Protection Racket: Sloaneslide

[Bobo]

My quest to try and find a Sloane deck that i don't think would be better with either Den of Thieves or Desolation Row leads me to strange place. A non Shoutout oriented deck seems a good fit, so here's a Sloane Slide deck!
For those who need card link, the decklist on dtb

Protection Racket

Start with 3 (6) Influence, 3 income, zero upkeep and 4 Ghost Rocks left

Dudes (14)

Nicodemus Whateley (Q)
Doris Powell (10)
Steven Wiles (8)
Ambrose Douglas (7)
Ulysses Marks (7)
Makaio Kaleo, Esqu (6)
Willa Mae MacGowan (6)
Ol' Howard (4) (Starting)
Asakichi Cooke (3)
Lawrence Blackwood (3) (Starting)
Maria Kingsford (2) (Starting)
Olivia Jenks (2)
Clementine Lepp (A) (Starting)
Jake Smiley (A) (Starting)

Deeds (16)
2x The Whateley Estate (K)
Railroad Station (K)
Cliff's #4 Saloon (Q)
California Tax Office (J)
Baird's Build And Loan (10)
Walters Creek Distillery (10)
Bunkhouse (9)
Circle M Ranch (8)
Flint's Amusements (6)
Charlie's Place (5)
Notary Public (3)
1st Baptist Church (3)
Yan Li's Tailoring (3)
Pony Express (A)
The Joker's Smile (A) (Starting with Howard)

Goods (6)
4x Fancy New Hat (K)
2x Knight's Chasuble (5)

Actions (16)
3x Flight Of The Lepus (J)
4x Buried Treasure (10)
2x Rumors (8)
4x One Good Turn (6)
3x Pistol Whip (5)

2x Heretic Joker

Thanks to Swider for some great ideas already. You basically start with Joker Smile and put Clementine there. Since she can't be called out, you start using your box to generate gold. With that gold, you drop deeds and dudes and empty your hand, accumulating points and influence, until as ever you can drop your Nicodemus on a Whateley estate, bow a bunch of guys and score ! That's the (fragile) theory anyway.
A fair number of attire should help boosting your generally lackluster influence, few actions to avoid having them stuck in your hand, with Pistol Whip and Flight of the Lepus for protection during shootouts, and One Good Turn and Buried Treasure for the cycle.
I play two Heretic Joker to make Lowball wins more likely, knowing that i can cycle them for profit with Joker's Smile.

Advices and good ideas welcomed !!

[Harlath]

Nice to see a different flavour of slide, even if it is a deck type that I shake my fist at.

Maybe drop some of the goods for more cheap deeds with CP? Stagecoach office, Open Wound, B&B Attorney, The Orphanage, Town Council etc. Force your opponent to spread out with 2GR/+1/1CP deeds. Stagecoach is even cheaper but doesn't help get more deeds in to play.

Look forward to hearing about how this goes in live games.

[Bobo]

Yes, these holdings were in the decklist at some point, will need to play some games to see what i can cut now. Knight's Chasuble could go. (realized that it work with Ambrose Douglas, can't cut it before doing it at least once )

[bithlord]

How does it handle things once your opponent gets their third deed out? Is the plan to basically use your first two turns to get production and then not need the home anymore?

Since you are decidedly non-shooty it would be difficult to take over their deeds, no?

[Whizzwang]

What do you do for cash when Clem gets kidnapped?

With such a loose structure you could easily squeeze 4 fiddle games in there to pick up the income slack. If you get one in your opening hand you can generate insane cash from the outset and it won't matter when your opponent takes your deeds.

I run 4 Walter;s Creeks (not just one) in my Clem/Smile Racket deck as well. boot Clem for cash, then boot Smile with creek for yet more money.

On the subject of making more money you can change those 4 Buried Treasure into 4x Moving Forward. If your opponent cheats in lowball it can put serious deed dropping pressure on them.

It can become an insane GR advantage if you get it together on the table

Honestly though, I think your deck is far too loose. There are so many deeds now and some decent support card on value that you can run slide quite shooty these days. You have a lot of random one ofs in your deck that don;t really need to be there that you could put into similar values and shore up your shooting power.

Nothing says screw you more than clem top decking 4 of a kind on that kidnap attempt

[Bobo]

Yeah, Kidnapping is really THE problem card. It is for every weird deck. Any suggestion as to how better fight it would be welcome. So far outside of hoping to badly defend myself with Pistol Whip and Flight of the Lepus, i have nothing.

