4th Ring Condition Control
Prodigy 763
This is a nasty deck that harkens back to the time of the dreaded 4th Ring Control, where P Mark and Leonardo "Leon" Cavallo ruled the day. This deck is just as nasty, and possibly more unpleasant to play against.
This deck plays the hit and run, generally avoiding shootouts, but it also isn't necessarily afraid of them either (especially if Theo Whateley-Boyer gets a joker). The draw structure is 15/14, with all off values being playable on the board. Overall, you will be annoying the crap out of them with Phantasm (which I think has the same effect as the old paralysis marks), cursing their dudes with Lost to the Plague, and using Tummy Twister to either protect your deeds, or play it on your opponents deed the turn after you move your dude there to take it over.
Starting posse has 3 hucksters (very resilient vs spot removal), easily 5 influence once you get a couple hexes on The Flying Popescus, and Christine Perfect who allows you to put Lost to the Plague on a dude value J or lower. If you get the Stone Idol, you can target anyone, or even allow christine to target a different high value dude if that dude isn't THE highest value dude. Typically the goal, however, is to remove the opponents influence through high upkeep, and that isn't always the highest value dude.
Another fun side note is how often Lost to the Plague can shut off important dudes, most notably Allie Hensman who is probably the biggest bane of decks like this - but not this deck!
With the recent erratas, Rico Rodegain will have to get the boot for some other Q dude with influence (he was only in there as a cheap 1 Inf Q dude). Also I've played around with various Q of clubs options, including It's Not What You Know... and also 2-3 copies of Takin' Ya With Me. I haven't been able to use Clear Out! yet, but in theory it fits with the aspects of this deck that are very chess like, and rely on spreading your opponent thin, destroying their influence, and craftily plopping down/taking over just enough control down to sneak in a win.
Overall it is very strong and pretty fun to play, but frustrating to play against so probably not the best choice for repeated casual matches.
| 8 comments |
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| Mar 15, 2017 DoomDog |
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Mar 15, 2017
Roullette3
this looks like a lot of fun! gonna give it a shot for sure |
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Mar 16, 2017
jordan caldwell
Maybe a copy of Phantom Fingers? |
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Mar 17, 2017
Prodigy
Yagns can cause headaches, yep. I have played against gadgets once with this deck, and ended up winning because I simply targeted their mad scientists (who are almost always NOT the ones wearing the Yagn's). Mad Scientists tend to be low value too, so they make easy targets for the Plague, often even if wearing a Yagns. I could certainly see adding a Phantom Fingers or two if you are expecting gadgets, though, because Yagns is definitely a pain. I wouldn't add it, otherwise, because it wouldn't be very useful in most other situations (at least not as useful as whatever you'd have to drop to bring it in). |
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Mar 20, 2017
Nobuyoki
What's the use of your 2 soul blasts here? Killing isolated target or trying to make your huckster flee the big high value studs when you get cornered? The first one looks like a bit tricky if your opponent managed to always get a backup in the shootous that you will force (or get), and you having absolutely 0 cheatin resolution could be a big problem in this kind of regular shootous... |
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Mar 21, 2017
Prodigy
Against this deck it is very dangerous to over-commit to removal jobs, because the control point swing can be very massive with blood curses, puppet, and 2 CP deeds, and nothing they can do about it with multiple dudes booted home. That's really how to play this deck (just like the previous versions of clown control) - simply wait for an opportunity like them running a job to pull out that big CP swing. |
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Mar 21, 2017
Nobuyoki
Thanks for your answers! I still have two questions : How does this deck manage to work against high influence/high movement decks (like horses decks with espuelas for example, even if that's pretty rare)? And against fortress/inventing decks? And : how do you do when your opponent is ultra aggressive and does 1 hard spot removal per turn without comitting all his dudes (and then manages to make his job works), considering the fact that you "only" have two real hucksters to back up your starting ones? I know it's pretty rare situations, but I'm still curious to know how you handle those. Because the truth is that you can't compete in "real" shootouts with this deck, so as soon as your opponent knows that, he will use only high value dudes/at least 2 dudes on jobs marking your hucksters with soul blast/puppet. I think that usually, you would want to avoid the drawing hands part of the shootouts ;D And don't mistake my criticism for a bad one, it's just that I really like this kind of decks, but I never managed to make them work in the long term in my old meta since I only played against really really aggressive decks. (T1 AND T2 kidnapping weren't unusual...) |
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Mar 21, 2017
Prodigy
Yeah, you will have a hard time against both types of decks. At least with the horse decks, they often play Run 'Em Down! which is much easier to deal with if you have soul blast. It's still an uphill battle, though. Against that, as well as the super agressive T1, T2 kidnapping decks, I would change some things around. I would add a full 4 Takin' Ya With Me, and put in as many Sight Beyond Sight's as you can to ace those jobs (or ace whatever shootout actions might stop your Takin Ya from working). It might be fine to dilute the draw structure just a little in the process, since you likely won't be winning any shootouts anyway, but I'd try to keep it as tight as possible because you can still get 4 and 5 of a kinds somewhat regularly. If Theo gets a joker, it's very easy to make a legal full house/4oaK, and if you have Sight Beyond Sight you might even be able to know whether or not you can cheat. One non-insignificant advantage of the 2 value draw structure is you never have the hard choice of seeing 3 pairs in your hand and wondering which value to discard and go for. Blood curse especially helps ensure Takin' Ya With Me will succeed, and Christine Perfect is the "perfect" sacrifice for it, with 2 bullets. |
I've played a similar deck to this in the past, and also played against them. I agree it's fun to play but can be very frustrating to play against. Watch out for Yagn's Mechanical Skeleton though - it counters a lot of this type of deck's tricks.