The Great Cthulhu - Starting Your Collection

Welcome to the fourth The Great Cthulhu article. This time I am have some great news, Core sets are shipping to stores now, and may actually be in stock now! So with this amazing news I am going to give brief details of the few things that new players will probably buy, the core set and the deluxe expansions.There are a lot of great cards in all these sets and I'm going to take a brief look at them to determine which are the most important buys for new players.

(i will be rating each expansion with a rating for NEW players)

The Core Set

So if you're thinking about getting into this game, and you should, obviously you're going to have to buy the core set. First thing to know is this one of the first LCGs so the card distribution is different than the more current ones. Each card has only a single copy in the core set. So if you want a whole collection you will need 3 copies of the core set. You do get many cards and surprisingly many of the cards are tournament worthy. Unlike the other expansions the core set doesn't have a particular theme, but gives you a good solid base for all factions including some amazing characters like: Y'Golonac (Core), Hungry Dark Young (Core),Ravager from the Deep (Core),Byakhee Servant (Core), Victoria Glasser (Core), Itinerant Scholar (Core), Clover Club Bouncer (Core),Clover Club Torch Singer (Core), Paul LeMond (Core), Undercover Security (Core),Living Mummy (Core), and more. As well as some key events and supports like Binding (Core), Blind Submission (Core), Burrowing Beneath (Core), Deep One Assault (Core), Shocking Transformation (Core), Shotgun Blast (Core), Dutch Courage (Core), and again a lot more. As you can see for a core set you get a lot of cards that you can use even after you have a whole collection. I will definitely be buying my third copy when they come back in stock, it is definitely worth the price. I recommend for new players to pick up at least 2 even for casual play. - A+

Secrets of Arkham

The best way to explain SoA expansion is as the core set add on. What I mean by this is that again your not getting a true theme but many solid characters along with some support cards for themes you may want to try. Another thing you get is a new set of story cards. They are not the ones you will need if want to do tournament play, however, for casual play it helps add variation to the game after multiple games with the core set. I can't currently recommend this expansion since it is being reprinted and on the boat now (won't be here the same time as the core sets) but once they get back in stock and will have 3 of each card compared to the old sets that only had 2 of each it is another great buy and maybe the first add on you should get. I'm not going to state card for card the good ones for each expansion since this site provides a great card spoiler pages that you can look at when checking at which expansions you really want. Since this set has equal number of cards for each faction this is an amazing expansion - A (again wait till reprint though)

The Order of the Silver Twilight

The main thing this set offers new players is a new faction. Now this is a plus and a minus. The plus is that it gives you new options and a faction that plays quite differently than most, it also lets them be playable if you decided to buy some of the later Asylum packs that includes cards of this faction. The negative though is that this box doesn't give much to the other factions and this set alone doesn't make the new Silver Twilight faction that great. Now eventually I would say it is worth getting, because there are some solid cards and the faction is fun to play. However, it is a hard faction for new players (I still struggle with them). Until you want to try new faction or get hooked like me this should probably be one of the later expansions you get, in my opinion. - D- (reminder rated for new players, for a larger collection much higher rating)

Seekers of Knowledge

This expansion is mainly for the Miskatonic University. This set gives a real boost to the human faction. I really like this expansion because although it is mainly focused on the University faction the few cards that are in it for the other factions are absolutely amazing ones. Also, this box gives a lot of fun options for a faction that thematically was one of the more boring ones when they were without the themes pushed inside this box. It pushes the rush option really far and makes the University one of the best factions. The biggest theme inside the box for the University is the Explorer trait, these are all loyal characters (have to be paid all in Miskatonic University resources) which makes it a real easy deck to build just with core and this set since you won't need to splash another faction. It creates a is a strong limited card pool deck. If you are interested in the University faction clearly this is a must own and it helps that the cards for the other factions are very useful as well - B

The Key and the Gate

Now this is a controversial expansion because it comes with two interesting and powerful effects. First being that it has cards that you can trigger from the discard pile and secondly it has a very very powerful mil deck type in it. Now for a competitive player this is probably a must own since the winning deck from worlds was running many cards that comes from this set, however, it can be a negative play experience. With that and having success at both Gen Con and Worlds I wouldn't be surprised if there is a major hit to this deck type in the next FAQ. But, even besides the mill strategy cards inside this box, there is still a lot of other good cards for the Yog-Sothoth expansion since this is their big faction expansion. Also, I believe this is the set that began the "fate x" keyword. Fate is a keyword that allows you to trigger a powerful effect but a limited time before the card leaves play. So for new players this is a good expansion because it gives you a lot of cards for the price and a very competitive deck type, but also I recommend not playing the mill deck against other new players since it is hard to counter as a new player and also is a negative play experience. With that said I still give it a - B+

Terror in Venice

Now like the Core set and the Secrets of Arkham expansion this set has an equal number of cards for each faction and for new players that is a +++, but unlike those two this set has a real focused theme. The two being Day/Night and Conspiracy cards. This set is amazing and gives every faction powerful cards to use and to have more options to build a deck with. The day and night theme is also very fun to play with as it offers a nice back and forth battle when facing off one another. For Game of Thrones players this is the equivalent of Winter and Summer. However, most of the day cards directly destroy the night cards and the night cards directly destroy the day cards. Which has a fun back and forth to the games. Conspiracy cards are little harder for new players as they add stories to the game that players can put inside their decks. I wouldn't recommend this for new players at first since is hard to know how to correctly use a card that your opponent can actually use to win. I have to say that if you want to try some deck building I recommend this one as the first expansion to get since it has many solid options for both a normal deck and one that wants to add a little day or night into the deck as well. - A+

Denizens of the Underworld

Now the newest expansion that came out just a few weeks ago is focused around the Syndicate faction. So just like Seekers of Knowledge and The Key and the Gate this expansion is aimed more towards one faction. The Syndicate faction is one of my favorite so I am slightly biased towards this deluxe expansion. You get a lot of good cards for the Syndicate faction and many good cards for different play styles within the faction giving you tools to play the faction in many different ways, mostly exhaustion, criminal decks, skill manipulation and others. The cards for the other factions in here are few and not the best but not bad either, so just like the other faction expansions doesn't provide an equal amount of cards for each faction which makes it not as great to starting up collection, unless of course the Syndicate is one of your favorites. This is still giving you a lot of cards for the price though so for that I can't give it anything lower then a - B


Now this game did have smaller Asylum packs before it went exclusively to the deluxe expansions so even after you get all the above expansions if your interested in going crazy like I did with this game, there is still many sets you may buy. I didn't rate every single Asylum pack because that would take a great amount of time to look up and go through, however, again lucky this site has all those packs listed so if your interested in expanding you can search for the cards you want.

Now this was a brief description for all the deluxe expansions and hope it helps anyone interested in buying into the game. The great thing about Deluxe expansions for Call of Cthulhu is almost every card inside each one these expansions has some use to them which makes them a great value. I hope these articles have helped you learn more about this great game and if I have gotten even one more person to buy a core set once back in stock I will be happy! Next time I will be doing a new deck building article focusing only on one deck and the steps I took to build it. Until then hopefully the core sets come in shortly and you give it a try!