Next Level Slide - Top2 - OP Kit Warsaw, Poland - 28/11/15

You say that Rumors are worthless because with this deck's inevitability factor it doesn't really matter if you win on turn 14 or turn 15. How does this principle apply to a tournament environment where your game will often go to time before turn 15? I'm not talking about winning a turn earlier, I'm talking about going to tiebreakers. Does this happen a lot in your experience? If a match is likely to go to time, it would seem like a good idea to ensure that you have one extra trick to win tiebreakers.

You're saying that you'd swap The Whateley Estate with Maza Gang Hideout. But the Estate gives you 2 CP, which might be pretty important. I'd understand playing a copy of both to get one sooner, but outright swapping the Estate for the Hideout - why? Just because it costs 2 gr cheaper? Isn't 2 CP worth it?

Re: Rumors: With this deck, you need to play fast (within reason, not Usain Bolt-fast). It comes with practice, but if by nature, you're a slow-thinker prone to analysis-paralysis , you should probably pick a deck other than Landslide/Clown control, becuase you might not be able finish the game in time. And I don't mean it in an offensive way; some people need to take their time, which is fine. However, if you play at a reasonable pace, you'll almost always finish the game in time. To give you some perspective, i'd say, I tend to win most games in 15-20 minutes. Games, where I need to assemble 12+ CP to win may take longer, I'd say up to 40 minutes.

The only times when I ever exceeded the time limit (we do pay attention to the clock even in casual games) was: 1) against a Landslide mirror, where we both had 20+ influence and it was not possible to win the game at all (with or without Rumors); 2) against Gozik's clowns, where opponent have never drawn a Puppet and the game stalemated in the same way as against a Landlisde opponent; 3) one or two random games where I was learning how to play the deck and the build was not optimised (i.e. I've been testing 4GR deeds)

All in all, you will win within the time limit against pretty much any opponent, and against the decks that you'll struggle to win early enough (mirror), Rumors won't really help. We've tested Landlisde with Rumors against Landslide without Rumors and they never mattered. The plan is to be faster with the deed-drop and win with Nicodemus.

Re: Maza Gang Hideout: To be honest, it might be correct to play both. I'd need to test that. There is a risk, that if you continue to remove CP deeds and substitute them for cheap 0CP deeds, you'll cross the threshold of actually being able to win... but I don't think we're at that point yet. Right now, my gut feeling is that you can remove the Estate altogether, as the 2 CP were never crucial. They sort of served the Rumors function, i.e. you won a turn earlier, but the game was pretty much a win-on-board situation anyways.

@mplain I'm going to second your point that Rumors is clutch in a tournament setting. When games go to time, and you've only got a couple actions left, Dropping a deed-controlling 1-influence dude down to 0 influence with no recourse for your opponent has won me multiple tournament games.

Carefully thought-out concept with a very well written description. Grats!

I would like to chime in the Whateley vs Maza debate. I think the later is a much less useful deed to carry out the CP rush since contrary to the Estate the Hideout doesn't boot the opponent if he gets there with any kind of movement effect other than normal walking.

On a side note: since I'm a registered hater of landslide decks (used by veterans), I would like to see you building other type of decks that actually call for some real brainwork during the game itself. :)

As far as Maza vs Estate goes - I were wrong and you are correct. I now play both (at the expense of Morgan Mining Company) for the exact reason @Csonti mentioned. If they have a Shadow Walk or occupy your Railroad Station, you're CP engine doesn't work and it actually proved to be very costly against my most recent game against Control Clowns.

Also, I'll be testing a single copy of Doris Powell to check how reliably I can muster the 2-3 CPs on her.

Thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated.

Thanks for sharing your decklist. Please defend buried treasure in this deck, also why run deeds that offer 2CP? Ive always considered that a no-no :\

Also, now that ive read the blog I understand buried treasure a bit better. my problem is finding things to ace for it. Because you defend the choice with running econ cards or risky things like Cooke's, as a way "out" of dealing with buried's ace requirement. Why not just run none of those "risk"-based options?

@dibatThe key thing is - Buried treasure does not have a drawback. You think of the aceing part as if it were something negative, whereas it is actually a positive. And it doesn't really matter too much what card you are aceing. There are better and worse choices, but ultimately it is barely relevant (I tend to ace the cards in the following order: The Evidence, Blake Ranch, Cooke's Nightcap, Jackson's Strike, Pat's Perch, Buried Treasure, 3 GR deed, One Good Turn). Also, economy deeds are there not because of Buried Treasure. Quite frankly, I would play them even if Buried Treasure never existed. This is because these cards (Blake Ranch, Jackson's Strike, Pat's Perch, Cooke's Nightcap...) are good on their own. There is no denying that their effectivness diminishes the later you play them, but it's not the end of the world if you play them on turn 8. It's just that you'd rather play a 2-1 deed at that time, because you'd rather want to wrap up the game at that point and you don't really care whether you earn 12 or 15 money in the late game. However, you can still cycle them without much harm to your game plan. You will eventually draw your relavant deeds anyways.

As far as Cooke's Nightcap is concerned - this card is questioned a lot. It is by no means perfect and I'd happily replace it for a 2-1 deed in the future. However it is not so bad as most people think. In order to understand why you can afford to play it in this deck, you need to answer the following question: when does this card lose me the game? And the answer is fairly simple - pretty much only if you are playing against something crazy aggresive that kills 2 of your guys a turn (aka 8+ spot removal.deck). Are there many such decks in the meta-game? Not at all. There are some Law Dogs and possibly some Deso Row/Den of Thieves lists, but they need to get a lucky draw and there are not that many of such decks in the meta game anyway as these decks have a lot of their own problems. Against any other decks (excluding combo Totems, where you actually might lose if they combo out early), you will just not lose (with or without the Nightcap). Never ever. It does not really matter if they sit at your Nightcap from turn 1 and never leave the deed. These 2 CP won't matter. However the 2 GR you spent on the deed matters a lot as you aim at having as many cheap deeds as possible, as early as possible. Games with this deck are often won on lost on day 1-3. You need to play as many deeds as you can, so that you can propel your production and hand cycling to victory. You need to understand your first 4-5 deeds will be taken over. Every time. Therefore they must be as cheap as possible. You'd rather have your opponent influence stranded on a 2 GR deed than a 3 GR deed even though the former nets them 2 CP. These control points are irrelevant at this stage of the game. Furthermore, against certain matchups you can start with Hiram and Clementine. With this configuration, contesting the Saloon back is pretty trivial.

As a side-note - if there were enough of the 2-1-1 deeds in the game, I would have played 17 such deeds, R&D Ranch, Pat's Perch, Maza Gang Hideout and The Whateley Estate. Unfortunately, you can't have everything. ;)

I was debating running buried treasure in my MCC slide list, i can give it a spin sometime soon I think. i think this deck may have trouble with allie-centric townsquare taking decks?

Also, the only other problem with running the deck with the fast-cycle/card use method is you can't run rumors (regardless of anyone's opinion of it) since it's a card you load multiples of for one turn. So if I run buried treasure id likely be cutting the rumors to test.

Allie-centric decks stand no chance. They have trouble taking over your deeds and Allie is too slow. Even 2 CP with Allie and home a turn is too slow. I've tested that matchup.

I dont know how your games dont go to time without running rumors. do people at the tournament just never prepare for landslide?