off, you want to have a few more cards than the typical opponent might.
- Don’t be afraid to resource some characters with “enters play†abilities such as Many-Angled Thing, Lord Jeffrey Farrington, or Constricting Elder Thing; they can come back using a Twilight Gate.
- Your success tokens, for the most part, only matter insomuch as they allow you to play Descendent of Eibon from your hand during the story phase, or to get him back to hand from the discard.
- Something you want to consider when playing Broken Space, Broken Time, is if your opponent has Ancient Ones in his deck. They are a little harder to deal with. However, you can deal with them using Glaaki, and you can bounce them with Jeffrey Farrington, which is preferable because then Umr at-Tawil can discard it from hand. If you suspect your opponent is running an AO that is problematic for you, consider “hard-casting†(i.e. paying the full price to play from hand) your Umr or Glaaki using Descendent of Eibon for its transient resource.
- Once you have Umr at-Tawil out, you can use your big domain for Song of Charybdis to constantly filter the top of their deck pushing characters further and further from the top. Meanwhile, Umr is getting rid of tutor effects and characters from their hand. Eventually, they will have no characters left to play, or you’ve held off the one or two your opponent has managed to play for a long enough time that your Ritual of Bellephar, The Large Man, and Umr have obliterated their deck.
- The Doorway is just so good to return your "enters play" ability characters to your hand to further wreak destruction on their board.
- Snow Graves is critical so that your opponent can't recycle or recur cards from the discard.
- Also, if you have them, a couple copies of Dreamlands Fanatic (ItDoN) would be a good addition, too. They didn't quite make the cut in order to maintain the faction identity for the purposes of this article.
This deck is a little more piece-meal, since Silver Twilight didn't come in the core set or half of the asylum packs. Still, there is a pretty hefty list of sets and packs for this deck, including 2 cores, The Order of the Silver Twilight, Seekers of Knowledge, Into Tartarus, Perilous Trials, Initiations of the Favored, The Terror of the Tides, The Gleaming Spiral, Aspirations of Ascension, Kingsport Dreams, The Shifting Sands, The Breathing Jungle, At the Mountains of Madness, The Twilight Beckons, Shadow of the Monolith, Twilight Horror, Conspiracies of Chaos, and Touched by the Abyss. Wow. I know this can be quite daunting for a new player just getting into the game, and in all honesty, this is probably a more complicated deck to pilot for someone new, however if you wanted to build a similar concept, but on a budget, you could make the following adjustments.
Here is a decklist using only 1 core set, The Order of the Silver Twilight, Seekers of Knowledge, Into Tartarus, The Terror of the Tides, The Gleaming Spiral, The Shifting Sands, At the Mountains of Madness, The Twilight Beckons, Shadow of the Monolith, The Breathing Jungle, and Touched by the Abyss.
Characters (32)
Carl Stanford (SoK) x3
Faceless Abductor (TOotST) x3
Lord Jeffrey Farrington (TOotST) x3
Master of the Myths (IT) x3
Umr at-Tawil (SoK) x3
Descendant of Eibon (TTotT) x3
Many-angled Thing (TGS) x3
Servant from Out of Time (Core) x1
The Large Man (TSS) x2
Lodge Housekeeper (TOotST) x3
Intruder from Beyond (TTB) x3
Dirk Sharpe (TBJ) x2
Supports (9)
The Doorway (TBJ) x2
Prism of Many Views (TTB) x3
Snow Graves (AtMoM) x3
The Deodand (TSS) x1
Events (11)
Pushed into the Beyond (TbtA) x3
Song of Charybdis (SotM) x2
Ritual of Bellephar (IT) x2
Gathering at the Stones (Core) x1
Hanyatl's 1:9 (SoK) x2
Opening the Limbo Gate (Core) x2
This one was really hard to pare down, as every card seemed essential for one thing or another, but hey, I enjoy a challenge. I went down to one core since there are more chapter packs in this one.
