Lighting the Plasma Drill 2.0

Why not start Nathan Shane?

@jordan caldwell he can't start Nathan without taking away Travis or Irving. I would argue he should swap Travis for Maggie Harris to ensure he can invent horses to kickstart his economy, but that means starting with a potential dud hand.

You are right, bad suggestion.

I guess it comes from the mad science starting posse dilemma - on the one had you want a scientist to actually build the stuff - on the other you want to be able to do cool stuff once the gadgets are out - I find there is typically about two "non-influence, non-scientist, but cool stuff" slots, for the likes of Wagner Memorial Ranch, Maggie Harris, Luke, the Errand Boy, Post-A-Tron, even Nicholas Kramer (though he has influence), which, leaves you with only Irving Patterson and two 1-influence scientists to both meet your inventability and influence minimum requirements.

Even further, I go back and forth between trying to have an extra (third) scientist and having a solid shooter in the starting posse - dealing with early aggression either not at all (extra scientist) or head-on (shooter).

So, when I see this deck, I ask what would happen if Kyle Wagner were to be kidnapped first turn? I'd either want to put in a back-up scientist (perhaps Diego Linares) or a solid shooter (perhaps Chuan "Jen" Qí) in the start to defend the ranch. Because that is the achilles heal of any gadget deck - those first couple of turns.

Tough choices with no clear solution!

@jordan caldwell well I normally play 3-6 player and no whats in their decks so i don't always have to worry about Kidnappin'.

Well that makes the Morgan Regulators' first trait interesting.

I really like this deck especially because of the "go home booted" clause of the Plasma Drill.

Next question: How important is it to have four off-value Personal Ornithopters?

Because I'm thinking if you took SavageJack_'s advice and added and started Maggie Harris in for Travis Moone you could get away with running fewer.

The deck's use of the Morgan Mining Company with lots of strikes reminds me of the good old days playing Sweetrock. And the strategy of attacking the opponent's stash is an interesting one. I played the deck today at the tournament at Leisure Games in London (https://www.facebook.com/events/1051469121642345/). There were 8 of us so that was three rounds. In the first two rounds, I played another Regulator deck which was more focussed on horses and a Crusaders blessed deck which used Tlaloc's Furies. In both games, the strikes and ghost rock gushed out quickly and so my crew could power up and win the shootouts. In the third round, I faced the Drunken Masters who won an early shootout against against Travis and then shut me down with Bai Yang Chen. I didn't see any strikes and, without a liberal supply of ghost rock, I lost that one to come third. That was still good enough to win a tin, so thanks for the decklist.

I tried a rematch against the Drunken Masters after they won the event. The deck didn't choke that second time but I still couldn't win the shootouts as he would typically make my dudes less studly with Sun in Your Eyes and Rabbit Takes Revenge. I'm going to try some tweaks now, starting by adding Lillian Morgan Exp. Hell hath no fury ...