London Sheriff 1st Place (5-0 in swiss) Hexacles

Holy Hell!

This was the deck I used to impose law on the city of London.

The main point of this deck was to be able to out-manoeuvre anything and everything. Then once dudes were forced out of position Archer can walk around with a few hexes to drop influence and puppet anyone else to again take more influence and take the game in a turn from a position of what looks like losing. Cards such as fancy new hat allows me to have at least 5 dudes all capable of taking a deed each. Blood curses obviously protect my own deeds (I normally only played 2 and survived on that due to having very little upkeep costs in the deck)

Round 1 - Scott (The Arsenal)

My first round was against an Arsenal deck which due to being able to move characters around he could never actually pin anyone and the game went to time as I could pass the check to puppet his stud 5 exp abram(not many can though). I was able to win on time due to being able to move my dudes around easier that his.

Round 2 Joe (Oddities)

This was a different oddities to what id expected as it was starting Avie exp. I knew this could be a problem if archer got booted and pulled but luckily I had a walk the path on the reverend very quickly so this wasnt really n issue but I remained cautious. This also turned into a chess match as I'd wanted and due to having more mobile influence I was able to control all of Joes deeds when we came to time. I was then able to use a bounty hunter on Avie using an unprepared during the shootout to turn off any blood curses for that turn and snuck a win out on time again. I could tell I was in for a long day if this "going to time" was gonna keep up

Round 3 Andy (Morgan Cattle "Turbo"-Slide)

No matter what andy says, Its still a slide deck. Putting turbo in front of it doesnt help your case :-P This was a game of cat and mouse as you can expect of me taking my dudes with influence/hats to his deeds while protecting my own with the jackie and the reverend. A few times he came to my deeds (Circle M and carters i think) and I would just call him out immediately to which he went home knowing I could outshoot him. The swinger in my opinion here was equipping archer with a puppet and standing outside his house taking either his Irving or specks when irving wasnt home. In the final turn I was able to puppet specks, walk the path archer home, put some more spells on him and then resume normal service of messing with stuff. This caused a large swing of influence and eventually I managed to corner Andy where he was forced to drop a 2 control point deed(Whately estate). I dropped a Steve and we shook hands. DIDNT GO TO TIME! Clearly things we're speeding up.

Round 4 Andrew (Morgan Cattle shooter)

http://dtdb.co/en/decklist/1484/mad-max

Remember I said things had sped up? Well I was right. Andrew had a start of Max Baine exp, Ramiro and Nathan Shane. This was a very angry starting posse but I also noticed his upkeep. It was 3. Therefore if he lost the first lowball I could see him struggling. He did. My deck is designed to win the early lowballs as my off values are hearts meaning as the game progresses they stick to the table and once im beyond the point of caring about lowball I can think about shooting if needed. I may have booted his ramiro with a paralysis mark, not sure. I dropped a walk the path, Andrew used the MCC to reduce his RnD ranch to cost 1. I played a Steve Wiles. Andy had a problem at this point. He passed, I booted steve to the RnD ranch and figured he'd "give it a go". I was hoping it would blow up if im honest but I just got the money from it and it didnt blow up. Andrew continued to pass. I played a carters bounties. I then booted the reverend over to the RnD ranch, used walk the path to pull [hilip over unbooted and called out Max Baine with steve helping. I won that shootout comfortably despite being forced to cheat and getting this'll hurted. After this, Nathan walked into town centre and Archer called him out, carters pulled steve over and I won this shootout too which left me on 2 cp to his one influence. Turn 1 win, hows that for speeding up?

Round 5 Vince (Law dogs with hexes)

http://dtdb.co/en/decklist/1492/london-sheriff-5th-place-blessed-hukster-dogs

I thought I was being original mixing hexes and law dogs and splashing miracles. Apparently not. I've played Vince once before when relatively new to the game so he beat me comfortably. Time for revenge....maybe. Hes a very strong player and one I'd be reluctnat to get into a chess match with if we had the same movement capabilities. His version of the deck(We hadnt even spoken about this) was more shootout oriented running fetches and more shootout actions than me. He managed to force a couple of fights on me through bounty hunters and did kill the reverend which hurts alot! He killed the others too but they're less important. I was then able to boot out all of his dudes through movement and para marks and rumours'd his swinford for the game.

That was swiss. I was feeling confident in the deck and sort of had an idea what I'd do against other decks

T8 David Avery (Law dogs aggro)

The word aggro doesnt even cover how angry this deck was. His first few moves were moving tommy and wendy to my house! I didnt have a puppet either! He started an onslaught of bounty hunter x2 sending my jackie home and wiping my posse out barring the reverend and Steele(who had para marks and blood curses x2 each I think). He followed this up with a good ol' fashioned hanging and sent my steele home leaving it as my top 5 vs his top 7. Luckily the blessed were clearly on my side as i flipped a legal 4oak and beat him by 4 ranks. There was no recovering from that as i was able to play a puppet, take his booted swinford, unboot it with the reverend and take his deeds while dropping his inf to 0. My luckiest game by far, not gonna lie.

T4 Dan VandenBurg (Oddities)

This one is a bit of a blur as it was a control mirror match so there was alot of nothing happening until time was called. I managed to puppet his leon causing a big swing of influence and could then take jake to his pharmacy and take control of it. This i've found to be a weakness in oddities is protecting your own deeds/taking opponents as your aboms are pinned to the town centre.

Final(Andrew, Same one as from R4, MCC Mad Max)

Having played Andrew before, I was feeling confident going into this as I could see what his deck was trying to do but also knew I could out-manoeuvre it alot. This was a bit of a slower build up as due to it being a final, I wasnt gonna rush things, I was being video'd and wanted my 15 mins of fame. I managed to build up a far stronger economy due to not need to play any dudes for a few turns and relying on a couple of deeds. Once I felt brave i started trying to puppet his dudes. Note me saying trying as i tried to puppet his max baine 3 times and failed. I realised I should stop trying. I went home. Andrew moved his Nathan and Ramiro to the centre. I kept pushing his dudes back into their own deeds by repeatedly sending anyone with inf to one of andrews deeds and then when he moved a dude into the deed, walking th path back. I did this about 4 times. Probably 40 across the whole tourney. It's insane. Once his dudes were all stuck at home apart from the booted ramiro and Nathan, I moved archer to the centre, puppeted those and reduced his influence further with blood curses. I could then take any deeds he didnt have dudes at and that was the game. I belive there is a video of this game which showcases the power of walk the path so hopefully that's around somewhere soon.

MVP of the deck is Walk the path. Its incredible. Imo better than shadow walk but you can build this deck purely in TFR(I dont run any LD dudes in the main deck) but I prefer the idea of moving lots of dudes around once rather than moving one dude lots. Its personal preference and playstyle. Changes i'd make: Cut the EDS. Never played one all day. rarely saw them anyway but puppeting someone was enough to win the game every time. Could be replaced for 2 nightmare at noon as It can come in real handy if you need it and you wont feel bad for drawing it. You may have also noticed I wasnt running nay cheating res'. This was a meta call as I know alot of people are so terrified of cheating that they wont cheat regardless. Only one player noticed this (nice catch Vince!) and he promptly showed me a 5oak. You can add some if you're meta cheats alot.

If you read here, well done to you.

tl:dr Walk the path is bonkers and so are hexes....so use both!