Well, the cat's kinda out of the bag, and it doesn't look like i'll make it to the Australian Nationals as the event was only advertised less than 2 weeks ago and it's 3 weeks and 10 hrs travel away, and my student's money flow simply won't accomodate the short notice. Been keeping this low key in case I managed to make the Nationals, and quietly trialling the deck on lackey for the last month ( those on there would be familiar with it ), and its kind of eerie the vague similarities between it and the now released world championship winning deck. I must admit I was a bit concerned when I heard about Tom's deck, but it's different enough to soothe my nerves and call my own. So here it is, the MONSTER MASH :

Characters ( 35 )

Priestess of Bubastis x 3
Blood Magician x 3
Twilight Cannibal x 3
Black Dog x 3
Master of the Myths x 3
Ghoulish Worshipper x 3
Flying Polyps x 2
Dhole Ant-Lion x 3
Hideous Guardian x 3
Forgotten Shoggoth x 2
Displaced Chthonian x 3
Nyarlathotep x 2
Y’Golonac x 2

Events ( 15 )

Spiritual Guidance x 2
Feed Her Young x 3
Even Here She Dwells x 2
Twilight Gate x 2
Shocking Transformation x 3
Unspeakable Resurrection x 3

In following with my Yog / Shub Regionals winning deck ( posted somewhere here first week of June I think ), I continued my non-use of Supports, opponent Support denial, accelerated Characters / Ancient Ones, and a lean towards Characters ( It was a 34 / 16 mix ). In that respect it's really just a new spin on an old strategy of mine. I'll be interested to see if this will become more common seeing that it's taken out an Australian Regional and now the National and World Championships. The main features of the deck would be:

1 ) Early game defence with Black Dog and Master of the Myths.

2 ) Acceleration into the 4 costs ( which there are many ) with Priestess of Bubastis, Ghoulish Worshipper and Feed Her Young.

3 ) Acceleration of hand size with Even Here She Dwells to draw from the 22 monster / cultists, facilitated early game with the returning Black Dog / Master of the Myths / Twilight Gate.

4 ) Protection against milling decks with ( Shock Transformed ) Forgotten Shoggoth, otherwise most likely resourced.

5 ) A high quantity of Invulnerability and Toughness to protect against the Khopesh and other wounding decks.

6 ) A high degree of skill to protect against Syndicate and Nodens ( which one lackey opponent loves to use ) and Invulnerability on some 3 skill Characters.

7 ) The main aim of which is to get Hideous Guardian into play as soon as possible and keep in play with Unspeakable Resurrection ( also for Ghoulish Worshippers ), fuelling the Dhole Ant-Lions to not exhaust, and clearing the wounds with Spiritual Guidance on the 6th wound. This allows the possibilty of 2 Dhole Ant-Lions committing unexhausted for 3 story phases per Hideous Guardian / Spiritual Guidance / Unspeakable Resurrection.

As stated, it's still being trialled and may not be in it's final form, as I'm still playing with Event numbers and trying to slip in Bast's Hunt to combat opponent Master of the Myths etc, but I don't see much point keeping a lid on it any longer. I'll post the finalised version when I get to it. Hope you appreciate !!
 

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NOTE: Unfortunately not all of us are blessed with owning 3 copies of the very first AP ever released, of which Twilight Cannibal is a single, so I've been running it with either Cannibal Ghast or Ghoulish Predator. I have 1 copy of Twilight Cannibal and am striving to get the other 2.

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Actually, as an after thought, if anyone could please please please provide some evidence of this strategy of using Yog / Shub ( with no Supports / Support denial / accelerated Ancient Ones / being Character heavy ) before the Regionals deck I would greatly appreciate it.

I'm just very curious to see if it's possible that a newbie could design such a strategy within 2 weeks of entering the game that might effect the meta to any degree. If not then that's ok, but if so then that's pretty cool !! I'm the first to admit it was pretty rough in it's initial form ( as can be expected from a new comer building his first real deck to use in a tournament less than 2 months away ), but with experience and the release of new asylum packs, you can see above that it's come a long way.

COCLCG said:

+1.  I just recently started trying to collect the Dreamlands cycle myself.  Most of them aren't too hard to find, but the first two packs are getting scarce and it's tough finding copies.  Twilight Horror is the worst one to try to find.

While I haven't tried this deck, I did once run something a little similar in that it was a mainly Shub based monsters deck using Ghoulish Worshipper and some mix of Priestess/One of the Thousand.  The bulk of the characters were cost 3-4 Monsters, some Ancient Ones.  The Cthonians were there for support hate, and I had either Burrowing Beneath or maybe Thunder in the East as well - plus some 1-cost Supports of my own I could throw on stuff for effect or to trigger with Telepathic Chthonian (one of the few non-monsters).

Anyway, it was fun and it steamrolled a lot of decks who couldn't handle the rapid pouring out of big nasties.  The drawback it had was that it was kind of one-dimensional and vulnerable to decks that could take out the Ghoulish Worshippers because without those the deck was overpriced with mostly 3's and 4's.

This was quite a while time ago, so I wouldn't have had any of the more recent packs and none of the Dreamlands cards.

