The Most Consistent Deck (1st@Moscow 5-0)

published Sep 26, 2015 | | |
Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
Clowntrol 3 3 1
Inspiration for
Clown Control 2.0 - Winner - 13-players, Cracow, Poland 9 12 18

Gozik 612

BEWARE! WALL OF TEXT COMING!

So this is what I call control clown deck. This build is insane and wins everything incuding landslides, Judge decks, other clown builds.

Main concept is that you do not initiate any fight. NEVER, unless you win whole game regardless shootout result (you can attack opponent to boot him with Unprepared or Take him with you).

You don't need to win any shootout to win the whole game. After you get and apply this landslyde concept, it is much easier to pilot this deck. Meanwhile if you was forced into some gunfights, that doesn't mean that you lose them. This deck can show teeth to any agrobuild.

That was general idea, now specific choises and reasons behind them.

Starting posse

1) Influence

Starting posse has only 4 influence but it can be increased up to 5 with 2 hexes on Popescus. Vs 4R I would swap The Brute for Jake Smiley, vs the rest archetypes 4 starting influence is enough.

2) Upkeep

You have 3 income every turn and unless your opponent doesn't play structureless deck you have good chance to win lowball as well. With outfit ability and without any deed you get 3-5 income every turn. Play as much cards as possible every turn, cycle the rest. This can snowball very quickly into huge card advantage. It is possible to start Jake in Arnold's slot vs landslide to have even better starting boost. But this is optional swap.

3) 5 dudes

This is pretty mandatory requirement for any competitive deck right now. You need mobility to play around paralysis marks, you need meat shield to soak some bounty hunters, you need some expendable dudes to make bait plays (like shooting with solo travis to boot opponent with Unprepared or to force his dudes to join posse booted).

Arnold and Brute make your shield even better. Arnold can easily save all but Popescus from starting posse. And Brute always works as second life if something went wrong in shooutout. He lets you to commit to some defence shootouts which you would just pass otherwise. Don't overuse this. You still don't need to defend if opponent overcommit to kidnapping.

Another important thing about this posse is that it doesn't feature any leader. You have Valeria, stud and huckster 1, Popescus - huckster with potential 2 influence who carries all initial spells, Arnold - 2 influence dude with solid ability. By separating all eggs in different busckets we left really tough choice to opponent how to spend his kidnepping. And even if you lose 2 of them this deck still functions and can win the game.

And yes, this is almost impossible to kill anyone of those 3 without targeting one as mark of some kind of job(kidnepping is most common). Travis, Brute and Arnold ability can soak up to 7 casualties.

Deck

4) Structure cards

This deck has 8, 10, Q as shootout values with almost equal number of cards (14-13-13). This allows you to win lowballs pretty regular and show decent hands in shootouts. This deck lacks 9 or J beacause you don't need them to win games. Phantasm is great control spell but 4 slots is enough for this purpose, and Paralisys Mark is better by any means. (Probably if your meta full of Max Exp decks you should swap to 9s, but I still not sure). Also 8s features Steven Wiles who prevents you from losing games, and Rumores that actually win you games. Js are great with its Hex Slingin if you want to win shootouts, but anything can go wrong if you plan to win with draw hand, so I dropped them.

10 is great value for any deck as long as you have problem with clown decks (and I don't believe that you don't). Carter's Bounty and Shadow Walk give you mobility to play around Paralisys Marks. Unprepared prevents that monster huckster from casting all his Soulblasts and Blood Curses, and also helps to outmaneuver any opponent (remember that it can be used as lose-to-win style like TYWM). Baird's B&L is great for sliding deeds and that's what we ussually do.

Recrutment drive is probably MVP of this deck. It lets you recover from first turn all-in kidnepping, in late game when you boot everyone it tutors Nickodemeus Whataley or Pharmacy to finish games, it can be played as bait forcing opponent to boot into town square. This card deserves its slot without any doubt, but I'm not sure that deck needs second copy.

Too Much Attention is last minute addition, I had seen it once when it saved my ass vs Judge by delaying his second job for a turn and that gave me space to build up. It is nice tech card that can ruin opponent's plans but it is optional and can be easily droped.

Queens contains your main win condition - Blood Curse. This card is absolutely amazing and no chance that Soul Cage can hope for a slot here. I'm sorry, but nope. BC helps you defend vs opponent's early agression and when you are ready to win just curse them all and spread some rumours about Paralyzed dudes.

