Hot Sloane Flyin - First Place Texas Ranger Outlaw Event

2016 Outlaw

Card draw simulator
Draw: 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 all Reset Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% – 0% more

Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.

Inspiration for
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SirLargeness 202

With the errata to Hot Lead Flying on 5/1/2016, this deck is now an obsolete archtype, and the game is better for it.

Howdy everyone! Recent winner of the Texas Ranger Outlaw event here with the deck that got me there. The event was great, and i experienced some really well played competition over the course of the whole day, with a shout out to Jon Del Arroz who was my Finals opponent piloting 108 Slide. Also, props to my fellow Oklahoma City comrades, as our group was able to secure 3 of the top 4 seats.

Overall, i really enjoy playing this deck as i feel it has strong match ups against virtually the entire meta at this point, dropping to just 50% only against mirror matchups from either Den or 108 Worldly Desires. Ive included what I go for as my Rico setups for different matchups and if you have any differing opinions or suggestions for better lines of play please post those ideas :)

The starting "Pre-Rico" posse should be Rico and specifically the dudes you dont want to draw first turn. For me thats Fred Aims, Lawrence Blackwood, Marion Seville, and Sanford Taylor

Standard "Post Rico" Fighting Posse: Barton Everest, Travis Moone, Antheia Pansofia, Makaio Kaleo, Esq., Rico Rodegain

This is just your standard posse to take against normal shooty style. gadget decks, or maybe any matchup where you expect a shootout and you have a Hot Lead Flying in your opening hand. Maximizes your HLF pulls and gives you nice starting influence to maneuver with. The deck in general is not very aggro, despite the large number of guys. Your game plan is to take town square and block off your opponent from your end of the table. 3 hired guns means you'll be able to get Allie out soon enough and begin to build control points with her, surrounded by your guys. HLF means your # of dudes does more than just soak damage, and Barton turns your 5-o-k draw hands into DMHs to win the long drawn out shootouts.

DeedSlide (& Spirit Fortress to an extent): Fred Aims, Makaio Kaleo, Esq., Allie Hensman, Rico Rodegain, (Jake Smiley or Lawrence Blackwood)

Allie is great against Deedslide, and the rest of your posse has influence to take deeds with. Den->Makaio->Fred grows your influence each turn until you get an outlaw mask to put on some one else, then start spreading the bounties around so an errant "The Evidence" doesnt cut all your bounty based influence. As a note, never play more deeds yourself than you have the ability to cover with a non influence dude while still leaving an unbooted dude in town square at all times. Against Spirit Fortress you should still start Fred and Makaio, but after that you can go passive or aggressive depending on your hand. More likely than not, you'll avoid going into their house and the game will go to time, so managing control points and growing influence will be key to coming up with the tiebreaker win. Cycle hard for your ambush against Fortress though, youll need to use it to Ace Nico the moment he appears at your opponent's home. Alternatively, if you get 10+ guys in play and you have 2-3 HLF in hand, then just go in and murder them. If you seems to have trouble with this matchup in your local meta, then Buford can come out for like a Mazatl or something like that if you see value in it.

Dudeslide and other HLF decks: Rico Rodegain, Jake Smiley, Travis Moone, Allie Hensman, Makaio Kaleo, Esq.

So this may seem like an unconventional start against an agro deck, but this is what i like to call the "Money Start". With 7 starting rock (before lowball and first turn upkeep), we can buy multiple guys and deeds first turn, and do everything possible to empty our hand each turn to draw more cards. 4 sundown influence is really all you need to take the game past the first few turns to get into the meat of your deck. If they kidnappin (or some other removal job) first turn, just defend with that guy, but not anyone else, as our start has allowed us to not care at all about any one of our guys. You will be able to out produce your opponent by turn 3-4, at which point in time you should actually commit to taking town square when you have 8+ dudes in play and preferably 2 HLF (dont engage without at least 1). If you expect a HLF on the other side of the table, try to build a legal flush or full house (basically losing on purpose, but keeping it close) to take minimal casualties and hit em with your own HLF, then just run home and wait for your next opportunity. You wont need to be as aggressive as your opponent cause they wont be able to win without killing at least half of your guys. Be patient and ultimately you'll be able to out HLF your opponent thru better plays.

