I keep reading about power creep, but honestly I don't really see it in any real terms. Sure there will occasionally be cards that are just better in one fashion or another than the vast majority of other cards of the same type, but that is pretty much par for the course. What I do see are purposeful design choices that make older cards work better, or create new deck types.

It is no longer a simple game with interesting effects that only have a moderate change on the game state. What we have are cards designed to be heavily synergistic, and not just following subtype themes, but mechanically operate together in extremely interesting ways, sometimes subtly so. Some of these combinations are across factions, some are in faction but across themes, and some of the cards seem to be part of much more intricate decks that allow players to choose from a number of synergistic or combinatory effects that together create control decks or combo decks that players are just now starting to explore.

We should be due for a FAQ update in a week or so I'd guess for GenCon. I'm curious to see if any of these issues are addressed, and if they how.

Penfold said:

I agree w/ Penfold.  There are always people willing to make accusations of power creep but I've never once seen anyone successfully defend their claim.  There are powerful cards in most packs, but for some reason every time a strong card appears people freak out and act like THIS TIME everything is different and it's going to destroy the game.  One strong card is not power creep.  We have not seen any sustained increases in power over time, and I doubt we ever will.

But, new themes keep appearing and growing.  Serpents and Mi-go are both more recent themes.  The whole Silver Twilight faction has grown from nothing.  We've seen a bunch of new archetypes and combos appear - cards that give every appearance of having been designed to work together.  Not randomly bumping into each other, but engineered to fit!  Is it so hard to imagine that the designers are planning ahead and actually DESIGNING?  Too many people act like they're making cards at random and when they mesh well with something else it's pure chance that made it happen.

All games need newbie decks that are easy for beginning players to understand.  I think the Cthulhu faction provides some of these, you can more or less build most of a decent deck just by matching up everything with a Deep One or Serpent trait and it'll work reasonably well.  If it wasn't them, it'd be something else - but it's useful to have some easy themes for people to build to so it's going to exist somewhere.  Cthulhu probably got more of them because they're so iconic to the game.

Such cards are not what I whine because.

Cards like:

Master of myths - suits every deck, recycles itself and is quite usefull.
{other cards that enter play as response and dont require resource match im also not a fan of, but this has no risk of sitting in your hand and not entering play}

Apeirophobia - destroy hand for cost 2 in a worst possible timing slot, compare to Bhyakhee attack, no power creep?

Ya-te-veo - cost 2 best two icons + mini shotgun

Khopesh - if i have toughness i can kill all your squishies that ware already hard to protect; ok it can backfire and be destroyed by support control, but still compared to sacrificial offering its just a better version with drawback of being attachment, but potential to wipe whole table with right combo…

Stygnian Eye - like infernal obsession wasn't efficient enough

Cards that seem more powerfull then earlier cards with similiar mechanics and not seem to do any interesting interactions, just give more power to fractions so ppl buy new APs, this bugs me as such road leads to mechanics getting out of control after it creeps too much.

 Then we just disagree.

Ye-Te-Veo is simply okay. Nice little efficient 2 coster great at slowing down a rush deck, but nothing to get worked up about.

Master of Myths, requires the constant non-use of a domain, to lock down combat at 1 story, and prevent your opponent from getting an extra success token for an undefended story and if you are lucky from winning the skill check. or if used on the attack, lets you spend that tertiary domain to put a character into play to challenge at another story, spreading your opponents defenders more thinly. Good card, but that constant need to leave the extra domain open means it is NOT for every deck.

Apeirophobia… OH NOES! Suddenly it is risky to run great characters. I can't just play a deck that cheats powerful characters into play (goodbye Aziz plus Nodens and Azathoth) or grab all the most cost efficient characters with terror or willpower in one or two factions and shove them into a deck. I need to build a balanced character base and possibly resource what would otherwise be great characters when I see Hastur being resourced. Now this is a STRONG card… but it only forces the discard when I have specific types of cards in play. I can build or even just play around this card.

Stygian Eye like Apeirophobia only works at its best when I have an opponent who is playing really good characters. They either have terror or willpower so I can send them to stories without them going insane and therefor me losing control of them and the Stygian Eye getting sent back into my deck, or I'm grabbing characters with powerful effects that I don't have to exhaust the character to take advantage of. And, like  Infernal Obsession, it is unique, so I can at best grab two of your characters with them together. So perma-steal with no conditions or restrictions for 3 or conditional or restricted steal for 2. Tell me again how Stygian is so much better as to be power creep again?

Ye-Te-Veo is actually the definition of power creep, because you can directly compare to past cards and see it has no disadvantages compared to them, but does have advantages.  It is a clearly superior version of other 2 cost Shub characters.

Penfold said:

I do not think it is broken but stating that it is just "simply okay" is a bit of a understatement in my opinion! A truly great card

One other clear example of power creep, although admittedly a minor one, would be Song of Suffering, which is a direct, across-the-board upgrade to Sedated.  Again, it's not much, but there's simply no denying that the card released later is better in every possible way to the card released earlier.

Also, is there a Great Old One whose version in the Core Set is better than a later-released version?

One specific area where the power creep is most visible, however, is wounding.  The earlier cards were very stingy with wounding particularly as relates to targeted wounding.  Compare the Khopesh with Riding Shotgun from the Yuggoth cycle, which requires an Event card, a cost of 2, winning a {Combat} struggle, and exhausting a character with a [Combat] icon.  With the Khopesh, at the cost of one 2 resource attachment, you get one free wound on any target, and more if the attached character has built-in Toughness or if you're willing to sacrifice it.  It's not even a comparison.  The Khopesh is the most efficient source of targeted wounding in the game by a long shot, far ahead of anything released previously.  That's power creep in action.