Taking Ya With Me synergyzes very well with Paralyze Mark. On the one hand the less opponent has dudes - the more efficient Mark is. On the other hand you can dictate to opponent with whom your Travis will fight. Boot influenceless dudes in town square and force shootout somewhere else - take his influence with your grifter.

I would probably drop INWYK or swap it into 3rd TYWM, but this time I choosed to play with it. And did not have a chance to play it all day. Probably its appearence in discard pile still frightened opponents - who knows...

Nick is the real Boss. The perfect target for recrutement drive. His aririval to town almost always finishes games that turn. The control boost from nowhere is just crazy. I would probably play second Nick in this deck.

5) Off-value cards

This deck has 7 off-value cards. 5 of them fails Blood Curce (on huckster 1). I think it is acceptable chance (counting how good these cards are). And failing BC ussually does not hurt you much, you just can win next turn.

Dudes:

Jake, Bobo, Leon, Tyx, Old Man

Dudes are good, the more - the better. I will not specify every choise. Only say that Jake and Old Man was added as last minute change. Rest 3 are staple and shoud not be removed from this deck.

Soul Blast and Puppet share mutual slots. I have tested 2 puppets here, 2 soul blasts and every version is great. I decide to go 1/1 but it is stronly meta dependant choise. If you know that you opponents are really agressive - pack more Soul Blasts. Pack puppet vs landslydes decks, it just wrecks them.

6) Card options

This deck has some slots that can be easily swaped into something else. It is possible to add Jackson Strike, Blake's Ranch, play 3rd rumour, or 3rd Puppet/Soul Blast, Kevin, Androcles or something else. Try to keep number of dudes with influence on same level. Ussually extra slots comes from clubs. You don't need lot of them, they just stack your hand. Don't worry much about structure.

7) Perfomance

This deck has passed through OCTGN testing with 1 losing to Mplain with LD agro deck. I think number of wins is over 20 vs different players and deck archetypes.

Unfortunatly there were only 7 players in Moscow Sheriff event itself. Doomtown is not popular enough here - that's shame. I have played 4 games in swiss system, and then played in finals vs Mplain. Opponents were 4R, 2* LD(one of them twice), Gadgetorium. Have won all games.

8) PS

The name of this deck has appeared as joke, but the more I play it, the more I realize that there is something more in it. Deck just wins games, one way or another it finishes games without luck factor. This deck is probably not the most intresting deck to play, but the most consistent one. Don't play it if you want fun from Doomtown, there are another cool builds (like Undertake That). Play this only at competitive scene if you aim to win tournament.

If you read till now, thanks for your time. Hope you get answers on your questions. If not - you are welcome to discuss!

6 comments
Sep 26, 2015 mplain

The deck I beat you with on OCTGN was the same that I played in this Sheriff event. It's based on @bigz's deck. Sometimes it wreaks clowns, sometimes it gets wreaked. I believe this is as close as you can get to making a dedicated Klownkillaz deck, but it's still not enough. Oh well =_=

I think the biggest difference of this deck from other Clown decks that call themselves Control is the number of dudes. Even if I kill three of your starters, you always have more to replace them with.

Sep 27, 2015 db0

Nice one. How much pain do New Hats cause you?

Sep 27, 2015 Gozik

I believe that FNH helps vs this deck. But it is not hard counter. Opponent always has several dudes with influence and it is really hard to safe them all with multiple Hats. Also in late game you can boot guys with hat, puppet them and steal their hat.

Oct 06, 2015 ringokid

Nice deck! and even better analysis. Question, whats your perfect starting hand? you fou d using travis ability often?

Oct 06, 2015 Gozik

Perfect hand is hand with easy to cast spell (not soul blast/puppet) and 3 more cards that I can play on first turn without shootout.

Ok hand: Spell to cycle with outfit or pair of early deeds.

Bad hand: hand without any spell and with 3+ cards that you don't want to play early(Nic,Eve, Avie, Pharmacy - that's probably all bad cards for starting hand). Also you don't want to have lot of actions.

As general rule I would recomend not to use Travis unless you are sure that your hand is bad. In other words use Travis only if your hand is full of black cards.

But this is only general recomendation and every decision about keeping your hand should be made depending on exact card combination and your opponent deck.

Oct 06, 2015 Gozik

Forgot about Ghostly Guns. That's also dead card at start.