One big loss was the support control of Constricting Elder Thing, so we've replaced it with a third copy of Lodge Housekeeper (which is the same effect just an inferior character), and added Hanyatl's 1:9 since you'll have characters entering play through effects. I cut out the toolbox AOs and went with a third Umr, which is one of the critical cards, and got rid of BS,BT since we won't need to tutor AOs anymore. This means that Descendant is even more critical for transient to put out Umr early. Also, I traded out Stalking Hound for Intruder from Beyond, since if you're culling your opponent's characters he will still try to play events most likely. Twilight Gate is another big loss to this deck, since it is so helpful to ramp your main domain and use the enters play character abilities that you resourced first turn, but I recognize that many new players don't have this (amazing) pack. Fortunately it's on the queue to get reprinted this quarter (as of publishing this in late April 2013). And be sure to listen to Dboeren's Elder Things podcast for a chance to win a set of them!
Just one final note: Since I haven't tested this deck thoroughly yet against a variety of decks, I'd especially appreciate any feedback, suggestions, or comments you have if you do try to give it a whirl.
Once again, thanks for reading! Join me next time for a look at the Miskatonic nerds' case studies of the lunatics of Arkham Asylum, driven mad by Hastur's yellow sign.
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Danigral started hoarding Call of Cthulhu the same time as A Game of Thrones. While he’s played AGoT more competitively, he’s harbored a secret love for CoC and has played it casually and competitively for over 2 years. Initially drawn into the game through a fascination with Lovecraft’s mythos, he fell in love with the innovative mechanics and engaging gameplay CoC offers. And he wants to convert you. Cthulhu Fhtagn!
- Toqtamish and Jhaelen like this
10 Comments
Thats why I probably would prefer only hard casting Umr and put in 3 copies, leave out all other ancient ones and broken space, broken time.
Replace those with some more yog spells that remove characters like
A Single Glimpse (Core) and/or Calling Down the Ancients (SoA). You can recycle those with Carl standford. It makes you more resistant against rush decks. Calling down the ancients should be playable as you wont have that much low skill characters.
Yes, you are right, this way it takes even longer to get out Umr (1 extra turn needed to play if Umr is drawn in one of first four turns) but meanwhile you have some more defensive options against your opponents characters that already have been put into play.
You can use the big domain to use Song of Charybdis (SotM) while building up for Umr.
Another option is to replace Descendant with another restricted card;
Initiate of Huang Hun (CotJE). It fits your deck, bounce characters and when Umr is out, let your opponent discard them. After playing Initiate you can also choose to not take back Initiate in hand but instead take back Jeffrey or Many Angled Thing if its out. With the doorway there is always a way to get Initiate back in hand again.
It's very unfortunate that Initiate is restricted, otherwise I would include him, the problem is that it really necessitates resourcing up to 2 on your minor domains to get the most use out of him, which slows down resourcing your main domain, so he's kind of a distraction in that regard. Lord Jeffrey with the Doorway is slower but more tactical.
Those spells were also in there, but they didn't make the cut since I had bounce and sacrifice effects in characters. I think there could be a char-lite version of this deck though, with more spells, especially if you didn't have Twilight Gate.
Be aware though that when mostly relying on MotM and Descendant for defense, Flux stabilizer can really hurt you. After reading some regional reports it seems that Flux is included in many rush decks these days.
Yeah, I definitely included Flux Stabilizer in my regionals deck.
Relying on Constricting Elder Thing and Lodge Housekeeper is very difficult, especially since it only bounces the location. Hopefully you can discard it from their hand with Umr. But then, it could just be brought back with Jamburg. With some smart playing, it's possible to get them both in the discard. And Hanyatl's doesn't help too much since, with Flux Stabilizer in play, a character can enter play in order to trigger it.
The filtering mechanic can also help to get it in the discard before it even comes into play, if you're lucky.
Another thing I thought about in an early version of the deck was Eltdown Shards (WoP). Bouncing characters and locations is nice when you can pick it for discard with this card. In the end, I had to cut it because I wasn't reliably playing it, since the only character I consistently wanted out was Umr and Carl; all the other characters were bouncing in and out.
I have messed with Umr at-Tawil (SoK) a little bit, and so far it has been a bit disappointing. His effect is killer, but with only one skull and no terror he doesn't have the ability to displace characters at stories like most ancient ones. I think for that high of a cost, you need a little more bang for your buck at stories.
Good work on these articles! It's great seeing CoC discussion again.
Any changes/reconsiderations of this deck after the release of the "key and the gate"?
And why don't you include some Terrors in the Dark (SoA) with it's wonderfull mill effect?