No Law But God's Law: Rangers Finalist / Grifter Article

by Jordan Pridgen

This is the most recent version of my Anarchist blessed movement deck that I piloted to the Finals of the 2020 online Ranger tournament and the Quarterfinals of the online name-a-card event.

Strategy:

 The deck is built around having an extremely strong movement game, utilizing HoMF, [Walk the Path](/en/card/05033), and [Amazing Grace](/en/card/18033) to make sure that you can control where and when shootouts are taking place on the board. The strategy benefits from having a lot of deeds in play, so I prioritize having a lot of affordable deeds that can force people out of easy positioning and set things up in my favor.

 The starting posse give you a lot of hand control when combined with the home. [Asakichi Cooke](/en/card/10004) and [Randall](/en/card/09005) assure that you have the option of drawing at least three cards on day two, and in practice I usually find it pretty easy to completely dump my hand on day 1 and two, which feels very strong.

 Despite not being a dedicated early aggression or shootout/town square control deck, the structure is actually quite strong and with the addition of the wonderful new Anarchist starter [The Tombstone Haint](/en/card/22004) the deck actually shoots out very well in early turns. I've generally found making solid legal draws at 7/3 to be quite easy to pull off, which can be really helpful against other decks that also want to take time to set up, against whom you can often afford to be the aggressor and sit on their early deeds without worrying too much about their early shootout retribution.

 Still, against decks with a lot of early stud, it's usually better to play the chess game and try and get people out of position while you set up a little more stud on your own side. Consecration against a lowball cheat can turn a dude into a one-turn hammer and really swing the board state in your favor, as can priority cards like [Cliff's #4 Saloon](/en/card/18025) and [Taiyari](/en/card/20008). [Amazing Grace](/en/card/18033) is also extremely important to get out early, since an opponent that takes control of Town Square can almost totally negate HoMF's unbooting utility if they can just call your blessed dude out as soon as you move him to TS

 Previous versions of the deck started [Ol' Howard](/en/card/14009) for [The Joker's Smile](/en/card/12011), which combined with the home ability made it easy to keep jokers in your deck and ready to draw at all times, but now it takes a little more setup. To help get that engine set up [Moving Forward](/en/card/18039) is in the deck to fetch Joker's Smile or [The Whateley Estate](/en/card/05023) on lowball at no cost, both of which get the job done and up the power of your board a lot.

 The win condition of the deck is usually control of the board through [Amazing Grace](/en/card/18033) and lots of dudes and deeds. Obviously this can be a little unfocused in some matchups, so [Epidemic Laboratory](/en/card/14019) is in the deck as a source of consistent CP (Which is also fetchable with Moving Forward). The Home also allows you the luxury of running the job on EL and then unbooting the blessed who ran it. if [Walk the Path](/en/card/05033) is in play you can also often run it with only a single dude, and pull in backup only if the opponent decides to oppose. [Doris Powell](/en/card/11012) is also in the deck as a tricky little extra bit of CP, which can theoretically get to 3 CP with just the starting posse, one deed, and a single Walk The Path in play.

Structure:

The deck values are 9/10/Q at 15/16/12 so quite strong overall in shootouts. For the most part, I haven't felt much need to weaken the structure of the deck for one-ofs, and currently the only card that starts in the deck failing pulls is The Joker's Smile which I think is easily worth the risk. High Stakes Haven, The Whateley Estate, and T'ou Chi Chow make up the rest of the off-value cards, and all three of them are just extremely powerful and worth having in the deck.

The base value structure of the deck is the same as from the previous version that I took to Gencon and Tombstone last year which can be found here https://dtdb.co/en/decklist/3036/no-law-but-god-s-law-gencon-2019 but there have been some pretty significant changes which I think make the deck much stronger and more competitive.

 The first and most obvious change to the deck is the addition of [Ezekiah Grimme](/en/card/19002) as a legend to the deck, which manages to add a lot of consistency that had been lacking before. Grimme's most obvious use is just to get the initial miracle on the board that is essential to turning on the home, but later in the game he also works very powerfully with HoMF to make sure that the miracles you haven't drawn early get into play. If you're at the stage where most of your deck is in the discard, it's possible to shuffle the miracle you want into your deck from discard using HoMF, and then run Grimme's second ability for an almost guaranteed hit. It isn't as consistent or fast as Tolarios, but in practice it works almost as well to get essential miracles on the board, and I'm even thinking of trying to add a few more one-of miracles for utility into the deck because of it. Top that off with the fact that you can often immediately unboot a blessed booted by grimme with the home, and it's just a very powerful piece.

 The other big change is to the starting posse, abandoning Ol' Howard as I mentioned earlier for [The Tombstone Haint](/en/card/22004). Honestly it's hard to overstate how much of a change starting with the Haint is. Not only does he act as a nice early stud that you don't mind discarding if you have to catch a bullet, he also can challenge the opponents economy with his trait. He even has minor synergy with [He Fang](/en/card/11005) and [Master Shou](/en/card/21012), which has proven to be relevant in more than one game I've played. I tried out starting Master Shou for just that reason, but found that the tax on the early economy was too much to justify the slight increase in early synergy.

 I also took out [Jael's Guile](/en/card/11018) from the 10 slot and added in a couple [Scattergun](/en/card/21045)'s which proved to be an extremely valuable card in the tournament scene. Lots of [Pedro](/en/card/17013) and [Forsaken Hound](/en/card/19031) running around, and a couple [Cavalry Escort](/en/card/19032)s. Putting the opponent down a sidekick is way more of a swing than you might expect, and even if they run none, the first ability managed to prove useful almost every shootout.

 Finally, I took [Twilight Is Upon Us](/en/card/21055) down to a one-of in the deck. I feel like it's a very powerful card sometimes, but there are enough matchups where it helps the opponent almost as much as it helps you to make it something I don't always want to focus on, and in the matchups that I do want it it's easy enough to cycle it into the deck with HoMF. That being said, it can be very useful just to bring in a blessed with Consecration or Walk the Path into a fight for a bit more safety, even if it also sometimes boosts the opponent's bullets as well. It also helps shut off headlines in other decks, which can definitely be relevant.

Economy:

 Economy is a little tight in early turns, but the deck makes up for it by making sure all of it's cards are pretty affordable even in the rare instance when you don't draw into any of your deeds. Still, if you can't manage to get out a deed or two to aid production, it's probably a good idea to hold off on playing any dudes with upkeep unless you absolutely to.

Games:

 This deck went 3-2 and lost in the top 8 to Doomdog's FP deck in the Name-a-card tournament, and 4-1 and lost in the finals to TybarSunsong's EN gadget deck in the Ranger tournament. Overall I felt really good about how the deck played, and even in the games that it lost it felt very strong and versitile.

 I didn't manage to remember to take notes on most of my games in the Name-A-Card tournament or swiss of the Ranger tournament, but I recorded the top 8 games in ranger so I will link them in a comment when I get them online!

 I found that in general the toughest matchups were really focused TS control decks that didn't care much about contesting my deeds or playing their own, and early aggression decks could be a bit of a toss-up. cards like [Pinned Down](/en/card/01124) and [Sun in Yer Eyes](/en/card/01113) really hurt, and may be worth the inclusion of something like [Onward Christian Soldiers](/en/card/14028) in a future version.

 So that's the deck! I know I wrote a lot but hopefully it'll give some good insight into my experience and thinking with the deck. Definitely open to suggestions on how to make it better, since a lot of the changes I made came from discussion with other players. So feel free to ask questions or give me feedback!