Fantasy Flight Games

Join the Action from Home

Published 28 October 2015 | Star Wars: Armada

Join the Action from Home

Watch the 2015 World Championships Live

The 2015 World Championships for Fantasy Flight Games Organized Play take place November 4th through November 8th, and we want you to be a part of the action!

On November 4th, hundreds of the best players around the world will begin arriving in Roseville, Minnesota to participate in the 2015 World Championships. They will compete against each other in thrilling games throughout the week, vying for the honor of being named World Champion, a chance to help design a card, and a host of other unique, one-of-a-kind prizes. While not everyone can attend, we are streaming games all five days, including the final match of each World Championship, giving those at home a way to be a part of the biggest event of the year.

Live Coverage

From November 4th through the 8th, we’ll be streaming live games for all of our World Championships on Twitch.tv. Tune into our channel, FFGLive, to watch your favorite games. It all begins shortly before 10:30 am on Nov. 4th! Find each games’ schedule on our World Championship page.

Each day we will be featuring games that include National and former World Champions, prominent players in the community, and exciting decks, squadrons, armies, and fleets. In addition, all of our World Championship finals will be streamed, allowing you to see not only who wins, but how they did it. Live commentating by FFG staff and big names in the community will keep you informed from start to finish. Watch thrilling games from the comfort of your own couch, or ask your store to display the event while you play in a local tournament!

Download the streaming schedule for each of our games now to find out when your favorite games will be
shown live.

2015 World Championship Streaming

A Few Short Days

The 2015 World Championships kick off next Wednesday and continue through Sunday, November 8th. You can find the schedule, prizes, and a detailed event pamphlet on our website. Be sure to tune in and watch the best players in the world compete for awesome prizes and everlasting glory!

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Prepare for the End of the World

Published 16 October 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

Prepare for the End of the World

New Call of Cthulhu FAQ and Tournament Rules are Available

One can never know exactly when the world will end, but those with knowledge of the ancient, unstoppable forces from beyond space and time must always be prepared. If the stars align and an investigator is ready, they may even be able to bring about a new era of peace, locking the Ancient Ones away from our planet for a time.

Whether you’re working to bring about or prevent the end of the world, check out our updated Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game FAQ (pdf, 13.4 MB) so that you’ll be prepared in case the time comes. The tournament rules (pdf, 4.4 MB) have not been updated and can be found on the Call of Cthulhu page of our website.

These changes will go into effect on October 28th, 2015.

A Word from the Developer

Hello cultists!

We have before us the the last official World Championship for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game and a new FAQ to go with it. This FAQ introduces a few minor changes to the metagame leading up to this event. The Restricted List has had a minor tweak with The Black Dog (Words of Power, 29) coming off and Uroborus (Written and Bound, 3) being added on. Pervasive Toxemia (The Thousand Young, 34) has received the errata, “Cannot be canceled.” A few questions that had been submitted in multiple forms through our Rules Question link have been addressed, addressing timing of response effects, copying effects, and play restrictions.

Enjoy the game, and I cannot wait to see who is left standing when the stars are right and the final champion is named. Best of luck to all of you.

Damon Stone

Prepare yourself for the unknowable. Download the FAQ and tournament rules today, and brace yourself for whatever you may face at your next tournament.

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The copyrightable portions of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game are © 2008 - 2013 Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. Call of Cthulhu is a registered trademark of Chaosium, Inc. Living Card Game, LCG, LCG logo and Fantasy Flight Supply are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved to their respective owners.

A Fitting End

Published 16 October 2015 | Star Wars: Armada

A Fitting End

Updated FAQ and Tournament Rules are Now Available

The 2015 Organized Play season is nearing its end. But tournaments still remain! The 2015 World Championships will be held next month, along with countless local tournaments around the world before the end of the year. Whether you plan on attending the 2015 World Championships or head to your local store for a tournament, we recommend you read the updated FAQ and tournament rules before doing so.

All changes from today’s announcement will go into effect on October 28th, 2015 unless otherwise noted.

Download the Documents Now

Today’s update brings with it small changes to the majority of our FAQs and tournament rules documents. While there are no earth-shattering announcements, it is important players stay up to date with the current FAQs and tournament rules. Knowing the details may be the difference between glorious victory and crushing defeat, and you can start learning these new changes by clicking on the links for your favorite games below and reading what the developers have to say:

A Game of Thrones: The Card Game
Android: Netrunner
Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game
Imperial Assault
Star Wars™: Armada
Star Wars™: The Card Game
Warhammer 40,000: Conquest
X-Wing™ (previously announced on September 16th, 2015)

Not Just For Tournaments

While the changes today are mostly small tweaks meant to keep tournaments competitive and fun, that doesn’t mean only tournament players should read the new FAQ and tournament rules. In each document, you’ll find answers to many of the most commonly asked questions and rulings. Whether you’re looking to vie for the title of World Champion or play in the comfort of your own home with family and friends, the updated FAQs and tournament rules offer clarity and structure that will give you a better play experience.

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Descend into Madness

Published 8 October 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

Descend into Madness

The Mark of Madness Expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Is Now Available

"A weirdly hieroglyphed onyx talisman, picked up in the street by the sharer of his dream, is shortly given the artist; and after stumbling queerly upon the hellish and forbidden book of horrors the two learn, among other hideous things which no sane mortal should know, that this talisman is indeed the nameless Yellow Sign handed down from the accursed cult of Hastur—from primordial Carcosa."
–H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature

Artists work feverishly under the spell of profane influence. Musicians recoil from the eerie, cacophonic music they play, even as it pounds, lilts, tumbles, and tangles around them, weaving itself into their very souls. In Marseille, the lunatics have escaped the asylum and are running rampant through the city's gaslit streets, compelled by the dark and corrupting influence of Hastur, the malevolent King in Yellow.

Also known as the Unspeakable One and He Who Is Not to Be Named, Hastur has long been one of the most popular Ancient Ones in the Cthulhu mythos, and his secret cult now gains a profane boost from The Mark of Madness deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, available today at retailers throughout the United States and online via our webstore!

With its 165 new cards (three copies each of fifty-five different cards), The Mark of Madness elevates the game's focus on terror to an art form, offering a renewed focus on its iconic Terror struggle. Additionally, a good measure of the expansion's characters, supports, and events further emphasize the mechanics for insanity that help make Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game the immediately distinctive, eerie, and supernatural Lovecraftian experience that it is.

Have You Seen the Yellow Sign?

"I showed him a list of thousands of names which Mr. Wilde had drawn up; every man whose name was there had received the Yellow Sign, which no living human being dared disregard."
–Robert W. Chambers, The Repairer of Reputations

As the dedicated Hastur expansion, The Mark of Madness plays to many of the faction's longtime themes and strengths, supplying you with a plethora of new options to reinforce and reinvigorate a number of strategies that harken all the way back to the game's origins.

Long ago, shortly after the release of the Core Set, top tournament players often paired Hastur's strengths in "control" strategies alongside the Agency's many tools for "rush" strategies. Those pairings are back, now that you can use powerful Hastur cards like Mad Maudlin (The Mark of Madness, 11) and Daughter of Atlach-Nacha (The Mark of Madness, 15) alongside newer Agency cards like The Blackwood Initiative (For the Greater Good, 35) and Dr. Christine Marie (For the Greater Good, 6).

Of course, The Mark of Madness doesn't just enhance the classical, unholy union between Hastur's cult and the members of the Agency. It also presents all manner of tempting new abilities to subtly corrupt all the others of the game's factions. For example, you could use Cassilda's Song (The Mark of Madness, 31) and Seer of the Gate (The Mark of Madness, 55) in a deck that pairs Hastur's cult with that of Yog-Sothoth, or you could add Opening Night (The Mark of Madness, 35) to a Night-focused deck that makes use of Nightmares! (Twilight Horror, 10) and Sweet Dreams… (Twilight Horror, 9) alongside Shub-Niggurath's infamous Conspirator, Savio Corvi (Terror in Venice, 34).

Yet as much as it promotes the exploration of these and other pairings, The Mark of Madness does even more to make Hastur's cult a truly terrifying force in its own right. Unhinged Laborer (The Mark of Madness, 8), Tom O'Bedlam (The Mark of Madness, 12), and Lure of the Moon (The Mark of Madness, 30) add frightening measures of control to existing Lunatic strategies.

Meanwhile, Hastur's followers have always been a bit more artistic than the general populace, and the Patron of the Arts (The Mark of Madness, 10) willingly supports the expansion's new Artists, such as the Starving Artist (The Mark of Madness, 1) and Quixotic Poet (The Mark of Madness, 3), in their efforts to produce works of pure genius, even if their pursuits lend new strength to the idea that true genius borders on madness. After all, the Patron of the Arts, like the Artists he supports, is less of a player than he is an instrument in The Dance of the Yellow King (The Mark of Madness, 28).

Nightmares Given Form

Because The Mark of Madness introduces such a potent chunk of madness for the King in Yellow to wield, it also makes an excellent starting point for any player looking to expand into or experiment with Hastur's often subtle and always manipulative methods. There are a good number of decks that you can build with just one copy of The Mark of Madness and one Core Set, and the expansion's inset includes one designed by four-time World Champion Tom Capor.

Mind-control, monsters, Madness, subterranean catacombs, and shocking transformations –– Tom's deck has it all, along with both of his new Champion cards and a short explanation of the deck's many eldritch secrets.

Night Terrors by Tom Capor

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com Call of Cthulhu Deckbuilder

Total Cards: (50)

Character: (27)
1x Ancient Guardian (Core Set)
1x Degenerate Ghoul (Core Set)
1x Ghost (Core Set)
1x Hungry Dark Young (Core Set)
1x Predatory Byakhee (Core Set)
1x Slavering Gug (Core Set)
1x Small Ghouls (Core Set)
1x Thing from the Stars (Core Set)
1x Watcher of the Woods (Core Set)
1x Y’Golonac (Core Set)
3x A Scheme of Byakhees (The Mark of Madness)
3x Daughter of Atlach-Nacha (The Mark of Madness)
3x Maria Suleman (The Mark of Madness)
3x Swift Byakhee (The Mark of Madness)
3x The Archmage, Arcanis (The Mark of Madness)
1x The Supplicant (The Mark of Madness)
1x Serpent from Yoth (Core Set)

Support: (10)
2x Catacombes de Paris (The Mark of Madness)
3x Drawing the Sign (The Mark of Madness)
3x Unspeakable Promise (The Mark of Madness)
1x Tcho-Tcho Talisman (Core Set)
1x Shadowed Woods (Core Set)

Event: (13)
1x Blind Submission (Core Set)
1x Burrowing Beneath (Core Set)
1x Byakhee Attack (Core Set)
1x Despair (Core Set)
1x Shocking Transformation (Core Set)
3x Acute Melancholia (The Mark of Madness)
3x Thaumaturgical Insight (The Mark of Madness)
2x Induce Terror (The Mark of Madness)

In this world, you can be the one being scared, or you can be the one doing the scaring!