4th Ring Control Rico Rodegain, Fred Aims, Makaio Kaleo, Esq., Jake Smiley, Travis Moone

4RC does not have many static answers to Den+Makaio+Fred combo outside of Forget, at least to win the game early. What it can do is severely inhibit your early production and make you feel like you're losing the game basically every turn. However, usually you'll be able to keep in step with the CP production of 4RC thru to the mid-game. The most important thing here is to not get impatient, instead sit at home with your guys if you dont have the ability to bring everyone into a shootout. Your Fred helps you to overcome their early game influence manipulation, and 4RC doesnt run The Evidence, or any spot removal jobs, so just use your Outfit ability every turn, slowly gain the upper hand thru # of dudes, then take over town square as your first move out of your home when you can commit at least 8 guys not named Fred or Makaio to the shootout (you may need more than dudes 8 in play as they've probably booted multiple guys to staple them to your home). Once you've divided the board, use your pressure to kick them out of your deeds, and Allie gives you the clock you need to win the game from there. Side note: if you see a Travis moone suicide himself into town square, make sure to challenge him immediately and form your posse with only 2 or higher bullet dudes. This way you avoid the Takin' Ya With Me that they were hoping to exploit with this move. edit:its been pointed out that this is incorrect in the comments below, sorry for posting incorrect strategy, better proofreading is required when posting at 5am :)

