AGoT DC Meta said:

it all depends on when the fear of infinity is played and what the state of cards in play are.  Lets assume a lowly plebe has the Khopesh and guardian has yet to be twilight gated from a domain.

If you put apeirophobia on another creature who wields the Khopesh before a potential twilight gate occurs, then the player will likely choose discard to avoid losing the Khopesh due to insanity of the wielder, potentially losing the twilight gate event.

If you have already twilight gated the guardian, then discard is likely irrelevant and would be chosen over the insanity.

It assumes much on the player of the madness event to guess what is in the hand if the khopesh/guardian player.

Personally, I am not impressed by the otherwise fantastic fear of infinity.

hahaha. you've got it all wrong. Yog-Sothoth / Shub-Niggurath FTW

thing is ( and i'm not talking khopesh / guardian here, but my usual shub / yog decks ), i usually design them so that after a few turns they can basically run a whole turn or 2 without even touching my hand cards through various special abilities recurring cards from discard, so apierophobia really doesn't bother me, and as stated might put another card in discard that really helps me out anyway ( same with milling - love it !! ). quick decks usually start finding themselves short on cards in hand and this is why i moved to compensating with cards in discard ( and before you say it snow graves is road kill under the wheels of a yog / shub deck also designed to keep the discards free - and before you say it marcus jamburg is snot caught under the fingernails of a yog / shub deck also designed to lock down an opponent's discard pile ).

also cards like chant of thoth ( when part of a draw and played first before apierophobia can be ) gives a player the equivalent of 3 extra untouchable cards in hand, and when characters like corrupted midwife / elder thing scavenger ( possibly shock transformed in if cost is a concern ) and the great AO's Yog and Shub themselves are also available ( and these can be brought into play as early as turn 3 in some decks ), then who needs hand cards ??

that's why i love Yog / Shub. destruction decks are GENERALLY not a problem as the domains an opponent is using to do this are the mirror domains i'm using to just bring them back, and i can practically treat most of the discard as if it was sitting in my hand. it has enough sacrificing of its own to cause its own brand of havoc, superior in some ways for its card effect bypassing against wounding / destroyed, can continually remove any supports / relics that it faces while protecting its own, and blended together has a beautiful mix of terror / combat / arcane ( with a few investigations too if you want them ). finally it also has some really great cost for skill ratios happening ( 2:4 / 3:6 etc ).

zealous much ?? haha.

( and truthfully, everything i've ever said here and every deck i've posted is just blather when compared to my REAL yog / shub secret squirrel deck - i had to edit the above cause i almost gave it away !! - and the key is NONE of the above )

ok. spent the whole day playtesting and playing my first ever cthulhu deck ( boo hiss ). but i admit it is good, but not very satisfying as its a very easy faction to build a deck with. was against a friend and his sneaky syndicate / twilight deck ( skill / bouncing ). did discover that the hideous guardian / twilight gate combo is actually hideously flawed as it doesn't work against twilight who ( after all the work setting it up ) can simply pose mundane ( a staple in our decks ) the hideous guardian and lose a resource, to play farrington who returns the khopesh wielder to hand. i'll leave 2 copies in there for other factions but went back to my usual twilight gate of guardian elder thing with an added ravager of the deep in the opponents story phase after he has committed ( both non monsters ). ended the day with my deck looking like this:

HAVOC KAZ-ED-DUM EL ROMBOKO LOMAX

Cult of bathos x 3
Guardian of the key x 3
Faceless abductor x 2
Lurking deep one x 3
Many angled thing x 3
Laboring gug x 3
Elder thing scavenger x 2 / Deep one rising x 2
Hideous guardian x 2
Guardian elder thing x 2
Ravager from the deep x 2

Cursed skull x 3
Khopesh of the abyss x 3

Sacrificial offerings x 3
Twilight gate x 3
Chant of thoth x 2
Deep one assault x 3
Get it off x 3
A single glimpse x 3
Speak to the dead x 2

which cleaned his clock 3 - 0. but still plenty more refining to do. also played the reworked Yog / Shub version ( RE-OCCURRING NIGHTMARE ) which performed well from the get go but will also change a bit ( as i'm more familiar with playing this deck style - and the Y'golonac / scavenger / cursed skull worked a treat with the extra domains ). deep one rising / elder scavenger is still to be worked with but we ran out of time. basically you can sit back sacrificing and destoying / wounding for the first few turns to build up the domains and it goes downhill from there, spesh with guardian elder / ravager popping up mid story to wound all opposing characters ( poor poor mr. pan never lasted even a single story phase and master of the myths died very quickly with these 2 ). its brutal enough as it is and the only weakness / competition i foresee is a rush deck, so i may replace something with dampen light to counter this style of deck.

