Morgan Gadgets (8+J+Q) Flyin' Zombies

published Mar 10, 2016 | | |
Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
Morgans Flyin Zombies 13 16 12
Inspiration for
[Moscow OP3 Winner] Morgan Flyin' Zombies 5 2 5

mplain 1657

Since everyone's posting their versions of @Prodigy's deck Morgans Flyin Zombies, I thought I'd post mine as well. I had huge success with it on OCTGN, up to a point where I'm starting to think gadgets might be already there.

The deck performed well against pretty much everything I encountered online. I had troubles with @gozik's Clowns (obviously), and I hit a wall playing against @SirLargeness's dudeswarm Den deck. Didn't encounter any landslide.

You have huge economy early on, with your mad scientists inventing Disgenuine Currency Press and building out of town deeds. Don't engage early and don't try to mess with their economy, your late game is probably stronger than theirs.

Preferred start is: use Specks to help Arnold invent a Disgenuine Currency Press, then use Arnold's ability to find an out-of-town deed, and send Irving to build it using the home ability. Repeat this for a couple of turns. Get at least two Force Field and one Yagn's, and preferrably a Bio-Charged Neutralizer. Once you have two studs and two Force Fields and some money, you can engage.

Or, you can wait some more and get "Dead" Billy Jones with an Ornithopter and Louis Pasteur in play, get some Slight Mods and INWYKs, and a ton of money (easy with this deck). After that you're pretty much unbeatable - every shootout will result in your opponent taking a casualty every round, while you just keep sending Billy home and bringing him back.

  • Individual cards:

Luke, the Errand Boy lets you juggle Neutralizers around and can become a formidable 4-stud, can also pass his gun over to someone else if he gets Sunned, and can let a Pistol Whip-ed dude get back in the posse by passing the Ornithopter. Remember, he can grab gadgets from outside the posse (even if he's not in it), and pass them over to outside the posse (if he's in). If he's standing in the town square and your Irving gets attacked at a deed, Luke can pass him an Ornithopter all the way from your home. Oh, and if you don't have Billy or INWYK to abuse your Force Field, Luke is the first one to bite the dust. But he'll come back! Hopefully not as your mad scientist pull...

"Dead" Billy Jones is very good even without the Personal Ornithopter, just give him a Bio-Charged Neutralizer and a Force Field. So I upped him to 2 copies, unfortunately at the expense of Lane Healey. It might also be worth it to start Billy in place of Jen.

Steven Wiles is here to make it easier for you to cycle away Disgenuine Currency Press. Play him even if you're not planning to engage: give him the Press or two, and send him to an out of town deed - your opponent's, or yours if they're trying to choke your economy. He can also use the home ability.

Miasmatic Purifiers are your main victory condition in case your opponent doesn't want to fight you, seeing as he just keeps losing dudes to your Force Fields.

Louis Pasteur is a game-changer when you have enough cash. Reeeally strong. Engage, make them empty their hand, soak up a casualty, flee home, unboot, engage again, wipe them out. Or, play cat-and-mouse with your opponent, make him boot out, then surprise him with lost of unbooted dude to occupy all his deeds. In this deck, you can actually afford it all!

J.W. Byrne is super effective with Yagn's, might be worth it to start him in place of Jen, although you do get 1 less influence out of it, and 1 fewer mad scientist in case you get flooded with gadgets (it happens). Since this deck is more about late game control, not early aggro, I prefer Jen, but I'm always happy to draw J.W. later on.

  • Off-value cards

There are certain off-value cards that I would like to have at least as a 1-of to give me more options, some of them made it into the deck, some didn't - these are flexible slots, something to experiment with.

Personal Ornithopter is an obvious inclusion, without it the deck wouldn't be Flyin' Zombies :) If you get it early, you can also give it to Irving and abuse the home ability without much risk. Be mindful if your opponent won lowball and might have Unprepared, but you have Slight Mod to counter it.

Kidnappin' is in because, well, gadget decks generally lack the surprise factor, so here is some. Mostly for when they send their influence to your out of town deeds, but you can also use it when they spread out to force them off your deeds, and then build some Miasmatic Purifiers and win by CP.

Mario Crane doesn't quite work with the general strategy of the deck -- but he actually acts like an alternative to that strategy. Instead of attacking with a bunch of dudes and making your zombies fly there and back again, you engage with Mario solo instead, and he'll even save you some ghost rock that you would otherwise have to pay to use Personal Ornithopter. An added (and sometimes vital) benefit is that he's immune to lose-to-win tactics like Takin' Ya With Me and Hot Lead Flyin' -- which might otherwise wreak your strategy. Just keep it legal!

Telepathy Helmet - an awesome card, but A Slight Modification helps a lot vs. Unprepared, while Yagn's makes your dudes immune to Pistol Whip, and you don't fear many other targeted Shootout abilities.

Mechanical Horse - some more mobility is always nice, sure. I tested it, but haven't really found it necessary. Billy's ability is usually enough (yes, don't forget he also has a useful ability!)

Marty - sidekicks are good with Force Field, and this one is on value, and speeds up your gadgets (although you probably has enough speed). An okay card. just didn't make the cut.