This "simple to play" deck utilizes its large amount of Terror icons to gain an edge with cards like A Scheme of Byakhees and Drawing the Sign. Cards like Maria Suleman and the Shadowed Woods keep the good times coming while cards such as Shocking Transformation and Thaumaturgical Insight give you the option to find the cards you need the most.

In terms of playing the deck, don't be afraid to resource your high-cost cards in the early game. Prioritize defense as needed to stall the game until you can start playing your larger characters, which will, more often than not, be your path to victory.

The Path to Madness

"I drew on the white silk robe, embroidered with the Yellow Sign, and placed the crown upon my head. At last I was King, King in my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and my mind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King!"
–Robert W. Chambers, The Repairer of Reputations

Over the ages, the Cultists and Investigators of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game have engaged in innumerable struggles for control over the fates of forbidden tomes, arcane knowledge, and the secret rituals that could potentially rouse the fearful Ancient Ones from their deathless slumber. Over the course of nine deluxe expansions and seven cycles of Asylum Packs, their struggles have seen many driven mad, many more wounded, and others sealed into secret walls, pushed into the spaces beyond time and space, and transformed into foul Ghouls and other degenerate creatures.

Now, The Mark of Madness pushes their struggles toward their final chapters. With its Ancient Ones and art and Spells and Relics, this tenth and final deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game swiftly and surely seduces and corrupts the most psychically sensitive individuals in Marseille, breaking their minds, breaking their wills, driving them toward madness, and epitomizing all of the thematic richness and all of the elegant and strategic gameplay that has long been the mark of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game.

Plunge yourself into the madness today. The Mark of Madness is now available at retailers throughout the United States and online through our webstore. Availability in other regions may vary.

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The Weekend's Dark Events

Published 7 October 2015 | Eldritch Horror

The Weekend's Dark Events

View the Schedule for Arkham Nights

Arkham Nights is almost upon us! The schedule below (you can click on it to view the image full-size) details the featured events for our weekend of Lovecraftian gaming at the Fantasy Flight Games Center. Of course, there will be open tables for you to play at throughout the weekend and our demo team will be on hand to lead you in investigations of new and arcane mysteries. We have also just received news that Arkham Horror designer Kevin Wilson will be joining in to guide you through the streets of Arkham and beyond!

If you haven't preregistered, don't worry, you can still register at the door, but you will not receive any of the mysterious treasures available to those who preregistered.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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The copyrightable portions of Eldritch Horror are © 2013 Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. Eldritch Horror and Fantasy Flight Supply are trademarks of Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. Arkham Horror is a registered trademark of Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc.

Impending Horrors

Published 30 September 2015 | Eldritch Horror

Impending Horrors

Arkham Nights Is Coming Soon

The blood moon has passed, but the dark times that it heralded are just beginning. Arkham Nights, our annual celebration of Lovecraftian gaming, is less than two weeks away and preregistration via our online store ends this Friday, so make sure that you do so before time—for you and for all humanity—runs out.

This year’s Arkham Nights takes place October 9-10 at the Fantasy Flight Games Center near our Roseville, Minnesota headquarters, and features beloved classics as well as new expansions. Games of Arkham Horror, Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, Mansions of Madness, Elder Sign, and Eldritch Horror will be running on both days, with plentiful opportunities for both veteran players and those about to be initiated into the mysteries of the Elder Gods or step through a gate into an Other World for the first time.

Mysteries, Gates, Monsters, and Initiations

Over the course of the weekend you’ll be able to chat with and play games with old friends and new, as well as with FFG designers and developers. The devious, fiendish Samuel Bailey will be running games of the popular new Gates of Arkham expansion he designed for Elder Sign. Designer Nikki Valens, expert in numerous dark and arcane arts, will lead The Cycle of Eternity, a massive sixteen-player version of her game Eldritch Horror, featuring all four of the game’s expansions and challenging investigators in unprecedented ways. Above all, the esteemed and crafty Richard Launius, the designer of Arkham Horror and Elder Sign, will be running a variety of Lovecraft-themed games throughout the weekend. We will also be holding our annual Call of Cthulhu Initiation Tournament, and you will have opportunities to solve the mysteries of the upcoming Eldritch Horror expansion, Under the Pyramids, before its release later this year.

A more detailed schedule of events will be posted to the Facebook event page and shared via social media soon.

Preregister… Before It’s Too Late

A collection of strange and uncanny treasures will be offered to those who preregister via our online store by this Friday, October 2nd. Players will receive a limited edition dice bag featuring the iconic Cthulhu faction symbol from Call of Cthulhu, custom dice for playing Arkham Horror and Eldritch Horror, a poster featuring art from the upcoming Under the Pyramids expansion, and an exclusive Ancient One for Elder Sign: Ubbo-Sathla, the terrible primordial mire that birthed life on our planet from which inconceivable monsters still emerge. Finally, two alternate art cards for Call of Cthulhu will be included, one of which features art by the stunningly talented French artist, Magali Villeneuve.

Preregistration is not required to attend, but only those who have preregistered will be able to obtain these rare artifacts. We will also, however, hold surprise giveaways of exclusive merchandise relating to our Lovecraftian games throughout the weekend.

Two days of dark, ancient mysteries, savage monsters, and terrifying knowledge await you. Preregister now, join the Facebook event, and prepare to confront the horror.

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Let It Eternal Lie

Published 22 September 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

Let It Eternal Lie

Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Is Coming to an End

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

Artists, lunatics, cultists, and madness haunt the nights of 1920s Marseille in The Mark of Madness, the tenth deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Focused primarily on the mind-warping prowess of the Hastur faction, this much-awaited expansion provides a significant boost to the Terror struggle and the game’s signature mechanics for insanity.

It also heralds the end of an era. Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game has enjoyed a long and rich life, even beyond what was once predicted for it. The devotion of its fans has sustained this sophisticated game of Lovecraftian horror for many, many years. Now, after seven cycles of Asylum Packs and nine deluxe expansions, the release of The Mark of Madness, the game’s tenth deluxe expansion, completes the series of faction-based boxes. It also completes our development of the game. After the game’s upcoming World Championships, our Organized Play team will no longer be holding official tournaments. We have finished creating Call of Cthulhu. We are ready to leave the game in your capable hands.

Looking ahead, we will continue to gradually make all Asylum packs available through our in-house manufacturing division, The Factory, so that no Asylum Pack will go out of print. The six packs of the Dreamlands cycle are already available in that form. Eventually, when demand arises, we may also reprint the ten deluxe expansions. This year's World Champion will still be able to design a card, and will receive a limited production run of that card to keep and distribute among friends and community members.

Words of Farewell

Few games share histories as long and storied as that of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, and few owe as much to their fans. Your passionate support has been instrumental in shaping this game, and two of the game’s developers, Nate French and Damon Stone, want to thank you by offering their perspectives and their farewells.

Nate French

I joined Fantasy Flight Games in 2006, as a developer for two collectible card games. During my first week in the office, I was summoned to a meeting and told that the company was planning to cancel one of those games, the Call of Cthulhu CCG.

In the conversation that followed, a number of considerations emerged, but most important was this: while the game does not have a large following, the people who do play it are intensely passionate and devoted. It is a gamer’s game to the core, a game worthy of holding the mantle as a serious player’s favorite game for years at a time.

We pride ourselves on serving an audience of gamers who expect and demand more from their gaming experience than one might find in your typical mass market game, and the Call of Cthulhu CCG fanbase were the type of players who represented the heart of our target audience. While the CCG had reached a point where it was no longer financially viable, its fans forced us to address one fateful question: how do we treat this group of loyal, passionate players who so love the game we are about to cancel?

The answer, of course, is to treat these players with all the respect in the world, and to realize that, for such players, the loss of their beloved game would be heartbreaking.

To soften the blow of this loss, we came up with the concept of the Asylum Pack — a small pack of twenty or so new cards, which we would release a couple of times a year. This probably seems like nothing special to LCG® players, but back in 2006 the only way to purchase cards for the game was by opening booster packs and hoping you got the ones you needed! These Asylum Packs were conceptualized as a means of saying “thank you” to the most devout, never-say-die fans of the Call of Cthulhu card game, and at the time we had little sense that the product would ever be anything more.

Oh, were we ever wrong.

As it turned out, the Asylum Packs were popular… really popular. The first printing quickly sold out, and successive printings continued to do so as well. We thought we were releasing these packs for a small handful of die-hard fans, but it was obvious that most of the people who played this game loved it, and saw themselves as the die-hard fans. The response those first Asylum Packs elicited, a manifestation of this community’s desire to continue to collect the cards and play, eventually lead us to reconsider the entire manner in which customizable card games were presented.

This, I believe, is the legacy of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game — it is a game with an audience who loved it so deeply, they would not let it die, and the evidence of their continued support spawned the conceptualization of the game-changing LCG model. It is surprising what a gesture of thanks, combined with the power of a community’s passion for a game they love, can accomplish. Actually, I take that back — knowing this game, and the people who play it, it’s not surprising at all.

It is now 2015, we find ourselves on the brink of another sunset moment for the game, and I cannot help but think back upon the lessons we learned in 2006. Call of Cthulhu was never destined to be popular with the masses — it is a deeply challenging game that rewards the most elite and committed players — but the meaning, the importance, and the impact of a game goes far beyond the question of “how many people play it?” Call of Cthulhu has meant the world to a small but deeply devoted fanbase for nearly a dozen years, and all those who currently enjoy the massive success and popularity of the LCG model owe a debt to the intense passions of this small group of die-hard fans.

The news that we will be retiring this game has left me again with a heavy heart. I wish that there were more I could say to soften the blow, but ultimately I know that my words can only do so much. In 2006, the announcement of the first Asylum Packs was there to provide players some closure with the ending of the CCG, and today, The Mark of Madness deluxe expansion promises one more dance. Twelve years is quite a run for any customizable card game, and this longevity is a testament to you, the fans, and also to Eric Lang’s wonderful design. We all thought the game was coming to an end ten years ago, but it refused to die, and I for one can only hope that the game will somehow, against all odds, find a means to surprise us once again…

Damon Stone

The Mark of Madness revolves around the whisperings and subtle corruption of Hastur, creeping from Dover, Kent to Marseille, France like a plague of madness. The ravings of his lunatic throng, and the entities and abominations which worship or align themselves with the King in Yellow sow chaos and disorder amongst the working poor as well as the genteel. This final box serves as a starting place for casual players who wish to familiarize themselves with workings of He Who is Not to be Named, as well as a focus for the competitive player who wishes to build decks making the most of the terror struggle or the faction's ability to advance its own schemes when characters go insane.

