and just another quicky which is proving quite successful, that being:

RE-OCCURING NIGHTMARE

Character (30)

Diseased Sewer Rats x3
Overzealous Initiate x3
Harvesting Mi-Go x 3
Ya-Te-Veo x3
Faceless Abductor x3
Grasping Chthonian x2
Corrupted Midwife x3
Shadow Sorceress x3
Many-angled Thing x3
Elder Thing Scavenger x2
Y'Golonac x 2

Support (9)

Snow Graves x3
Cursed Skull x3
The Three Bells x3

Event (11)

Thunder in the East x3
Twilight Gate x2
A Single Glimpse x3
Speak to the Dead x3

This is a deck I made quite some time ago when scavenging elder thing was first released, and I cottoned onto it re-curring cursed skull, as you only really need it for the phase when you have a 1 domain spare. The original version is still floating somewhere around in the FFG forums.

And so began the theme of a deck that just keeps re-curring some pretty nasty cards. It has undergone some changes with the release of new AP’s since then and seems to be getting worse.

The recursion cards are :

Corrupted midwife
Shadow sorceress
Elder thing scavenger
Twilight gate
Speak to the dead

And the cards they seek to re-curr are :

Many angled thing
Cursed skull
A single glimpse
Diseased sewer rats
Grasping chthonian ( if needed )
And any others needed at the time

The rest of the deck is built upon harvesting mi-go to build up the domains for elder thing scavenger, and thunder in the east to help the chthonian clear snow graves as any deck relying on recursion absolutely needs support removal. Lastly faceless abductor as this is great for nicking weenies before a sacrifice.

The three bells will happily sacrifice many angled thing for corrupted midwife to bring back, and also twilight gate is useful for skipping it in and out for a sacrifice, or grasping chthonian whenever a support is in need of destruction.

Shadow sorceress can return single glimpses and speak to the dead, which in turn can return any useful cards to the situation.

I’ve found elder thing scavenger most useful when in the opponents story phase you can net a refresh and have a domain spare to bring back cursed skull for a quick kill, and then of course refresh again in your own turn ( maybe to do the same ).

I've always been a bit of a fan of sacrificing, as though not as specific as destruction / wounding, it bypasses all the cards that protect against the other two, and if you can string multiples together, it can be just as effective.

FINALLY, for an even nastier deck, you have diseased sewer rats, to be sac'd and re-played as if from hand with the corrupted midwife, causing wounds over and over again.

Hopefully, the opponent will really begin to get sick of seeing the same cards in a re-occuring nightmare.

OVERZEALOUS INITIATE is quite a nice variant from the usual Eldritch Nexus, for as well as providing a needed arcane boost in the low cost characters and gaining refreshes for others before sacrificing, with the appearance of a Corrupted Midwife it is tantamount to gaining the ability to make as many domains as you could possibly need with a single Initiate, hopefully being fed by Harvesting Mi-go's to bring them to 1 domains for the purpose of Cursed Skulls, The 3 Bells sacrificing, Ya-Te-Veo's wounding ability, and Y'GOLONAC's ability to refresh Elder Thing Scavenger (amongst others like Corrupted Midwife after action) for multiple Cursed Skull returning (and leading any characters left from the sacrificing onslaught to their deaths or stasis in story). I had initially not thought of this facet of the Corrupted Midwife beyond Performance Artist and Itinerant Scholar, in that she can recycle any character that sacrifices for an action quite effectively.

Lastly, I am still refining the amounts between Overzealous Initiate and Harvesting Mi-Go, with a possible 1 card overflow turning into a 3rd Grasping Chthonian. I am finding the overall refresh rate of this deck is much higher to take advantage of the sacrificed opposition.

The deck has seen quite a lot of cards trialled through it, all within the 2 cost Character bracket, with cards like Cultist of the Key, Black Dog, Wooden Homonculous, The Sleepwalker, The Forgotten Explorer and Basil Elton all having their turns in the Overzealous / Mi-Go spots. I would also like to try a version with Altar of the Blessed making an appearance to help out with the low skill throughout, as well as seeing if Constricting Elder Thing is a viable substitute for Grasping Chthonian.
 

