108 Worldly Dead Man's Handits (2nd @ Huddersfield 12/12/15)

This deck ended up taking second place at a 6-player round-robin event in Huddersfield on 12/12/15. A very evenly matched field, with the top four players all on 3 wins/2 losses.

As usual, the night before I wasn't sure what to play. I'd been thinking of revisiting Law Dogs Dead Man's Hand, but some friendly games against Dan 'Whizzwang' Knight and his 108 Worldly Desires gadget deck instead got me thinking of revisiting my 108 Dead Man's Handits now that the 108 dude pool was a bit larger and they had an awesome home that helped out in shootouts.

I threw this together before going to bed, evidence of that being when I selected what I thought were the cards I used today on here, I ended up with 53. Turns out I didn't have 2 copies of Hired Guns in my deck after all! Yeah, change something for another one of those if you're thinking of running this at home :)

I got 5 Dead Man's Hands in total today: Three natural (one in lowball!) and two with help from jokers. I also got a couple of legal 5-of a kinds and plenty of legal 4's. When the deck gets going it shoots really well. Dude of the Day is definitely Michael "The Badger" Dodge. This guy with a few Tlaloc's Furies in play and riding La Quema is the kind of stud you need to get those Dead Man's Hands, plus La Quema's ability to enter a shootout and boot a dude nicely sets up his own ability. I used it a lot to counter my opponents' stud dudes, and I think I only failed the pull once.

Obviously it wasn't on the day, but the structure should be 16xA, 16x8, 4xJD and a scattering of useful cards. Off value dudes were mostly selected based on their having lots of bullets or helping to increase my bullets. Asakichi Cooke is there because her 'discard to move a dude' ability totally rocks. When Foul Play lands, the previewed 108 dude Forster Cooke will find a home here, probably at the expense of Xui Yin Chen. El Grajo starts because he can boot his weapon to recover from Sun in Yer Eyes, and also because I was expecting quite a few Shotguns so lower value high-bullet dudes like Ramiro Mendoza and John "Aces" Radcliffe didn't make the cut. Plus he's Doomtown Zorro. Why wouldn't you play him?

Now for a sketchy round-by-round summary:

Game 1 vs Kirsty's Law Dogs

The starting posse of Andrew, Phil, Tommy and Prescott made me think this was a good old Law Dogs Bounty Hunter deck, and I was quickly proven correct. After I'd played a couple of deeds to get my ghost rock reserve down to trigger my home's React, an early Hustings forced me to start moving around before I was really prepared to fight and the Bounty Hunters that follwed took advantage of the fact. I couldn't draw a good hand to save my dudes' lives and my influence was quickly whittled down.

Game 2 vs Scott's Desolation Row

If I was getting bad draw hands in my first game, Scott was having worse luck in this game. Despite running a strong 3-value shooter the best he could get in shootouts seemed to be two pair (and Full Houses for lowball, of course). When your kidnap attempt runs into a Dead Man's Hand early on and you lose half your dudes, it's not going to be easy to come back and that put Scott on the back foot while I was able to build up strength. Makaio put up a stronger-than-expected resistance, but eventually succumbed to the horde of 108 dudes I was able to play.

Game 3 vs Tom's Sanatorium

Tom has been playing this deck since The Light Shineth, and as he's one of my local playgroup I've faced it a lot and helped tweak it. Wretched with Shotguns, riding Pintos. Usually it'll get going early on and be a real pain to deal with as thanks to Soul Cage recurring either Wretched themselves or Brute/Freddy to fuel them, there's usually at least one Wretched in play at any time. Luckily for me, Tom didn't see any Soul Cages or many Wretched either. I was able to lock down his economy thanks to the team of Benjamin, Xiaodan and Hiram, and that bought me time to build up a position of strength that eventually led to the win.

Game 4 vs John's Morgan Gadgetorium

I assume John was suspecting a 108-slide, as early on he sent Jen, Irving and Specks into town and then one by one to sit on my Circle M Ranch. As I saw what he was doing, I moved The Badger, Benjamin and Xiaodan over there too. Badger knocked Jen's bullets down and then I drew into a Dead Man's Hand, acing Specks and Irving. Jen retreated home as she was the only dude with influence John had left. Next turn he made the mistake of playing a deed and I was able to gather enough control to force check. One town square shootout later and thanks to This'll Hurt in the Mornin' turning a cheating 4oaK into a pair there was no influence remaining on the Morgan side of the table.

Game 5 vs George's Morgan Stables

This didn't go very well for me at all. One of those games where all my on value cards showed up in my play hand and during lowball, and all the off-values in shootout hands. George didn't make it any easier, quickly building up a force of dudes with Pintos and Quickdraw Handguns and frequently either having An Accidental Reunion in hand or drawing into it after using Morgan Stables React. I played plenty of dudes and plenty of deeds, and I made a ton of ghost rock from my Undertaker burying my dudes from being unable to draw a good non-chatin' hand all game, but it was all for naught as control was constantly spiralling away from me.