The (mostly) Curse-less Ring - 1st Place OCTGN

The list I took to a hard fought win in the recent Hunting Grounds OCTGN league. I used this deck for about half the normal league games, and an abomination deck for the other half (9 games total), as well as all 4 games of the semi and finals. All in all went 13-0, but I got more instances of luck this league than any other, especially in the finals (and that's not trying to be humble, there were many lucky moments).

Nothing terribly special here, other than I wanted to see how a 4th Ring deck could do without the 2 best spells in the game (old paralysis mark and blood curse). Turns out Arnold McCadish and Hex Slingin' are still insanely good! This deck can shoot with the best of them, and the hexes allow for enough movement and control to either keep the money flowing or keep your less-than-interactive opponent under control. Against non-interactive decks we only have 1 forced callout in Curse of Failure, but Puppet, Epidemic Laboratory, and Avie Cline (Exp.1) all are great tools against them, and the card cycle with this deck is usually very high, so you are likely to see most of what you need in longer games.

From Too Tough to Die we have Papa Marias, who was a great addition, mostly for the 3GR cost and less for his ability, but his ability did get used once or twice throughout the league. Also in 2T2D, 9's are rocking hard with a Curse of Failure and the dreaded Ricochet, both very powerful and welcome cards.

Fun deck to play, and really has the tools against almost any other type of deck you will face. 4th Ring's still got it, for sure.

Notable moments in the top 4 matches, first against hehasmoments and then in the finals against swider include:

-Hehasmoments (running out of Regulators + Gadgdets) and I both got an Asyncoil Gun and Soul Blast turn one, game 1, and there was much dancing around each other until we both thought we had enough of an advantage. Him with A Slight Modification and me with Shadow Walk and Unprepared. We got into several shootouts both games, but very few dudes were aced or discarded due to Asyncoils or Soul Blasts, which saw play both games. One critical turn included me only sending in 9+ value dudes, only to Unprepare his Asyncoil and then afterward send in Freddy via Carter's Bounties, and also Shadow Walk in Valeria (who then may have Soul Blasted someone, I think).

-Soul Blasts are great, but they quickly became worthless in game 2 vs hehasmoments' dudes with gadgets, who quickly gain lots of grit due to Decimator Array and other gadgets.

-Many different rounds of shootouts vs swiders abominations, but thanks to Arnold and my harrowed dudes I was able to take very few casualties in either game. Almost all losses were because of Point Blank, which hurt a bit game 1, but was nearly devastating game 2 with 2 point blanks in a single shootout round, including the loss of Papa Marias. Luckily I had early on decided to put both soul blasts on Valeria, where I would normally not put all eggs in one basket, because I feared point blanks in the future forcing a loss of a 0 bullet dude, which meant one of my 2 main hucksters (Arnold never entered shootouts). That turned out to be a good move, as that very thing did happen! Also being able to keep up with the constant influx of abminations via Ivor Hawley (Exp.1) was very difficult, but I got soul blasts in both games which was very lucky and allowed many extra abominations to be aced.

Videos both from swiders viewpoint and my own can be found here. I think they are pretty entertaining and both games were close upon getting to the 55 minute mark.

Swider: https://www.twitch.tv/swider33/videos

Me, game 1: https://youtu.be/5Xlmohgdo6I

Me, game 2: https://youtu.be/zvERTWbu_GI