 I take the chance to make a general comment, which is valid for this deck, for the other one you posted yesterday and for other players as well, so don't take it too personal :)

I like the concept behind both the deck you posted and I really think that with some tweaking you could make them tournament playable/competitive. The problem I see is just one (and it is not really a small problem). What happens if your opponent interact with you, which is the most likely thing to happen?

What if your corrupted midwife is destroyed?

What if you don't draw your sacrifice tool, or it is destroyed?

I already know the answer you are going to give, so I try to prevent it :) Yes, you have speak to the dead, yes, you have elder thing to recur the 3 bells…but they are extremely slow!

The point I'm trying to make is that the "engine" works when you are already in a good position (opponent with just a few cards in hand and the board almost empty), but you have to reach that situation without losing. You have removals, true, but they are not so many AND you have to draw them. Especially on Turn1, when you are in the 2-1-1 situation with the domains, you have basically only 1 action to do (let's say you are lucky, and this action is a rat to remove 1 character). If the opponent deploys 3 chars, you are already far behind.

These are real situations that occurs and should be considered, if you are trying to build something competitive.

I mean, there are clearly some hands that can be really powerful, but they always requires a good combination of cards. Instead, the idea should be to maximize the chance to have good hands 90% of the times.

There are then cards which are clearly suboptimal, like the initiate. Gaining a domain it's NOT so powerful and while it is true that you have some effects that cost 1 (Y'Golonac, skull, yateveo) it is also true that, again, you need a lot of domains to activate multiple effects only when you are already winning.

(On a side note, playing less than 3 Y'golonac is, in my opinion, always a mistake).

Trying to be a bit more constructive: playing a recursion deck, I would definitely play gathering at the stones. Faster than Speak to the dead and it doesn't waste deck resources (yes, you can recur the card you put in the discard pile with your recur engines…but again: they have already to be there).

Some other questions like: what is the optimal domain development/configuration? because you definitely want a domain with 4 resources, and another one with 3, according to my opinion.(time to build them up - time you have to survive).

TL;DR: when building a deck, focus not only on "cool interactions" and "at turn 6 I can kill 70 characters", but focus on density of threats, gameplan, crucial turns and "what if" situation. How to reach that turn 6 is the key, not the turn 6 itself.

Good point, when you design a deck around combos it's really easy to get caught up in the combo and overdo it at the expense of neglecting something basic like having enough characters and icons out early in the game.

I had the same issue recently when I was trying to make a Lunatic deck.  I started with lots of Lunatics, paired Hastur up with Miskatonic so I could un-insane them, etc…  But, it turned out not to be all that great because opponents were coming out of the gate stronger than I was and a lot of Lunatics don't have that good icons for their cost.  I still won 2-out-of-3 games last night but they were hard fought and I know I'd have been better off trading some of those guys for a character with just some basic Terror and Combat icons.

I haven't played your deck of course, so I don't know how much of this issue exists, but it's always something handy to keep in mind.

On Y'Golonac…  Personally I don't see a problem with 2x for him.  He's a very good character, but he's also a unique and may not be playable for a few turns, especially since the deck doesn't have the usual Shub cost reducers.  It partly depends on if he's planning to race to 4-1-1 or if he needs to go through 3-2-1 first, but I wouldn't say it's definitely an error either way.

He may also just not have a 3rd, I bought two Cores early and didn't pick up the 3rd for a long time because I wanted to focus on getting the asylum packs and having more different cards to work with.  Anyway, one copy of one card more of less won't make or break the deck.

 About Y'Golonac as a 2x or 3x: it does make a difference, even just as theory craft situation.

situation a) you have 1 Y'golonac in you opening hand. It is most likely going to be the first card you resource (unless you have a hand with only high cost cards, but in that case, something is wrong either with that particular hand --> mulligan, or with the deck --> change the deck). If you have only 2, now you are left with only 1 in the entire deck. If you have 3, you have 2 left. I prefer the latter situation.

situation b) you draw Y'Golonac in the 2nd-3rd turn but it's not the right timing to play it. Either it sits in your hand for 1 turn more, or it ends up as a resource. Same as situation a) from here.

situation c) you play 1 Y'Golonac, that somehow gets destroyed. I want to play another one very quickly, usually. Better chance to do it if it is a 3x card in your deck.

situation d) you draw multiple copies of Y'Golonac. Yes, bad luck. In this case, 1 is almost for sure ending up as a resource. The other one you can play. ok, not so bad after all.