P.S. if you're wondering about the deck name, a long time ago we crossed the teenage mutant turtles RPG with the RoleMaster RPG ( an excellent mesh which converts smoothly ) to populate a fantasy world where a rogue warp mutated the creatures into humanoid forms. One character was an african Rhino berserker who killed / hacked / slew / maimed everything it came across. this is a tribute to that monster from the past ( mine was a ninja porcupine who could throw his own quills ).

COCLCG said:

Perambulans would be good, of course, for anti-rush. Then you may not need A Single Path either. Do you think you need that much attachment control with Get it Off and DOA?

( i'm guessing you're referring to the other completed version under DECK ).

can't have perambulans as already have khopesh. get it off is really the only attachment control i'll be using, for snow graves / khopesh / stygian etc. DOA is really just a cthulhu destroyer of low cost characters / supports and won't be used for attachments unless really needed, but its nice having the option. single path / dampen light are not just for rush decks. these screw with any deck for only cost 1 so with 5 it should be a fair chance from turn 1 the opponent will be seriously hampered, but a rush is the major weakness of most destruction decks. not with this one!! problem with most is they go too much destruction and are then vulnerable to a rare few circumstances. better to ease up and cover the bases i feel. so its not all about destruction, if it was the cards would be different. i've tried to make an overall good performer that limits the opponents play and destroys / sacrifices / abducts what does come out. and if you look closer you'll see that single path is not only a rush stopper. when played, the opponent will be forced to make a decision - do i commit more than one to have a hope of winning the single story, and if they do, hello twilight gated ravager.

and its ridiculously quick for a destruction style deck with 16 x 1 cost, 17 x 2 cost and 3 x DOA which i anticipate to be 1 or 2 cost. that's 36 of 50 very cheap cards, and the higher ones can be played with twilight gate for 2 cost as well. it can perform at nearly full capacity with only 2 resource domains, with no huge rush to get to 3 or 4 ( when it happens it happens ). all this time of course single path / dampen light will be popping up.

i'd advise you to try it and see. of course it's only version 1.0, has only been played a couple of times ( but ripped through 3 - 0 every time ) and has a couple of cards that may replace others ( like which of dragged into the deep / chant of thoth / speak to the dead / princess zura to take for example and whether -1 rising / ravager for +2 hideous guardian ).

a quick word on strategy is that i've found elder scavenger to be most useful in the opponents turn where you can commit it to make sure it gets the refresh, exhaust it to bring cursed skull back, and then it and a newly refreshed scavenger are waiting for you on your turn.

in saying that about elder scavenger, only it and chant of thoth are really in danger of being changed due to playtesting. apart from the others mentioned, guardian shoggoth and unspeakable resurrection are also on the table. time will tell.

COCLCG said:

Well, that resolve didn't last long!

COCLCG said:

It's a good idea . . . if only the designers would implement it.

The problem is, there are factions where the designers are fastidious about adhering to limitations on card design (such as Agency, which has virtually no ability to compete in the Terror struggle), and then there are factions that have access to everything. In the latter category would probably be Hastur and Yog-Sothoth; while they tend to be slightly more costly, they seem to have access to virtually every ability, not just all four struggle icons, but support removal, direct damage, action cancellation, discard pile control, etc., etc.

That very broad range in card design for Hastur, Yog, and to a lesser extent Shub is probably why they are gaining ascendancy in competitiveness. While they are less cost-efficient than Cthulhu (which in my mind wins the cost-efficiency battle hands-down) and slower than Agency and Miskatonic U, they have an answer for virtually every situation, which is invaluable.

Hellfury said:

It's combinations like this that are the reason why direct character removal is becoming the dominant strategy, I think.  Basically, there are a lot of ways to move wounds around, shield characters from wounds, and shake up the Combat struggle, but you can bypass all that trouble with direct removal.  Hideous Guardian shielding your Khopesh wielder is a great idea; and one that Lord Jeff doesn't find to be the slightest problem.

Runix said:

haha. hey!! c'mon. its been close to 6 months now and this is my first cthulhu deck i've ever built ( apart from the open the box, make a deep one sacrifice deck and think its invincible, when you don't know anything else ).

Runix said:

Are you confusing factions?

Does Hastur have investigation? In my recollection they're also weak in Combat.

Shub Niggurath is a faction that has icons for everything.

jhaelen said:

Hastur actually has plenty of Combat through the Byakhee and some of its Cultists; it's just that most players tend to build it for Terror, where it certainly is stronger.  You are right, in that it's short on Investigation; but then, that's true of all the "monster" factions, as Investigation is something of the domain of the "human" factions.  The problem, of course, is that Investigation is nice but not necessary, while Terror and Combat - where the "monster" factions dominate - is nearly always necessary just to make it to the Investigation stage.