#TeamLula 1.1 (Edinburgh Sheriff/York OP#2 Mix)

Since the deck performed better than I expected in Huddersfield, I figured I'd take the slightly tweaked version to the Edinburgh Sheriff event and see if I could claim a victory for the Morgans. The Diable en Boite was swapped for a Fancy New Hat and Horse Wranglin' for Run 'em Down to expand on the control side of things. The deck again proved to be nicely versatile, enabling me to play differently depending on what I was up against.

Round 1 vs Mark's Fourth Ring Control

This was one of those lengthy manoeuver-offs with very little action as we went back and forth across the town trying to grab just enough control points to win. The game lasted the full forty minutes, and there was one shootout in the entire game that I believe only resulted in the death of his Travis Moone. We went to tiebreakers and thanks to the higher influence of my Morgan dudes, I was closer to winning than Mark was. So far, so good.

Round 2 vs Dave's Des Row Hucksters

An early Steven Wiles allowed me to stall the Des Row job for a turn, and I got a couple of deeds on the table while Dave started equipping Maria Kingsford with hexes. He moved into the town square in force but thanks to Pistol Whip and Ridden Down he wasn't able to take control of my deeds for long. My memory is a little fuzzy so how this played out this might not be quite correct: The deciding moment was when a shotgun-toting Experienced Marion Seville moved to my Charlie's Place which was adjacent to my home, and for some reason Jake Smiley was in the next deed over. I moved a mounted Jon Longstride over, Dave decided to use Charlie's to boost Marion's bullets for the shootout he thought was coming. Longstride then surprised Jake Smiley with a Run 'em Down/Rope & Ride combo to drag him away from where Marion could help. Jake bit the dust, Dave sent Marion to do the Des Row job, then with all remaining inflence booted at home I built a couple of cheap deeds and sealed the win.

Round 3 vs Andy's Morgan Slide

When Andy saw my starting posse it confused him slightly as he couldn't figure out what my deck was trying to do. He started playing deeds left, right and centre while I moved my dudes into the Town Square and then into the richest targets to try to limit his income as best I could while also buying up deeds of my own. Andy just kept on going, I managed to pick a couple of dudes off, with a Run 'em Down and Rope & Ride to take care of that pesky lawyer Brocklehurst and managing to jump Irving Patterson after he'd booted to buy a deed and I'd got the initiative from lowball. Andy thought he'd lost the game when I tried the same trick on his Lula (clearly an impostor) and used his Pearly's Palace against him to shotgun her before she could Make the Smart Choice. Unfortunately I didn't have a deed in hand and the game continued. He kept building, and I managed to keep up. I made a couple of errors late on, forgetting to call out William Specks when he was at one of my deeds, and forgetting that the Whateley Estate booted my dudes who went there which cut short my attempt to Pistol Whip Max Baine home (though this did mean Andy had to leave him there when we went to tiebreaker, so it wasn't all bad). We went to tiebreaker actions and Andy brought out Steven Wiles. After we'd each finished our 3 moves, it was incredibly close. We counted up our Control and Influence totals, and Andy thought I'd won, but just as he was about to pack up his cards he remembered Max Baine boosted the influence of dudes at Ranches, meaning he'd edged it with one influence.

Round 4 vs Simon's DMH Law Dogs

There had been a lunch break between rounds 3 and 4, and after the first few moves of this game I could tell I'd lost my focus and wasn't playing as well, getting into an avoidable shootout and losing Jon Longstride. Simon played this perfectly, and we managed to get into the situation where he'd chased my dudes off his deeds, taken control of my deeds and had Steven Wiles stood in the Town Square ready to take any other deed I played (with enough income to keep him around). After a decent opening hand I ended up drawing lots of deeds and horses when I really needed dudes and actions. Simon controlled the board and had all the luck in lowball, and coupled with his California Tax Office I just couldn't get going. I managed to last a few turns more but he eventually drew another deed and there wasn't a lot I could do to stop him.

So, no Sheriff Lula this time, but I'm having fun with the deck which is the important part. I'll definitely be playing it again in the future.