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Five in a Row

The Hall of Heroes Honors Tom Capor's 2013 North American Championship

“In its vast libraries were volumes of texts and pictures holding the whole of earth’s annals—histories and descriptions of every species that had ever been or that ever would be, with full records of their arts, their achievements, their languages, and their psychologies. With this aeon-embracing knowledge, the Great Race chose from every era and life-form such thoughts, arts, and processes as might suit its own nature and situation.”

   –H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow out of Time

The FFG Hall of Heroes proudly recognizes Tom Capor’s monumental record of five consecutive Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game championship victories at Gen Con Indy!

Since his first World Championship at Gen Con Indy 2009, Tom has completely dominated the Call of Cthulhu field at Gen Con Indy, and in 2013, he once more emerged victorious, claiming the title of 2013 North American Champion for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game.

When we break it down, Tom’s last five tournaments at Gen Con Indy look like this:

   
• 2013 North American Champion

   
• 2012 North American Champion

   
• 2011 World Champion

   
• 2010 World Champion

   
• 2009 World Champion

In the meantime, Tom also won the 2012 Call of Cthulhu World Championships during the FFG World Championship Weekend, and he plans to return to Roseville, MN this November to defend his title.

Mage or Prophet?

Tom Capor has already established his place in Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game through the development of the card, The Mage Known as Magnus (That Which Consumes, 111), but in August, he tried a new form of sorcery… or was it prophecy?

The release of The Key and the Gate introduced the Yithian mill archetype to Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game. Though mill decks have long been a part of Call of Cthulhu, they have rarely proven strong enough to win major tournaments, and most players at the North American Championships at Gen Con Indy 2013 assumed that little would have changed. Tom, on the other hand, managed to get a step ahead of the field by perfecting his Yithian mill deck and forcing players to rethink the big-tournament viability of the entire mill archetype.

Was this merely another instance of Tom’s magic? Or was it something more prophetic?

In H.P. Lovecraft’s eerie mythos, Yithians can project their consciousnesses through time and space. When they travel in this manner, they force their minds into the brains of other organisms and displace the minds of those host creatures. In turn, the displaced creatures find themselves transported into the Yithians’ bodies, light years and millennia away from home. Disoriented by their strange and sudden translocations, those creatures are taken captive, but a few select captives gradually earn the liberty to wander the Yithians’ halls and study from their libraries. There, they can learn of cultures and eras of all variety; they can even find information about the futures of their worlds. Though an intricate form of hypnosis purges these captives’ minds of the knowledge they gain before they’re returned to their home worlds and normal time, some faint and fragmentary knowledge may remain… the sort that may appear prophetic when shared with the world.

Is this Tom’s secret? Was he displaced by Yithians and bestowed with fragmentary knowledge of the future? Or was his victory rooted in a dark contract with some elder being from a plane of existence just outside our own? Whatever secrets lie behind Tom’s many successes, he continues to find a way to win, plying new decks and elevating the play of those around him.

Tom Capor on the 2013 North American Championships

With increased attendance and a brand new FAQ balancing the game, the Gen Con tournament for Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game was as challenging as ever!

This year, to claim a fifth consecutive win at Gen Con, and my second consecutive North American Championship, I had to defeat Brandon Hulings. I felt pretty confident going into the finals, as Brandon was wielding a control deck featuring cards from three factions: Shub-Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth, and Miskatonic University. Traditionally, control decks play slowly, and I looked forward to having a few extra turns to set up my Interstellar Migrations (The Key and the Gate, 37).

However, Brandon, despite being new to the game, is a top-notch player who was playing a strong deck. He certainly didn’t plan to make things easy for me, and he made a great play with a late-game Rite of the Silver Gate (The Key and the Gate, 25) to remove the Frozen Time (The Key and the Gate, 22) that I had been using to blank the text of the Snow Graves (At the Mountains of Madness, 15). Suddenly, my discard pile was locked, and my Interstellar Migrations became trapped!

As Brandon kept applying pressure, I scrambled to find an answer. Finally, I used Shocking Transformation (Core Set, 140) to find Keeper of the Great Library (The Key and the Gate, 16), which, in turn, when I triggered the effect of a Studying the Void (The Key and the Gate, 35) in my discard pile, allowed me to find Burrowing Beneath (Core Set, 137). Thus, I unlocked my discard pile and was able to win the final game of the tournament!

Character (20):

Ancient Guardian x1

Faceless Abductor x3

Grasping Chthonian x1

Keeper of the Great Library x3

Lost Oracle x3

Marcus Jamburg x1

Master of the Myths x3

Professor Nathaniel Peaslee x2

Yithian Scout x3

Support (15):

Book of Iod x1

Dark Passenger x2

Displaced x1

Frozen Time x3

Ice Shaft x2

Lost City of Pnakotus x3

The Festival x3

Event (15):

Burrowing Beneath x2

Interstellar Migration x3

Pushed into the Beyond x3

Shocking Transformation x2

Studying the Void x3

Thunder in the East x2

Earn Your Place in the Hall of Heroes

Can you save humanity from the threat posed by Tom Capor and his dark sorcery? Join us this November at the FFG World Championship Weekend to test your skill against the game’s reigning Champion and fight for your right to join the Hall of Heroes during the Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game World Championship Tournament!

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Source: Five in a Row (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4353)