The situation described here are all real tournament situation that happened to me, btw. I'd like to point out that in many occasions I have used my Gathering to the Stones to recur Y'golo, just because I wasn't drawing my second copy after it got destroyed. Just to say, he is a good char, and I don't see any reason not to play it in less than 3x copies, unless 1) you have a way to tutor for it in a reliable manner and 2) you have a way to recur it in a reliable manner (which MIGHT be the case for this deck, but it doesn't seem to have a way to tutor for it in the first place ^^).

Anedoct: when I was playing around with a deck that was playing Broken Space, Broken Time, I was anyway playing 3 copies of the guy. Just too good not to do that, if it fits the domain development.

yeah, i suppose i have the advantage of having actually used this deck on a number of occasions, learning it like the back of my hand, and playing it beyond the capabilities that are seen on paper. i realise that this is usually the case though so will take all the pointers on board for if / when it finally gets beaten and may need a change.

whats on paper doesnt always reveal the synergies some people just dont have the aptitude to develop, using 'sub optimal' cards. you cant just bang together someones deck, play and possibly beat it and then say its not competative, or even really comment so bluntly on it unless you know the deck backwards, how it plays out, and how it is played. dboeran on the other hand is quite correct in his mights and maybes but not sure without knowing the intricacies, but, i'll take the advice on board for if / when it is finally beaten. 

P.S. i must also state that i'm a little confused about what is considered a 'competative / tournament ready' deck. so few decks get posted here i guess its somewhat hard to define, but i would have though that a deck that so far has played over 20 table top games and has yet to be defeated against a wide variety of contenders might indeed fit the description. perhaps if some people might enlighten me to their 'competative' decks, i might be more inclined to change the way in which i build decks and continually win matches..

@Konx & Dboeren (and anyone else who likes to feed this troll), have you not learned by now that you are casting pearls before a swine? A lot of wasted breath when the response you get is this egotistical mess:

COCLCG said:

It must be tough to be such a winner like you. With your obscenely god-like deck building and card playing skills, why do you bother sharing your genius when it obviously cannot be understood by us mere mortals?

there she is !! good point. i'll just toddle off to my palace in the clouds again. but. facts are facts. where's you're almighty contributions ??

Well, I'm sorry if I commented at all your unbeatable deck, I'll make sure this one is the last post answering to you so that I can be sure you will not get offended anymore.

About "some competitive decks", I've always posted on the board or as articles for FFG the deck with which I placed myself (at least in) top4 in all the tournament I participated. If you didn't bother about searching/reading for them, it's not my fault.

About playing a deck before commenting it: yeah sure, you have a point there. Problem is, you are not the only person that can come with such "crazy, out of the world" (sarcasm here) ideas like playing a bunch of cards like these. So maybe, just maybe, I've already sleeved a deck that was playing these interactions, and maybe, maybe, I've playtested it and seen what are the flaws (which, btw, are common in any card game, and in this case are known as "danger of cool things").

I think I've explained quite well what are the "problems" I see with this configuration and how I would solve them. I've also pointed out what are the decks that might create you problems (maybe it wasn't clear enough: rush decks, the ones that deploy 6 characters in 2 turns, might be problematic). If you don't agree, peace and love, move on playing.

Last suggestion: if you don't want people commenting your decks, write it in the OP.  Or don't post them on a public forum.

bye

Konx

yeah. sorry. you just came over like someone being very condescending about what YOU would do and how YOU would change it, when youre talking to a national tournament winner here. i know how to build decks. i know the weaknesses and flaws. and i can use 'sub optimal' cards in ways you'd never dream of. the deck is what it is, has taken a month of refining / playtesting / field playing, and runs as perfectly as it possibly can.

and i didnt say it was unbeatable, just not beaten to date.

in future though, before you hand out such observations, you might want to actually investigate the decks a little better, because sometimes there's stuff going on beyond what it appears to players stuck in a certain frame of deck building mind.

i retrospect, im thinking thats why this forum has so many people drift in and drift out and has such a poor attendance record. when people post their decks, its more of a show and tell of what they've come up with ( unless SPECIFICALLY asking for advice ).

but there's no "hey, thats interesting", or "hows that going for you?".

just a pack of peabodies saying "this is what i would do", or "I cant believe you havent gotten this in there", or worse still, "yeah, i made a deck like this, cant prove it, never posted it, but its been done before".