 While i do like the fact that much more cards are strong enough to include them in actual decks (previous expansions have much more junk cards that are way too weak) i think some cards need real drawbacks.

Are you seriously planing to go against hastur with no T , willpower or skill… and I'm not even talking about discarding 4 cards turn one when you have Cannibal Ghast that's not really that strong of a character. I'm talking about discarding 3/4 cards late game so you effectively lose big part of your turn not being able to resource or play anything. And almost all decks need 3/4 skill char with T/willpower eventually. And there are so little draw cards in this game. This heavily influences draw economy. Even "operations phase" only it would be a nice card. I really wonder why is this card like that, i don't think its an accident, but i cant seem to see why this strong. Was discarding too weak and this card is that much worse than i think in top tier play?

Same with Stygnian Eye - forcing opponent not to play T/willpower is really great for Hastur as one Lost to the Madness or Bloated Leng Spider will do so much dmg. And taking a good char for 2. And its not power creep? You can play with chars that relay on enters play etc, but still this is a better infernal obsession.

With Song of suffering i don't mind that much as i find sedated too weak. But Infernal obsession was really good, and now Eye is just a better version with really minor drawback.

If those fractions needed a buff and previous cards were too weak then ok, let it be so. But if cthulhu gets buffed and other fractions also get better versions of previous cards how else do you call it?

[edit]

now that i look through the cards cthulhu is not getting that much lately, serpent buffs are nice but they do bring subtype that wasn't that popular

There are just a few cards like  Temple of R'lyeh, Khopesh, Urumi and maybe new Necro, didnt play with it

Maybe i'm overreacting again.

But seriously, no Apeirophobia in tier1 decks? really?

To be fair there is also Power "Recession" on some cards.  There are occasionally cards that are just inferior versions of older cards.  When you don't have a common/uncommon/rare system though there really shouldn't be either.  Every card should be worth the paper it's printed on since they're all technically equally valuable.

 Its impossible to balance everything out, sometimes more of "card like this but worse" actually helps, like Obsession is still nice in Stygnian Eye deck.

Im less fan of cards that seem so strong that you would put it in the fractions deck even if the decks idea isnt really about whats the card is doing, but the card is too good not to include it. Cards like Ye-Te-Veo (anything better for shub cost 2 character?) Apeirophobia (paying 2 and a card to force opponent to discard 3-4, and he cant really plan ahead with no hand) , why would i not auto-include them?

ya te veo in my opinion was an essential card for them to bring out. shub has no real answer to combing the archives. now it does. no little weenie rushes into this conspiracy with no way for shub to defend. it costs 1 to activate, and most games, if your deck is designed well, this is a really tough call to make. yes, its a shotgun, but not one you can hand to any character you like. and at skill 2, its a huge risk to play as well against hastur blind submission, like handing them your shotgun. every card has an advantage and disadvantage in my opinion. strong against some decks, horrid against others. frontrunners against some factions, simply resources against others. as someone stated, its the balance of your deck that counts, and unfortunately it takes months to figure this out, riding the newbie storm.

i am seeing decks on lackey that chew up destruction decks like soft gooey candy. it looks strong to begin with, its great for starters to play with, and we all freaked when we first started playing in thinking how can this be beaten. but the subtleties hidden within the factions that can handle these decks can take months of dedication to work out, and i'm still finding / seeing things i'd never even imagined. same goes for these apparently super cards. yes, they are good on their own, but the synergy of a couple of cards that is not so obvious can easily be many times better.

being new to the game, of course the focus is on cards on their own and their apparent strength. this is so not the case with cthulhu. there are intricacies and synergies that are unbelievable to behold within the faction mixes. what looks like a poo card, when in the right deck, can suddenly become the main card that your deck relies on. this is certainly a game for deep thinkers and people who enjoy the revelations of finding new combinations and interplay between cards, because it has been designed to be so much more powerful this way than on a card by card basis.

all i ask is that people new to the game take the time and patience it requires a game like this to fully understand, and in doing so fully appreciate. this is what seperates it from games like magic - whizz bang. i was there. i freaked completely. and i can fully appreciate the reaction. now, after 6 months, i myself am making some nice decks that don't include much of the meta that 'appears' to be unstoppable, but do quite well in defeating them.

just to take up some more space, i will say that i've been playing with ya-te-veo and in 8 games i have used his ability only ONCE. a well built deck will be using every domain every turn for characters / supports / events, so in 7 games he was simply a poo version of collector of sacrifices.

 I'm not the biggest fan of "I used this once" argument - presence of the card in play does influence your position and what opponent can do even if you don't use this ability even once.

But general line of thought does start to persuade me.

Another deckbuilding question. What i find most scary in those cards is that they save you cards and there is so little draw in most fractions. This mini shotgun would be much less scary if alternatively i would play another card (or it cost you one card, or sth), but if i start playing cost 1 cards i'll run out of hand in no time… how you deal with this? Its one of the main reasons i find master of the myths and mini shotgun that good. Not only are they cost efficient but also free on cards departament. It they were one time it wouldn't be a problem.

"a well built deck will be using every domain every turn for characters / supports / events"

Not necessary

to play with yateveo, you need to play differently, like hastur deck.

Normally wih shubb you play all you can from your hand and keep 1 domain for destruct location or use y'golonac, so ya-te-veo change radicatly your play !

it's a "control" card so you need to play like a control deck

edit : ya-te-veo make the opponent award of consequence when he'll commit characters.

You know a character will be shot so , do you really want to commit? this feeling if very uncorfotable for your opponent so the pressure can change in your favor the battle for each story.

But to make this card really strong, you need to have cards you can play if you don't use your free domain, something you pay eventually if you don't use his ability