No Law But God's Law - Gencon 2019
JPridgen89 66
This is the current form of my first self-made deck that I brought to GenCon 2019 to play in my first actual tournament! Well actually due to a schedule conflict I only got to play in 2 rounds but still had a fantastic time! The deck has gone through a lot of changing and tweaking (With a lot of help from the discord) to get where it is today
The deck focuses on high mobility and plenty of cheap replaceable dudes to control the board and drag the opponent out of position. It uses Ol' Howard to fetch The Joker's Smile and keep Jokers cycling through the deck constantly, which I've found can lead to a very effective shootout engine. I've also tried to add in a little more synergy with Walters Creek Distillery and Forster Cooke to take advantage of always having a saloon/casino on the board and build up the economy/bullets.
I've found Amazing Grace and Walk the Path work fantastically together to let you control where shootouts happen and how much you have to commit to them, which can be really essential since the initial starting posse often can't compete in straight bullets against more immediately aggressive decks. The deck excels at forcing the other player to pull their dudes out of position and start shootouts where you're in a better position. You definitely want to be playing out deeds to force the opponent to spread out as soon as possible.
The deck doesn't generally start with much ghost rock, but none of the miracles cost anything and almost all of the dudes and deeds are cheap enough to play on the first few turns.
Overall I was very happy with how the deck played, and I feel like it's gotten to a place where it feels effective and competitive even if I'm still a bit of a novice pilot most of the time. I won 1 of my 2 matches, but both were very close interesting games that could have gone either way,
HoMF felt extremely powerful to me, both for the mobility it grants and the card cycling. Even if the opponent took away The Joker's Smile, just shuffling in Unprepared or Ricochet to keep those cards in my hand constantly felt very potent. The home also worked very well with Epidemic Laboratory allowing me to get more use out of the dude who ran the job.
The deck is by no means ideal or finished, so I'm definitely open to suggestions on how to make it more effective. Consecration felt a little weaker than the other miracles, usually firing during lowball to turn Xiaodan or Henry into a serious threat, which was nice when it worked but could be replaced with something more consistent.
Input and questions welcome!
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| Aug 28, 2019 Findegil |
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Sep 11, 2019
JPridgen89
You're totally right about the discard element of this deck. Honestly the one of the most powerful elements of the deck is just how many cards it can see throughout a game. Bai Yang Chen has gotten me more cards than I expected too actually, even though he's really just in the deck as a stud hammer most of the time! I'm definitely subbing in Doris Powell for Lucretia Fanzini. With one in-town deed on the board no matter what she's always going to enable at least one control point, and with a little finagling with Asakichi Cooke and Walk the Path it's really not hard at all to get her up to 3 CP which could be a really solid way to close out a game instead of Lucretzia... who I usually end up discarding or cycling back into the deck. (You're totally right it's a crime that her ability is so useless) I worry a little about having back-up blesseds, but I've found practically that the 3 others are enough. Even though the abilities on Master Shou and He Fang don't do anything relevant. I agree with you too about Bird Cage Theater and will probably switch it with Explorer's Lodge, and I'd love to fit in The Pharmacy but I'm not sure what to cut. Maybe St. Anthony's Chapel? I'm a little hesitant to increase the average price of deeds too much, but that ability and 2 CP is nice. Exultant Translocation and Fool Me Once... both seem really solid, but I'm hesitant to play too much more off-value cards and pull down the strength of my draw structure any further. (It's currently 15/13/13 which could even stand to be a little tighter) I've found one of the strengths of the deck at this point is how consistantly it can pull together full houses even with mostly just draws, and I'm worried about weakening it any further. Still Translocation seems really good with my plan, maybe I'll try and fit in a 1-of somewhere! Your point about Martyr's Cry is a good one and the answer to "Do I have enough miracles" is "Maybe?" It's certainly done good work for me in games and so far I've basically treated it a little like Willa Mae MacGowan or The Law Goes Underground as an excuse to start sub-optimal fights and then run like the dickens if the cards don't break my way. It's nice having something I can do at the end of a shootout if they don't cheat and it didn't go my way for sure, and I don't always have the GR for It's Not What You Know... Twilight Is Upon Us is a card I had looked at in an earlier version of the deck and I ultimately decided not to include just because it cost 1 to play and could potentially also give the bullet bonus to the opposition but I think I'm going to try it as a 1-of in place of a Martyr and see how it plays for me. I have definitely found that Walk the Path draws a lot of Pistol Whip hate, so being able to pull the dude back into the fight could be a really big swing. Not to mention it could be nice to have a few more cards that help me win fights instead of just not losing them. I don't really have many ways to raise bullets except bringing in more dudes! as for Magical Distraction, I seriously considered it for the deck, I just think my 9 actions are too good as they are! Ricochet is just such a ridiculously powerful card that has gotten me so much value, and Curse of Failure is really important to have if I run into slide or just need to snipe a dude sitting somewhere inconvenient. Dudes-wise, I admit I have NO idea what Wang Men Wu is supposed to do with his ability. Is there anything that is like Pistol Whip that doesn't target or something? I dunno! I did have Jimmy "The Saint" in the deck for a while actually and considered Angélica Espinosa for exactly the reasons you mentioned, but I ended up cutting Jimmy for Hiram Capatch who I think fits the plan of the deck pretty well and helps the slide matchup. He does a good job making the 0 influence dudes pumped with Amazing Grace still cut off the opponent's income |
A bunch of thoughts which you may have already considered and dismissed:
Other on-value deeds that fit the outmaneuvering theme: Explorer's Lodge (also giving you an extra casino+saloon), Surveyor's Office, The Pharmacy.
Really like the use of Silent Sigil when you already have three(!) card-discarding effects from day 1.
Not as convinced by Bird Cage Theater - clearly terrific when it pays off, but it'll often require you to go toe-to-toe with your opponent's main Dudes, with as you point out is not this deck's forte.
Angélica Espinosa and Jimmy "The Saint" are on-value reasonably affordable Studs, with the fitting the mobility theme and the latter always having an own Casino to sit on if nothing else.
Does Asakichi Cooke + Walk the Path make Doris Powelli viable in place of one of the Blessed?
Sidenote: Is anyone disproportionately annoyed by the fact that tthey gave Lucretia Fanzini a fairly interesting ability but then utterly failed to follow it up by never giving her more than one meh Shootout Hymn to use it with?
Sidenote 2: I assume you just use Wang Men Wu as a no-text affordable Stud with inf, but what are we supposed to do with his ability? The only thing I could come up (besides the very janky Magnum Opus Tenebri) is to allow him to start a shootout alone and have the gunslinger hold the posse open while he Rabbits back and forth?
Seems to me that Stevie's ability to near-automatically cast Exultant Translocation at the superior level (and their tie-in with the mobility theme) makes it worth tossing in a copy or two, even off-value.
Do you find you have cyclable Miracles in shootouts regularly enough for 2 Martyr's Cry? Twilight Is Upon Us would let you fetch a Blessed (who can then fetch another dude with Walk the Path), pump your shooter, and occasionally block opposing headlines.
If you do have enough cyclable Miracles, perhaps sprinkle in a Magical Distraction for a solid clapback when you force your opponent into frequent low-bullet shootouts where they need to cheat to achieve even mediocre hands?
In fact, by the same token, could Fool Me Once... tie in with your discarding engines (yes, it's horribly off-value, but at least it disappears once played)?