Ravenslide 2 - Advanced Influentials

The Story

They all said it couldn't be done.

Rewind; it's early 2019. Doomtown is enjoying a small but wholesome community, filled with players who are vibrantly engaged with playing matches of cowboys vs. indians vs. thieves vs. clowns vs. wealthy entrepreneurs vs. Robin Hood and the band of merry men; each player joyously rallying behind their chosen faction, building synergistic decks, maneuvering, and picking fights strategically against their opposition.

We had no way of knowing back then... that all that choice was simply an illusion.

The date is August 28th, 2019, 12:07 PM. Deputy Way is showing up late (as usual) to lunch time skirmishes. I was in tinker mode in Doomtown at the time, and I had conjured up something very special for the event (along with a particularly tasty rye bread sandwich for me).

Before continuing, I want to say that I have never felt any malice towards Deputy Way. On the contrary, I think that he was jovial, charismatic, and generally an all-around great personality; a statement that any who knew him would reverberate. Why I decided to subject him to this, I still to this day cannot place. Was it an outlet for pent-up rage? Sadism? Perhaps sheer boredom; to watch the world struggle? I can't be certain why... but I did it, and the world has not been the same since.

I'm referring to, of course, day zero of the Ravenslide deck. A deck that has such unchecked power, that it rendered the Deputy powerless after just a single action. The Deputy has not spoken to me after this... I've heard from sources that he's been hitting the ghost rock pretty hard since.

Fast forward to present day, late 2019. Statistics show that 92% of worlds attendees brought Ravenslide (the other 8% fell into irrelevancy). Concensus was reached that Ravenslide was Doomtown's best deck, and, in fact, the only playable option.

The Doomtown world became monotonous. MCC vs. MCC, every match. They said it was perfect... they said it couldn't be made better.

They were wrong.

The Deck

This deck is an adaptation of Ravenslide, a deck that aims to pressure a round 1 victory through getting 6 points right away. The economics to make this happen are a little rough, since it requires Raven, Whateley, a 2 CP deed, and 3 influential dudes. Initially, this was done with MCC to use Whateley's large influence to discount the deed. But it turns out that, like all decks, it is better out of 108.

The key to making this work out of 108 is Benjamin. Whereas MCC saves you 3-4 rock on a deed, Benjamin Bills saves you 3+ rock on upkeep (minimum 3 from Whateley alone). Along with the fact that you can use a 19 GR outfit (vs. being locked in to the 18 GR MCC), and you only need 2 other influential dudes (since Whateley isn't booted to play a MCC deed) this lets us get a little more power curve.

Like the original Ravenslide, this deck has two starts (with the listed starters being the only ones that are core to both):

All-In Round 1

+Daomei Wang, Asakichi Cooke, Nicodemus Whateley

2 GR, 5 Upkeep, 16/15 draw structure.

Compared to the MCC equivalent, this deck boasts a grifter (dig further for deeds / siege), a second strong stud in Daomei, and 6 dudes total for more attrition. After Benjamin exhausts himself by doing the heavy lifting of paying the upkeep of Daomei and Whateley, Cooke can throw his unconscious body into the Whateley deed so he can meat shield in the fight. Otherwise, largely the same.

The obvious downside; going into round 2, you have 5 upkeep to deal with... the trick to dealing with this is to not let round 2 happen.

Vs. FMB / High Influence Variant

+Randall, Ramiro Mendoza, John "Aces" Radcliffe

3 GR, 1 Upkeep, 15/15 draw structure.

This also gets some benefits in that there are 6 dudes in the start, and Randall synergizes well with John Aces. There's also wiggle room on more influential starts as necessary.

That's about all that's different here. You can also make a version that gets 7+ CP round 1 by subbing in Doris, but it feels like it's giving up too much power to pursue.