Call of Cthulhu LCG: New faction!

Good news for all Call of Cthulhu LCG players! Fantasy Flight Games announced a new human faction for the Call of Cthulhu Living Card Game: The Order of the Silver Twilight!

The new faction will be introduced this winter by the Deluxe Expansion “The Order of the Silver Twilight” which will contain 55 never-before-seen cards (3 copies per card), 40 for the new Order of the Silver Twilight, 2 for each of the existing factions, and 1 neutral card.

One specialty of the new faction will be “Ritual Cards” which have similar effects as event cards but which will be played on the table and remain in play until their effect is triggered – adding a new threat to other players. The Order will also focus on discard and sacrifice effects.

With the new faction, the CoC LCG will have 8 factions – four human and four demon factions.  Future Asylum Packs will contain cards for the Order as well as cards for the other 7 factions.

Up to now, the release date is unknown (“winter”), but while you are waiting, you can check out the FFG announcement for more information about the upcoming expansion.

Review: Call of Cthulhu – The Card Game (LCG) Core Set

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Published in: 2008
Designers: Eric M. Lang, Nate French
Topic: Fantasy / H.P. Lovecraft Universe
Game Type: Living Card Game (LCG)
Contents: 1 rulebook, 140 faction cards, 15 neutral cards, 6 Cthulhu miniatures, 1 mounted mapboard, 24 Story markers

HFC Game-O-Meter: D

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Our Rating (1-10):

Graphic Presentation: 10
Rules: 6
Playability: 7
Replay Value: 6

Overall Rating: 7

Important! This review deals with the Core Set exclusively – and the question of how suitable it is as a standalone game played “out of the box”. It doesn’t rate the entire CoC LCG game system (Core Sets+expansions) or the general gameplay of the CoC LCG, only the contents of the Core Set “as is”!

PRO	Introductory game for a LCG system that can be played “out of the box” without purchasing further cards, components are of a high quality, great artwork, Lovecraftian atmosphere, short playing time, 7 very different factions…
CONTRA	…which cannot be exploited with the 20 cards per faction contained in the core set, no custom deck building, balancing issues with some combinations, official FAQ required (card errata, clarifications)

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Introduction

Call of Cthulhu – The Card Game is an offspring of the Call of Cthulhu franchise. Initially, it was a Collectible Card Game where players had to buy random booster packs in order to build and improve their decks. In 2008, publisher Fantasy Flight Games decided to change the game concept into a “Living Card Game” where players still build and improve their individual card decks, but they don’t have to spend large amounts of money in buying randomized card packs with unknown contents in search for the rarest and most powerful cards.

Instead, the game is supplemented by the monthly release of “Asylum Packs” which contain cards for all seven factions as well as neutral cards. Their contents are fixed and public knowledge, so all players have access to all cards all the time. This provides for fair chances in deck building because there are no more “rare” cards as secret weapons and whether your deck is a success or an epic failure depends on your deck building skills and on how many Asylum Packs you buy.

If you want to start with Call of Cthulhu – The Card Game, you only have to buy the “Core Set” first, which serves as a starter pack. You can play it “out of the box” without buying further cards, if you want to get an impression of the game and if you want to decide whether you like the game concept. If you are a casual player and only want to play the game from time to time with friends or family members, you could probably be content with the Core Set alone, without ever buying any add-ons. It contains 20 cards for each of the 7 factions in the game, and 15 additional neutral cards which are divided between the two players. You simply choose two factions of your choice, combine their cards to a deck, add 7 neutral cards and you are ready to fight your opponent, who does the same. Combining 2 factions and fighting 2 other factions allows for 21 different decks with 105 different combat constellations.

This review deals with the Core Pack and how deep the gaming experience with the basic starter set – without any additional cards! – really is. It doesn’t deal with the “Call of Cthulhu – The Card Game” system in general!

If you are interested in more details about the Call of Cthulhu LCG, the game mechanics, Asylum Packs, and basic gameplay, please check out our introductory article: An Introduction to Call of Cthulhu – The Card Game (LCG). I won’t repeat the basics here, but concentrate on reviewing the Core Set and its value as a standalone game.

Introduction to Call of Cthulhu – The Card Game (LCG)

Call of Cthulhu – The Card Game is a Living Card Game (LCG) by Fantasy Flight Games. It is the successor of Call of Cthulhu – the Collectible Card Game (CCG) which was discontinued when the new format was introduced in 2008.

What’s the difference between a Living Card Game and a Collectible Card Game?

