My Liege 2011 Deck

I'm mainly posting this to get some feedback and ideas for improvement, since I don't consider myself being particularly good at deckbuilding. This is the deck as I played it in the tournament:

3x Anthropology Advisor Miskatonic University Character
2x Chess Prodigy Miskatonic University Character
3x Museum Curator Miskatonic University Character
2x •Professor Nathaniel Peaslee, Scholar of the Arcane Miskatonic University Character
2x Visiting Author Miskatonic University Character
2x Blackmarket Artifact Miskatonic University Support
2x Open for Inspection Miskatonic University Support
3x Dreamlands Fanatic Cthulhu Character
3x Innsmouth Troublemaker Cthulhu Character
3x The Terror of the Tides Cthulhu Character
3x Deep One Assault Cthulhu Event
2x Called by Azathoth Cthulhu Support
3x •Khopesh of the Abyss, Manifested Malice Cthulhu Support
2x •Infernal Obsession Hastur Support
2x •The Guzheng, Item of Ill Fortune Hastur Support
3x Snow Graves Shub-Niggurath Support
3x •Descendant of Eibon, Master of the Black Arts Neutral Character
2x •Julia Brown, Insomniac Neutral Character
1x •Nodens, Potent and Archaic Neutral Character
2x •The Mage Known as Magnus, Master of the Arcane Arts Neutral Character
2x Forgiveness? Neutral Event
2x Political Demonstration Neutral Event
TOTAL 52

The deck went through a lot of modifications starting from the initial, rather simple idea of using the Museum Curator to get out the Khopesh and other nasty support cards repeatedly. I also wanted to test with how many factions I could get away with, so it started as a six-faction deck!

Originally I planned on using Doppelgängers to duplicate the Curator, but a couple of test games convinced me that the Descendant of Eibon was a much better choice for the restricted card, so I removed all the Yog cards (the other cards being the Stalking Hound (2x) and the Intruder from Beyond (2x)).

It also featured two cards from the Order of the Silver Twilight: Ritual of the Lance (2x) and Ritual of Summoning (2x) to be used in a combo with Nathaniel Peaslee and the Stone Calendar (1x) but I never managed to actually play it successfully so I removed them the day before the tournament started.

Reducing it to a four faction deck also made resourcing a lot easier. With the original version bad luck could sometimes prevent me from paying crucial cards because I couldn't get the required match.

An important goal for me was to create a kind of 'toolbox' having the potential to beat all kinds of decks. I'm not even sure what kind of deck archetype it represents. It can work well as a rush deck but it also has decent staying power (mostly due to recurring characters) and several ways to neutralize or control characters to recover from a bad start and avert an impending defeat.

Using Anthropology Advisor, Visiting Author, and even the Descendant allows me to play almost every character in turn one or two. With a bit of luck Julia Brown can even be played for free later in the game.

Being able to put characters into play outside of the Operations phase is an important feature, particularly if facing the Order of Silver Twilight. For this there are the Dreamlands Fanatic, Terror of the Tides and of course the Descendant.

Julia Brown, Chess Prodigy, Blackmarket Artifact, and Forgiveness? allow me to commit to stories even if my opponent has more terror or combat icons. Since I usually have an advantage in investigation, it's often worthwhile to sacrifice characters (particularly if they can be returned from the discard pile (Visiting Author, Descendant or using Peaslee)).

Innsmouth Troublemaker and Terror of the Tides are the best characters to wield the Khopesh but in a pinch everyone will do.

Snow Graves is crucial to prevent the opponent from utilizing the discard. To prevent my opponent from using it on me the deck features support destruction in the form of Deep One Assault and Political Demonstration. They can also be easily used to destroy Seventy Steps, Cavern of Flame, Things In the Ground and other annoying Support cards (like the ones I use!). Since Deep One Assault is Loyal, destroying Cost 3+ cards is usually not possible, though.

Called By Azathoth, The Guzheng, and Infernal Obession are all means to neutralize characters I cannot destroy easily using the Khopesh.