31 comments
Apr 17, 2016 pvdel Rules note: You'll need 3+ bullets on each of your dudes to avoid TYWM against Clowns. And even that is not always true, as they can just play Unprepared against a 3-bullet dude and then play TYWM.
Apr 17, 2016 mplain This is one of the strongest decks I have ever played against. Well done!
Apr 17, 2016 LordManHammer Well done! An interesting and efficient deck. A few questions: How do you win? With so few control points and so little removal it seems to me it would have huge problems against slide decks using evidence to remove bounty? While HLF might work great it seems that so little stud combined with so little cheatin' punishment actually makes it a pretty weak shooter. How do you win against aggro decks or decks that just takes the fight on? Would you consider running this out of D-row or Sloane original for faster control point generation?
Apr 17, 2016 Gozik 12 control + Allie doesn't seem "so few" to me. Avarage numbers I would said.
Apr 17, 2016 Gozik Really love the idea to start bad(late game) dudes to get a better starting hand. I completly missed this aspect before.
Apr 17, 2016 LordManHammer `@Gozik` You are right it doesnt have too few in general, but I was thinking specifically against the slide.
Apr 17, 2016 Gozik 108 slide plays about 20 influence in average. If you manage to ambush Nic and Chi Chow that will be enough. BTW one more point from Lawrence.
Apr 17, 2016 kashan First off congrats to sirlargeness on taking down the tournament. It was awesone to have the okc group so well represented. We came to a close game 3 in top 4, but ultimately I think the stronger deck won. The key to winning the slide matchup with this deck or the deck I played is to choke them on money. Contest every deed that makes gr to slow them to playing 1 or 2 deeds/dudes a turn, this allows you to keep them in check and and put pressure on them with Allie. Even if things get a little out of hand briefly, hustings, outlaw mask, Fred, and makaio mean you've got a lot of time to pull things back under control using ambush and Allie. Patience is definitely a key in both the 4rc and slide matchups, but if you don't allow yourself to get flustered into making a mistake in those matchups, I think you're hugely favored.
Apr 17, 2016 SirLargeness `@pvdel`You are right, i was posting this after almost being awake for 24 hours and didnt double check everything. Thanks for the correction. @Kashan is correct. You restrict how many deeds you're putting into play to just what you can cover, and every guy with influence sits immediately on any deed that produces money. My finals opponent was a very skilled player piloting a tuned 108 slide deck, and ulitmately he couldnt ever turn the corner in terms of produciton before the pressure from my Starting Allie Hensman, 5-7 CPs from his deeds, and 2-3 cps from my deeds put me over the edge. Hustings was extremely helpful as well, as he had to get his guys booted or trapped on a deed before i actually needed to proceed with my turn and lay additional deeds. It was not overly destructive to his game play, just provided one additional restrictive element to disrupt his game plan
Apr 17, 2016 SirLargeness `@LordManHammer`So the low stud bullets is a bit of a red herring for your opponent but definitly a valid concern. Since the deck is naturally at 14/14/14 your ability to draw a natural full house with even a 5 cycle 3 bullet rating is rather strong. Usually, a 2 stud with 2-4 draw support will allow you to get to a 5 of a kind, so killing yourself to get to 4-5 stud in a shootout totally overkill. As far as cheating punishment on our end, i only included coachwhip as it actually kills a dude, otherwise i might actually be at zero. The reason for this is Barton Everest in your normal start is just a ridiculous card that puts you over the top in any prolonged shootout. Your Rico should give you some hint into what kind of cheating punishment they're playing, and if its simply rank manipulation and nothing that will remove Barton from the battle, when we dont care. Maybe you lose the first round by 1-2, but from that point froward we just take over with our tight draw structure and the ability to turn 5oaK into Dead Mans Hands
Apr 17, 2016 SirLargeness Tusk also makes Funtime Freddy much better in regards to gaining stud bullets, and The Stakes Just Rose helps in this regard as well. If you feel like you're just severly underadvantaged than just wait untill you have Hot Lead Flyin' before you get into a shootout. with the amount of influence in the deck you're able to pick and choose your battles a significant portion of the time. CP wise, it doesnt hurt that 3 of our 10 deeds have 2 CPs, but to be fair i did have some games where i only saw 1-2 deeds the entire game, so you could maybe make an argument to add 1-2 more. I dont think they super matter cause Allie Hensman is actually your clock, but getting ghost rock is generally a good thing so totally personal call. I didnt get choked out of my own gameplan during those games, it was just slightly annoying.
Apr 17, 2016 LordManHammer Thanks for the answers and congratz on the deck - it seems great and will definetely go into our gauntlet as preparation for the Marshalls :D
Apr 18, 2016 Baron_Fel I've been playing similar decks now since Dirty Deeds came out but haven't been able to take it to a major tournament (latest version I've posted is this). I really feel like it's a deck with all the answers. I hadn't thought of switching to 4s with Tusk since Ghost Town came out, but I will definitely try it, having Hot Lead Flyin' pull for Barton Everest and Travis Moone is going to be so strong. I'm also going to have to switch to using Rico Rodegain like you are, that is just genius.
