Nasty Con Men

It's "Another Dumb Deck Idea!" From twoeyedjack.

Putting The Pieces Together has enchanted me since it came out. So tantalizing, so risky, so able to hand over shootout wins without the guesswork of what you should keep versus what your opponent might be drawing. Getting two or three hand ranks added on to a straight or flush can make all the difference. Now, I won't claim to be the first to throw a Pieces deck up here on the site. I think Prodigy has that particular distinction. However, his approach was not the same as my approach.

Realistically, Pieces works perfectly in a mostly Bicycle type deck. I say mostly Bicycle, because it needs multiple copies of Pieces for it to be effective. I originally started out with a Den of Thieves Pieces deck, in an attempt to stack hand ranks and use Grifter nonsense via Monte Bank and Fred Aims to keep amping up influence while running a massive shell/mind game on my opponent by putting out Legendary Holster and LeMat Revolver, and waiting for Comin' Up Roses to show up. The structure, as I said, was mostly Bicycle but not quite, and my opponents would not know what they needed to worry about; was it the deeds I kept dropping? The Holster? The LeMats? What values are in the deck? checks discard pile Wait... This is a mess. Is it a dudes and deeds deck? Can't be, the deeds are all over the place. What the heck is this deck doing???

That version generated 12 ghost rock on day two after upkeep. It was a bit silly really, and the steady creep in influence kept other slide decks in check. Having more than enough rock to put down whatever cards I had in hand was an exciting change of pace from my other decks. I seem to have this curse of not being able to draw any deeds or drawing the one deed in the deck that I wouldn't be able to afford. This Den of Pieces deck eliminated that problem and was interesting to watch assemble itself. The problem with that deck was it wasn't reliably quick enough in getting things going, had a massive target with Fred Aims, and the early game was all stall until a couple Pieces came together and I had at least one Roses in hand to pull off a straight flush. Fun to play the slow burn, but not quite competitive enough.

I switched it over to a 108 Worldly Desires deck, and it began to run a bit smoother. The extra card sleaze available from the home plus Longwei Fu made getting the straight flushes more reliable. However, there were plenty of games where the Pieces just wouldn't come together or the Roses wouldn't come up. The deck just doesn't do well without getting the Pieces together at least, and the slowness was still there.

So this time, I went to the Fourth Ring to try and put Jia Mein (Exp.1) to work fetching out the Pieces as they went into the discard pile. This sped things up nicely. Possibly too nicely, as now the upkeep has to be watched more closely than in the other decks that took a bit more time and built an economy. Still, I have always felt that speed is the number one factor in determining competitive matches. The sooner you can get your deck to the mid-game, the sooner you can get to the endgame.

Funtime Freddy pulls out Fetch or Forget, which messes with your opponent's head in the worst way. Most Freddy strategy is Puppet or Soul Blast. They don't expect Fetch or Forget. The choice becomes a bit agonizing for them; what the heck is he doing with this deck? Why does he need Fetch or Forget? How does that play into this deck?

They're pretty much just to mess with the opponent's head and enable Jia's ability. That's it.

This version includes Inner Struggle. The yang to Pieces' yin. Increasing your hand rank is good. Decreasing their hand rank at the same time is better. And it's a condition Jia can yank into your hand.

Jia is his own meta mind game. Most opponents that know what's out there will look at the starting posse and surmise it to be a condition job deck. In a way it is, but not the same condition deck as what has been stomping around the meta. Or at least in my local meta. They will likely expect some fast aggression and prep for that, only to see you pull out Pieces and Struggles.

Jia is still a target, though. Having The Caretaker sitting at home with him should keep opponents from wanting to rush in on him though. Having a couple The Gambler's Guns out can make that decision a little harder to make.

For win condition, there are plenty of control points in deeds plus Nicodemus Whateley. Once the Pieces are out, move the heavies into town square and play a little chess. Usually by then your opponent will have a Struggle or two on their home. Shootouts will become really risky for them, and they will likely do everything they can to avoid getting into one. Ultimately, I don't want to go into a shootout without having at least one Roses in hand. Even though Pieces and Struggles shift things in your favor, having a Roses up your sleeve can mean the difference between having a full house rank or dead man's.

Why no LeMats here? I'd rather have the opponent worried about the Gambler's resolution and risking a cheatin' hand so they can get walloped with a Roses or Struggle. Having no cheatin' resolutions on the board gets them thinking they might be safe this once. Having LeMat out reminds them to not cheat to avoid the hand rank raise. Gambler's gives the opponent something to count on me using in the shootout, and while they take that into account they aren't thinking about what else I might be planning.

Risks: Legendary Holster and Shotgun can wreck things. Anything that avoids getting to the resolution phase of the shootout will also ruin the strategy. Rush decks that don't give you enough time to set up. Getting stuck cheatin' and having the Pieces backfire on you.

Other options: I am always fine with finding a way to get Allie Hensman into these decks, but protecting her is difficult before the Pieces are together. I'm also wondering how Full Moon Brotherhood would fair with this.

Play the long con(dition). Nasty Con Men. "Another Dumb Deck Idea" from twoeyedjack. Have fun!