When Call of Cthulhu switched to the deluxe box model in the second quarter of 2012 the game really took an interesting turn for players and collectors both. The ability to focus on faction specific boxes in a similar model to The Order of the Silver Twilight dramatically lowered the cost of entry for new players while also providing dedicated players a wonderfully thematic and mechanically focused method of play.

My very first goal with these boxes was to explore the thematic side of the factions, setting each box in a geographic area and focusing on one or two mechanical themes that would help refine or expand that faction's presence in the game, depending on where it was competitively. Starting with the Seekers of Knowledge box, which introduced thematic cards based on Miskatonic University sponsoring expeditions to the farthest reaches of the globe and a prophecy detailing the end of the world, the deluxe box served as a place for competitive and casual players alike to explore in-depth our version of Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s mythos.

With The Mark of Madness, the cycle of faction boxes is complete. Collectors looking for a closed system full of complex strategies, exciting tactical options, and rich and thematic stories will find it difficult to match what Call of Cthulhu has to offer. The complete collection is 1,560 cards including all story cards, creating an amazingly rich and diverse card pool from which players will be able to choose multiple archetypes per faction as well as numerous competitive synergistic pairings of factions that will provide years of replay value.

For a long time people have asked me about my favorite games and what makes me enjoy them. Call of Cthulhu is a game I mention in every discussion. The resourcing system, the limited actions, the incredibly rich world it encompasses make it second to none. It has been a shining example of elegant game design and how development can marry theme and mechanics, and will continue to be a game that will serve as a guide to other designers on what is possible.

I want to thank all of you the passion you’ve shown the game, and the camaraderie you’ve shown each other and extended to me. It has been a distinct pleasure and honor to be a part of this games groundbreaking history and I sincerely look forward to sitting across from some of you for more epic struggles of Lovecraftian horror in the future.

From Marseille to Arkham and the End of Time

Our development of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game comes to an end with The Mark of Madness, but not before this tenth deluxe expansion and its focus on the Hastur faction leaves the game more balanced than ever, and with its signature Terror struggle more prominent than it has been in years.

Meanwhile, the game will never truly perish so long as its devoted followers continue to pass its traditions down through the ages. After all, Lovecraft’s stories have themselves remained popular long after his untimely end. We are certain that Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game will live on for countless years to come.

Who knows the end? What has risen may sink, and what has sunk may rise.
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

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The End is Nigh

Published 21 September 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

The End is Nigh

2015 Call of Cthulhu World Championship Prizes

The year began with Store Championships, where players faced off against local opponents and familiar faces. Then players traveled to Regional Championships, some taking epic road trips with friends along the way. After Regional Championships, the second half of the year heated up as players competed in dozens of National Championships around the world. Now, a quiet period has descended as investigators make their final preparations before heading to Roseville, MN in November for their final chance at glory before the end of the world at the 2015 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game World Championship!

Competition Like No Other

Our World Championships is an experience that players will talk about long after the event is over. With world-class competition, live streaming all week, and hundreds of other passionate players, it’s impossible not to be swept up in the moment, make new friends, and create new memories, win or lose. It is easy to get caught up in all of the side events, meeting FFG staff running the events, and the fantastic gaming space, but at its core, the World Championships is about finding the best player in the world for each of our competitive games. Do you have what it takes to be crowned 2015 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game World Champion?

Discover New Relics

The 2015 World Championships prizes have been unearthed, but that means only the most rational and intelligent investigators will be able to claim them. In addition to the participation prizes every attendee of World Championships will receive, players who do well in the 2015 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game World Championship will have a chance at these fantastic prizes.

Completion Prize: Each player that plays through all Swiss rounds of the Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game World Championship receives two additional copies of the Azathoth alternate art card.
Top 8: Each player receives a Top 8 World Championship playmat featuring an investigator warding off monsters in the dark.
Top 4: Each player receives an art print of Cthulhu slumbering in the deep signed by the artist, Ryan Barger.
Winner: The World Champion receives a 2015 World Champion trophy, a unique, one-of-a-kind playmat, and the greatest prize in gaming, the chance to design a card for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game! (Because no more products will be produced for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, we will send the winner a print run of the card.)

There’s Always More

These fantastic prizes aren’t the only things players will leave 2015 World Championships with. They will also be taking away cherished memories of intense matches, new friends, and five days of playing the games they love at the highest level of competition. Keep your eyes on our website for additional information about the event, including live streaming and more!

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Compete for Glory and Riches

Published 21 September 2015 | Star Wars: Armada

Compete for Glory and Riches

Announcing 2015 World Championship Prizes

In the first week of November hundreds of the best players around the world will begin arriving in Roseville, Minnesota to participate in the 2015 World Championships. They will compete against each other in thrilling games throughout the week, vying for the honor of being named World Champion, a chance to design a card, and a host of other unique, one-of-a-kind prizes. Today, we reveal what those prizes are, and how players can win them.

To the Victors Go the Spoils

Back in May, we announced registration for the 2015 World Championships and along with it the participation prize for everyone attending the event. Each person that registered and joins us for World Championships will receive an exclusive 2015 World Championships deck box, a 2015 World Championships T-shirt, and an alternative art card for each of the games being featured that week.

In addition to the participation prizes, each game has awesome prizes for those that do well in their Championship events. Click on the event of your choice below to find out what prizes you could win!

* The A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Second Edition War of the Five Kings is not a World Championship.

More to Come

The main event prizes are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the 2015 World Championships. In the weeks leading up to November, we will be announcing our schedule for live streaming and more!

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What the Dreamers Have Divined

Published 28 July 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

What the Dreamers Have Divined

Preview Three Champion Cards from The Mark of Madness

"There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine."
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Silver Key

Coming soon, The Mark of Madness expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game is going to drown Marseille in madness, and then that madness will spread like fire through all of France and then the world. At least, those are the designs of Hastur's disciples, the Artists, Cultists, Lunatics, and Servitors who gain more from the box than any of the game's other expansions.

Still, we have seen that there are also those characters whose brushes with madness have given them powerful insights they can use to their advantage, and there are yet other forces that operate in their own spheres. Even though nearly two-thirds of the expansion's cards bear Hastur's Yellow Sign and fuel the Terror struggle with new purpose, there are still sixty cards in The Mark of Madness for the game's other factions (three copies each of twenty different cards). These offer players some powerful, heroic, and insidious responses to Hastur's designs, and three of these cards call upon the realm of dreams, offering twists of time and space and of vision and reality that only those who play the game at the very highest levels can divine.

Today, we look at these three Champion Cards – The Archmage, Arcanis (The Mark of Madness, 37), Thaumaturgical Insight (The Mark of Madness, 38), and Seer of the Gate (The Mark of Madness, 55).

The Archmage, Arcanis and Thaumaturgical Insight

Four-time World Champion Tom Capor adds to his legacy in The Mark of Madness with two Champion Cards, the final two designs he earned between the years 2009 and 2012, a period of time during which he was undoubtedly the game's most visionary dreamer.

Welcome one and all. It is my distinct honor to show you not one, but two cards designed by yours truly – Thaumaturgical Insight and The Archmage, Arcanis!

Of course, thanks go out to FFG for this amazing opportunity and to Damon Stone who has patiently worked with me since the design for the Hall of Champions (Written and Bound, 20).

Filling the Gaps

Mechanically, these neutral cards were designed with an intent similar to that behind The Mage's Machinations (Terror in Venice, 30). I wanted them to introduce abilities that could serve as "gap fillers" and supplement decks that didn't really have any better options, or that could use some additional options.

Thaumaturgical Inisght’s job is to find that all-important card. Granted, at its high cost of three resources and with its “hard to justify” trigger, it won’t be appropriate for many of the most popular decks out there. After all, universal search effects are hard to balance. My hope, though, is that it will serve the unique, visionary, and "weird" decks out there by allowing them to more consistently find the critical card that allows you to tip the scales back in your favor. While Thaumaturgical Insight isn’t exactly a cost-efficient means of gaining consistency, players will at least now be able to aim for that consistency if they truly desire it.

The Archmage, Arcanis plays a different role. Instead of allowing you to find your tools, he becomes one. When you begin to explore the furthest reaches of the card pool, you'll find that many potentially interesting strategies are sidelined by troublesome support cards. Thus, players are often forced to splash otherwise undesired factions into their decks to destroy these support cards, find other ways to avoid the impact those support cards would have, or turn to fall-back cards like Political Demonstration (Core Set, 144) to deal with them. I wanted to encourage a greater exploration of the full card pool and empower the crazier ideas that players can develop by introducing a tool that all players can use to turn their array of support cards into arcane missiles that can dispatch whatever support cards are getting in their way.

Of course, neither of these cards has only a single purpose. Thaumaturgical Insight has both the Research and Spell subtypes, meaning it can combo with cards like Overworked Graduate Student (Seekers of Knowledge, 17) and Wilbur Whateley (The Key and the Gate, 5). Meanwhile, The Archmage, Arcanis supports heavy or mono-Neutral archetypes and can form some interesting combos with cards like Artifact of the Lost Cities (Spawn of Madness, 18).

The Story

Now, while there's no "official" story behind the connections between the six cards I’ve had the opportunity to create, there are certainly a number of clues:

In beginning, The Mage Known as Magnus (That Which Consumes, 111), was merely a humble Sorcerer who dabbled in some of the darker and more destructive of the world's forces in order to combat the ghoulish horrors it. His adventures even earned him a place in the Hall of Champions. However, he believed greater threats still loomed. As he planned and prepared to face these threats, The Mage’s Machinations began to unfold. By collecting and studying the forbidden tomes that he kept locked within The Archmage's Attaché (The Thousand Young, 37), he was able to gain enough Thaumaturgical Insight to transform himself and stand against these larger threats as The Archmage, Arcanis.

Seer of the Gate

The third Champion Card in The Mark of Madness was designed by two-time World Champion Jeremy Zwirn, whose two World Championship winning decks both partnered the rush potential of Miskatonic University with the fantastic and controlling array of tricks belonging to the Yog-Sothoth faction.

When I won the chance to design a second Champion Card, the first thing I thought about was how, if at all, it should relate to my previous Champion Card, Jeremiah Kirby (For the Greater Good, 43). I considered making a card based on a different version of the same character, or based on the green-glowing artifact held in his hand, or even based on one of the Huskies in the background. Should the card play well with Jeremiah Kirby, or should it be a "counter" card that plays better against it? After sending in some ideas and getting feedback from the developers, I decided to pursue this last option and create a new character that can provide an answer to my previous card.

