The Pub Crawl - Portland Epitaph 3rd

Though not the only beer-themed deck (this is Portland after all), I managed to stumble this growler of 52 additives into 3rd place going 3-1 in one of the funnest tournaments I've been to in awhile - with my personal highlight, aside from playing a side game after every single match-up, being munching on the Cowboy Cake the wonderful organizer out here, Matt Lippay ("Yipe"), spoiled us with at about the 2nd round of Swiss.

Speaking of spoiling, the food and beer here in Portland is upsettingly amazing - it feels like everyone works in one Saloon and eats in another Saloon after work - like a sort of socialized food and beer economy. Thus, I thought it appropriate to take the Protection Racket on a full tour of some of Gomorra's finest Saloons, with the idea being that if they won't play deeds (a very common and sometimes effective strategy against this home), I will play my own using Clementine Lepp to generate cash with near-impunity - between drawing and playing Cliff's #4 Saloon, The Union Casino, Killer Bunnies Casino, Nickel Night Inn, Charlie's Place, and The Joker's Smile, all with the eventual goal of playing high-cost dudes to further contest the opponent's street. Overall, I am satisfied with how the deck played, and here was my day:

Round 1 Todd's Fourth Ring The Tattooed Man Hex Slinger. This deck looked pretty scary to sit across from, especially as I hadn't drawn any of my bullet reduction, even as I did draw a Saloon, and thus did not have to engage for a couple of turns while we both built up. My economy quickly ramped with a couple deeds out, so I hired and sent Allie Hensman into the Townsquare in an attempt to lure his mighty stud - who booted into the callout - and in doing so, even as Allie was quickly put away, left the rest of his dudes essentially unprotected, so I ran Barton Everest and Angélica Espinosa and the gang across the street to close out this first game.

Round 2 Banks' Auto-Gatling Tallulah "Lula" Morgan (Exp.1) Semi-Slide. Banks used the original Morgan Cattle Co. to drop deeds and defended them with low-value mad science (made possible with Kyle Wagner working at his own Wagner Memorial Ranch). Seeing this as easily getting out of hand, I switched gears from playing defensively and immediately contested some early deeds, winning a decisive battle over Shane & Graves Security on the first turn, and from there, able to leverage my economy at his expense (including two or three uses of lowball One Good Turn…), leaned on this advantage for the duration of the match, chasing the younger Morgan all over town until sealing the deal with Ulysses Marks and Lawrence Blackwood just after lucking out a legal full house despite the Sun in Yer Eyes. Favorite deck and favorite match-up all tourney long.

Round 3 Jacob's Den of Hucksters Election Day Slaughter. Jacob made quick work - before I knew it we were both all-in and 70% of the dudes were disappeared from the board. But I'm getting ahead of myself: Seeing as I only had a single stud to start, I watched The Fixer fetch a Mirror, Mirror for Maria Kingsford, and decided to try to get ahead of this fast development: I sent Henry Moran to the townsquare, called her out, he booted all-in to respond, and I played Unprepared to boot the rest of his gang and the deadly spell. Henry's sacrifice paved the way for me to go all in while keeping my stud bonus intact - but even though I was able to discard two of his dudes using Jael's Guile, he expertly applied It's Not What You Know... to expand his cheatin' hand rank 11 over my reduced hand rank 6, dropping three of my dudes from the board. I was almost left to recover as he continued to commit his entire posse to jobs, even so far as surviving an entire day with 0 influence (!), but was unable to draw an eighth dude (the first seven buried) to stay in the game. Glad to see a Rico Rodegain deck still kicking strong though!

Round 4 Jared's Spooky Christine Perfect and The Grey Man Couple's Therapy. I really like the theme of this deck, but unfortunately due to it's starting influence (just Jia Mein (Exp.1)), this match-up was favorable to me because my deck is able to play about a dude a turn for the first several turns. And so, a couple of dudes and Saloon's later, Henry Moran goes down without a fight to a Forced Quarantine and my remaining dudes are occupying the Epidemic Laboratory to steal Gomorra away. I'm really curious to see what can be done if this concept can launch from a 4 or 5 influence start (perhaps replacing the two Pagliaccios with Ambrose Douglas and Jake Smiley?).

It took us an hour to do the prizes - there were so many! - did I mention Portlanders like to drink? I went home with a sexy bottle opener and two sets of promo Jokers - I don't think the players here know how good they got it. That said, I can recommend this deck as a work-in-progress and second draft of "Mad Bomber" even if the theme is radically different - with the choice of Unprepared over No Funny Stuff being a meta choice (Fewer horses and more guns here). Cheers!