CoC - New Yog

[fatolaf]

At first the syllables defied all correlation with any speech of earth, but towards the last there came some disjointed fragments evidently taken from the Necronomicon, that monstrous blasphemy in quest of which the thing had perished. These fragments, as Armitage recalls them, ran something like 'N'gai, n'gha'ghaa, bugg-shoggog, y'hah: Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth ...' They trailed off into nothingness as the whippoorwills shrieked in rhythmical crescendos of unholy anticipation.
      - H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror

One of the most flavorful cards in the game is Yog-Sothoth, In Whom the Spheres Meet (Core Set, F101.) It's easy to picture what's going on here: The more you mess with the laws of physics by casting spells, the more you wither away the barriers of reality, until a breaking point is reached and Yog-Sothoth seeps through the cracks in space-time and manifests himself as a large, maddening indestructible force. Then came along Things in the Ground (Secrets of Arkham, F31) which, besides dumping all those spells in your discard pile also allows big, bad Ancient Ones to enter the game for free. By manipulating the top of your deck with Journey to the Other Side (Core Set, F115) it should be straightforward to reanimate what you need.

While eight skill, double terror, double combat and a smattering of arcane on a hard to kill body certainly is nice to have, if you don't have to pay the resource cost, however, trading one point of skill for a relevant ability might be worth it. The Screams From Within Asylum Pack offers that option with the third Ancient One in the Lord cycle.

Yog-Sothoth, Lord of Time and Space (Screams From Within, F99) does have an ability. For just 2 you can recycle any spell event card in your discard pile, no matter how much it costs, or what resource match you'd normally need. With a bit of luck, you can do so from your second turn on. Need to stop that triggered effect? Just replay that Writhing Wall (Secrets of Arkham, F40) and get an extra card for the trouble. You'll even have a domain left to recycle that Journey so you can sort your deck again in preparation for your second Things in the Ground activation.

The purple faction has quite a toolbox available by recurring spells. In faction there is Dampen Light (Core Set, F120) which can disrupt early game plans and you can even emulate Cthulhu, Lord of R'lyeh's (The Wailer Below, F64) ability by using A Single Glimpse (Core Set, F117.)

Sometimes you want to swarm with the biggest things you can find. And the potentially biggest spell so far is Unspeakable Resurrection (Core Set, F119) with a cost of X, which can be set to any number you want, and daddy Yog-Sothoth will pay for it. Again, without worrying about resource matching. Combining these two techniques allows all the Ancients to enter play, and being resurrected after being destroyed.

The spell event cards from you toolbox do go to the bottom of the deck after use. To really go to infinity (and beyond) the purple cult can recruit Smugglers (The Wailer Below, F75) which also gives you a fresh heap of cards to manipulate on the top of your deck, making the Journey even more effective by finding you more and more combo/toolbox pieces.

[Steve H]

Better than my current one! Will defo be picking this up...

[Nick]

Lots of entertaining ranting going on on the FFG site. I can see why as well - this is a ridonculously OP card if it can be played as Marius suggests. With unspeakable resurrection and some transient resources, you can have Yog, Hastur and Cthulhu all out in play turn 3. Yes really.

This guy is so going in my Yog / Hastur Mill deck. 

[fatolaf]

It could be the beginning of the old CCG days when it was all about getting Ancient Ones out into play...

Not a good thing IMO...