Good Enough for Government (LD Aggro/Control)

The original version of this deck went 5-1 and won a small local tournament last week. This is the updated version for EDS.

This is a government-based deck, but that's mostly because The Mayor's Office and Hustings are so good that I'd want to run them anyway. The deck is stacked to draw 3, 5, and 8. I'm playing 3's for Hustings, The Stakes Just Rose, and Sun in Yer Eyes, 5's for Hiding in the Shadows, Pistol Whip, and Pearl-handled Revolver, and 8's for Bounty Hunter and Steven Wiles. The deck is almost exclusively aiming to draw full houses and four or five of a kind... Flushes are rare and straights are basically impossible.

The off-value cards are mostly in there because they're too good to pass up. The Mayor's Office has the government keyword for Rafi Hamid and serves double duty bumping up your own guys to prevent a loss, and bumping down aggressive Sloane and Law Dogs who rush town square. Town Council has that government keyword, and has good synergy with the identity ability. However, this deck won't win lowball often, so I'm only running 1 copy. Xiong "Wendy" Cheng is obviously great, Coachwhip! is amazing even if you can't use it and the opponent just sees that you're running it, and B&B Attorneys is great for countering your opponent's copy of the same.

Obviously, with all these government deeds, Rafi Hamid goes in the starting posse. His ability will only come into play every once in a while but when it comes up, it's very powerful. About half the deck is deputies, and the ability to move to a deed with a weakling and move a few big bodies in if things get messy is great. Of course, if your opponent is also running their own copies of these deeds, then Rafi is an all-star. Keep him alive, and he'll do great things.

This deck definitely has the capability to go aggro against the more passive decks like Landslide if you end up with an early Hustings and your shootout-focused cards. However, it's at its best using Hustings and The Mayor's Office to fiddle with influence, and making people wanted and picking them off with Bounty Hunter. Running four copies of Bounty Hunter is a little wacky, but it ends up being useful so often, that I almost always want to have it in my hand. It can pick off a Morgan dudes who just used their identity, stragglers who haven't moved up to town square yet, dudes sitting at home trying to build up a basket of hexes, and so on.

There's a few cards I'm still on the fence about.

• I'm not a huge fan of the super-expensive Shotgun without something like War Paint to back it up, but it's on-value, and it should be able to find the occasional cannon fodder to shoot.

• Wylie Jenks may just be too expensive even though he's an on-value deputy with great synergy with the rest of the deck. I should maybe replace it with a boring fourth copy of Steven Wiles.

• The one copy of Town Council is weak enough that it should maybe be replaced with a second copy of B&B Attorneys.

• I have the starting ghost rock throw to another cheap dude in the starting posse like Jake Smiley, but the deck is doing fine without it and I want to make sure that on the first turn, I can play one of my four-cost government deeds and still have enough for a Pearl-handled Revolver or a Bounty Hunter if the opponent does something silly.

• I'd love to throw in Rumors but it competes with Bounty Hunter and as I mentioned, I always seem to want that card in my hand.

• Prescott Utter is amazing. He is incredible at preventing losses, and he is a great target for the Shotgun. All he's missing is the deputy keyword. I was running a couple of copies of him when the deck ran 4's, 5's and 8's, but he got taken out for Philip Swinford when I changed out 4's for 3's. It's definitely a step down, though.