Mechanically, my goal was to create a skill-intensive card with high replayability. When I play Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, I'm constantly thinking about what cards my opponent could have in hand and how to adapt my play accordingly. I wanted to create a card that pushes other players toward that mindset and rewards you for correctly predicting what your opponent has in hand. When I use the Seer's ability, I'm often reminded of the classic board game Battleship; sometimes you take a shot in the dark, and you're surprised when it's a direct hit. Even better, you might torpedo two or three cards out of your opponent's hand, effectively sinking his battleship.

Thematically, it felt right to introduce the Seer as a Sorcerer who could serve as a disciple of Nephren-Ka (The Sleeper Below, 54), aligned to the mind-bending insights of Yog-Sothoth.

Shots in the Dark

Blindly naming a card to with the Seer's discard ability can be quite challenging: do you name the card that you think is most likely to be in your opponent's hand or a card that's less likely to be there but would cause you more trouble if it were? Do you name something that you're certain your opponent plays or risk aiming for a game-changing card that might not even be in his deck? Looking at your opponent's resources and discard pile helps. It also depends on your opponent; he might play or resource likely targets early to make it more difficult for you to hit with your Seers.

In order to get the most from your Seer of the Gate, you'll want to know exactly what your opponent is holding. One of the cards that best synergizes with a Seer is another copy of it, but you can get good use from any card that lets you take a peek at your opponent's hand, such as Jeff Harson (Denizens of the Underworld, 46). If you have a good memory, cards like Vortex of Time (The Key and the Gate, 34) and Prism of Many Views (The Twilight Beckons, 20) provide information on what cards your opponent may later have in hand.

You can also guarantee a direct hit by returning cards to your opponent's hand with cards like Lord Jeffrey Farrington (The Order of the Silver Twilight, 3) and Constricting Elder Thing (Initiations of the Favored, 59). Similarly, the Faceless Abductor (The Order of the Silver Twilight, 7) synergizes with Seer of the Gate in multiple ways. You can bounce a non-Ancient One character with skill three or less into your opponent's hand right before you pluck it out with a Seer, or you can abduct your own Seer back into your hand, then play it and trigger its discard ability again. The Initiate of Huang Hun (Curse of the Jade Emperor, 40) can both return your Seer to your hand and force your opponent to return a character, allowing you to play your Seer and promptly discard all copies of the character your opponent returned to hand.

Sometimes you won't have to use your cards to gain information about your opponent's hand; your opponent will give it to you! Descendant of Eibon (The Terror of the Tides, 75), Master of the Myths (Into Tartarus, 101), and Black Dog (Words of Power, 29) all return to their owner's hands after their abilities trigger, making them all perfect targets to name with Seer of the Gate. Meanwhile, opponents who reveal and add cards to their hands with the Book of Iod (Ebla Restored, 52) or the previously mentioned Jeremiah Kirby also give you ample information to name your targets. Even story cards, such as the all-powerful Chaos Unleashed (The Shifting Sands, 3), can put known cards into your opponent's hand ripe for your picking.

Acknowledgements

Finally, I want to thank FFG and the developers for this amazing opportunity, as well as all Cthulhu players for being a part of this fantastic game. I hope you enjoy playing Seer of the Gate. May your shot in the dark sink a battleship!

Marvels Beyond Expectation

Whether you build your decks around these new Champion Cards or spread madness with Hastur and his followers, The Mark of Madness pushes Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game well beyond the ordinary. What marvels will you dream up with its cards? The time for ordinary thinking is over; The Mark of Madness is nearly upon us!

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Take the Next Step

Published 24 July 2015 | Star Wars: Armada

Take the Next Step

Updated FAQ and Tournament Rules Are Now Available

The 2015 Regional Championship season is drawing to a close. But with an end comes a new beginning, and that means National Championships are starting to occur around the world. This year’s National Championship season is larger than it’s ever been, with more than 100 National Championships across eight games and more than thirty countries! As players start traveling to these awesome events, we bring you an FAQ and tournament rules update.

All changes from today’s announcement are effective July 29th, 2015 unless otherwise noted.

A New Game Arrives

National Championships mark Star Wars™: Armada’s debut on the competitive scene. There is already a loud buzz about the game in local stores, and we’re excited to see how the game grows and what players bring to their National Championships.

Download the Documents Now

Today’s update brings with it small changes to each of our FAQs and tournament rules documents. While there are no earth-shattering announcements, it is important players stay up to date with the current FAQs and tournament rules. Knowing the details may be the difference between glorious victory and crushing defeat, and you can start learning these new changes by clicking on the links for your favorite games below and reading what the developers have to say:

A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (previously announced on July 15th, 2015)
Android: Netrunner (previously announced on July 15th, 2015)
Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game (previously announced on July 15th, 2015)
Imperial Assault
Star Wars™: Armada
Star Wars™: The Card Game (previously announced on July 8th, 2015)
Warhammer 40,000: Conquest (previously announced on July 15th, 2015)
X-Wing™

Not Just For Tournaments

While the changes today are mostly small tweaks meant to keep tournaments competitive and fun, that doesn’t mean only tournament players should read the new FAQ and tournament rules. In each document, you’ll find answers to many of the most commonly asked questions and rulings. Whether you’re looking to vie for the title of National Champion or play in the comfort of your own home with family and friends, the updated FAQs and tournament rules offer clarity and structure that will give you a better play experience.

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Those Who Have Seen

Published 23 July 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

Those Who Have Seen

A Preview of The Mark of Madness for Call of Cthulhu

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

As we saw in our last preview of The Mark of Madness deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, Hastur's followers will soon gain tremendous strength and versatility from a maddening array of new cards that begin to erase the boundaries between delusion and sanity. With these cards, we find an awesome new relevance to the game's iconic Terror struggle, ensuring that the consequences of winning or losing a Terror struggle can reach far beyond the mere spread of madness. Still, there are plenty of effects to return Madness to the foreground, as well.

Naturally, these new cards allow Hastur and his followers to race forward with their vile agenda, spreading terror through Marseille, then France, and then the world. However, those who dare to explore the expansion more closely may find that some of the cards contained with The Mark of Madness begin to describe another theme. Even as we find Hastur's Lunatics and Artists deriving an eerie power from the madness that grips them, we find a handful of other characters – one for each of the game's eight factions – who also gain strength from their madness.

Sailing the Seas of Infinity

In addition to the characters it will soon drive mad, The Mark of Madness presents us with an elite number of unique characters who aren't driven mad by the actions of others, but enter play insane, perhaps after having stretched themselves too thin in the pursuit of knowledge and power. It's not entirely clear why any of these characters may have left the "placid island of ignorance" to sail the "black seas of infinity," and, in fact, it's likely that they all set out with different motives.

However, as is the case with Benjamin Herriot (The Mark of Madness, 14) and Walter Gilman (The Mark of Madness, 43), these characters all share a number of similarities. For starters, they enter play in the grips of madness, but we then find that their shattered sanity is the price they have paid for the power they've gained.

Additionally, these characters all cost three resources to play and all bring four icons to the stories they attempt. Moreover, all but one of them boast four skill and lack both the Terror icon and Willpower. Most importantly, however, is the fact that after they enter play insane, all of them come with powerful Response abilities that first ready them and then trigger other powerful effects.

The result is that playing one of these characters may cost you an initial tempo hit, which may seem like utter madness, but then, on the next turn, will warp the game in some unfathomable way. Benjamin Herriot will draw you a massive three cards. Walter Gilman will steal a success token from your opponent's side to place it at a story on your side, potentially winning you that story. Maria Suleman (The Mark of Madness, 45) will search your deck for a non-Ancienct One character and add it to your hand. And Mandy Aurel (The Mark of Madness, 41) forces your opponent to choose and sacrifice a support card.

Of course, you can derive further advantage from these characters by adding other cards to your deck to restore their sanity all the earlier. Arkham Asylum (Core Set, 146), Dr. Carson (The Spawn of the Sleeper, 3), and Whisper in the Wind (Written and Bound, 6) are just a few of the available options.

Another such option is Mu (Seekers of Knowledge, 24), which might prove particularly effective given that, with one exception, none of these characters who have peered beyond the shores of ignorance gained a Terrror icon in the process. That means you can freely send them to lose Terror struggles wherever your opponent commits characters and then, after the stories have resolved, trigger first the Response of Mu and then that of the character you allowed to sink back into madness.

If you find yourself in a position where all your opponent's characters have Terror icons, you might even send one of these characters to a story on his or her own. Then, your opponent has to make a choice: will he oppose your character to deny the success tokens, or will he allow you the success tokens in order to deny you the benefits of your character's Response ability?

An Altered Consciousness

All told, this elite group of characters who enter play insane add another dimension to insanity within Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Now, it's not just a setback that's less grievous than death, nor is it just the cost that your Lunatics for their powers, but it becomes something more thematic within the game's setting.

Lovecraft's fictional world is full of characters pushed to the edge by the mysteries they unravel. Their minds recoil, and they worry others will think them mad. Yet had they never ventured beyond the thinking of the men and women around them, they would never have learned of the powers that threaten their world, nor found themselves able to take action. In Lovecraft's fiction, the men and women who delve into the forces of the unknown almost always find their former ways of life irrevocably broken, along with their former patterns of thought.

Soon, The Mark of Madness will allow you to explore the secrets that lie beyond the safety of sanity. Benjamin Herriot, Walter Gilman, Mandy Aurel, and a handful of other new characters will prove that what others may call madness is just an altered form of consciousness or a new way of thinking about the world – and in the face of such utter horrors as one faces in Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, it just may be prove to be one of the most successful ways of thinking yet!

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The Shattered Mind

Published 16 July 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

The Shattered Mind

A Preview of The Mark of Madness for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game

"If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!"
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Temple

The mind recoils at the thought of the tenth deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, or at least it should… In The Mark of Madness, Artists create works that seem to make no sense, even though many of their works share frightening similarities in their themes and imagery. Meanwhile, Cultists speak of omens written in the moon and stars, Lunatics brandish meat cleavers and wield conductors' batons like magical wands, and all Marseille teeters unknowingly above an abyss of insanity, pushed to the brink by the terrible Ancient One known as Hastur.

This tenth deluxe expansion is one that many of the game's most zealous fans have long and eagerly awaited. Few themes run as deeply and centrally throughout H.P. Lovecraft's eerie fiction and the mythos of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game as that of minds shattering when confronted by unknowable terrors. Accordingly, the game's Terror struggle is arguably its most iconic; its inducement of insanity stands apart from the mechanics presented by other games, and it binds the game's story resolution directly to its thematic underpinnings. And the Hastur faction, which stars in The Mark of Madness, aligns itself more fully with the Terror struggle and with insanity than any of the game's seven other factions.

