3 Deep One Assault (DoA)
3 Sacrificial Offerings (Sac)
3 Brood of Yig (BoY)
1 Degenerate Serpent Cultist (DSC)
3 Dreamlands Fanatic (DF)
3 Ravager from the Deep (Ravager)
2 Deep-One rising (DOR)
2 Carl Stanford (Carl)
3 Keeper of the Golden Path (KotGP)
Yog-Sothoth: (21)
3 Calling down the Ancients (CDtA)
3 A single glimpse (AsG)
3 Gathering at the stones (Gathering)
3 Unspeakable resurrection (UR)
3 Doppleganger
3 Servant of Nodens (SoN)
2 The SleepWalker
Neutral: (6)
3 Descendant of Eibon (Eibon)
3 Diseased sewer Rats (Rats)
How to play this bunch of cards
Starting hand: you CANNOT keep a hand with less than 2 removals. It is not really difficult to have 2 removals, since we are playing 15 cards (Doa, Sac, CdtA, SG, Rats) that are actual removals.
Resource: there are of course some cards that if you have in hand at the beginning you can resource without problems. All the 4-cost cards (Ravager, Deep One rising), UR, probably gathering. DON'T waste a neutral card as a resource in the starting resource-phase. You MUST have 3 domains with 3 coloured cards attached.
After this, in the following 3 turns the best situation possible is 3-2-1 (you can arrive to this situation in two ways: 2-1-1 --> 3-1-1 --> 3-2-1 or 2-1-1 --> 2-2-1 --> 3-2-1). Maybe it sounds stupid to say, but it is really important to decide which of the two ways you take: it depends of course on the cards you have in hand. In some situations, use the Eibon as a resource to play a 3-cost card in turn-2 can be useful but I've done this ONLY to play another Eibon.
You should place the fourth resource in the domain only in the moment you are sure you want to play a 4-cost card.
If you arrive at the late-game, you may want to put a third resource in the 2-resource domain, to be able to play 2 Eibon (or Eibon + Doppleganger copying Eibon) in the same turn.
Play-style: this is not a fast deck. Usually, since you are lacking Investigation icons, you need to go to story 3 times in order to win it. Keep your characters in defense at the beginning and go to stories only if you can ready the characters thanks to the Arcane struggle. Don't win the story if this means that you run out of success tokens: you should use success tokens to put into play or into hand Eibon, so you can defend the stories more effectively. In the moment you can play (with the domain) an Eibon, you should have a good board position that allow you to win without too many problems.
The Eibon is basically your main win condition, in association with the Doppleganger: the last one can give you more Eibon than the opponent so a better board. Doppleganger on eibon was the main play of the day with this card. I think I copied a different character only once or twice (a deep One Rising and a character with an investigation icon).
Remember to use the Dreamlands Fanatic response! I've never paid (and I've never resourced) this character: I play so many removals that it enters into play always for free, and a free character is always good!
Cards excluded/Explanation of some cards:
There are probably some cards that seem powerful and could be useful in the deck. I try to make a list and explain why I didn't put them in the deck.
- Twilight gate: seems the perfect card. You can resource a ravager and use it with a bit of surprise. It is true, and it can be powerful, but the real problem, for me, is that it requires to arrive in the mid-game to be used. And, first of all, I need to arrive to the midgame
Probably, I could replace the UR with Twilight Gate (almost never used during the weekend).- Keeper of the Golden path: is a good and cheap character. It could be probably replaced with the full-set of Degenerate Serpent Cultist + 1 Deep One Rising. I need to test this option. I was using 2 Deep One Rising + 1 DSC because I wanted to decrease a bit the number of 4-cost characters.
- Speak to the dead: I tried it, but here it is too slow and never effective. Gathering at the stones is better because at turn 2 you can do Gathering + A single glimpse
- SoN: as soon as Yog will get another 2-cost character, with 2 icons and 2 skill that is doing something, I'll probably replace it. But for now, the ability to provide a terror and a skull is important.
How to solve some problems of the deck:
If your opponent is playing ancient ones/shub you will probably lose the game. You are not fast enough to win before they arrive (especially if they are put into play using Things on the ground...) and you don't have answer to them. It is maybe possible, anyway, to find a way to deal with them like Called by Azathoth (blank Y-golonac and wound him) but probably it is not enough. To deal with high-skill characters probably it would be possible to play Pulled Under: it is a bit slow, but we have enough characters to play it (BoY, KotGP). Need to be tested.
