Action Sloane + Mario Crane

published Jan 20, 2015 | | |

mplain 1663

As I was playtesting the [almost] original version of this deck designed by Robert Croy, I realized the 'strategy' boiled down to pure luck - are they able to draw a full house or better on 5-6 bullets or not? Or rather, can they do it several times per match? If yes, then I fold. If not, then I'm in luck and they fold. So it all comes down to chances. I wondered if I can tip the scales more in my favor...

Is there a way for me to win (or at least not lose) even if they draw a full house to my flush? What cards can help me here? If they draw a cheatin' full house, I can punish them with Coachwhip or Cheatin' Varmint. But that's just 8 cards in the deck, and they don't work if the opponent has a legal hand. Is there anything else I could do?

♣ It's Not What You Know... is more of the same, cheatin' punishment that can help you win even if they draw a 5-of-a-kind, and can also tie hands with a legal full house. But it costs money, something the original version of this deck didn't have, like, at all. Still, this card seems much more useful than Missed, so maybe it's worth adding the economy aspect to the deck in order to play it?

As we're not playing any deeds, the only type of economy available to us is action-based. There are three cards that can give us money: Reserves, This Is A Holdup, and A Coach Comes To Town. Oddly enough, these are the values that were under-represented in the original version, so we won't have to sacrifice anything useful in order to play these cards. As a nice bonus, money will also let us play Cheatin' Varmint even if the opponent has a legal hand.

Okay, but this is more of the same, just +4 more cards. But if we don't draw any cheatin' punishment and the oppoentn has a full house or 4-of-a-kind, we still lose a guy. Can we do something more fundamental about this problem?

Why, there's actually a guy who just won't die to anything less that a straight flush. Meet our favourite combo uber-dude:

♠ Mario Crane will survive even if your opponent draws a full house or a 4-of-a-kind. Mario will look at his hand and say: "Ok, you beat me, let's see if you can do it again". And again, and again, and again, until they eithier draw a straight flush or better, a flush or lower, or get tired and run home. That's as long as Mario draws a legal hand, which with his +1 stud bullet it not all that hard (but not guaranteed either). If you cheat and your opponent gets a full house... why, Mario will still live to fight the next day! Unless, of course, your opponent can punish you for cheatin' with something else. And if they draw a 4-of-a-kind to your cheatin' flush, Mario goes down too.

But it's still a lot of weigth on the scales of chance, in your favor! :)

♣ Hot Lead Flyin' let's you shoot a guy even if they get a full house or 4-of-a-kind, as long as you stay legal. It has a 65% chance of success in this deck, but it's all about tipping the scales here anyway!

♣ Point Blank becomes less useful here as Mario only got 1 bullet, and there are not all that many 0-bullet dudes to kill. It also loses some value without Missed.

♣ Establishin' Who's in Charge can win you the game as early as turn 1. You now have the funds to play it, plus Mario is not very good at Makin' "Em Sweat, so I decided to give this card a try.

Since Mario Crane costs 1 gr more than Clint Ramsey, I had to replace Fred Aims with someone a bit cheaper. There are three candidates for his place:

♠ Clementine Lepp has 1 influence, and that's a big plus because, as simple as that, she can control a deed, and that's potentially a 2 cp swing in your favor. She doesn't have any bullets though, but that only really matters for Make 'Em Sweat (well, it does help you avoid cheatin' and getting punished for that, too).

♠ Travis Moone is just a 2-bullet body that can kill someone, but he cannot control deeds (unless you get their Yan Li's Tailoring). His value makes him resistant to Shotgun, and his cheap cost leaves you 1 gr to start, so that you now only need one more Reserves in order to be able to play INWYK. He's an ideal candidate to play jobs (Establishin' Who's in Charge and A Coach Comes to Town). Oh, and you're hardly ever going to use his Grifter ability, but just in case you get an economy-only hand, he can cover your back.

♠ Silas Aims has an even higher value than Travis, and he potentially has more bullets, but he starts at 0. Bullets are only really important to avoid cheatin' and play Make 'Em Sweat, so might be his resistance to Shotgun makes him better than Travis after all. Also, he's ideal to play This Is A Holdup.

So here you have it. A super-annoying deck that just laughts at ya when you say "I beat you by 2 ranks". Sure, mate, let's see if you can do it again! :)

16 comments
Jan 20, 2015 db0

Oh Gawds! Mario Crane in a Flush only deck. That's just evil! >_
Jan 20, 2015 LordManHammer

Ha! Good idea mplain! Good fun. Ill take this to the boardgameclub tonight :D
Jan 20, 2015 Slinger4X3

It works. I was playing with this last night and made the same changes to my starting Posse. A good friend pointed out this decks relative weakness to turtling, so i replaced some pinned down with kidnapping to help.
Jan 20, 2015 db0

I know that this deck looks scary. It is! So here's some tactics your can follow to combat it.

