108 Piggin' Shotguns (2nd @ OG Games York Deputy 09/04/16)

published Apr 09, 2016 | | |
Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet

DoomDog 972

I took this deck to second place at the OG Games York Deputy event on 09/04/16, ending with a 3-1 record in a 9 player event. The field was overall very shootout-friendly with a wide spread of decktypes. Even though there were only a few different homes in use, I don't think any two decks were too similar. For those of you who like to keep track of the state of the metagame, in addition to my Worldly Desires Zhu Bajie fu we saw the following deck types in action:

108 Worldly Desires Hot Lead Flyin', 108 Righteous Bandits Jade Rabbit fu, Law Dogs hexes & miracles, Law Dogs bounty hunters, MCC Quatermen & Auto Gatlings, MCC MechaByrne, Den of Thieves aggro & Den of Thieves shooty hucksters.


As Ghost Town brought us Carlton "Min" Rutherford and Pigging Out, I decided it was finally time to try out a Zhu Bajie kung fu deck. Shotguns work really well with that particular style of fu, so they were in. As it can result in you having a big stud in the fight I ended up going for a straight flush structure with backup full house/four of a kind potential in threes and twos.

Strategy-wise it's a fairly straightforward Zhu Bajie deck. Get a Shotgun on Bai Yang Chen ASAP and then camp everyone in the town square and bluff you've got a Hot Lead Flyin' in your hand. Use Kidnappin's to threaten dudes you can hit with your Shotgun or whose value can be reduced with Raking Dragons to put them in range of a face full of shot.

Okay, yes, it probably would be more effective to go all-in on Hot Lead Flyin' for my 6 of clubs, as proven by Dan Knight's 108 Hot Lead deck beating me to win the event, but I'm not a fan of lose-to-win cards and he's clearly a man with fewer qualms :)

So, how did it all go?

Game 1 Vs Paul's Den of Hucksters

Paul used Ol' Howard to grab The Joker's Smile. Worldly Desires helped me win lowball. Bai Yang Chen got a Shotgun and went into the Town Square to look threatening, and was joined by Min. Paul gave Barton a LeMat Revolver then attempted a Kidnappin' on Jake Smiley with Barton and Antheia. Bai and Min booted back to help defend and as I was fighting at a location I controlled Yunxu Jiang's trait kicked in bringing Barton into Shotgun threat territory. The kidnap attempt was thwarted and Paul was left on the back foot for the remainder of the game, doubly so after my own Kidnappin' took out Theo Whateley-Boyer. He almost clawed it back with some lucky town square shootin'. Devil's Jokers helped his posse of no-bullet draw dudes win two rounds in a shootout and clear out my expendable bodies prompting me into a retreat, but he couldn't find enough dudes and when I got a second Kidnappin' and blasted Ulysses away with the aid of a Stone Idol it was over.

Game 2 Vs Dave's MCC MechaByrne

Dave was running a very risky 0 production low Ghost Rock start. William Specks helped him get a Cattle Market into play so I went over to take control of it, he moved in J.W. Byrne with a LeMat Revolver. I passed awaiting the callout, and then to my surprise he passed too as he'd forgotten J.W. didn't have any influence. The mistake was costly as he had nothing in his stash and lost the next turn's lowball meaning he couldn't afford to pay all his dudes and discarded Jen. He managed to get a Mechanical Horse into play and traded to J.W. before I was able to send Bai and his Shotgun to take out Specks. Irving booted to build a Quarantine Tent and I went after him but things didn't go well as A Slight Modification turned a Mechanical Horse into some body armour to prevent the Shotgun and the ensuing shootout went badly for me leaving me with just Bai, Jake and Yunxu standing.

The situation was very tense - Dave on 2 influence, me on 3 influence, 3 control points on his side of the board and 2 on mine. The problem for him was that all his influence belonged to Irving Patterson who was very at risk from my shotgun. Bai Yang Chen went after Irving again with a Kidnappin' but J.W. and Tyxarglenak successfully defended the job and Bai got aced. Dave booted Irving across town to take my Orphanage. I had just enough ghost rock to be able to give Yunxu a shotgun and Dave made another error in not moving J.W. in to back up Irving in time, so Yunxu blasted Irving with the shotgun to win the game.

Game 3 Vs Vince's Law Dogs Hexes & Blessed

Another game where I got a shotgun in my opening hand. Bai Yang Chen and friends again moved out into town to be threatening and limit Vince's movement options. Vince had a bad starting hand and no grifter, and his deck never really got moving while I saw enough deeds to get a decent economy going and got several more dudes into play. A successful Kidnappin' on Wilber saw the end of his huckstering, and while he managed to stack up the bounties on my dudes with Constance and annoyed me with Bounty Hunters, the only casualty was an isolated Jake Smiley and by that point I'd got plenty of other influence in play. While Vince couldn't push the game I didn't find enough deeds or Kidnappin's to close it and we went to tiebreakers with time being called just at the start of a turn. At that point all my dudes were in the town square and I'd just drawn a Hustings, so my first move was to play that. Vince sent Constance to contest it but Bai Yang Chen and his trusty shotgun launched a Kidnappin' to successfully remove her. Vince couldn't recover from the influence loss so another win for the 108.

Game 4 Vs Dan's 108 Worldly Hot Lead

Dan won lowball and moved Xui Yin Chen into town square. This made things tricky for me as I figured if I went to call her out he'd boot everyone else in, make them all studs and have Hot Lead Flyin' if things went badly while I didn't have a hand with many options. After he'd moved a few dudes away from home I sent a Kidnappin' posse after his Yunxu Jiang which he let succeed. He then played Allie Hensman, putting me into the tricky position of having to take on his dudes in town square, be victorious, and avoid losing everyone to Hot Lead Flyin'. Not having a shotgun handy for a change make this even more of a challenge. I had to try but despite having 7 stud, 3 draw and Worldly Desires I couldn't get better than a cheatin' 4-of-a-kind, that was then Bottom Dealt into a 3-of-a-kind by Dan to win the first round. I had to stay and fight, again the straight flush eluded me but a 5-of-a-kind was an acceptable compromise. Unfortunately Dan was holding on to a Hot Lead Flyin' which wiped out my posse.

We were supposed to play a final between the top two players, but as that was myself and Dan I conceded the game to him as his deck effectively countered mine and it would have likely been the same result very quickly. Second place was far better than I was expecting from this deck and I'd got the alt-art Jake Smiley I was after so I was happy with the result.

4 comments
May 03, 2016 Baron_Fel

With Hot Lead Flyin' basically nerfed out of existence, I think this deck has suddenly gotten a lot better. Are there any changes you've thought to make to this deck in the last month?

I would love to see a version of this deck that starts Forster Cooke and Companhurst's, but I'm not certain it can be effectively done.

May 03, 2016 DoomDog

It's not something I've been thinking about. The obvious one would be to drop the now largely redundant copy of HLF for a different 6 of clubs.

May 03, 2016 Whizzwang

I'm up for a non hlf rematch Hogg if you are.

I still have no qualms about playing lose to win though

May 03, 2016 DoomDog

Sure, I'd love to see what the latest annoying combo you've found is :P