Rainbow Coalition (winner of Reading Shootout, UK)

out of curiosity, what did this lose against?

It lost against the 4th Ring shooter deck. I misplayed Coachwhip and Rumours and could have won if I had drawn two pair rather than one pair etc... Benefit of hindsight!

How come you're not playing Make the Smart Choice and Pistol Whip? o_O

I did consider putting more action cards but I was worried about diluting the deck too much. Although both actions you suggest would be quite deadly!

@madmaps I think you certainly improved on my initial creation Steve and certainly piloted it a lot better. I'm not sure Make the Smart Choice would be that good since offensively you're not going to shoot and defensively you don't really care if the dude gets Aced. There's a horde of dudes coming anyway and it can make a lot of money.

Pistol Whip is probably good but at the end of the day you don't want to clog your hand of Clubs since you can't cycle these whereas you can just drop more dudes and deeds as required.

Yes, I agree. Better to have the deeds in hand.

FYI, page 14 of the rulebook states that your starting posse must include dudes that are "either from your outfit or drifters". Androcles and clementine are not.

Androcles and Clementine are indeed drifters. The term "drifters" is defined on page 4 of the Rules o' Play: "If a dude has a different symbol, then that dude is from a different outfit; if the dude has no symbol at all, then they’re a drifter with no real allegiance to any of the outfits." That is, a drifter is simply a neutral dude. Don't mix up the terms "drifter" and "grifter". ;)

I stand corrected

did the influence of the out-of-faction dudes not become disruptive to your ghost rock production when it came time to pay their upkeeps? seems like it'd get expensive even with the high amount of deeds.

There was no problem with paying or for upkeeping any of the dudes. They were very well supported by the income the deck generated. The Morgan home ability saved money too. I often kept the dudes back until the end of the turn as surprise value and out-chessed the opponent, ending the game so sometimes no upkeep was required as the game had ended.

okay. just had to ask, based on appearances. cool build :]

Forgot to mention that some of the deeds generate income during the turn too, such as Telegraph Office, R&D & Gomorrah Parish. The Baird Loan Company repeated the Home's effect & Town Hall reduced costs.

I tried this deck and it works well. Recommended!

Thank you! Much appreciated :)

Hey, sorry if this is too much of a noob question.

I've played the prebuilt decks a few times and wanted to see what competitive decks were like, so I played this against a LD shooting deck dtdb.co

I could basically never beat them in a shootout, so they could just come and call me out on my own deeds. My guys got slaughtered except at home, and except Clem at a saloon. So I couldn't maintain any control.

Was I doing something wrong? I should mention I didn't draw any out of town deeds, so maybe that was bad luck.

You never ever generally want to get in shootouts of any kind. You have a few deeds you can lay down safely after using your home ability besides the saloon+Clem combo, such as any out of town deed since they need to boot to get there and can't call you out, the pharmacy since you can immediately unboot your own dude so they can run home, the railroad station since you can move the booted dude home with it, etc. You may sometimes just have to pay for your deeds fully and turtle at home for a while, building up your ghost rock. Once they start occupying your deeds with their deeds they'll need to boot to get away from them, and eventually you'll just be playing too many deeds and high influence dudes for them to keep up. Avoid fights, play patiently, and play smart.

Thanks for your question. I like this deck because back in Classic I used to play Sweetrock:GRL which had a similar home ability but was vastly more powerful.

This deck does not function as a typical shootout deck, mainly because it isn't stacked for shootouts. The best rank might be a fluke flush, both most likely it's going to get a pair or two pair. At the end game, this might be useful when faced with a weak draw dude.

Before starting, make a mental note of the total influence of your opponent. If they have 3 or 4 influence or less they are in trouble. If they have 5 to 6 influence or more, it may be a longer game.

At the start, use Gina to chuck away a non-deed card. Try to maximise the deeds in your starting hand. Look for Saloons and Out of Town deeds. You should have won lowball, so funds available will be 4GR + 2GR + 2GR, making 8GR in total. This should be spent on deeds - Clementine helps reduce the cost of Saloons (once in a Saloon, her increased influence reduces the cost of future Saloons) and Irving helps reduce the cost of Out of Town deeds. Li Yan's Tailoring/Town Hall are good to see early as they can increase Clementine's/Irving's influence to get Saloons/Out of Town deeds for free. Don't use other dudes for the Home's ability as they will be trashed by a good shootout deck. Turtle at home, using Brocklehurst to make GR when enemy dudes come to visit your side of the street.

If you are attacked and have to shoot, Coachwhip (ace) any influence bearing dudes if they cheat.

By Day Three you should have equalled their influence points with your control points. Time to go for the kill. Your economy should be buoyant and have a bit of cash at your disposal. Remember to make GR from deeds, such as Telegraph Office, Gomorrah Parish, R&D Ranch. Get extra cards to play using Pony Express, Circle M or 1st Baptist Church. Cheapen deeds with help from Baird's Build & Loan.

Look at the deeds/dudes and calculate what you can afford. When your control has exceeded their influence, and they have no more dudes available, the chess game really begins. Don't play the dudes unless you have to. The surprise value can demoralise opponents. Try to engineer your hand for Day Three so you have maybe 2 or 3 dudes waiting to come in.

You should think about out manoeuvring your opponent and make them boot their dudes to stay in the game. Once booted, they get hit by Rumours, reducing their influence and maximising your control points. Same with the Mayor's Office. If a Rumoured Dude is at R&D, and has zero influence, pull to see if you get a club!

This is where you can single out one of their low draw dudes and try to shoot them. You might die too, but what is more important is that they lose their influence. Lawrence can get an extra control, as can Hunter's or The Union Casino if needed. The Pharmacy can give you an edge to seize some extra control. Yi Lan's can give influence to Gina. Dudes like Wendy, Ulysses, Dr Arden, Leonardo can put other dudes out of commission.

Thanks, madmaps and kollat. I played several more games with and against it last night and it makes a lot more sense. I see what you mean about the chessy endgame. Shootout vs landslide is definitely a different playstyle than shootout vs shootout. Thanks again for the tips!

Update: Took this deck to the Finchley Shootout at Leisure Games today (29 March) and it came 4th out of 24 players. For this event I added two Pistol Whips and took out Dr. Dawn Edwards and Dr. Emanuel Ashbel. Top four in that tournament were 1. Morgan Cattle Co., 2. Morgan Cattle Co. 3. The Sloane Gang and 4. Morgan Cattle Co..

Correction: Should have mentioned that the Finchley Shootout was the London Deputy Event. It was 4th out of 21 players.