  • Point Blank Mario. You might need to start two studs in case one gets wiped.
  • Pistol Whip Mario. This will simply give you one round, so use that time to take care of booted dudes in the Town Square.
  • Shotgun/Soul Blast Allie. You either need to wait until the Sloane is booted out trying to take over your deeds, or use something like a bounty hunter/run 'em down. Put it on a sacrificial Travis and kill Allie to slow down the CP accumulation and give you time.
  • Outmaneuver Mario and kill the rest normally. Either play enough deeds to force them to spread out, or boot Mario with Paralysis mark.
  • Forget on Allie every turn to give you time to build up enough firepower.
  • Cheat like a motherfucker. Go full on Five of a Kind each hand until the Sloane player runs out of cheating.
  • Reduce Mario's bullets and hope he cheats on topdeck. Risky but if your deck structure is good, you can keep winning rounds until they inenvitably cheat. Then most cheating cards should be enough.
  • Pay 5 Ghost Rock and play Cheating Varmint. Easiest fix but expensive.
Jan 20, 2015 db0

Oh and Hex slinging should do the trick as well.
Jan 21, 2015 mplain

We just had a series of super fun games with swider. He played something like mysticpickle's Cruise Missile Landslide deck, basically Dudes & Deeds packed with Bounty Hunters and Takin' Ya With Me (hey db0, you forgot to mention that one!). At every opportunity he tried to kamikaze into my dudes with his 2-bullet expendable guys, and I had to use my shootout toys for defense: Pistol Whip and Make the Smart Choise can really save you when you know they wanna break the rules! That was great fun! :)

To address the problem of low influence vs. deedslide and hucksters, I put Fred Aims back into the deck (replacing Lawrence Blackwood), and packed 4x This Is A Holdup. This removes the hard cap on influence, so multiple Rumors and Blood Curse no longer mean auto-loss. I also put 4x Kidnappin' to make them play on my terms, but this might be too much. I might still need at least 2x Pinned Down to combat aggro decks.

I must say I really this think that the ruling on Takin' Ya With Me is unfair. They can reduce my bullets in order to make me succeptible to it, so that even my 2-bullet guy can be taken down by a 0-draw. But no matter what I do with them - Unprepared, Sun In Yer Eyes, Pinned Down - the card only counts the kamikaze dude's written bullets, and ignores all modifiers. This seems really unfair to me.

Still, if db0 had to write this post, maybe this deck is not as janky as some thought. Even if there are some hard counters to it, if it actually forces the meta to adapt to it (by playing uncommon cards like Takin' or Point Blank), that is very interesting indeed. Good work, Robert Croy! :)
Jan 21, 2015 db0

Yeah, I'm not happy with the way Takin' Ya With Me was templated, but it is what it is now.

I'm glad to hear that archetypes which are not considered "competitive" force difficulties to this deck. This means you have to pack solutions and you can't rely simply on bullet reduction to do the work for you.
Jan 21, 2015 db0

PS: I think swider started using those TYWMs after he faced my I can dance all day and saw its power first hand. ;)
Jan 22, 2015 db0

Played a bit with MCC landslide and spanked it hard. My LD would have beaten it as well if I didn't misplay it and my opponent didn't have all the answers in hand. I am now a bit more confident about it :)

It will ruin new players though >_
Jan 22, 2015 Tomrobbinson

So mplain has been wiping the floor with me and this deck. I brought it to test out at the shop and MCC is spanking it hard. I was even losing dudes in the shootouts do to "takin' ya with me" . So damned if ya do and damned if you don't...still a very fun deck though.
Jan 22, 2015 db0

Yeah, that's my experience as well. This deck is great if your opponent doesn't expect it, but it's easy pickings for a good MCC control deck. Like, it's not even close most of the time. Its lack of starting influence and influence potential just kills it.
Jan 22, 2015 mplain

You guys using Fred Aims and 4x This Is A Holdup?
Jan 22, 2015 mplain

Summing up all the tweaks mentioned above, here's the new Anti-Control version of this deck. Or anti-Landslide at least. Thanks to swider for helping me test it! :)
Jan 22, 2015 db0

Yeah he was. It wasn't cutting it since he needed to play at least 2x this is a holdup to be better than starting Lawrence.
Jan 22, 2015 mplain

Err? How's that so? One Holdup gives 1-3 influence, two holdups would give up to 6 influence, and starting Lawrence is only 1 infl. I don't get it.
Jan 22, 2015 db0

Assuming they play a 2+ prod deed and can't kill him while booted, correct. But when I played against this deck, my first turn was just 1 prod deeds so he got 1 inf and then didn't get another holdup.