When we first announced that Hastur and his followers would at long last get their turn in the spotlight with The Mark of Madness, we promised that their new cards would lend new power and import to the Terror struggle, as well as the very nature of insanity. Today, we look more closely at some of these cards… if you dare.

Deeper Forms of Terror

Even with just a cursory inspection of its cards, you'll find that one of the primary themes running throughout The Mark of Madness is the expansion of the Terror struggle: it's no longer merely about driving characters insane. There's still plenty of that, of course, but since there are so many characters with Terror icons and Willpower that cannot be driven insane, the cult of Hastur has adapted, finding new ways to gain traction through its strength in the Terror struggle.

These start, naturally enough, with Hastur, He Who Is Not to Be Named (The Mark of Madness, 19), who allows you to add a success token at any story where you win a Terror struggle, every time you win a Terror struggle. This is notably not an effect that's limited to stories where you commit Hastur, himself, and though you're not likely to get Hastur into play until the late stages of your game, his effect can quickly turn a game in your favor. This is especially true when you pair Hastur with Drawing the Sign (The Mark of Madness, 25) and other characters, like A Scheme of Byakhees (The Mark of Madness, 16), that create additional Terror struggles wherever they're committed and may well grant you additional benefits for winning those stories.

You'll also find plenty of Terror struggles on the expansion's conspiracies. The Door That Will Not Close (The Mark of Madness, 33) comes with two Terror struggles, and since characters committed to the conspiracy cannot uncommit unless they go insane, your opponent will have to think twice about opposing you there. However, even those two Terror struggles pale in comparison to the riches of insanity provided by Opening Night (The Mark of Madness, 35) which screams nothing but sheer madness. With five Terror struggles, this conspiracy lends tremendous fuel to Hastur and Drawing the Sign.

Finally, The Mark of Madness allows Hastur's followers to use their strengths to overcome some of their traditional weaknesses. Although the followers of Hastur have long excelled at the Terror struggle, they have historically fallen short in the next icon struggle, the Combat struggle. The Mark of Madness addresses this with the introduction of Straitjacket (The Mark of Madness, 20), which doesn't technically add a new layer to the Terror struggle, but does allow your most maddening creatures to shatter your opponents' bodies as easily as they shatter their minds.

Which of Us Is Truly Mad?

Even as The Mark of Madness begins to reshape the Terror struggle, expanding it to encompass a great deal more of the game, it leads us to wonder: if we suddenly find the world is full of unspeakable horrors, are the raving Lunatics truly the mad ones, or were those of us who didn't shudder with panic or tremble with rage, were we the ones who were truly delusional?

Admittedly, insanity is not a relative term in Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game as it is in the world. Each character in play is either ready, exhausted, or insane, and in most cases, only characters who are ready are able to commit to stories. Characters who are insane are generally two turns away from doing anything useful. It takes one turn to restore one of your characters from insane to exhausted. Then, on the next turn, that character can ready, along with all your other exhausted characters.

Hastur's loyalists, however, have long viewed insanity as less of a setback and more as a waypoint along their greater journey. Given the tempo hit that players suffer when their characters are driven insane, this way of thinking about the world hasn't always done Hastur's followers a lot of good, but when The Mark of Madness arrives, we may learn that all of Hastur's Lunatics were merely ahead of their time.

Cards like Lure of the Moon (The Mark of Madness, 30), Starving Artist (The Mark of Madness, 1), and Moon Worshipper (The Mark of Madness, 2) are going to greatly accelerate the tempo of any Hastur deck that focuses on driving its characters insane for various benefits.

Even worse, though, is that as Hastur's madness lends strength to his followers, it insinuates itself like a disease among the larger population. Mad Maudlin (The Mark of Madness, 11) forces your opponents to drive characters insane if they wish to resource their domains, and The Dikes of Ys (The Mark of Madness, 23) causes the first character played each turn to enter play insane.

Because characters don't benefit from their Terror icons or Willpower until they are already in play, The Dikes of Ys can even slow the arrival of an Ancient One like Y'Golonac (Core Set, 122) or a team of Agency operatives working Undercover Security (Core Set, 7). In fact, because it works on every turn, if you choose not to play any characters on your turn, you can commit characters to stories on their own, gleeful in the knowledge that The Dikes of Ys can even hold back the threat of a Black Dog (Words of Power, 29).

With all these new ways they introduce to Induce Terror (The Mark of Madness, 32) and derive advantages from insanity, the new cards from The Mark of Madness create a truly nightmarish setting for your games of Call of Cthulhu, and in such a setting, is it more sane to carry on like everything's fine, or to rave and babble and obsess over the signs of otherworldly activities like one of Hastur's many Lunatics?

France First. Then, the World.

While the citizens of Paris may be the first to suffer the spread of Hastur's madness, they certainly won't be the last. The Mark of Madness adds unprecedented depth and flexibility to the Hastur faction and ensures that the game's iconic Terror struggle will once again loom large over every story phase.

The Mark of Madness is coming soon. Head to your local retailer to pre-order your copy today!

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New Wards and Seals

Published 15 July 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

New Wards and Seals

New Call of Cthulhu FAQ and Tournament Rules are Available

Some of an investigator’s best weapons against the Ancient Ones are wards and seals. With them, you can protect yourself and others and permanently close off our world to the horrors from time and space. Unfortunately, not all wards and seals last. Continually discovering more is a must if you are to ever win against the horrors that threaten our world!

Study the new magics in our updated Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game FAQ (pdf, 1.0 MB) and tournament rules (pdf, 4.4 MB) so that you’ll be prepared at your next tournament.

These changes will go into effect on July 29th, 2015.

A Word from the Developer

Hello Investigators and Cultists!

Gen Con and National Championships are upon us, and it is time for an update to the Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game FAQ. The major changes have been the inclusion of a number of “jumpers,” Rite of the Silver Gate (The Key and the Gate, 25) and Josef Meiger (Denizens of the Underworld, 52), to the Restricted List. The jumpers have been added to encourage a more diverse environment and to make the choice of inclusion of these disruptive cards more purposeful than simply choosing two or three to place in your deck regardless of faction or deck type. The Rite of the Silver Gate and Josef Meiger create a somewhat oppressive effect on the use of high cost characters, and this should enable decks that use a wider range of character costs to not have to worry about this artificial and arbitrary ceiling.

We have also clarified the rules section regarding revealing cards, defining how it works, when such effects finish resolving, and the difference between a revealed and face-up card.

Good luck to everyone playing in the upcoming tournaments!

Damon Stone
Lead Developer

A Word from Organized Play

We have added a new section labeled “Tournament Software Strength of Schedule.” Before we started work on our tournament software, stores and tournament organizers were often forced to run tournaments by hand. While many TOs have the math skills to run large tournaments with complicated tiebreakers and pairings, the time this adds to a tournament is significant and detrimental to players’ experiences. This limited the rules governing pairings and tiebreakers for our games in the past, but tournament software opens the possibilities of new methods and we have taken advantage of them to improve our tournaments.

With our tournament software in the middle of its beta phase and seeing use out in the world, it’s become important to inform players of the new pairings and strength of schedule calculations in a wider manner. While not all players may participate in a tournament run with the software just yet, this addition will inform them of what will be a universal rule once it is released widely across the world.

Knowledge is your best weapon against the unspeakable. Download the FAQ and tournament rules today, and stay ahead of the dangers you will face at your next tournament.

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Dark Magic and Dark Young

Published 25 June 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

Dark Magic and Dark Young

The Thousand Young Is Now Available for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game

"Do not call up any that you can not put down."
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

A new gate has opened in southern Louisiana, and new powers make their way into our world, tempting mortals toward evil with the blessings of their blasphemous mother, the fecund Ancient One and All-Mother, Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods… The Thousand Young deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game is now available at your local retailer and online through our webstore.

Focusing on the Shub-Niggurath faction, The Thousand Young expansion introduces 165 new cards (three copies each of fifty-five different cards), nearly two-thirds of which lend new strength to the Black Goat of the Woods, her countless progeny, her cultists, and their tactics. Simultaneously, it explores Shub's influence amid the bayous of southern Louisiana and within the streets of New Orleans. There, sinister Monsters walk unnoticed among the unsuspecting populace, Cultists conduct foul rituals, and Shub's more Independent followers hunt for powerful and arcane knowledge amid the city's seediest Locations.

However, Shub-Niggurath and her followers are not the only forces at work in The Thousand Young. The malevolent Ancient One Nyarlathotep also prowls the Big Easy, assuming different guises to insinuate himself among the game's various factions and advance his inscrutable agenda, whatever it may be. Finally, all of the game's factions find new characters and support cards that allow them to lend their support to Shub-Niggurath or Nyarlathotep or to work up their courage and stand against them.

Will you join the cult of Shub-Niggurath? Will you join humanity's fight against the rising Ancient Ones? The choice is yours with The Thousand Young… provided you dare to dabble with its dark and powerful magic and its newly-spawned Dark Young.

Rituals, Spells, and Invocations

In our earlier previews of The Thousand Young, we looked at the hordes of new creatures that Shub is spawning, we explored the secrets concealed behind the closed doors of New Orleans and within the thickest groves of Louisiana's muggy bayous, and we witnessed some of the many tricks that four-time World Champion Tom Capor packed into his Champion card, The Archmage's Attaché (The Thousand Young, 37). We even caught a glimpse of Nyarlathotep in action in the expansion's announcement.

Still, there's more to The Thousand Young than its Locations, Monsters, Avatars, and its host of other characters. Otherworldly Ancient Ones like Shub-Niggurath are immensely powerful and defy human understanding as do their powers. Moreover, they can bestow some of these powers unto their followers, even as some exceedingly bold mortals may attempt to tap into them via foul spells and dangerous rituals. Many of these Rituals and Curses appear in The Thousand Young, and some may even offer you and your deck the secret to immortality.

The Favor of Eshu (The Thousand Young, 29), for example, allows you to use the resources that you stockpile in one of your domains as though they were cards in your hand. The ability to create a "second hand," as it were, has previously been explored within the Yog-Sothoth faction in The Key and the Gate and has been proven to be extremely powerful. While it's true that playing cards out of your domain then reduces that domain and limits your ability to pay for future cards, it's also true that no faction does a better job of building massive domains than Shub-Niggurath, which features such powerful cards as Feed Her Young (Written and Bound, 11), The Festival (The Key and the Gate, 51), and Nug (Seekers of Knowledge, 49).

Just as it's easy for a Shub player to shape an entire strategy around resource ramping, you can also punish those who don't by incorporating such characters as Elspeth Baudin (The Thousand Young, 11) and Yeb (The Thousand Young, 20). Paired together, these Shub devotees force players to pay a premium for their cheapest characters and then build their domains beyond the costs of the cards they want to play lest they risk having to sacrifice those cards later in the game.