The main game concept is identical: players choose factions and then try to build a powerful deck which will “beat” other players’ decks. This genre is known as “Dueling Card Games“. Depending on the game, you have to follow a basic ruleset for constructing your deck (a minimum or maximum number of cards, a point or cost system, allowed number of copies in one deck), but apart from this, you are free to build and explore the “ultimate deck“.

In contrast to a traditional Collectible Card Game or Trading Card Game (Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Marvel Vs, The Lord of the Rings TCG, Pokemon), the Living Card Game breaks away from the Collectible Card Game model.

A Magic Booster, containing 15 random cards

In a Collectible Card Game, you have to buy booster packs if you want to improve your deck and if you want to find rare and powerful cards. You don’t know the specific contents of a booster pack, though, so it can happen that you have to spend $100 for a very rare card while finding 85 copies of a cheap card. Since most game systems regularly publish new booster packs, you have to spend a huge amount of money if you want to stay up-to-date and if you want to improve your deck and counter other players’ new cards.

This “blind buy” purchase model is the most problematic aspect of Collectible Card Games. The collecting and the thrill of buying new booster packs without knowing what’s inside can be somewhat addictive, so often players are forced to quit the hobby because they cannot keep up the pace and spend too much money in buying useless boosters with multiple copies of cheap cards they already possess. If you want to play competitive, you are forced to invest your money in booster packs or to pay tremendous prices for specific cards sold on eBay.

A Living Card Game (LCG) offers a new card distribution model. Instead of selling randomized booster packs, cards are sold in fixed add-on packs. The contents of such a pack are public knowledge and fixed. In Call of Cthulhu, these add-ons are called “Asylum Packs”. They are published monthly and belong to certain “story cycles” with focus on different aspects of the game: focus on certain battle types (terror, combat, arcane, investigation), characters, locations, or skills. You don’t have to buy all Asylum Packs, if you don’t want to. Instead, you can choose which packs would really improve your factions or your deck or your strategy – and which are worthloss for your individual style.

Most players buy all Asylum Packs nevertheless, just to “have them all”, but this doesn’t hurt as much as buying booster packs. One Asylum Pack costs about 7-11 $, depending on the shop where you buy them, and that’s it. You don’t have to hunt a rare card anymore, you simply order the Asylum Pack with your favorite card on amazon or buy it in your local game store. Even if you are a hardcore competetive player who duels on tournaments, you don’t have to buy more than three copies of each Asylum Pack because you aren’t allowed more than 3 copies of each card in a single deck. If you play Highlander format (“there can be only one”, no more than one copy of each card per game), one of each Asylum Packs is more than enough. Publisher FFG even listened to their fans – the newer Asylum Packs contain three copies of each card, so there’s absolutely no need to buy more than one copy of each Asylum Pack any more.

Besides from the different distribution model, a LCG still offers the same dynamic customizable game play as a CCG. You can customize and build your perfect deck, but without the blind purchase model. In the end, the LCG model gives you the best of both worlds.

Call of Cthulhu LCG: Asylum Packs

Jump to “List of Asylum Packs”

Once upon a time, Call of Cthulhu – The Card Game was a Collectible Card Game (CCG). This means, people had to buy “booster packs” and collect cards in order to build the “ultimate deck” which would defeat other players’ decks. Since CCGs are a quite expensive hobby (you have to buy the booster packs “blindly” without knowing what’s inside in search for the rarest and most powerful cards), we were never interested in dipping into this world. We are ASL players, after all, so one expensive game is more than enough ;).

A Living Card Game: The best of two worlds

Asylum Pack "Murmurs of Evil"

In 2008, Fantasy Flight Games changed their politics regarding the Call of Cthulhu Collectible Card game and it became a “Living Card Game” instead. A Living Card game still allows for deck building and challenging other players’ decks, but you don’t buy booster packs “blindly” any more. Instead of that, you buy regular expansions called “Asylum Packs” with fixed contents which are public knowledge.

Each Asylum Pack adds some cards to each faction and neutral cards and most of them deal with a specific aspect of the game (for example terror struggle, investigation, characters, skills, arcane…). If you want more cards for your deck, you check out which Asylum Pack offers the best contents for you and your specific playing style and strategy.

Ultimately, you will buy all expansion packs nevertheless, just to be more flexible and to “own them all” because the collectible system is quite addictive, but at least you don’t have to spend $100 in search for one rare card while getting 85x the same cheap card in return.