Outgunned seems to be excellent in combination with Force Field, however in testing I found that it's not all that often that my posse has more bullets than the opposing one, and it also limits my mobility somewhat. But mostly I just think that Unprepared is more crucial to neutralize certain cards that negate my strategy.

  • Things to watch out for

Shield of Faith and Holy Roller stop your Force Field shenanigans from killing off opposing dudes. The best way to deal with it if you don't have enough Unpreps and Slight Mods is to make your opponent use them, flee home, unboot with Louis Pasteur, and come back.

Pinned Down - few people play this, simply because they usually play Kidnappin' instead. But it can totally ruin your day. Slight Mod and INWYK help here.

No Funny Stuff - watch out! This nasty thing blocks Force Field! Don't waste your Slight Mods on petty stuff if you expect this.

Takin' Ya With Me and Hot Lead Flyin' can ruin your day if you rely on winning shootouts, including the Force Field + INWYK combo. Better have your zombies around!

8 comments
Mar 10, 2016 Prodigy

I like this version a lot! I often had a problem with TOO MUCH ghost rock with the original version, and nothing to do with it but threaten to use my force field 24 times in a row out of pure hilarity.

This version looks like it will still have a good amount of GR without having so much it can't spend it, and gains a lot of shootout power in the process (early game especially).

Mar 10, 2016 db0

You might consider 1x Xemo's Turban to have something useful to do with all that GR.

It also seems like Scoop Hound is going to hurt against this deck, especially if coupled with Unprepared. Likewise with Point Blank

Mar 10, 2016 Baron_Fel

Sarah Meoquanee is a pretty decent, on-value dude to consider for any deck that uses Yagn's Mechanical Skeleton and starts Chuan "Jen" Qí

Mar 10, 2016 SirLargeness

its just hard to make decks like this resilient against HLF. No Funny Stuff shuts down your own actions, so it just puts alot of pressure on the MCC player to play around HLF almost the entire game.

Mar 10, 2016 SirLargeness

any thoughts to switching out Blake ranch for Tax office to make your Js stronger? Also (just rambling at this point) but if youre fine with committing a bit more to Js, Flight of the Lepus is pretty freaking awesome against HLF decks. Removing 3 dudes from their posse of your choice can really hurt the effectiveness of their pulls, and if you get rid of the highest value dudes, then i may cause it to misfire altogether

Mar 10, 2016 mplain

@ProdigyThank you for the excellent idea of a deck man!! :)

@db0There are lots of things I would love to have as a 1x in this deck, but I already have 8 off-value cards, and Xemo's Turban isn't really at the top of the list. I don't actually have a problem with excessive money OR with cycling cards in hand, but I do have plenty of clubs in the deck, so that fancy headdress would get stuck a lot, I suspect.

Scoop Hound won't really hurt me much because I don't rely on Personal Ornithopter like @Prodigy's original version does, it's just one of the options for late game, I can do fine without it. Plus, I can always Unprep or Slight Mod the Hound, or just let them use it, run away, unboot with Louis Pasteur, and come back.

As for Point Blank, yeah, I remember your story about Mario Crane vs. Flame-Thrower, but then again I don't usually engage solo, and now I have Slight Mod. The good thing about gadgets now as compared to gadgets then is that first, you have more ways to protect the combo, and second, the deck doesn't actually rely on the combo as much now. Thank you for that! :)

@Baron_FelCheap studs isn't actually something that I need here. I can make any dude a cheap stud with a high bullet rating. I'd rather have some cheap influence instead, but that's hard to find on high values unfortunately =_=

@SirLargenessMaking this deck more resilent against Hot Lead will probably make it weaker against the rest of the field, and taking more useful stuff off-value will wreak my structure, which is already not very good.

Blake Ranch I actually need very much because it's one of only 4 out-of-town deeds that I need to kickstart my economy - and it's totally worth it, it works wonders!

If I wanted California Tax Office, I could swap one of the three Miasmatic Purifiers for it, but I'm not sure I want it. Maybe.

Flight of the Lepus would be just slightly better against HLF than INWYK, removing three dudes instead of four (or, yeah, one Brute), but it would be worse for other matchups... Actually, removing their claim soak to make them discard the juicy dudes sounds like fun, but then I'd need more meat shelds of my own, namely more flyin' zombies or sidekicks. But Mario Crane, Ornithopter, Scoop Hound and Marty are all on different values from Flight of the Lepus, so that would make a total mess out of my draw structure. Would need to reword the deck, maybe drop Q's for 10's. An option to consider.

Thanks for the input guys! :)

Mar 14, 2016 Baron_Fel

Random thought I had, have you thought about pulling one of the Yagn's Mechanical Skeletons for a Horse Wranglin'?

While it slightly hurts you draw structure (jacks are only your 3rd value) and lessens the total number of Yagns you can have out, for just one more money it is essentially a copy of either Yagn's or the Personal Ornithopter, whichever you need at that moment.

Mar 15, 2016 mplain

@Baron_FelI don't think this is a good idea. My draw structure is as loose as I can afford already. Every new off-value card is a nail in my coffin. Especially a low value one. I would rather just take a second Ornithopter.