Joker

This card is only used for draw hands and pulls. You choose its suit and value. While this card is in your draw hand, your hand cannot be illegal. Decrease your hand rank by three. (Do not ace this card after use).

Neutral • Riccardo Rullo • Ghost Town #40
Reviews
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I would say this card is 5/5, but only for very, very specific deck types. This Joker is not meant for shootouts, it's meant succeed pulls and to win low ball. It helps keep you legal during lowball, which will help decks with 'Con' cards. The Joker's Smile Also works well with Heretic Jokers, since, while you have control of The Joker's Smile, you can gain 1 ghost rock each turn you draw one into your play hand, and you won't need to pay to get it out of Boot Hill.

I see this card working best in a deck that, for what ever reason, does not aim to see shootout resolution. Landslide decks might like it if you have decent card cycling, but mostly I see it's use for hit and run decks that want to strike with a spell like Soul Blast, or weapons like Legendary Holster, than retreat from the shootout with, soul blast, Make the Smart Choice, or Rabbit's Deception.

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From gomorragazette.com

Nu_Fenix. After Devil’s Joker came out, I expected an opposite that made a hand legal. I didn’t expect it to have such a hefty price attached to it. Sure, it doesn’t ace itself afterwards, but it reduces your rank by 3! 1 or 2 I could handle, but 3 feels extreme to me. How often do you cheat with a regular Joker? Sorry Heretic Joker, but there is no room for you in any of my decks.

Doomdog. 2/5. Landslide doesn’t run jokers, and shooters want high hand ranks. Could be useful in tandem with a Devil’s Joker but that’s not something you can rely on. A deck that wants to win lowball and win shootouts through actions or resolutions, such as a Legendary Holster deck, could find a space for this, as could one that manipulates hand ranks. A deck using Fiddle Games to boost its income and uses the ghost rock to win through use of Force Fields? One to experiment with…

Chefonk. 2/5. Even if this was intended for shootout heavy decks to stay legal but at the cost of 3 (three!) hand ranks, don’t use it that way. You are probably better off not using this Joker at all. Decks that want to win lowball but don’t try to shoot are few, and even they should not run this. In Slide decks you are going to win lowball most of the time anyway, while not getting aced after use means that will almost certainly pop up sooner or later when refilling your hand at sundown instead of that crucial Pistol Whip. I just don’t see much use for it. I tried it in my 108 Slide, but literally every time it came up – even during lowball – it did nothing and any other card in the deck would have been more useful. Too bad, as the idea of multiple versions of Jokers to choose from is great, but the next one definitely has to be better.

Jhandy27. 1/5. Guessed something was coming out like this to mirror Devils Joker but that mirror is distorted and wavy. This, in my opinion, isn’t even comparable to the Devils Joker in terms of power simply due to the drop of 3 ranks which is possibly unnecessary compared to a normal joker. If I get a hand consisting of 3 different suit,s but same values and a heretic joker, I would wish I had run a normal joker. There are very few scenarios when a normal joker isn’t enough to make your hand legal so I feel that the 3 rank loss is too much. At least with a Devils Joker, it will always improve upon what a normal joker would’ve given you with the added risk of being cheating. I’m never going to use this joker.