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Middleground - The Mid AF Deck

Description by the author: ironcache 201

The Idea

Make a deck that tried to strike a good midway point between Control, Shooting, and Sliding, and get the best of all three worlds: spread them thin with sliding and controlling techniques, forcing them to take fights in your favour and finish the job with guns and influence control.

The Reality

This deck managed to get the worst of all three worlds:

• In an effort to make sliding a reality, I went for an upkeep-less 5 influence start. In OL, that means your stud options suck. Kim Lloyd is your starting stud presence, and he is not enough to fight favourably in most situations, even with control shenanigans.
• In order to have a decent chance at succeeding spell pulls, most of the good influence for Dudes and Deeds had to be neglected (some of them account for the low off-value cards, and they did bite me in literally every game).
• Because of the thin spread for dudes and deeds + control, the value structure is compromised into 15/14/11, so even if I was getting favourable fights, the deck structure itself is turning the pendulum back. Similarly, trying to keep that structure locked me out of going heavier on the control side (and picking up things like P Mark that could've proved useful).

The result is that this deck really didn't do anything except durdle about a few turns and then take losing fights. Isn't fair to lay it all on the deck's shoulders though. Some misplays on my end. With that said:

The Games

As best I can recall them anyway; writing this all in post.

• Match 1 (Loss vs. TybarSunsong's Smith & Robards Trade Show): This match started very favourably for me with him zero-stud start not getting any gadgets vs. my 1-pseudo stud start. I took a fight that got his Irving Patterson aced, then made my first misplay of the tournament (in turn 1 of game 1; good job team); rather than pushing my luck on killing off an equally-helpless Seamus O'Toole, I decided to take my advantaged position into a longer game. Well, longer game, he gets gadgets, and I slide out too slow. No longer are the fights favourable for me, and eventually, he wins out.
• Match 2 (Loss vs. Starner's 108 Gracious Gifts): This match ultimately a showing of the deck failing in the planning phase vs. execution phase (IMO); I caught a ton heat by losing 3 dudes to a solo Randall fight, pulling 2-pair vs. 4-of-a-kind. A bit of luck, but also have to own that this deck's structure is shit and I was bound to have one of these games. I managed to get some luck doled out my way in a uphill fight vs. his Jim Hexter (that he couldn't pay to studlify), but there was too much damage done to my side, and a misplay booting out my Lawrence Blackwood at a Winner's Circle Auction House sealed the game (if I hadn't had made that misplay though, instead it would've been an uphill shootout vs. a deck with better shooting odds).
• Match 3 (Win vs. Echasketch's Law Dogs): Super lucky on my end. Turn 1 hand (after Rosaleen Byrne): 2x Blood Curse, 2x Phantasm. Turn 2 hand saw me with another Curse + Phantasm, and deeds to play out. Just way too much control for him to handle (along with DMA control in TS with his dudes unable to contest).
• Match 4 (Loss vs. Deputy Way's House of Many Faiths): I got 1 Blood Curse and 1 Phantasm, he got a half dozen miracles and two Jael's Guile. If I had more patience, maybe I could've pulled something off, but by the time I decided to start a fight, he was sitting on all my deeds, controlling TS (with no opportunity for me to kick him out), and had two deeds of his own generating production. It was just going to scale for him, I think, so I took the fight, then predictably lost it (we both attempted to cheat through the pain, and his structure + better bullets ultimately won out.

At this point, with a 1-3 record, I dropped from the event.