The Great Cthulhu - Building CoC decks

Welcome to the third The Great Cthulhu article, a series aimed towards new and veteran players alike as well as those that want to learn more about the game and possibly join later. This week after we have gone over a little about why I like the game, I felt this would be a good time to go over some deck building. Since this is aimed towards newer players both decks will be built with using a small card pool. So without further ado lets look at this first of two decks that I built. (these two decks are actually the very first two decks I made when I started)

This first deck is a Syndicate with Shub-Niggurath and is built using x2 core, the Terror in Venice, and Seekers of Knowledge expansions.

Total Cards: (50)

Character: (33)
2x Priestess of Bubastis (Core)
2x Degenerate Ghoul (Core)
3x Baleful Reveler (TiV)
2x Patsy (Core)
2x Extortionist (Core)
2x Hard Case (Core)
3x Carnevale Sentinel (TiV)
3x Restless Caporione (TiV)
3x Peter Clover (SoK)
2x Hungry Dark Young (Core)
3x Savio Corvi (TiV)
2x Y'Golonac (Core)
3x Nug (SoK)
1x Watcher of the Woods (Core)

Support: (7)
2x Dutch Courage (Core)
3x The Gold Pocket Watch (TiV)
2x The Plague Stone (TiV)

Event: (10)
2x Get on Yer Feet! (Core)
2x Burrowing Beneath (Core)
2x Legacy of Ramses (Core)
2x Low Blow (Core)
2x Shocking Transformation (Core)

Conspiracy: (0)



So first thing as a new player when you build a deck I would recommend is to pick two factions and find a common ground within those two groups so that they can work together to build a solid deck. With this card pool and these two factions I found one thing that worked pretty well together and that is the Night function. The Night/Day mechanic is very much like the summer/winter mechanic in the Game of Thrones LCG for those familiar with that game. Basically if you can make it Night some of your cards will get benefits making them more powerful. The most powerful card in this deck when it becomes Night is without a doubt Savio Corvi (TiV). I am not running any conspiracy cards in this deck because isn't a great mechanic for newer players to get use to right away, however, the second effect is still reason enough to run this character. When it is night every character gains a terror icon and fast. Terror icon is great for helping us with the terror struggle and making an opponents character going insane, but more importantly it makes EVERY character we control immune to going insane. Fast is also a strong keyword in that it helps us win ties in a struggle. For a quick example if I have one combat icon at a story and my opponent also has one combat icon at the story usually nothing happens, however, if one of the characters has fast they would win the tie instead of pushing a tie. Along with Savio there are also three other characters that improve when it becomes Night. So how will we make it night? Lucky for us we have two solid options The Gold Pocket Watch (TiV) and The Plague Stone (TiV).

The Plague Stone is an expensive support at 3 cost, however, it gives us a permit Night effect, and also don't discount having a reset if your opponent has too many characters for you to deal with. The second option The Gold Pocket Watch is cheaper at 1 cost, however, we will have to keep one domain free to make it Night again whenever you need it. It is also important to note that the Golden Pocket Watch can make it day too if our opponent has ever has more powerful Night card that we want to destroy. If you want to make a similar deck with even a cheaper cost you could go without the Seekers of Knowledge expansion, however, that expansion gives us two of the most powerful characters in the deck Peter Clover (SoK) and Nug (SoK). Peter gives us an amazing amount of combat control and Nug helps us accelerate our resources in allowing us to play more powerful cards each turn.


The Second deck again uses x2 core, Terror in Venice, and The Key and the Gate expansion. We are building a Yog-Sothoth and Hastur deck.

Total Cards: (50)

Character: (26)
2x Lost Oracle (TKatG)
2x Cannibal Ghast (Core)
2x Performance Artist (Core)
3x Sieur Piriou Louis (TKatG)
2x Victoria Glasser (Core)
2x Messenger from Beyond (Core)
2x Demon Lover (Core)
3x Professor Nathaniel Peaslee (TKatG)
2x Yog-Sothoth (Core)
3x Wilbur Whateley (TKatG)
3x Scholar from Yith (TKatG)

Support: (8)
2x Dark Passenger (TKatG)
3x San Servolo (TiV)
3x Frozen Time (TKatG)

Event: (16)
3x Vortex of Time (TKatG)
2x Temporal Slip (TKatG)
2x Scotophobia (Core)
2x Dampen Light (Core)
2x Despair (Core)
3x Mists of Lethe (TKatG)
2x Journey to the Other Side (Core)

Conspiracy: (0)


Now I will admit this deck is probably not as good as the first deck but is a fun deck and can do well if gets the right cards early. The goal of the deck is to make characters go insane, and use spells to power Wilbur Whateley (TKatG) and eventually summon the powerful Yog-Sothoth (Core). The main problem with this deck is that it is slow so you need to play defensively to start and slow down your opponent until you get your pieces into place. If you're facing a monster faction deck you could struggle because it will be harder to make characters go insane but against the human factions this can be frustrating to face. Again you can save money because you don't need the Terror in Venice expansion for this deck, however, San Servolo can really help slow down your opponent by making a character go insane whenever you make an opponents character go inane (which is hopefully every turn). There is a lot of great cards that come in the Key and the Gate expansion for Yog-Sothoth faction including the likes of Professor Nathaniel Peaslee, Scholar from Ytih, Frozen Time, and many of the spells we are using in the deck.

Lets talk about those spells and our key pieces Wilbur and Yog-Sothoth. As a four cost Character, Wilbur will take a few turns until he gets on the table. When he does you can afford to play more spells each turn and can discard spells (you want them in your discard pile anyways) and can really slow your opponent down by making them either discard cards from hand or remove a character from the table. Also, once we can get 5 or so spells in our discard pile we can easily afford to summon Yog-Sothoth. If your playing with other players using a limited card pool getting that powerful Ancient one character on the table can win you games by himself.


Thank you all so much for the support of my first two articles and hope you enjoy this one just as much. If have any comments/questions about either deck please feel free to ask about them. There is without a doubt additions/subtractions you can make to each deck to make it better but that is half of the fun for newer players to try some tweaks on their own. Thank you all for taking time to read the article!