NOTE: these are not your freakin' decks. unless asked, i certainly dont give a shite what you would do with them. you wanna make changes and impress your ego upon them then post your own damn decks.

which is why i got fed up last time and have so quickly done so again.

 I think a lot of people here appreciate your deck posts COCLCG (I certainly do), and I don't think you should be offended by Konx's post--as far as that goes I think you're picking up on pretty subtle undertones that are almost impossible to avoid in the medium of the forum. Please keep the content coming, it definitely gives me more to think about

yeah. not sure about that mr graham, but cheers, and let it be known that i post my decks for people like you, who appreciate without imposing. i tend to get a little hot headed (and apologise) when after spending a solid month building, playing, refining and optimising a deck, someone pipes up and speaks to me like a newbie with such things as "well, if you're TRYING to build a competative deck then….", and making generalisations about it when they have no concept of the decks functionality. for example:

this deck rarely reaches 4 domain. elder thing scavenger usually ends up in resources for twilight gate, when it pops out, gets a refresh and a story success, summons back the skull before it becomes a resource again, which is then used by a domain created by the overzealous initiate which has fed the domain its resource with harvesting mi-go. these are the types of intricacies that some people dont think of before they jump on the soap box. Y'golonac is only there for the odd occasion i might feel inclined to go the extra resource or as a late game addition. if a card was to go, it'd be him, and was the last one added. it works just fine at a 3:2:1 domain and then increases perhaps to 3:3:2:1:1. again, if the 4 seems like a mandatory choice given the game, then so be it, but i dont feel pressured at all to use any of the 4 x 4 costs.

OR

says that they've built a similar deck that didnt work, so this one couldnt possibly, when a simple card change can make a mediocre deck into a winning one, or a different play style may suit the deck better.

OR

assumes that the best starting hand could only be a diseased sewer rat when in fact youve got ya-te-veo and faceless abductor both fantastic for stopping rushes, and 6 x 1 cost sacrificing cards to also take out first round opponents. this deck, when used correctly, can, and usually does, start eliminating 2 characters a turn straight from turn 1, and unless the opponent is playing 3 characters every turn, then this becomes THEIR problem.

OR

makes a grand statement about something that MUST be done to the deck, then when another innocent poster (your ok dboeren) points out that it may not be a problem or may be a nuance of the deck, they write a complete post about why they are definately right about it all and should be listened to because they know whats best because they managed to go ok in some tournaments.

im not sure i can take advice from someone who values gathering at the stones over speaking to the dead in a recursion deck that profits from more cards in the discard anyway, and find that a lot of people are stuck in deck building routines that include 'must have' cards from each faction, ignoring cards that when creatively used can turn up some real surprises, if only they'd take them beyond face value before dismissing them, and then ragging on them in responses.

and btw. jumped on lackey after that little spout, and, you guessed it, won a game with this deck 3 - 0. very non competatively of course…….

Cranekick said:

To actually respond to this little spasm of deprecation, I'd like to point out that I probably err more on the side of pride than arrogance.

Being a successful player has nothing to do with inherent 'god-like' powers or playing skill.

What it does entail is months of hardcore dedication and daily research and development of deckbuilding, resourcing, and timing of plays and cards, something i've spent a ridiculous amount of time doing and so am quite proud and defensive of the experience and 100% table top win ratio it has rewarded me with, and I feel that I have every right to be.

You wonder why Tom Capor is so good. There's your answer. He's not gifted or super powered. What he has is a freakish knowledge of the cards and the game itself, and is what i strive to do, that being learning as much as possible that I can about it. I spend at least an hour every day developing my understanding of the game, and spend all nighters just building / playing / refining until my eyes bleed green.

You want to reach a stage where someone can name any card and you can straight off the bat tell them cost, icons and abilities for that card, what cards work well with it, what deck styles it exists within, and what to expect next when you see it played.

Also, upon simply seeing starting resources, you should in the majority of cases be able to mentally name nearly the entire deck you will be facing, as you've already built them all, and the predictability of the 'meta cards' just makes this a whole lot simpler. You'll know from turn 1 what cards you're likely to need and when, and which you can safely resource.

