Scott Furois
There! It's 45 cards.
I started by looking at the Illuminati. (I admit that I like Cthulhu. Right now, I have seven illuminati decks put together, three of which are Cthulhu. I don't try to do it that way, it's just the way it always seems to end up.)
Interestingly enough, the only illuminati I didn't think would be feasible was the UFO's. The Adepts were fairly weak by themselves, but with the Corporate Masters Goal, they could win with very few groups in play.
I then looked at the groups. I wrote down the groups that struck me as powerful or interesting. My list had New York, the Libertarians, Madison Avenue, Russia, WITCH, and the Clone Arrangers.
Then I looked at the Goals and NWO's. When I design decks, I tend to build them around Goals and NWO's if I can. In this deck, you will note the NWO's are only in for defense. None of them help this deck. But it can't really be helped. This deck will be crippled by Peace in our time or Thousand Points of Light. So, a defense. One Secrets is not sufficient.
The card that leapt out here was the goal: Corporate Masters. Here's a group doubler. It's cumulative both with the Adepts special and the Cthulhu special.
At this point, I decide that the Gnomes will not be the Illuminati, because of the corporate masters goal and because the only bank group is Wall Street. A good card, but not the basis of a deck.
I decide against trying to use Hail Eris because there were only two groups possible to count double with it (WITCH and the SLA after a mob influence).
So I look at the resources, and notice far more destructive resources than magic resources. Voila! The Cthulhu deck is born!
Lead with New York. If it bounces, and Madison Avenue isn't out, lead with MA, otherwise try the Cocaine smugglers.
Early on, try getting groups from your hand. Take over Madison Avenue, Wall Street, New York and the Cocaine Smugglers with your illuminati or by auto takeover if you can.
With Madison Avenue, Cable TV and Junk Mail will be easily taken over. New York and Cocaine smugglers can take over any of the little violent criminal groups and many of the bigger ones too.
Notice that the groups give lots of little bonuses to control or destroy. This should indicate that the proper tactic is to build a couple of turns and then go on a binge of destruction.
If you draw the Flying saucer, use an illuminati token to take it over and get the other resources out with it. After that, you can use it to defend Hillary or Ronnie if necessary. I would suggest putting a plot on the top of the plot deck to discard, rather than trusting to blind luck that the bad plots will be discarded. The cards in the plot deck vary wildly in power, which is natural in a pool of 110 cards.
You know, it wouldn't take many cards to make this a very good deck, even without going for rares. A couple of +10's, a reorganization or two, and maybe a couple of resources, especially a Spear of Longingus.
As it is, it should be powerful enough that it'll keep you in the game.
The win, if any such win occurs, would come from a combination of Cthulhu and the Corporate Masters. Playing to twelve groups, you can win with six groups and three destroyed groups. Your assassinations (especially with the Voudonistas) and disasters (with cycle gangs) will be very powerful. You should be able to destroy three groups easily.
(As a side note, I don't play in very many competitive INWO games. I tend to get into games where all the players are trying to get their neato combo out. I have five decks like this. A Bermuda deck that unmaskes as the gnomes, for instance.)
Hope this is useful and helpful and good. Good luck and happy hunting!
First posted: November 17, 1997
Last modified: November 17, 1997
Ralph Melton ralph@cs.cmu.edu