Thanks for the reply dboeren. Feed Her Young has definately strengthened this strategy beyond measures and makes the Ghoulish Worshipper only an early game rusher. I included Unspeakable Resurrection to try and combat the bullseye they generally carry without wasting a domain on Corrupted Midwife and slowing the deck down, and once Hideous Guardian is in play ( usually via Shocking Transformation as early as possible ) they're a lot harder to keep off the board. It's funny reminiscing that once upon a time one had to Limbo Gate in the Ancient Ones to bring them out early, but Feed Her Young has changed the whole principle behind this Yog / Shub plan of attack and allows for more of a certain thing. It was with a mild sense of glee that I watched the last cycle bring out cards that made my strategy even more accessible.

The basis of the deck started with this developed plan from the Regionals, but I wanted to try and be a bit different at the same time ( hence no cards like Stalking Hound, Hungry Dark Young and the event Support destructions ), so struck upon the Dhole Ant-Lion / Hideous Guardian / Spiritual Guidance combo instead. I'd also tried a monster deck in the past ( haven't we all ) and it was vulnerable in ways that it now no longer is. Along with Feed Her Young, you now have Master of the Myths and Black Dog to cushion the deck in case it doesn't fire early or meets strong resistance ( and it HAS to be strong ). It was with this in mind that I was creating the deck, as I had hoped many would not have returned to the idea or thought to protect against it. Generally by turns 2 - 4 you're pumping out 2 x 4 cost big bads most turns, a rate that I've yet to meet a deck that can handle.

And yes, my biggest gripe about the tournament scene ( and the inherent farce that results ), is the fact that not everyone has access to all the cards. When the World Champion winning deck has at least 2 cards from the first AP to my knowledge ( Twilight Cannibal / Twilight Gate ), it's certainly saying something. Luckily I got my grubby mits on 1 copy for a bargain and it has 3 copies of Twilight Gate and serves most my purposes, but not everyone is so lucky and allowed an even playing field. I know myself that I gained absolutely no satisfaction from defeating one of the Regional competitors who didn't own at least all the AP's after the first cycle, as I knew that it was never going to be a fair fight.

Yep, Feed Her Young definitely helps accelerate things. The more the card pool grows the more nearly any strategy can be fine-tuned to run better.  It's fun sometimes to revisit your old decks and see how much better you can make them now with a combination of new card alternatives and gained experience.

I don't know how much weight I'd put on a single pack of cards. It's certainly nice to have everything but replacing a couple of cards with moderately better alternatives (like Cannibal Ghast/Ghoulish Predator -> Twilight Cannibal)  isn't going to transform a deck so drastically that someone doesn't have a chance.  From Ghoulish Predator to Twilight Cannibal is one extra icon, and a somewhat stiffer drawback.  Right now Night/Day isn't used a lot, but if we see a reprint and the use of Night/Day picks up you may well see people voluntarily choosing not to use Twilight Cannibal and picking one of the others instead.

I've been working on getting my hands on some Twilight Horror packs too.  The cards are nice, but mainly it's to complete my collection.  I really do hope that Fantasy Flight reprints them sometime though.  My opinion is that there is no reason anything as simple to reprint as cards should ever be out of print more than briefly as long as the game is still alive and selling OK.

I'm usually in complete agreeance with you, but for once 'll have to differ. A single icon at a critical stage can be the difference between winning and losing a tournament game, and I've lost count how many times I've won / lost because of this simple 1 icon. And Twilight Gate is such a huge card that it's an auto include in any of my Yog decks and again has won me several games. Dropping a Dhole Ant-Lion on turn 1 to destroy an opponents character in their story phase is pure gold, not to mention decks like Re-Occurring Nightmare that drop Many Angled Things and Grasping Chthonians at critical stages during the story phase.

Not to mention cards like Beings of Ib, The Rays of Dawn, The Setting Sun and Gregory Gry - Muckraker.

It's probably different in America, but in other places the only option last time I checked was paying $80 for Twilight Horror on the internet, and only a single copy was available.

I do agree that once they reprint the choices may change, but that's the problem. The people who own these packs are having a field day using the cards that would be vulnerable if everyone had them available, and not suffering the drawbacks that would be apparent if this were so.

Just for interests sake I dug my Regionals deck out of the forum ( not the original but a rework I'd done after another couple of months experience - but relatively still a newbie - dated 23 July ), so it's easy to see the influence that it has had :

Character ( 37 )

3 x Priestess of Bubastis
2 x Black dog
2 x Blood Magician
3 x Ya-te-veo
3 x Pawn Broker
3 x Hungry Dark Young
3 x Many-angled Thing
3 x The Mage Known as Magnus
2 x Constricting elder thing
3 x Stalking Hound
2 x Telepathic Chthonian
2 x Y'Golonac, The Obscenity
3 x Shub-Niggurath
3 x Yog-Sothoth

Events ( 13 )

3 x A Single Glimpse
3 x Burrowing Beneath
2 x Thunder in the East
2 x Speak to the Dead
3 x Opening the Limbo Gate

Of course the initial design was pre Feed Her Young days when I needed a whole different approach to getting out the high cost Ancient Ones, and before I had Twilight Gate in my grubby paws or Twilight Cannibal, and was the basis for MONSTER MASH. I was also giddy with the just released Ya-Te-Veo and probably would have one of the Ghouls instead now. If I were to return to it I'd definately be changing it to incorporate the 2 decks together and probably arrive at nearly a carbon copy of the Worlds deck. Here I was going more for the T.Chthonians ability but with the new deck just switched to D.Chthonian and for something new went with the monsters.
 