It's players who DON'T have Y'Golonac as a staple Shub, or David Pan as a staple Syndicate ( and the list goes on ), that give me the most difficulty. I love it when a player pulls out a 'crap' card that, in the situation, totally floors me. The biggest weapon in this game is unpredictability. If I know what you've got in your deck, chances are I've beat you already.

Becoming good at any card game has only a small part to do with deckbuilding. You need to put in massive amounts of groundwork, and then you'll be in a position to understand every card and how to use it or how it can be used against your deck ( even the apparent dud ones ), and be able to give some actual constructive opinions.

So yes, I do get a little offended when some tinkerer or righteous deck changer belittles the dedication and deserved success that I have worked ridiculously hard to achieve, and think that their 5 minute viewpoint is tantamount against the couple of months i've already spent trying all their suggestions and failing them.

I do apologise to those that have to listen to my venting, which occurs a bit too spontaneously for my own good, but I hope I've explained a bit about the why's and wherefor's

Part of the thing is, this section of the forums is mainly used for people to post and comment on deck designs.  When you post a deck here, you're implicitly inviting people to make comments on your deck and that includes comments about possible modifications.  It's not really legitimate to get upset that people suggest changes when you're specifically inviting them to do so by posting in an area that's FOR that purpose.

A few cards changed can make a big difference in a deck, that's one reason I give fairly guarded feedback unless I've actually been able to try a deck out at least a few times.  And sometimes I do that, I will copy an interesting looking deck I find online and try it out on Lackey just to see how it works.  If I can do that, then I can give more specific and focused feedback.  But, lately I haven't had much time to do that sort of thing.

If I could ban one word from all the gaming forums in the world, it would probably be "competitive".  More pissing matches and arguments arise over the use of this word I think than any other.  Everyone wants to believe they're a really good player, and in order to do that they often have to bring along the idea also that their local meta is really strong and that their deck/army designs are really good.  So they wave this word "competitive" around because it allows them to in one stroke label themselves as being awesome and dismiss other people as being less awesome.  However, mathematically, we know that not everyone can be way above average.  To further muddy the waters, player skill, knowledge, and playstyle come into play.  A deck/army might work really well for one person who knows it and it meshes with their playstyle, and might not work for someone else.  It's particularly common that you won't do well with a deck/army you didn't design, especially if you don't get how it's supposed to work, or it might take you several tries to figure out how it should work.  (btw - the reason I keep saying deck/army is that the same principles also apply to minis wargames, and I frequent a lot of their forums as well.)  Similarly, results may vary from meta to meta due to differences in what people are playing and differences in skill.  The same player could be undefeated in one city with mostly beginner players and a mid-level player in another city with a more developed meta, or even a chump in a very strong meta.

Point is, none of it means a thing and there is no "compete-o-meter" that can measure a deck to find out if it's competitive or not or to what degree.  When we discuss a deck online, there is only the deck.  There's no meta, there's no game going on so there's no player either.  Just a deck, and different people looking at it from different points of view.  "Here's what I think based on my own playstyle, what cards I'm most comfortable with, my current meta of opponents, and my impression of what the global meta climate seems to be doing."

couldn't agree more dboeren and i do like the style of your responses ( being guarded ), as yes, certain decks/armies (haha) perform differently for different people. i guess what got my goat the most and started all this was the reference by konx that the deck needed tweaking or modifying before it could be considered that bane of a word 'competative', as though i was some newbie from the sticks and like he might be the milestone of what is good or not, when, as you say, no-one beyond the designer has any real inkling on how well it can perform. that raised my hackles, but then the inference that not only his 'suggestion' about Y'Golonac was simply that, but another whole post dedicated to removing it from a suggestion to a 'definite must' (and thus shifting it from commenting on the deck to actively impressing that i change it), and presuming that the deck could only be played with his own playstyle, ired me to the responses i made myself, in haste, and regrettably so. i don't mind people perhaps saying that due to their playstyle they might need some changes, but to say that they made a similar deck that didnt work so this one wont, or its not competative because they can't play it so is a step in the wrong direction.

thank you again for your calm demeanor and non confrontational messages, and if others posted in such non absolute perameters then the forum would be a much nicer place ( and probably would be if i didnt post either - hee hee ).

so yes, i second the ban on the word 'competative', as once again, it has caused a bit of a storm.