Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game - Availability

Availability

The Call of Cthulhu card game is currently produced in the form of a core set, featuring cards from 7 factions, neutral cards, story cards, success/wound tokens, a full-colour manual, a game board, and Cthulhu-shaped domain markers. (The 8th faction, Order of the Silver Twilight, does not appear in the core set.) The game is ready to play and decks can be made quickly by combining cards from two of the factions along with several neutral cards.

Approximately once a month, FFG releases "Asylum Packs", which are small expansions with fixed contents, designed to increase the players' card pool in a balanced and affordable way. Three copies of twenty new cards are introduced in each pack, for a total of 60 cards. (Originally, some cards only had one or two copies in packs, while others had three, echoing the rare, uncommon, and common rarities of the original game. This distribution may still be found in some out-of-print packs.) Casual gamers can play using a single core set and have the option of using supplemental packs if they want to.

In July 2012, Fantasy Flight announced that they will switch to a new distribution model: instead of the near-monthly Asylum Packs, there will be one 165-card deluxe expansion every four months, starting with Seekers of Knowledge.

Here are the Asylum Packs fitting the LCG format (white bordered):

Forgotten Lore:

• Spawn of Madness
• Kingsport Dreams
• Conspiracies of Chaos
• Dunwich Denizens
• At the Mountains of Madness
• Ancient Horrors

Summons of the Deep:

• The Spawn of the Sleeper
• The Horror Beneath the Surface
• The Antediluvian Dreams
• The Terror of the Tides
• The Thing from the Shore
• The Path to Y'ha-nthlei

Dreamlands:

• Twilight Horror
• In Memory of Day
• In the Dread of Night
• The Search for the Silver Key
• Sleep of the Dead
• Journey to Unknown Kadath

The Yuggoth Contract:

• Whispers in the Dark
• Murmurs of Evil
• The Spoken Covenant
• The Wailer Below
• Screams from Within
• The Cacophony

The Rituals of the Order:

• The Twilight Beckons
• Perilous Trials
• Initiations of the Favored
• Aspirations of Ascension
• The Gleaming Spiral
• That Which Consumes

Ancient Relics:

• The Shifting Sands
• Curse of the Jade Emperor
• The Breathing Jungle
• Never Night
• Into Tartarus
• Shadow of the Monolith

Revelations:

• Written and Bound
• Words of Power
• Ebla Restored
• Lost Rites
• The Unspeakable Pages
• Touched by the Abyss

Deluxe Expansions:

• Secrets of Arkham (110 cards)
• The Order of the Silver Twilight (155 cards)
• Seekers of Knowledge (165 cards) (available fourth quarter of 2012)

Older products may still be available from Fantasy Flight Games and other retailers, though these cards have black borders and different backs. Official tournaments so far have been "white border only", so it is not necessary to chase down the older cards. The only reasons to do so are for fun or to complete a collection, though if intended for play, sleeves are required to disguise the different backs.

Here is a list of the older CCG-format products:

• Arkham Edition (1st base set)
• Unspeakable Tales (1st expansion)
• Forbidden Relics (2nd expansion)
• Eldritch Edition (2nd base set)
• Masks of Nyarlathotep (3rd expansion)
• Forgotten Cities (4th expansion)

Each booster pack contains 11 cards (including 3 'uncommon' and 1 'rare'). In addition, the Arkham and Eldritch base sets offered starter sets with fixed contents, designed to introduce players to the game.

The decision to cease producing the game in a collectible format came in May 2006. Newer products were released in the current Asylum Pack form, though the first four are not part of the new LCG format and contain black-bordered cards.

These are the original four Asylum Packs:

• Spawn of Madness (first pack)
• Kingsport Dreams (second pack)
• Conspiracies of Chaos (third pack)
• Dunwich Denizens (fourth pack)

The Asylum Packs were very successful and are the reason for the conversion of the game to the LCG format. The announcement came on February 5, 2008, that the LCG would be launched in October 2008 with a brand new core set. To bridge the gap, two more Asylum Decks were announced. These were The Mountains of Madness and Ancient Horrors. All six of these packs were reprinted in 2011 as the Forgotten Lore cycle.