Shub-Niggurath's insidious influence reaches in other directions with the Curse Twisted Consecration (The Thousand Young, 30). This zero-cost, two-steadfast event starts out like most support destruction, but then takes a dark and deadly turn, one which those well-versed in eldritch mysteries may be keen to master. It reads:

"Action: Choose and destroy a Location support card. Then, that support card’s controller reveals cards from his deck until he reveals a Location support card. Set that card aside, and shuffle that deck. Then, put the set aside support card on top of its owner’s deck."

The fact that the curse is limited to Location destruction seems to justify its zero cost, as does the fact that it allows the support card's controller to place another Location on the top of his deck. However, the card's most truly powerful effect lies hidden within the act of replacing the destroyed Location; your opponent must reveal cards from the top of his deck until he reveals the next Location support card. When you play Twisted Consecration, you guarantee yourself not only a limited measure of support destruction, but also a valuable measure of insight into the nature of your opponent's deck.

Depending how few Location supports your opponent plays, your Twisted Consecration may even force him to reveal his entire deck. If Tom Capor's preview of his Champion card left you wondering to which deck you should attach your ensorcelled valise, playing Twisted Consecration could very well provide you enough intelligence to make an informed decision.

Finally, few Spells threaten to make as dramatic and immediate an impact as Iä! Iä! (The Thousand Young, 32), which allows you to remove all the wounds from any or all of your characters and assign them to your opponent's characters, divided between them as you see fit.

Let's begin our examination of this Spell by looking at its ability to "heal" your characters. This is an exceedingly rare and powerful ability that shouldn't be undervalued. After all, there are very few other cards in Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game that remove wounds, and of them, only Mu (Seekers of Knowledge, 24) removes wounds from any character. This means Iä! Iä! opens strategies that may not have previously existed, and it gives greater fuel to others.

For example, you begin to get much greater mileage out of such new Shub characters as Jean Deveraeux (The Thousand Young, 4), Mi-Go Worker (The Thousand Young, 6), and Baka (The Thousand Young, 9). Additionally, Iä! Iä! opens room for some truly terrifying combinations with the Cthulhu faction and The Terror of the Tides (The Terror of the Tides, 67). The fact that Iä! Iä! is loyal makes it tricky to play around in a deck that combines two factions, but The Terror of the Tides can be played for three resources of any color as an action from your hand. Then on a subsequent turn, you can play Iä! Iä! to heal the Terror's four wounds and deal those wounds to your opponent's characters.

This, of course, is where Iä! Iä! is most obviously terrifying – in its ability to inflict mass damage – and it's highly likely that Shub's forces will soon take advantage of their toughness and Pervasive Toxemia (The Thousand Young, 34) to decimate whole hordes of opposing characters.

Baleful Dark Young

Finally, no expansion dedicated to the forces of Shub-Niggurath would be complete without introducing another of her Dark Young, so The Thousand Young gives us both Dark Sargassum (The Thousand Young, 22) and the Baleful Dark Young (The Thousand Young, 10), an excellent defensive character that you can sacrifice to buy time to raise your army of unholy spawn.

When Baleful Dark Young leaves play, you may instead remove it from the game to choose a story and force the player with the most success tokens at that story to remove success tokens from it until he has no more success tokens than the player with the fewest success tokens. Ideally, this allows you to strip four success tokens from a story that your opponent was about to win and at which you had zero success tokens. Or even better, if you're playing toward the long game, you can remove as many as nine of your opponent's success tokens from Negotium Perambulans in Tenebris (Dunwich Denizens, 80), ensuring the conspiracy continues to trap your opponent's cheapest characters.

Ultimately, such tactics allow you to play toward an endgame in which your largest and most expensive characters, like Dark Sargassum, can simply outmuscle (and out-terrify) your opponent's minions, and no faction does a better job than Shub at building quickly toward an overwhelming horde of late-game Monsters, Servitors, and Ancient Ones. The only question is which characters, supports, and events you'll use to stall your opponent until that point, and with which you'll devour all humanity once you've gotten there.

Awaiting the Summons

The Thousand Young is now available at your local retailer and online through our webstore, and its new characters, supports, and events await your summons. Will you devote yourself to Shub-Niggurath and her unholy spawn, or will you look elsewhere for the power to stand against them? The choice is yours to make, and the power lies just within your grasp. Be mindful, then, of what powers you choose to call up, lest you find yourself unable to put them down…

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The Archmage's Attaché

Published 17 June 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

The Archmage's Attaché

A Preview of The Thousand Young by Guest Writer Tom Capor

"All conjectures about him were spiced with references to the bygone magic of Old Whateley, and how the hills once shook when he shrieked the dreadful name of Yog-Sothoth in the midst of a circle of stones with a great book open in his arms before him."
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror

As we've seen in our earlier previews of the ninth deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, The Thousand Young, its 165 new cards (three copies each of fifty-five different cards) greatly expand the hosts and powers of Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods and Mother of a Thousand Young. However, we've also seen how it houses arcane secrets of every kind within the new Locations it introduces, and these secrets give power and support to each of the game's other factions. Today, we continue our exploration of what The Thousand Young offers to players with a look at its Champion Card, The Archmage's Attaché (The Thousand Young, 37).

2013 North American Champion Tom Capor on The Archmage's Attaché

No player has had a greater impact upon the shape of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game than four-time World Champion Tom Capor. For years, his name has been synonymous with top-level play, including an unbroken string of victories at Gen Con Indy that date back to 2009 when the convention was the site of the game's World Championships.

However, it's not just his name and his results that have become synonymous with the game; because the game's World Champions earn the right to work with the developers to design their own cards, Tom has added to the game's card pool, as well. The Mage Known as Magnus (That Which Consumes, 111), Hall of Champions (Written and Bound, 20), and The Mage's Machinations (Terror in Venice, 30) are all his design, as is The Archmage's Attaché, which appears in The Thousand Young and which he earned the right to design by winning the 2013 North American Championship, once again at Gen Con Indy, the home to so many of his biggest victories.

"Today, I have the distinct pleasure and honor to show off The Archmage’s Attaché!

"If there was one thing that Lovecraft's stories and I have in common, it would be our attachment to strange objects. For almost the entirety of my tabletop gaming career, I’ve been lugging around a briefcase. In the older times, we didn’t have all these fancy ways to carry around decks and other gaming bits that we do now, so while most were transporting their cards in their assorted boxes, binders, and book bags, my solution to the problem was the briefcase.

"However, as I continued to attend events and tournaments, the briefcase became more than just an efficient way to carry my things. It became an ice breaker, and it became my symbol. It showed that I was serious, but didn’t take myself too seriously. I mean, come on, who brings a briefcase to a card game?

"Personality quirks aside, when I earned this opportunity to birth a card into Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, and after I had already briefly hinted at the briefcase’s presence in The Mage’s Machinations, it became clear to me that the briefcase should be the feature of my attachment card. When played, The Archmage's Attaché attaches to a deck and then 'opens' as an action, revealing the top card of that deck, and allowing you to play it as your next action, ignoring resource matching.

"In the spirit of flavor, The Archmage’s Attaché carries a lot of potential, adds a lot of choices, and allows you to pack more opportunities to react to the current game state. On one side, you have your own deck. You know what it is trying to do and the Attaché will help you get there faster. On the other, if you can correctly piece together your opponents' strategies, the Attaché might allow you to utilize or disrupt their options, as well. Herein lie the two major ways to play The Archmage's Attaché.

Your Stuff Versus My Stuff

"It’s all good stuff, but in order to determine whether you'll get more value out of the Attaché by attaching it to your deck or your opponent's, you'll need to take into account cost curves, card types, synergies, and various other factors. The choice will force gamers to really stretch their analytical muscles… and I like that.

"The safer choice is always attaching the Attaché to your own deck. After all, you know what to expect out of your deck. In this case, the Attaché acts as a faux draw engine, and it comes at a relatively cheap price.

In this example, we've attached The Archmage's Attaché to our deck. Exhausting it during our operations phase reveals Garden District (The Thousand Young, 49), which we can now play as our next action if we choose. Because cards played by The Archmage's Attaché ignore resource matching, we not only gain the "false draw" it offers, but an extra economic efficiency since we can pay for it with our open domain that contains just one Miskatonic Resource, rather than needing to spend the Silver Twilight resource that exists only in our open domain with three resources.

"Of course, there's also the risky choice: attaching the Attaché to your opponent’s deck. Due to the nature of most decks, you’ll have a use for most of your opponent’s cards. After all, most of them will be attempting to do the same thing as you, in a different shape. They'll have characters, events to surprise you, and supports to reinforce their positions. However, many decks may also include a hodgepodge of cards that are completely uselessness to you, especially niche decks that don’t conform to typical standards. Still, while there's a chance that you'll reveal The Seventy Steps (In Memory of Day, 30) after your opponent has already won a story or a copy of a unique character your opponent already controls, there's also a chance that The Archmage’s Attaché will present you with the unique opportunity to let you utilize your opponent's most critical cards against him, using them to advance your strategy, or simply using them to keep your opponent from advancing his. Good times either way.

In this example, we take the riskier play with The Archmage's Attaché, attaching it to our opponent's deck. Now, when we exhaust the Attaché, it reveals our opponent's Nyarlathotep (The Thousand Young, 36), which we cannot afford to play, meaning our use of the Attaché was "dead" for this round. However, had we been able to play Nyarlathotep, we could have potentially denied our opponent the use of one of his most powerful unique characters, likely disrupting more than one element of his overall strategy.

"Your deck, or your opponent's. Which will you choose?

My Thanks

"I’d like to thank FFG for this amazing opportunity and Damon Stone for his patience, wisdom, and his help in bringing The Archmage’s Attaché to life. Of course, I also wish to thank the Cthulhu community for your continued support and hope that all can enjoy this little gem of an attachment card."

Thanks, Tom!

Throughout the years, Tom has proven his mastery of the eldritch secrets of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, so it stands to reason that The Archmage's Attaché will be packed full of all manner of tricks, and it's likely to hold more than just your cards or your opponent's. With all the possibilities it contains, The Archmage's Attaché may very well open a gateway to an alternate reality, or it may hold the secret to crossing the boundaries of time and space.

A Thousand Terrible Secrets

The Archmage's Attaché is just one of the many new cards coming in The Thousand Young, and all of them introduce new abilities and deck-building possibilities. In fact, The Thousand Young is something like a briefcase full of cards, itself, containing tools and answers for nearly every strategy. How will you make use of them? You'll soon have the chance to decide. The Thousand Young is scheduled to arrive at retailers later next week!

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2015 World Champs Registration

Published 11 June 2015 | Star Wars: Armada

2015 World Champs Registration

Everything You Need to Know for June 15th

Update: All events are SOLD OUT. Check back at 23:59 CST on August 17th when we release any unclaimed reserved tickets.