Apr 18, 2016 mplain `@Baron_Fel`Tusk doesn't help with your own pulls for HLF, if that's what you're thinking.
Apr 18, 2016 Baron_Fel `@mplain` I wasn't thinking that, just that Tusk is a great weapon on a 4 which is something we didn't have before Ghost Town so I wasn't able to use 4s in this way in previous versions of the deck.
Apr 18, 2016 SirLargeness Yeah, Tusk improved the draw structure of this deck a thousand fold. Its super great with barton and Fun time freddy, draws you cards to get closer to HLF, and allows you to safely run the great 4 value actions Coachwhip and Ambush.
Apr 18, 2016 dibat in testing before Tusk was previewed we were already addicted to cantrip effects and were bemoaning the lack of good attachments in 4 for a shooting deck
Apr 26, 2016 Steel_Web I am not sure if someone commented with this question because I am lazy and only read my comments lol But When you play Travis after Rico, can you use his ability?
Apr 26, 2016 SirLargeness Yeah, but you have to do it immediately after resolving Rico
Apr 26, 2016 Steel_Web I am sure immediately means as you play him from your deck. I mean are you going to wait until after lowball? Just trolling
Apr 26, 2016 SirLargeness I mean after Rico completely resolves, but before your opponent takes their grifter action (assuming you went first on grifters)
Apr 26, 2016 Steel_Web Right. I just never thought of not starting Travis. I mean from how I understood you have to do all Grifters ability together and having travis come out because of Rico, if confused me. I thought he was pretty much a dude with no ability
Apr 26, 2016 dibat and dont forget Travis is 2 bullets 1 ghost rock in the deck for some reason gogogogo
Apr 27, 2016 pvdel I tried the deck a couple times and it is completely ridiculous. I think we have a new king in the metagame and Clowns get dethroned. \o/ I also tried Fool Me Once and the card is so good I could even see playing 4 copies in this deck as pretty much only thing you need to win against a shooter is multiple Hot Leads and Fool Me Once helps you to draw into them. Against a non shootout decks Fool Me Once is straight up superior to any shootout actions. I also substitued Asakichi for Ramiro (same upkeep and I'd rather have another stud than a cycler - this could prove useful if you need a super-shooty starting posse against something like LD Straight Flush aggro that will come at you since turn1) and Howard Aswell for Ol' Howard (same purpose, Ol' Howard is 1 GR cheaper). I also added 1 Joker's Smile in place of 1 Pony Express as it's easy to cycle and the effect is qutie useful late game. :)
Apr 27, 2016 dibat `@pvdel`it's funny to hear that, since in our playgroup here we've spent a very long time with the deck and different versions and bemoaning HLF
Apr 27, 2016 dibat `@pvdel`uhh also Den is fundamentally broken, so Howard Aswell is really 2GR
Apr 27, 2016 pvdel `@dibat` I would put HLF and Clowns (and Slide to some extent) into the same basket, i.e. they invalidate most (or all) other strategies if you want to play exclusively competitevely. My 'joy' is a bittersweet feeling, as it appears the meta went into a direction, where Clowns are no longer the consensus best deck and its place has been taken over by HLF Den deck, which doesn't really change much, i.e. there is still a deck that hammers everything else. It just has a slightly different feeling. As a sidenote, I just want to say I have 50+ games under my belt with various HLF builds, so it's not like I had no idea the card was busted and now got my eyes opened. In my playgroup, we've just not been clever enough to find a version with Den+Makiao+Fred that destroys Clowns and therefore abandoned the HLF decks a while ago. As far as Howard vs Ol' Howard goes - they're both grifters, so the latter is 1 GR as opposed to 2 GR so to me, he's better as I'd rather pay 1 less gold than have 2 bullets at an additional expense.
Apr 27, 2016 SirLargeness glad you've had success with it. please feel free to share your experiences with clowns specifically though. i felt that i had outlined a solid strategy for the matchup but if there's a way i can further tweak it ill be glad to make further changes. And for what you're going for the changes you want seem fine, ol howard makes a solid 1 rock body.
Apr 27, 2016 SirLargeness `@pvdel`for my earlier post, forgot to tag.
Apr 28, 2016 Gozik I am always glad to play in octgn with anyone who thinks that clowns were dethroned (completly destroyed, become a cute distraction or whatever). TMCD has 6-0 in current league. I agree that this build is pretty strong in general but 4r control is still better:) Equip couple soul blasts. Go fight, ace couple dudes and run home with Willa. Then Paralise their high value dudes in deeds or home, play Brute, puppet some more meat shield and you are ready to give them another fight. So far I did not lost to hlf archetypes a single time. I think that this deck has chances to win but I would estimate them like 30% or less.
Apr 28, 2016 SirLargeness I mean, i still respect clowns, cause its tier 1. However, if you get both your soul blasts equipped by turn 2-3 then yeah, pretty much any deck is gonna have a bad time. its still a difficult matchup to manage, and i havent gotten to face your specific build as much as normal clowns, which i think we can agree differs in many ways.