I love my QUATERMAN deck. Even if it's not the best Gadget deck out there, I love the theme of creating a bunch of robo-cowboys! And even better, their immunity to bullet changes and being moved means that it messes up a lot of opponents' strategies. I love it when they try to play Sun in Yer Eyes, only to realize that QUATERMAN doesn't care!
So I was thrilled to see QUATERMAN PRIME, the new and improved version! He has the same benefits as the original with more bullets, and extra cost. The extra casualty for cheatin' players is a nice benefit, and the double-edged sword that means it effects you too means it fits well with the Law Dogs, especially Fort 51, given that they tend not to cheat.
The bad news: I've tried to make him work in a Law Dogs deck, but it just really doesn't work, which disappoints me greatly. There are a couple of reasons:
- Because the rules don't allow you to have Gadget Dudes in your starting posse (unless you have an ability that says so like POST-A-TRON), you can't build a deck where PRIME is a core strategy. And PRIME isn't Non-Unique like his regular counterparts, meaning if you run more than 1 or 2 of him, you're likely to get dead hands. But if you only run 1 or 2 of him, your play hand only gets PRIME once in a blue moon.
- The 4 value and 6 difficulty is tough for Law Dogs where he seems to synergize best. Most decks assume you will always succeed on your pulls, so if there are any other 4s in your deck, you need a Mad Scientist 2. There are currently no Mad Scientist 2 dudes in Law Dogs. You can use Dr. Dayl Burnett, but you have to remove a bounty from an opposing dude. If you include Drifters there's Margaret Hagerty, but that means you're relying on a single dude to allow QUATERMAN PRIME to be auto-pulled (which wouldn't be an issue if you could start with Gadget Dudes). And since Margaret is a Drifter, you might as well put both her and PRIME in another faction, or give up and switch to Entrepreneurs.
- Related to value, if you're running QUATERMAN PRIME, you naturally want to run the original QUATERMAN. But with the latter being a 3♠︎, the pulls are even more difficult if you include them.
Maybe someday the rules will change to let you put any gadget dudes in your starting posse so he can see play more often, or Law Dogs will get a Mad Scientist 2 so he can be auto-pulled. But for now, Law Dogs can't very well build a deck that includes him, meaning only Entrepreneurs can effectively invent him.