Three weeks ago, we announced the dates for 2015 World Championships and a new process for registering for our largest event of the year. In order to make sure everyone has a full understanding of registration before tickets go on sale June 15th, we’re posting today to give you an in-depth guide for registering.

2015 Registration

Registration for the 2015 World Championships goes live at 12:00 PM CST on June 15th at https://fantasyflightgames.thundertix.com/events. 2015 World Championships registration will be handled entirely through this website. There will be no on-site registration.

Registration this year is a two-part process. In the first step, you will have the option to purchase one of four different types of passes: a one event pass, a two event pass, a three event pass, or a four event pass. Each pass gains you access to the weekend's festivities, as well as the indicated number of World Championship events. Each World Championship and its elimination rounds are one event for registration purposes. (Even though the A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Second Edition War of the Five Kings tournament is not a World Championship, you must register for it in the same manner as the World Championships. This is the only side event players must preregister for.)

A single event pass will cost $60. Each additional event you play in will cost an extra $10, up to a total of $90 (four events). You do not need to register for any side events ahead of time, and all side events will be free to play in (except for the War of the Five Kings). Please be aware that participants in the A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Draft Championship will be charged an additional fee on site ($15) to cover the cost of the draft sets that will be provided.

We have reserved a number of seats for our U.S. Regional Champions, North American Champions, and select National Champions from around the globe; all non-reserved seats for the 2015 World Championships will be made available on a first come, first serve basis.

This open phase of registration will end as soon as all non-reserved tickets are sold.

Beginning at 11:59 PM CST on August 17th, if any of the seats reserved for our U.S. Regional and National Champions remain open, we will reopen registration, and they will be made available to the public.

This final phase of registration will end October 2nd or immediately when all tickets are sold.

Getting Started—Part One

Head to the registration site and click on the “Continue” button for the number of main events you want to participate in. For example, if want to play in the Android: Netrunner and Warhammer 40,000: Conquest World Championships, you would select the World Championship Weekend 2 Event Pass. If you wanted to play in all of the A Game of Thrones tournaments (Draft, Melee, and Joust World Championships, as well as the Second Edition War of the Five Kings tournament), you would select the World Championship Weekend 4 Event Pass.

We recommend checking the 2015 World Championship schedule before purchasing a pass.

On the next screen, double check that you have selected the correct ticket you wish to purchase and make sure that you have selected a quantity of “1.” Then click on the “Continue” button. Be aware that you will have only 7 minutes to fill out payment information. Do not click on the “Continue” button until you have your credit card and address ready.

Enter your full name and email in the labeled fields. If you have used ThunderTix before, you can look up your information using your email. Fill out your credit card information and address as you would with any other order online.

Important: Do not click on the “Confirm Order” button on the bottom of the screen until you have entered a T-shirt size! If you do not enter a T-shirt size, we cannot guarantee you will receive a shirt that fits. Finally, leave the box marked “I’d like to add this customer…” checked so that we can contact you via email with any important updates. We cannot guarantee you will receive timely information for World Championships if you uncheck this box.

Shortly after confirming your order, you should receive a confirmation email. You have not finished registering for your World Championships at this point! Double check your order to make sure you received the pass you wanted. Then you will need to register for specific events using the coupon included in your email.

Registering for Individual Tournaments—Part Two

To register for specific events, click on the event listings for the games you wish to participate in. You can register for a number of events equal to the event pass you bought. For example, if you purchase a 2 Event Pass, you can register to participate in two events. Registering for each individual tournament will be similar to the earlier process.

When you select a particular tournament, you will have to again choose a quantity. However, this time you will also have to enter your full name before continuing.

Note: The price will be listed at $100. Do not worry! The coupon code you received in your email will reduce that price to $0.

On the payment page you will again have seven minutes to complete the process. Enter your coupon code in the coupons box just below the event description and price. As soon as you click on the “Apply” button you should see the price change to $0. Then fill out your personal and payment information again.

Make sure to reenter your T-shirt size and then click on the “Confirm Order” button.

If you bought a 2, 3, or 4 Event Pass, you will have to repeat this process for each additional event beyond the first. The code you receive in your email will work for each event you register for.

If you have any trouble with the registration process, please contact us at organizedplay@fantasyflightgames.com.

National and U.S. Regional Champions

National Champions and U.S. Regional Champions should contact organizedplay@fantasyflightgames.com for access to their reserved spots. We will reply with access to your reserved spot, and the process for registering will be the same as the registration process outlined above.

Reminder: The spot reserved for National and U.S. Regional Champions is only in the game for which they won their tournament. National and U.S. Regional Champions must still register for other events on their own.

Side Events

All side events at 2015 World Championships are free to anyone with a World Championship pass. If you have registered for at least one Championship event or the War of the Five Kings tournament, you can play in any of the side events. However, side events do have limited space, and entry will be limited to a first come, first served basis.

Note: Draft side events will require players to purchase their own product from the Fantasy Flight Games Center.

See You in November!

Registration for 2015 World Championships opens next Monday, June 15th, at 12:00 PM CST. Tickets will be in high demand, and we recommend registering as soon as possible to guarantee your spot in the tournaments of your choice. We would love to see you in Minnesota in November for the biggest event of the year!

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Order Your Summer 2015 Tournament Kits

Published 2 June 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

Order Your Summer 2015 Tournament Kits

Announcing New Tournament Kits for Call of Cthulhu

Add new terrors to your local Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game community with our Summer 2015 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Tournament Kits! These exciting kits are now available for order through our B2B store or your distributor, but supplies are limited.

A game of nightmares, horror, and brave investigators fighting for the fate of the world, Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game continues to expand and build new game communities around the world. The Summer 2015 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Tournament Kit comes with an event guide and new promotional materials to help support tournaments, league play, or any other event you wish to run. The Summer season begins in July and lasts through October.

How Do I Use a Tournament Kit?

Tournament Kits are designed for use with our competitive games, such as Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, and they can be used in several ways. These kits include prize support and promotional material designed to support competitive or casual tournament play at local retailers. Run an eight-week tournament series or league, use the prizes to support a single, large tournament, or host a weekly casual game night. Tournament Kits also come with a guide that provides tips and ideas on how to run a great event.

What’s in the Summer 2015 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Tournament Kit?

Each Summer 2015 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Tournament Kit comes with exciting prizes and materials to help tournament organizers attract players:

One playmat depicting Cthulhu lying deep in the ocean
Two copies of an alternate art John Henry Price
Seventeen copies of an alternate art Power Drain card
Four Cthulhu deck boxes featuring Cthulhu
A promotional poster depicting Cthulhu lying deep in the ocean
One informational pamphlet on running a tournament or league

Please note: The alternate art cards in this kit are produced through FFG's In-House Manufacturing, and as such, they may appear slightly different in color and texture from the game's other cards. To be tournament legal, these cards must be sleeved with opaque or art sleeves.

Are You a Retailer?

Don’t wait until the world is consumed by Ancient Ones! Order a Summer 2015 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Tournament Kit now through our B2B store or your distributor and be prepared when the season starts in July.

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FFG's 2015 World Championships

Published 18 May 2015 | Star Wars: Armada

FFG's 2015 World Championships

Join Us November 4th – 8th in Roseville, MN

Are you the galaxy’s greatest starfighter ace? Can you slip through corporate servers like a ghost? Or, perhaps, you’re ready to make your bid for the Iron Throne…

Whatever your game, the FFG World Championships are your chance to prove yourself against the world’s best! Join us this November 4th – 8th in Roseville, MN, to play your favorite game at the very highest level of competition.

What’s more, this year we have changed the registration process for the FFG World Championships as they have grown to five full days of gaming. You can find more details about the schedule and registration later in the article.

Naturally, this five-day event is highlighted by the World Championship tournaments for all of FFG’s Organized Play games:

The FFG World Championships are more than competition, however. They’re the pinnacle of Organized Play and all for which it stands – the chance to enjoy your favorite games within an extended community of enthusiastic gamers, including players and National Champions from around the globe.

Altogether, the FFG World Championships are an extended, five-day, international celebration of FFG’s Organized Play games and the players that make them great!

*The A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Joust, Melee, and Draft World Championships are all first edition. Participants can enjoy A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Second Edition in a unique, special event on Saturday, complete with its own promotional card and other prizes.

Why Are the World Championships Five Days Long?

Over the past few years, FFG’s Organized Play program has grown so large that we can’t pack all of our World Championship events into just four days. Last year, we had seven games. In 2015, we are supporting eight games and ten World Championship tournaments, including the World Championships for two exciting new games, Imperial Assault and Star Wars: Armada. Moreover, several of our World Championship tournaments will run long enough that their Swiss and elimination rounds must be split over two days.

A major part of the decision to extend the event’s duration was made to reduce the overlap between our events and ensure that we could give each World Championship tournament the love and attention it’s due.

Additionally, the reduction in the overlap between our World Championship tournaments means that you’ll have more opportunities to compete in your favorite games. Whether you decide to play in the first World Championships for both Star Wars: Armada and Imperial Assault or you hope to subjugate the Seven Kingdoms before conquering the Traxis sector, the decision to extend the World Championships to five days means you can enjoy more events for more of the games you love.

What Is the Event Schedule?

You can download the full event schedule now!

In addition to our World Championship tournaments, we will have a wide variety of side events, including warm-up tournaments, wrap-up tournaments, draft tournaments, X-Wing Epic Play, and more. All these side events are available to attendees for free on a first-come, first-serve basis, and they’re all fully supported with additional prizes.*

*Participants in side event draft tournaments will need to provide their own draft sets.

What Are This Year’s Prizes?

Every World Championships attendee will receive an exclusive World Championships swag bag that features a 2015 World Championships t-shirt, an exclusive deck box, and a set of alternate art cards.

The 2015 World Championship deck box features a soft, durable vinyl exterior and a magnetic clasp. It can hold up to 100 sleeved cards.
Each attendee’s prize bag includes one alternate art card for each of our World Championship games. All players who play through the full Swiss rounds of a World Championship tournament will also receive two additional copies of the alternate art card for that game that was included in the deck box (for a total of three).

The winner of each World Championship tournament earns the coolest prize in gaming – the chance to work with the game’s developers to design a card for release in a future expansion.
Additionally, we will offer custom prizes to the Top 16, Top 8, and Top 4 players of each event (except Call of Cthulhu, for which we will offer custom prizes to the Top 8 and Top 4).

These prizes will be further supplemented by giveaways, side event prizes, and lots of additional loot. You can stay tuned for more information as we will reveal all of our 2015 World Championships prizes in upcoming previews.

Can Anyone Participate?

