Joe Giveth, and Joe Taketh Away - 1st Place Abom

The "Joe" can either be my main man Joe Vermilion, or me (JoeJames). Give some GR (Joe, Taiyari and Ying-Ssi Chieh T'ang), take some GR (Property Is Theft, This is a Holdup!, Buskers), and generally have a fun, chessy and shooty time. 4 of us showed up for the twice-rescheduled Madison Abomination Series event (curse you, Wisconsin snow), so we did 3 rounds of swiss so everyone could play each other. This went 3-0, but 2 of the games unfortunately went to time. One of those games was close, while the other I'm sure I would have won had we played another 5-10 minutes.

The first half of the game this deck plays similar to slide, trying to get as many deeds out as it can. Once you establish a good economic base (its about money more than control points - see the many out of town deeds without control points), then you can start playing some of the many great studs. Most of the off-value cards are deeds and a couple dudes, so once you get some of those out along with a stud you can start picking dudes off. Either they'll be spread out trying to stop your economy, in which case they are easy pickings, or you'll have plenty of money to afford losses as you go from slide into shootout mode mid to later in the game.

Lots of fun, nothing too terribly complex - I just mostly wanted to try out Property is Theft and see the card drawing power. Having both Joe and Taiyari lets you draw cards both during noon and shootout actions, so it's a relatively reliable way to fuel the home. Unless they have all their deeds covered, Joe comes over, then opponent follows, but its too late for them to call out before Joe can do his thing (the many horses and movement tricks help this greatly). I originally had Buskers starting, really wanting to kick the chess-power into gear, but Taiyari provided a cheaper dude and a crucial early game stud if the opponent invades your home early.

I think this concept could work pretty well in the original 108 home with a couple of tweaks, but I also wanted to see how bad it would be to pay opponents (which previously I thought was a terrible price to pay, and not even worth exploring). My limited experience with this deck leads me to believe the 'pay your opponent' theme has some serious merit currently, but in my opinion still needs some additional support to be something I'd consider for a "high level" tournament.

This deck has a very fun mix of chess and shooting, and the paying/stealing to/from opponents is rather fun. Joe, especially, can be fun: "hey opponent, how about we both make some money?" Who can resist those abominable charms?!