In a Living Card Game, you always know what you get for your money, but you can still profit from the basic concept of deck building by choosing “your” favorite cards. The only difference to a Collectible Card Game is that no cards are “rare” cards anymore, all players have access to the same cards and expansion packs and all cards have fixed prices. So it all comes down to your deckbuilding strategies, your gameplay, your choices of which characters, items, or events you take into the battle.

If you collected the old Call of Cthulhu CCG, you don’t have to start all over again, though. All old CCG cards, boosters, and the first 4 Asylum Packs which are from the CCG era are fully combatible with the new LCG. Unfortunately, they have a different backside print and can be easily recognized by the opponent if you don’t use card sleeves. In addition, they aren’t used in tournament decks anymore. If you don’t mind, you can integrate them into your new collection.

Core Set and Asylum Packs

Fantasy Flight Games released a “Core Set” in 2008 which contained a fixed set of 165 cards – 20 cards for each of the 7 factions plus 15 neutral cards, plus a playing board, a full-colored rulebook and six very cool Cthulhu Miniatures which are used for resource management purposes. Players can get a first impression of the game by playing the Core Set, by combining the factions and by learning about their strengths and weaknesses. If they like the game and decide that they want to delve deeper into the hobby, they decide which factions or strategies they want to utilize in the future and start deck building by supplementing the core game with Asylum Packs.

Cthulhu is watching you!

New Asylum Packs are released regularly (roughly one per month). They belong to “Story cycles” which add more flavor to the game, add prominent characters and events from the Lovecraft universe and allow for deep customization. Since their contents are fixed, players know what they get in advance and can decide whether a specific Asylum Pack would be a good addition for their decks.

The first 14 Asylum Packs consists of 10 unique cards in single copy and 10 unique cards in triplicate copies (for a total of 40 cards). Since players tend to build decks containing multiple copies of a single card (the game allows for a maximum of three copies per card), they bought each AP three times. This is  somewhat contraproductive to the “lower costs compared to a CCG” concept of a Living Card Game, so Fantasy Flight Games changed the contents of  Asylum Packs to 20 unique cards in triplicate copy (for a total of 60 cards), starting with the Yuggoth Contract circle (AP19).

Some Asylum Packs are out of print by now and very hard to find. Chances are good that they will be reprinted some day, but until then, you have to keep your eyes open if you want to add them to your collection. The other Asylum Packs are not too expensive (6-10 Dollars, depending on the shop) and can be bought in various game shops and from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, or amazon.de.

List of Asylum Packs (AP) and Deluxe Expansions

• Core Set
  
• AP5: Mountains of Madness (currently out of print, extremely hard to find), focus on the keyword “Polar”
• AP6: Ancient Horrors (currently out of print, extremley hard to find), focus on characters

Subcollection: Summons of the Deep:

• AP7: Spawn of the Sleeper (currently out of print, extremely hard to find), focus on Terror struggle
• AP8: The Horror beneath the surface (currently out of print, hard to find), focus on Investigation struggle
• AP9: The Antediluvian Dream, focus on Combat struggle
  
• AP10: The Terror of the Tides, focus on Arcane struggle
• AP11: The Thing from the Shore, focus on character skill
• AP12: The Path to Y’ha-nthlei, focus on strange transformations
  

Subcollection: Dreamlands:

• AP13: Twilight Horror, introduces dynamic day/night mechanicm, clan mechanics (Zoog, Gug), Dreamer subtype
  
• AP14: In Memory of Day
• AP15: In the Dread of Night, focus on darkness / night
  
• AP:16 The Search for the Silver Key, focus on Dreamlands Environment
  
• AP17: Sleep of the Dead
• AP18: Journey to Unknown Kadath

Subcollection: The Yuggoth Contract:

• AP19: Whispers in the Dark
  
• AP20: Murmurs of Evil
• AP21: The Spoken Covenant
• AP22: The Wailer below Asylum
• AP23: Screams from Within
• AP24: The Cacophony

Subcollection: Rituals of the Order Cycle

• AP25: The Twilight Beckons
• AP26: Perilous Trials
• AP27: Initiations of the Favored
• AP28: Aspirations of Ascension
• AP29: The Gleaming Spiral

De Luxe Expansions:

• Secrets of Arkham, new tribal synergy deck options, day and night mechanics, utility neutral cards, additional story cards
• The Order of the Silver Twilight, adds a new human faction: the Order of the Silver Twilight

Excel Sheets, called “Spoiler Lists” are available for all Asylum Packs. Check out the CoC File Section on Boardgamegeek!