The 2015 FFG World Championships are open to players of all levels, but the event’s fantastic growth has necessitated that we cap this year’s attendance.

That means that all attendees must pre-register.

There will be no on-site registration.

While this is a change from past events, it’s a necessary and important step to take to ensure that the World Championships are the best possible event that we can run.

This year’s event will still be larger than last year’s, and we are reserving seats for all current and former World Champions of our current games, as well as our U.S. Regional Champions, North American Champions, and select National Champions from the United Kingdom, Australia, and continental Europe.

You can learn more about the seats we are reserving for our Champions later in this article.

Why Is This Year’s Attendance Being Capped?

The tremendous growth of our World Championships over the past few years demanded that we make a challenging decision about where to hold our future World Championships.

We could move the World Championships to a convention center or another large venue. However, if we did this, we would be forced to shed many of the personalized touches that have made our World Championships a special and memorable experience for attendees. Or we could continue to host it at the Fantasy Flight Games Center and limit attendance for the event.

We spent a great deal of time considering the advantages and disadvantages of all our options. In the end, we decided to keep the World Championships at the Fantasy Flight Games Center. Just like when we first made our decision to move the World Championships to Minnesota, we decided that our first priority was to focus as much energy as possible toward the quality of the event we’re running.

Hosting the World Championships in our own backyard at the Fantasy Flight Games Center allows us to give the event as much attention as we possibly can. It allows us to work with our international partners to ensure the participation of multiple National Champions, making it a truly global event. It means we can host your games in a space designed specifically for gaming, with bright lighting, clean tables, and immediate access to food and drink. Most importantly, it allows us to devote our utmost attention to our tournament games and every member of the fantastic, close-knit community of players that participate in them.

How Do I Register?

Registration for the 2015 World Championships goes live at 12:00 PM CST on June 15th at https://fantasyflightgames.thundertix.com/events.

You will then have the option to purchase one of four different types of passes: a one event pass, a two event pass, a three event pass, or a four event pass. Each pass gains you acess to the weekend's festivities, as well as the indicated number of World Championship events.

After you have purchased your pass, you will receive an email with your confirmation code. You will use that code to register for the number of World Championship tournaments that you indicated when you paid for your pass. Please be aware that participants in the A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Draft Championship will be charged an additional fee to cover the cost of the draft sets that will be provided.

Throughout this initial phase of registration, we will reserve a number of seats for our U.S. Regional Champions, North American Champions, and select National Champions from around the globe; all non-reserved seats for the 2015 World Championships will be made available on a first come, first serve basis.

This open phase of registration will end as soon as all non-reserved tickets are sold.

Beginning August 17th, if any of the seats reserved for our U.S. Regional and North American Champions remain open, we will reopen registration, and they will be made available to the public.

This final phase of registration will end October 2nd or immediately when all tickets are sold.

NOTE: There are a limited number of seats available per tournament. When you pre-register for the World Championships, you must also register for each World Championship tournament that you plan to attend. Your World Championships registration confirmation email will provide you with a code that you can then use to register for your selected events.

NOTE: You do not have to pre-register for side events. These free events are available to World Championships attendees on a first-come, first-serve basis.*

*Participants in side event draft tournaments will need to provide their own draft sets.

What If I’m a U.S. Regional or World Champion?

If you are a current or former World Champion for any of our current games, thank you for being a part of the Fantasy Flight Games legacy!

World Champions will be allowed to register a week earlier than other attendees. Please contact us at organizedplay@fantasyflightgames.com by June 8th to let us know of your plans to attend. Use the subject header, “World Championships Registration.”

We are reserving a number of seats for our current U.S. Regional Champions. If you are a 2015 U.S. Regional Champion, let us know of your plans to attend; contact us by August 17th at organizedplay@fantasyflightgames.com under the subject header, “World Championships Registration.”

NOTE: U.S. Regional Champions will only have a spot reserved for them in the game in which they are Regional Champion. We encourage Regional Champions to register using the normal registration process if they wish to play in more than one event.

What If I'm a National Champion from Outside North America?

This year, seven of our international partners are sending twenty-eight National Champions to the World Championships, and we will be reserving their seats.

Follow the link below to find the full list of these partners and the Champions they will be sending.

2015 Participating International Champions

Other National Champions should be sure to register during open registration on June 15th.

Will This Year’s World Championships Be Streamed on Twitch?

Over the last couple years, we have improved our streaming coverage of the FFG World Championships, and we will continue to improve in 2015. We will once again post streaming coverage and live commentary.

You can check back later for a schedule of our streaming event coverage.

Join Us!

Come join us November 4th – 8th in Roseville, MN for a five-day celebration of gaming at the highest levels!

The 2015 FFG World Championships are the pinnacle of Organized Play. Registration for this event goes live at 12:00 PM CST on June 15th at https://fantasyflightgames.thundertix.com/events. Mark your calendars!

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The Mark of Madness

Published 12 May 2015 | Call of Cthulhu LCG

The Mark of Madness

The Tenth Deluxe Expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game

"There is a whole secret cult of evil men (a man of your mystical erudition will understand me when I link them with Hastur and the Yellow Sign)…"
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer in Darkness

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of The Mark of Madness, the tenth deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game!

Within the manicured gardens of Marseille, France's elite struggle to hide a dark secret. Artists hang disturbing, apocryphal images in Parisian salons. There are whispers of a composer whose music will forever alter your perception. The asylums are full of lunatics who gaze at the moon with an inhuman longing. In The Mark of Madness, Hastur and his followers walk the streets of Paris, and where Hastur walks, minds unmoor. All the world descends toward madness.

With its 165 new cards (three copies each of 55 different cards), The Mark of Madness explores the depths of insanity that lie near the core of the Lovecraftian mythos. Devoted primarily to the Hastur faction, The Mark of Madness introduces a great number of deranged Artists, Cultists, and Lunatics, as well as the terrible, ancient powers that spur them forward. As Hastur's secret cult expands its powers, you'll also find a maddening array of new characters, support cards, conspiracies, and events, most of which lend new strength to the game's Terror struggle and mechanics for insanity.

Additionally, Hastur's madness reaches outward to all of the game's eight factions. Each gains a powerful new character that enters play insane and reshapes the game when it is restored. It's unknown whether or not these new characters will be able to prevent Hastur's followers from plunging the world into a new age of terror and chaos, but they also gain the support of other characters, events, and support cards, including three visionary new Champion cards.

Artists, Servitors, and Sociopaths

Humanity has long acknowledged the hazy line that stands between creative genius and insanity and separates the two. To generate wholly new ideas, artists need to view the world through an unusual viewpoint. They need to separate themselves from standard methods of thinking and perception, and many artists go to extraoardinary lengths to alter their perceptions, engaging in new meditative practices, immersing themselves into new environments, abusing illicit substances, or even devoting themselves to unholy powers in exchange for greater talents.

The Mark of Madness lures many of these Artists into the cult of Hastur with promises of fame and glory. Starving Artists (The Mark of Madness, 1) and Quixotic Poets (The Mark of Madness, 3), alike, respond to the summon, as do the wealthy patrons who drive the Parisian art scene.

Altogether, The Mark of Madness enriches the Artist subtype through the addition of five different Artist characters, a Patron of the Arts (The Mark of Madness, 10) to fund them, and the Ancient One Tru'nembra, The Angel of Music (The Mark of Madness, 18), to inspire their surrealistic songs, dances, paintings, and sculptures.

Yet the greatest, most horrifying threat that these Artists may pose is that they can walk the streets unnoticed, along with many of the faction's new Cultists and Servitors. Make no mistake about this threat, either: these men and women are utterly corrupt, madmen and murderers driven insane by their desires, completely divested of any moral qualms that might otherwise prevent them from propagating the evils of their dread King in Yellow.

Madness, Monsters, and Mind-Control

Few things translate the essence of the Lovecraftian mythos to Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game so well as the Terror struggle. Characters exploring its darkest and most troubling mysteries don't need to worry only about their lives and physical well being; they must also accept the possibility that they may encounter things so alien or horrifying as to shatter their sanity.

Still, the game has long rewarded players who have found clever ways to avoid the most terrifying consequences of their investigations. Even should they lose the Terror struggle, characters with Terror icons or Willpower cannot go insane. They have long made light of the Terror struggle, committing to stories with impunity and relying upon their sorcerous or monstrous might and their protective totems to keep them sane. However, with the arrival of The Mark of Madness, this is likely to change.

No faction is more synonymous with insanity and the Terror struggle than is Hastur's, and as it enriches the Hastur faction, The Mark of Madness simultaneously brings the Terror struggle more fully back to the core of the game. Terror icons and Willpower offer no sure protection from insanity, and even all the Investigation icons in the world may not be able to win you a story against Hastur, He Who Is Not to Be Named (The Mark of Madness, 19).

For starters, The Mark of Madness ensures that the consequences of your Terror struggles reach well beyond the characters your opponent must drive insane. Hastur translates the Terror struggles he wins into success tokens, and this mechanic is further explored by Drawing the Sign (The Mark of Madness, 25), which, if your opponent has no answer for your mastery of the Terror struggle, can be sacrificed to claim victory at a story, potentially even snatching one at which your opponent had three or four success tokens.

Then the rise of madness continues with the introduction of five new Madness cards. Like Acute Melancholia (The Mark of Madness, 29), these Madness cards threaten to make a massive impact upon the game, upsetting expectations, and reducing even the most stalwart men and women to quivering, blubbering shells of themselves.

Finally, those whose minds the King in Yellow does not break, he may bend to his will. Along with its strength in the Terror struggle, the Hastur faction has long excelled at stealing away its opponents' characters, and its mind-control becomes even more potent with The Mark of Madness.

With its mind-control and Madness and its focus on the Terror struggle, The Mark of Madness revists all the horror of the Lovecraftian mythos and brings it back to your games of Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game!

Your Best Defense May Be a Swift Recovery

Madness touches even those cards from The Mark of Madness that aren't dedicated to the Hastur faction. Among the cards that the game's seven other factions gain are a number of characters who enter play insane, but who trigger powerful effects when they are restored. Like Parrain Francois (The Mark of Madness, 52), each of these characters has the potential to dramatically reshape the course of play.

Furthermore, they gain the backing of new events, support cards, and even other characters, as well as three different neutral cards. Will these be enough to stop Hastur's minions and the spread of madness? It is too early to tell, but it bears note that among the characters and resources being brought to bear against the King in Yellow's evil cult are three different Champion cards, each of which is bound to inspire a flurry of deck-building and tactical choies among the game's most talented players.

Whispers of Madness

Confront your terrors and return to the root of the Lovecraftian mythos with The Mark of Madness. This tenth deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game is scheduled to arrive at retailers in the third quarter of 2015!

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