And for further interests sake I was sitting at a slow day at work and decided to do the same upgrade to the above deck as was done when trying something different with MONSTER MASH, which I'd been building and trialling sporadically on lackey since late Aug / early Sep and trialling more extensively during Oct, as it would've been done anyway after it was finalised, as this is / was my tournament deck base ever since winning with it in early June so of course I'd always be working with it and updating with new AP's, with the following result :

Character ( 37 )

3 x Priestess of Bubastis
3 x Black dog
3 x Blood Magician
3 x Twilight Cannibal
3 x Master of the Myths
3 x Hungry Dark Young
3 x Many-angled Thing
2 x Grasping Chthonian
2 x Forgotten Shoggoth
3 x Stalking Hound
3 x Displaced Chthonian
2 x Flying Polyps
2 x Nyarlathotep
2 x Y'Golonac

Events ( 13 )

3 x Feed Her Young
2 x A Single Glimpse
3 x Twilight Gate
3 x Shocking Transformation
2 x Unspeakable Resurrection

This is a direct conversion with the obsolete Limbo Gate combo taken out as it had been with the MASH and the only obvious change being the Elder Thing for the G.Chthonian now that D.Chthonian was in place and I needed more Shub for Feed Her Young, and is the result of further experience and newly released AP's. Who knows if this would be the playtested version though as I still need to swap at least 2 more Yog Characters for Shub to make the numbers right . A case of great minds think alike perchance ?? - haha.

In retrospect it is a bit of a bummer though. My 'johnny' player personality had taken great pride in what I can only presume an unprecedented tournament deck design and strategy of a ridiculous amount of characters and removal of supports from the game, and now a direct application of its idea to win the Worlds has left me a bit deflated. Now the original concept will always be linked to the copy, and I'm feeling a bit like I've just wasted 6 months as the main point of it all was this unique approach that I didn't think anyone else would use. Well. let that be a lesson on sharing information. I'll take this opportunity to apologise to the one person who told me not to post my deck ideas or they might get pinched, when everyone else said 'share share'. Oh well, thems the breaks.

Told you so. ;-)

I've always used a variation of this deck with  'Journey to the Otherside' for a tad more draw control and 'Glaaki' to force my enemy into a fight.

My main training opponent is quite illusive…

The most badass variation was with the 'Shocking James Logan/Khopesh/Necronomicon' in conjunction with 'Abhorrent Spore' to really make the Guardian a pain in the ass.

Ah… and again. Told ya'!

Mwah ha ha. Shut up. hahaha. Indeed you did. Bit me on the arse that one. One tournament deck and 5 months evolving it down the drain. Poo.

And of course you used a variation with a shocked Logan. You are European after all. hee hee.

COCLCG said:

I agree that an extra icon is great.  Sometimes it makes the difference.  Other times it doesn't.  Maybe I misinterpreted you but I thought you were basically saying "If someone has these cards, you may as well give up because you have little chance."  That's what I was objecting to.  There are some great cards in these packs (as really there are in most packs), but I wouldn't agree that the game may as well be over already.

America is no different.  In Memory of Day isn't too bad to find, you just need to put in the legwork.  I spent a lot of time searching online and calling/ordering from different stores to find mine.  A lot of places that claimed they had it in stock turned out not to.  Same with Twilight Horror - I found some places whose inventory system thought they had it, but none of them actually did.  You pretty much have to luck into it, or pay the stupid inflated prices which I refuse to do on principle.  In fact, in my search I ran into someone from Australia who was going to check their local store for me because he said they had a lot of older 40-card packs on the shelves there.  Maybe the rarity of CoC players there will turn out for you to be an asset someday because there will be more old stock still unsold.

Oh of course not. Everyone has a chance. I remember playing post tournament with my Regionals deck against a Core Set deck and the little mongrel kept me at bay for so many turns with Ravager of the Deep and the Guardian Elder Thing !!

yeah. done the rounds of the Aus. stores and that's how I managed to get all the first cycle AP's so now I'm only missing 2 copies of the 1st. There are quite a few of the 2-6 packs so perhaps I am lucky indeed that the community is so small here ( but I'm working on that and up to 7 people locally ). I've recovered a bit from the loss of my tournament deck ( as I simply will not play anything that can be associated with another deck, especially a high profile one ), and good news is i'm working on what might be a better one !! NO POSTING this time though !!! haha. Still wavering on the new release format, but I do love the game, even though it seems to cause me a lot of frustration. Just have to accept the fact that I'll never be a part of the international scene, that others may use my ideas and steal the thunder and accolades for them, and look at it in a different light in that at least I know i'm fully capable of building a World's tournament winning deck / strategy !!