Meng's Circus of Crime

Because this deck features more clowns than it does outlaws.

The Abomination Series tag isn't quite accurate. Fanboy 3's Abomination Series event was rescheduled due to the kits not quite arriving in the UK in time, so instead they ran an event with an old OP kit. I decided to take this dumb idea of an Abomination deck along anyway and surprisingly managed to win all three games I played.

The gimmick is simple. You've got a bunch of cheap Abominations. You can either pay 2GR and play them normally to give you casualty soak, or you can pay 2GR to give Summoning to Darragh Mèng and run the job to get your monster into play with a control point to further your win condition. Ezekiah Grimme is there to help find copies of Summoning.

As The Brute's job is usually to stand in front of everyone else and take the bullets, you'd usually just play him normally. The same applies to Bobo due to his high upkeep. With Meng's Huckster 3 in play, Bobo becomes a mighty rent-a-stud for a turn and can help you with your Summoning ritual.

Against Kirsty's Gateway To Beyond totem deck I managed to successfully run the Summoning job a couple of times while she was loading up her deeds with Tse-Che-Nako's Weaving and moving her dudes between her home and her deeds with various Spirit abilities. I stayed in the game with help from her Yan Li's Tailoring and Bilton Collection Agency. (It later turned out we'd been playing Weaving wrong as neither of us was familiar with the card).

By the time it came to shootouts I had a couple of Faster on the Draws and a Coachwhip! ready. Marcia, Enapay and Zachary all fell in battle. The arrival of Mick Aduladi brought hope but there were ultimately too many deeds to cover and Aboms with CP for the First Peoples to prevail.

Vince was playing Eagle Wardens Bull Demon fu. I got The Brute into play early on, so I felt I would chance a Summoning against a town square full of Wardens. I found out the hard way that Vince was also running Pistol Whips, as The Brute was sent home leaving Meng and Barton to the mercies of Wei Xu's Behold White Bull that had been played earlier. Thanks to Turtle's Guard, Vinces dudes came away unscathed. There followed several turns of hiding away at home building up.

Eventually some deeds hit play, and I managed to whack Wei Xu with a Coachwhip during a shootout at my Town Council. Pagliaccios proved useful in this game - their ability dropping opposing dudes' values led to a couple of failed Kung fu pulls. With a bit of economy established I could afford a few more Abominations to keep sending into shootouts, and managed to get most of Vince's dudes booted or out of position, also Coachwhipping away Enapay and his Turtle's Guard in another shootout.

Vince brought in reinforcements in the shape of Ramiro Mendoza. With time drawing close, I decided to go for a risky strategy and started booting my dudes over to his deeds (town square was full of booted dudes, but also an unbooted Willa Mae). It was either down to my switch in style or a distraction from his daughters breaking his concentration, but Vince moved Ramiro into town square to chase after my dudes, forgetting I had control of his Nickel Night Inn. Ramiro was booted by the inn, and the in the epic battle of Willa vs Clementine I got lucky and drew a legal four-of-a-kind off the top of my deck to win. With Vince's dudes booted out I played Marion Seville to take a final deed for the game.

Finally I played against Paul's Slucksters, today out of Protection Racket with Raven. An early Nightmare Realm, Heartseeker and Peacemaker for Barton meant I decided to hang back from town square and let him get a couple of CP on Allie. Despite having Summoning from the first turn, I couldn't risk running the job, and instead I started building up my side of town and hiring a few Abominations.

Knowing Paul to be someone unafraid to throw down Cheatin' five-of-a-kinds, I was waiting for a Cheatin' Res before engaging him in town square, so when I drew Bottom Dealin' I went for it. Running into Dave "Slim" Gorman's tricks combined with a Bowie Knife and The Stakes Just Rose meant my posse was reduced to draws while Paul still had plenty of stud, but despite his advantage he couldn't get a good legal hand so went with a Cheatin' 5oaK to my full house. Bottom Dealin' saved the shootout for me and saw his Darragh Meng and Dave go to Boot Hill. He still had plenty of stud and I was out of Cheatin' Res so I withdrew home.

Allie was still an issue, but I saw my Nickel Night Inn which helped slow her down. Sanford Taylor, incongruously dressed in a Knight's Chasuble, reinforced Paul's gang. He nearly took control of the Inn until I remembered I had Clementine Lepp, whose trait hadn't been relevant in my previous games. He still had control of town square and was avoiding playing deeds, and I was building up a horde of Abominations while looking for another Cheatin' Res to go into a shootout with. The lone Bottom Dealin' came round again so I headed into town. After being given no choice but to cheat and going unpunished for it (surprising me, I was sure he'd have drawn a Cheatin' Res by that stage of the game), I ended up not needing to use the Bottom Dealin' as I could safely match Paul hand-for-hand. He fought on despite the attrition game being stacked against him, but wasn't as lucky with his draw hands in later rounds and lost too much influence.