As for the box, yes the idea is to use it primarily in the early game. From my admittedly limited experience against a variety of decks from my usual opponent, i have 2 or 3 at least turns to use it for gold, which is good enough. I suppose i might find some use for it on other player's holdings against non shootout decks once in awhile.

Running 4 of of a deed seems counterproductive. I don't like the idea of being blocked by a unique deed in my hand with another copy in play.
Buried Treasure, well from my goldfishing with the deck, it's quite likely one of the best card in the deck. It streamline your deck so much with its card drawing and acing a card in your discard pile, it's everything this deck want. It will never move. One Good Turn would get out of the deck before it. Fiddle Game just seems unnecessary.

As far as having a better Shootout value, i don't think it's important. Shootout decks attempting to kidnap you won't leave anything to chance and will have far better support than you. I can't imagine having a chance to win based on value. Better to have the best deeds and dudes lineup possible i think to maximise victory. I mean, how often do you win a shootout against good players playing a shootout deck with your non shootout deck just because you draw a lucky hand?

[Harlath]

Best protection against kidnapping is probably what you're doing - accept you're going to lose a few people but make them commit to the job with a couple of dudes by throwing in a few pistol whips. Potentially take more of their dudes off your deeds/town square. You've got the cash and spare dudes to keep yourself i the game.

[Whizzwang]

I don't like the idea of being blocked by a unique deed in my hand with another copy in play.

They don't clog though. Since Smile is both a Casino and a Saloon, as soon as you have a Creek in play you can throw the extras away to fuel the card draw from Creek

how often do you win a shootout against good players playing a shootout deck with your non shootout deck just because you draw a lucky hand?

It's not about drawing a lucky hand - you can (and should) be running at tighter slide deck. Aggro decks normally want to throw 40ak or better, against slide they'll take a FH since it's almost a guaranteed kill vs a loose deck - reliably hitting your own FH forces a loss on their side too

[funtimeteddy]

"Should" is a dirty word. I agree that your suggestions are solid, strategically. But he (she?) can do whatever the heck he/she wants. The best bet is to see how a deck functions within a given environment and adapt from there.

As an aside, I've never considered 4x Walters Creek with Ol' Howard, the Jokers Smile, and Clementine.That's disgusting. Thank god for Kidnappin'!

[Whizzwang]

I've never considered 4x Walters Creek with Ol' Howard, the Jokers Smile, and Clementine

And fiddle game, don't forget fiddle game.

With a 0 upkeep posse and a single fiddle you can get:

3 outfit prod
2 fiddle game
2 outfit ability
2 walter's creek ability + a card cycle
1 walter's creek production

For an absolutely insane TEN cash a turn.

I've taken to starting 3 upkeeps worth of dudes out of my Protection Racket recently and still having 7 cash a turn to play with.

[funtimeteddy]

Hmm. As for Fiddle Game though: it requires a loose draw structure, wouldn't ya say? Which would contradict your other piece of advice to tighten up. One can always risk getting hit by Cheatin' Res in lowball, I suppose, but then it becomes more of a gamble. A smart opponent would probably be quick to a) punish lowball Cheatin' b) oppose Fiddle Game job, or c) contest Walters Creek and/or Joker's Smile.

Granted, that's a lot of early pressure, which is what Protection Racket is all about.

[Doomdog]

With Fiddle game, be opportunistic. It's a great first play as it can't be opposed when the town square is empty. In later turns, someone like Willa Mae or Steven Wiles could run it, especially if you keep a couple of Pistol Whips handy. Chances are there'll only be one dude to oppose it, if any at all. Lowball Cheatin' happens, but isn't always punished so you'll often get away with it.

[funtimeteddy]

Gomorra Gaming Commission is looking better and better! Plus Out of Town deeds for the win!

[db0]

Heh, it was in the core design of the home to not be easily exploitable for slides so props for trying it out. Personally my fav non-aggro sloane deck is still my outmaneuvering opportunists with the core Sloane

[Harlath]

Heh, it was in the core design of the home to not be easily exploitable for slides so props for trying it out. Personally my fav non-aggro sloane deck is still my outmaneuvering opportunists with the core Sloane

It is nice to have you roaming the halls and more free to contribute to debate now (although you were an active participant before, particularly in threads asking for opinions on the state of the meta).

Apologies for the minor thread-derailment, but I don't think I've seen a deck attempt this kind of thing out of core Sloane, it is an interesting idea. Was the plan to lure people away from Town Square so you could safely boot there with Allie/the Outfit's ability?

[db0]

Correct!

[Harlath]

Cheers for the link. Good name too, always a weak point for me.