I added a single Nodens to clean the table if I'm in danger of getting overrun, as ammunition for Magnus (together with Terror of the Tides) to destroy an expensive key character, and finally to have an Ancient One in the deck (Please note, that I took care not to include any Heroic or Villaineous characters).

Open For Inspection was mostly added to defeat Discard decks since those games have to be won as fast as possible to avoid running out of cards. Because it allows a story to be won in a single turn it can also work as a nasty surprise if the opponent has neglected his defense for a turn.

Things I thought about changing:
- Replacing Peaslee with Obscure Linguist since he's no longer required for a combo and getting rid of icons is very useful.
- Forgiveness? was added as an afterthought. I never used it, so it's probably not required, bringing the card count back down to 50.

I'm looking forward to your comments and suggestions!

I'm not convinced by the Hastur splash. 4 cards is really low.

Does the Guzheng really help ? I'd rather replace it with 3 Performance Artists and add another Infernal Obsession. Or drop the Hastur splash altogether and perhaps replacing it with a Shub splash (3xBurrowing and 3xGrasping Chtonians). With your Snow Graves, it would be a much reliable 9 cards splash and you could drop the not always reliable Political Demonstration, staying with a 52 cards deck.

Besides, if you're willing to go beyond the simple Shub splash, you could add the Shocking, allowing you to bring the Terror earlier with its full 5 toughness.

Thanks for the feedback!

Supa a écrit:I'm not convinced by the Hastur splash. 4 cards is really low.

It's not as bad as it looks, really. They're all support cards and mainly meant to be put into play using the Curator.

Supa a écrit:Does the Guzheng really help ?

Well, it was useful in a couple of (test) games. It offers a cheap answer to decks that rely on high-skill characters and can even mostly neutralize Ancient Ones, since it doesn't go away if the character cannot be turned insane.
A second reason for including it was that it's another Relic, so it's a way to reshuffle the deck and artificially increase deck size. Still, I could see replacing it with a different Relic (e.g. the Disk of Itzamna, which wasn't available in time for the tournament).

Supa a écrit:I'd rather replace it with 3 Performance Artists and add another Infernal Obsession.

I actually tried that but the Performance Artists turned out to be of little use. They're fragile (no icons, 1 skill) and don't help against events, the Khopesh, or the Initiate - which are the cards I worried about most.
What synergized very well with the rest of the deck was the following card:

Wraith
Character - Monster.
Cost 2 / Skill 1 / Icons
Forced Response: After Wraith enters your discard pile from play, your opponent must discard 1 random card from his hand.
The Wailer Below F67 / Illustrator Amanda Sartor

I used it to good effect when the deck featured more Hastur cards (see below) but due to its cost of 2 it's unusable without a bigger splash.

Supa a écrit:Or drop the Hastur splash altogether and perhaps replacing it with a Shub splash (3xBurrowing and 3xGrasping Chtonians). With your Snow Graves, it would be a much reliable 9 cards splash and you could drop the not always reliable Political Demonstration, staying with a 52 cards deck.

Besides, if you're willing to go beyond the simple Shub splash, you could add the Shocking, allowing you to bring the Terror earlier with its full 5 toughness.

That, however is an excellent suggestion, and definitely worth giving a try! It would also open the way to use another Relic:

•The Cthonian Stone, Stygian Waymark
Support - Relic.
Cost 3
After The Cthonian Stone leaves play, shuffle it into its owner's deck.
Response: After a character you control is destroyed, exhaust The Cthonian Stone to put a character into play from your hand with a lower printed cost than the destroyed character.
The Shifting Sands F20 / Illustrator Matt Zeilinger


My initial reason for including the Hastur faction was that I wanted the ability to cancel card effects, e.g. with Power Drain. But my deck featured too many factions to reliably play Hastur events when I needed them. To allow that it'd have to become a main faction, probably replacing Cthulhu (and maybe only keeping the Khopesh and Called By Azathoth).

But that would probably result in a completely different deck. As I mentioned over at CardGameDB, I could imagine a deck featuring Miskatonic/Shub/Hastur working well.